Show Description:

In the traditional religion of Burma (or Myanmar if you're into fascism), there are 37 chief spirits, or nats who must be periodically appeased through elaborate dances and offerings if you don't want your kids to die and your crops to fail. One of the oldest and most famous of these appeasement rituals, known as nat pwes, is the one performed in Taungbyon every August to celebrate Shwepyingyi and Shwepyinnge, the ghosts of two brothers whose fathers and then themselves were murdered by a king and then ascended to the spirit kingdom by some weird convoluted logic. The festival takes course over three days: During the first the two nats are summoned, the second they're treated to a city-wide feast, and in the third they're ushered back out of town, all by means of frenzied dancing. This episode of Sublime Frequencies was filmed at the Taungbyon Nat Pwe a couple of years ago, and is actually a part of a DVD the label put out called Nat Pwe: Burma's Carnival of Spirit Soul.