Villagers performing a healing ceremony in the village of Keokhunmeung in Attapu Province

Photographer

Sage, William

Date

• 1970

Summary

• Villagers in the Nyaheun village of Keokhunmeung (XB7555) in Attapu Province perform a traditional healing ceremony. The village-wide occasion entails drinking rice wine ("lao hai") and preparing much food, including slaughtering a pig and chickens. It is being held on behalf of someone suffering from an illness. Bill Sage is in the forefront in a white T-shirt wearing Nyaheun beads around his neck, which villagers insisted he wear for the ceremony. Some of the villagers are seated on bamboo stools, while most of the men are seated on a platform made of wood and bamboo with an overhead covering of plastic rain ponchos.