The 37 nats of Myanmar
- Origin
- Nat worship belongs to Burmese folk religion in Myanmar. Britannica calls it a cult that probably predates Buddhism; Wikipedia says scholars disagree on whether it is separate from Burmese Buddhism or merged with it. Wikipedia credits King Anawrahta of Bagan (1044-1077) with formalizing the official list of 37. The earliest written record in these sources is Richard Carnac Temple's The Thirty-Seven Nats (1906), an English-language account.
- How we treat it
- The label covers nat worship as living believers practise it: offerings and propitiation, and festivals such as Taungbyone with its spirit mediums. It does not say that possession happens or that the nats have powers, and it does not treat each nat's death story as history. The Mount Popa animal sacrifices come from Htin Aung's 1958 account of a feast once held there.
- Routes out
- Htin Aung, a Burmese writer, comes first as the closest thing to a community voice in this set. Britannica and the two Wikipedia articles follow for present-day practice and the scholarly debate. Temple (1906) comes last: an outsider's account whose scanned text is badly garbled.
The 37 nats are the chief spirits of Burmese folk religion, each said to be a person who died a violent death. Believers in Myanmar honour them with offerings and festivals, including a yearly gathering for the Taungbyon brothers that draws tens of thousands.
Britannica describes nats as spirits at the centre of a large cult in Burmese folk religion, likely older than Buddhism in the region, and notes that Thailand has a similar spirit called phi. The most important group is known as the thirty-seven. Britannica says they are spirits of people who died by violence, and that they protect believers who keep them properly appeased and cause harm when slighted or neglected.
Wikipedia credits King Anawrahta of Bagan (1044-1077) with formalizing the official list. It notes that some scholars read that act as Burmanisation, a way of asserting Bamar dominance over the Irrawaddy valley once the country was unified. Wikipedia also says academics disagree on whether nat worship and Burmese Buddhism are two religions or one, and that the nat religion matters less in modern Myanmar as globalization spreads.
Wikipedia describes the Taungbyone festival for the spirits of the Taungbyon brothers. Three yearly events mark the brothers' story: going off to war (December), coming back (March) and vanishing (August). The August festival is the big one. It falls in the month of Wagaung and lasts eight or nine days, and tens of thousands attend, among them spirit mediums known as natkadaws, who come out of hereditary duty, to appease the spirits, or just for enjoyment.
Htin Aung, writing in The Atlantic in 1958, described an annual nat feast once held on Mount Popa. Worshippers sacrificed hundreds of animals to two nats of Popa, Lady Golden-Face and the lord of the mountain. Visitors came from far away to drink toddy and dance, feeling that the nats had taken hold of them, and spirit mediums at the shrines played the music and led the dancing. The earliest written account in these sources is Sir Richard Carnac Temple's 1906 book The Thirty-Seven Nats, which groups the order with the ghosts of heroes, apart from its chief.
"Ar 8 ‘E are now i a position to examine the Thirty pe ideas that have led to their existence in the magination of the Burmese, anc Ea cliegelaet orale : The Order of the Thirty-Seven Nats belongs to the category of ghost: heroes, except in one Sarge the chief of Be Order, Thagy"
- Folk Elements in Burmese Buddhism (archived), Htin Aung, The Atlantic (1958)
- Nat (Burmese spirit) (archived), Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Taungbyone Festival, Wikipedia
- Nat (deity), Wikipedia