Nomad Codes

relented.
    Passing through the thronged halls of the paya, where a few missing bricks intentionally recall the brothers’ fateful goof-off, J and I entered a crowded courtyard and plopped down on a mat beneath the scant shade of a scrubby tree. It was hot. An old woman danced nearby—mad, possessed, or both—and a troop of uniformed authorities moved through the crowd, snarling at people and taking notes on an immense form attached to a clipboard. Almost instantly, we were absorbed into a group of folks sitting in the shade of a stall besides us, waiting for their turn at dancing and propitiating later that evening. They seemed like an extended family or friend network—ordinary folks just having a picnic. A few attractive young ladyboys sat mincing in their midst, integrated into the scene in a manner unimaginable in the West. They fed us greasy rice fried with cardamom, even greasier fish, and fat purple banana coconut treats. J swapped an arm band for cheap gold chains and bracelets, and I performed for the crowd by rolling some of the loose Virginia tobacco I had purchased in Bangkok, a wise move which saved me from the ignoble fate of smoking foul Chinese cigarettes.
    We left our new friends and walked towards the Ferris wheel. Along the way, we passed a small crowd intently clustered around some curiosity we could not see. Even before I peered over their heads, I felt the foreshock of the bizarre, and indeed the curiosity in question turned out to be a magnificently deformed kid with an enormous peanut-shaped head almost the size of a horse skull. From the yellow dress it seemed this person was a girl. Though her handlers did not seem be gouging the crowd for kyat, the pitiable being was clearly on display, as she lay on a cot in the shadow of an umbrella, beaming beatifically into the void. I was tempted to videotape this strange and in some way touching scene, but some force stayed my Mondo Cane hand. And, with this shocking sight having inadvertently opened our minds to the weirdness always within our midst, we passed from the paya and made our way toward the maniac beats and wailing reeds of the distant orchestras, calling down the ghosts.

    Around 1710, Alexander Hamilton, a British seaman visiting Burma, wrote in his journal about the oracles who performed at a sacred feast he attended. Though the event he described could have reflected another popular tradition, it sounds an awful lot like a nat pwe.
    I saw nine dance like mad folks, for about half an hour, and then some of them fell in fits, foaming at the mouth for the space of half an hour; and, when their senses are restored, they pretend to foretell plenty or scarcity of corn for that year, if the year would prove sickly or salutary to the people, and several other things of moment, and all by that half hour’s conversation that the furious dancer had with the gods when she was in a trance.

    While such powerful possession cults still exist in Southeast Asia, the rituals at Taungbyon now seem rather tame compared to Hamilton’s account, with formal dances replacing epileptic jitters and mantic drool. Today’s mediums still dispense predictions, although advice on love or money has replaced the corn forecasts of yore. However, in one crucial way, the tradition Hamilton saw has not changed at all. When it came to the gender of the oracles, the captain wrote, “Hermaphrodites, who are numerous in this country, are generally chosen, if there are enough present to make a set for the dance.”
    For one curious week in August, Taungbyon is tranny city, although you would not know that from reading some of the sources. Burmese Supernaturalism , first published in 1967, is probably the most thorough book on the subject available in English; within its pages, author Melford Spiro goes into fascinating detail about Taungbyon’s nat kadaw. He claims, though, that they are almost entirely women, while “experts at Taungbyon estimate that 3 to 4 percent are male”—most of which, he adds, are homosexual or transvestite. Now, the realm of the transgendered is tough to clarify and categorize; given the endless permutations and tangles over nomenclature, biology, and sexual orientation, the liminality of the dual sexed makes itself known in all discourses that approach the subject. Nonetheless, I can’t imagine who Spiro’s “experts” are, or how the author could have missed the signs familiar to any tranny fan. Because if Taungbyon’s nat pwe