Cambodia & Tradition: About the Water Festival - Bon Om Teuk

The Water Festival - taking place this year on 14, 15 and 16 November - has been celebrating the benefits of the monsoon and lake floods for thousands of years, nurturing these lands chosen by the gods as a meeting place for farmers, fishermen and craftsmen.

Nautical jousting, folkloric rites and Cambodian smiles make this a unique event in Cambodia. Known as Bon Om Teuk, it is celebrated in Cambodia every year in November during the three days preceding the full moon.

According to tradition, this celebration corresponds to the return of the Nâgas of fertility to the river beds. In fact, Cambodians pay tribute to the benefits of the land and water, synonymous with abundance for farming and fishing. After the abundance of catches linked to flooding, the reversal of currents, a phenomenon unique in the world, leaves rich sediment along the banks, making the land suitable for agriculture. The Water Festival is also marked by the suspension of the Kingdom's activities for three days.

In Phnom Penh, people gather to enjoy the festivities, the most popular of which are the pirogue races in the afternoon, representing the provinces and pagodas of the Kingdom. Fireworks and illuminated boat processions enliven the evenings of the Festival.

The Water Festival marks the reversal of the Tonle Sap's course and its recession, as well as the ripening of the harvests, bringing the fishing season to a close and heralding the harvest season.

The Water Festival is celebrated throughout Southeast Asia. In the past, the Khmers called it ‘thvo bon pranan teuk no’, which can be translated as dugout jousting festival, or ‘Thvo bon loi pradip’, which means floating fire festival. It was under the Protectorate that the French called it the Water Festival.

Origin

‘It is difficult to know when the water festival originated, and whether this ceremony is due to a Buddhist ritual or a vestige of the old Brahmanic belief’ wrote Leclère Adhémard in the Bulletin de l'Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient in 1904.

He also wrote that ‘a tradition that includes no date and which names a legendary king from who knows what country, but which is sometimes attributed to Cambodia, suggests that it was decided by a raja (king) on the proposal of a minister of the kingdom...’.

Some historians place the Festival's origins in the 12th century, when the Khmer king Jayavarman VII drove out the Cham, who had invaded the kingdom, in a decisive battle on the site where he later built the Preah Khan temple.

This battle took place using warships from the royal navy. The Water Festival would thus be a celebration of the monarch's victory. The illustration above shows two ships fighting during the uprising against the Cham occupation, which was led by Jayavarman VII in 1177. The pirogue on the left is Khmer, the one on the right is Cham. In the foreground is one of the crocodiles that can also be seen on Khmer representations of the period in Angkor Thom. They would happily attack anyone thrown out of one of the boats.