Moeun Chhean Nariddh seeks out the teachers of Khmer magic, those to whom

soldiers go to for "supernatural" help to turn the bullets and bombs away.

WITH magic protection, four years fighting on the battlefield was

just like playing hide-and-seek for Chuop Saruop.

"A shell dropped by my

side but it didn't hurt me," said the 40-year-old former soldier, a believer

that the power of the "supernatural" saved his life, making him bullet-proof,

fire-proof and impervious to knives.

He said the shrapnel from the shell

was only able to burn and tear his clothes, but not his body.

Saruop said

he had learned some magic words and got tattooed by a local kru (traditional

healer) 24 years ago to protect himself when civil war began ravaging

Cambodia.

"It's like walking in the rain [when there is a war]. If you

have the magic things with you, it's like having a rain coat," he

said.

He joined the army in 1990 and was wounded in his chin last year

before he left the military. However, he said that the wound was caused when he

breached the restrictions obliged by the kru.

Saruop said that he swore

at a friend who fired a B-40 rocket launcher without realizing that Saruop was

standing behind. The kru had told him not to be profane, and days after Saruop

swore he was wounded in the chin.

Many Cambodian soldiers rely on

tattoos, amulets and magic incantations instead of flak jackets and

helmets.

Battambang and other provinces in Cambodia's northwest, where

fighting is heaviest, are well-known for having the best krus with effective

magic.

Chhun Chhay, a 48-year-old kru at Phnom Krapeu (Crocodile

Mountain) village 15km west of Battambang, is one of the most famous tattooists

and traditional healers in the country.

Chhay said he knew magic words,

and owned tattoo designs, amulets and yons (magical drawing on cloth) which he

had taught and sold to "thousands of people", mainly soldiers, during 33 years

of practice.

Chhay said he had studied supernatural techniques from a

chief monk when he was a 15-year-old novice in Siem Reap.

He said one of

his students, an army officer, was hit by a B-40 rocket of the Khmer Rouge on

his back in a battle near Pailin. While his shirt was burned "he just fell down

but was not killed," Chhay claimed.

A villager at Phnom Sampov (Sailing

Boat Mountain) east of Phnom Krapeu said in the early 1980s Chhay proved his

magic to some Vietnamese soldiers. He recited magic words over a handful of rice

which he then fed to some scavenging chickens. Chhay asked the soldiers to fire

at the chickens "but they could not kill one," the villager said.

When

visited by the Post, Chhay's wife said her husband had told her that he would

not go to their fruit field that day "because he knew someone would come to see

him this morning."

Chhay said he had a lot of enemies despite the fact

that he practices only "good" magic.

He said a group of soldiers one day

wanted to kill him. They surrounded his cottage in the fruit field "but I knew

beforehand they would be there so I didn't go".

The Khmer belief in the

supernatural has prevailed for centuries.

Siv Thuon, a professor of

history at Phnom Penh University, said a Chinese businessman who came to

Cambodia during the Funan Age in the first century reported finding tattooed

Khmers.

The professor said magic used by the Khmer was derived from a

Vedic Brahmanistic scriptures, but it was later mixed with the non-magic

scriptures of Buddhism.

However, according to Thuon, the use of magic was

not seen during the Angkorean Period (802-1431). He said the Angkorians relied

on physical and economic strength to broaden their empire.

Many Khmer

fighters in the post-Angkorean period resorted to magic because they could no

longer depend on their own strength, he said.

In 1866, Po Kambo, one of

the first Khmer protesters against French colonial rule, led a struggle in Rong

Damrey province in Kampuchea Krom. "Po Kambo knew the magic words with admirable

effectiveness to turn away bullets," wrote Sou Chamreon in 1971 in a book

History of the Struggle of the Khmer Heroes in the 19th Century.

"The

bullets from the French army... hit Po Kambo the most, but they could not make

him fall down. Even other fighters survived thanks to the power of his magic,"

the book reads.

Also in the late 19th century, two other anti-French

protesters, Achar Svar and Kralahom Kong, used magic, according to

Thuon.

Thuon said Kralahom Kong was both fire and bullet-proof. Kralahom

Kong could not be killed when the French tied him to a ship's smokestack in

front of the Royal Palace, he said.

Chuop Lab, a 70-year-old kru on

Crocodile Mountain, said those with poor memories had magic words tattooed on

their bodies.

Those wanting to learn magic protective words had to first

prepare a set of baysey (sections of a banana tree), white cloth, candles,

incense sticks and some money. They return home to memorize and meditate on the

words.

Lab said magic lore was not passed down from generation to

generation.

According to Miech Ponn, chief of the Buddhist Institute's

Khmer Customs Research Office (KCRO), tattoos, yons and magic words were all

Pali or Sanskrit.

People would get a yon if they could not remember the

magic words. Likewise, they would get a tattoo in case they lost their yon. But

many used the three together for extra protection, Ponn said.

Soum Samay,

a professor at the Fine Arts University, said that there are many types of yons

which the Khmers used for centuries such as Yon Sithipol, Yon Prachumtheat, Yon

Tipachak, Yon Pyataoleou and Yon Mohaniyum.

Yon Sithipol is drawn on

pieces of gold or metal and rolled on a necklace or a waist string to help the

wearer win over his enemies. Yon Prachumtheat is designed on a handkerchief to

prevent evils and hostile acts. Yon Tipachak is written on a handkerchief or a

pillow case to preserve happiness.

However, kru Chhay said there were

thousands of other yons for the protection of every bodily movement, including

the four main attitudes - sleeping, walking, standing and

sitting.

According to different krus, the people who practice the

supernatural are obliged to stick to Panca-sila (the five-fold religious

qualifications) and refrain from eating tiger, snake, elephant, monkey or human

meat.

The Panca-sila says not to kill, not to steal, not to take someone

else's wife, and not to lie nor to drink alcohol.

KCRO chief Miech Ponn

said that there were three forms of tattoo, including the characters of magic

phrases believed to be the words and images of gods, powerful animals and

different complicated arts.

Tattoos were made from black Chinese ink

mixed with the breast-milk of a first-child mother, crow bile and vermilion

dye.

He said if vermilion was used the tattoo would not appear unless one

was angry, or ready to fight.

Ponn himself had a vermilion tattoo from a

chief monk when he was in his early 20s and when it was "in use" it became

"itchy, like the magic is awaking from its sleep".

He recalled his

military life during the Lon Nol period, saying "fifteen shells dropped around

me but I was safe and just burned my hair".

However, he admitted that he

could not guarantee the power 100 percent and that Khmers would use the "tricky"

term Akum pasom ayos - that the magic also depends on one's own life.

"If

it is the end of your life, nothing can help," he said.

Lim Sokheng, an

amputee at Kien Khleang Rehabilitation Center, said most Cambodian soldiers

would get something to protect themselves. But only two or three soldiers in a

battalion of 300 would have really powerful magic, he said.

"Almost every

amputee here has tattoo and yons," he said.

Sokheang said a new soldier

would have to stop smoking to save money for these magic things "but many would

come back with an empty, cheap tattoo that had no power."

The ex-soldier

said he used to have a yon when he joined the army a long time ago in Siem Reap.

He said he was very brave at first, but not after he saw one of his friends with

all these magic things get killed on the battle field.

Yoeun Run, 35, at

the military hospital in Phnom Penh, stepped on a mine and lost one of his feet

in Banteay Meanchey.

He was a soldier belonging to the Khmer People's

National Liberation Front [KPNLF] when he met a tattooist from Battambang in a

refugee camp in the early 1980s, Run said.

He said he spent five days

having his chest tattooed at the KPNLF border camp in the 1980s, having drunk

wine and taken pills to stop the daily fever caused by the tattooist's

needle.

Run said he finally stepped on a land mine in 1985 "after I

failed to refrain from eating dog meat when there was a shortage of

food".

Kru Chhay said the magic lore had been largely lost because krus

hid the "special magic" from students, fearing they would use it

inappropriately.

Krus used to use magic to shorten the distance between

two places, or to make themselves invisible, he said.