the story of the lao new year

as told to me by the novice monk, kam, whose name is pronounced with tone so as to sound like a question, as in:

Hi, my name is . . . Kam? .

Once upon a time there lived a god with four faces. He heard of a very clever boy and became jealous. So he went to the boy and said, "If you're so clever, answer me three questions in three days. If you don't answer my questions, I will cut off your head. If you answer them correctly, I will cut off my own head." They boy said, "okay then." The questions were asked of the boy and off he went to find the answers. He spent three days searching his mind and reading all his books. He could not discover the answers to the four-faced god's questions. Sad and dejected, the boy crept away into the woods to die alone for he didn't want the god to cut off his head. he sat down under a tree, in which happened to be sitting two birds. Husband and wife birds to be exact. Now it just so happens that since this boy was the most clever boy on earth, he could speak the language of the birds. So he listened as the wife bird said:

wife: Oh, I'm so hungry.

husband: Me, too. But don't worry, for tomorrow we can eat the flesh of the most clever boy on the earth.

wife: but how can that be? He is not dead yet.

husband: Yes, but he will be dead tomorrow, for the god with four faces has asked him three questions which he cannot answer and his head will be cut off tomorrow.

wife: Oh yummy! But how does he not know the answers if he's so clever?

husband: The answers are not to be found in books they are found in the heart they are questions of the soul of the world and the heart and the universe and flowers and kittens and rainbows and mick meck mock crap like that. However, I know the answers to the questions of the four-faced god. Becase I'm a bird. And nature heart heaven blah. So there. Mwaha!

wife: well then, tell me.

husband: No. It's late. It's hard to explain. I'll tell you in the morning.

wife: If you don't tell me right now, I'm going to die.

husband: Don't be like that.

wife: I swear I will! I'll die right here!

husband: Okay fine. If you're going to be that way . . .

So the husband bird told the wife bird the answers that the clever boy sought. He heard these answers where he sat and, jumping up, shouted "Whohoo!" and ran off to find the god with four faces.

"Well, shoot," exclaimed the god with four faces when he heard the clever boy's answers, knowing them to be correct. So the four-faced god was to die by his own hand. However . . .

Four-faced god: I will cut off my own head now, yes, as you are sooooooo clever, but know this . . . If you bury my head in the earth, all the plants and creatures of the earth will shrivel and die. If you throw my head in the air, the air will become toxic and smother the creatures of the earth and skies. If you put my head in the water, the waters of the earth will be poisonous and unable to be drunk and all the creatures of the seas will perish.

With this, the four-faced god cut off his own head. So the boy figured the only option was to cover the four-faced god's head in poo and send it to the heavens, returning it to earth three days a year to be cleansed with water, then sent, re-poo-covered, back to the heavens again. And so that's what he did. Thus the three day long tradition of buddha cleansing during the lao new year, and people spraying eachother with water. regardless of whether or not they are laotian and/or reading a book and/or wearing a white t-shirt and/or a girl. probably because it's so durn hot here. i'm just glad this turned out to be a poo free holiday, even though we did get pee-ed on by a monkey in a tree the other day. no joke.