page_title: Tonlé Sap
section_title: Celebration of the Seven-Headed snake
hierarchical_section_title: Tonlé Sap / Cultural significance – people and culture / Celebration of the Seven-Headed snake
caption_attribution_description: English: Tonle Sap stilt houses
context_page_description: Tonlé Sap is a seasonally inundated freshwater lake, the Tonlé Sap Lake and an attached river, the 120 km long Tonlé Sap River, that connects the lake to the Mekong River. They form the central part of a complex hydrological system, in the 12,876 km² Cambodian floodplain covered with a mosaic of natural and agricultural habitats that the Mekong replenishes with water and sediments annually. The central plain formation is the result of millions of years of Mekong alluvial deposition and discharge. From a geological perspective, the Tonlé Sap Lake and Tonlé Sap River are a current freeze-frame representation of the slowly but continuously shifting lower Mekong basin. Annual fluctuation of the Mekong's water volume, supplemented by the Asian monsoon regime, causes a unique flow reversal of the Tonle Sap River.
  The Tonlé Sap Lake occupies a geological depression of the vast alluvial and lacustrine floodplain in the lower Mekong basin, which has been induced by the collision of the Indian Plate with the Eurasian Plate.
context_section_description: This celebration also goes by the name Water and Moon Festival and was established to mark the reversal of the Tonlé sap and open the fishing season. The festival lasts three days and begins on the last day of the full moon. However, because of the variation of the monsoon seasons, the reversal of the river does not always coincide exactly with the festival. In the simplest form, the celebration is a series of canoe races, including some 375 teams, and victory brings good fortune for the coming fishing season for the entire village. In addition, these water celebrations are a tribute to a tooth lost in the depths by a nāga whose daughter married a Buddhist Indian prince to establish the kingdom of Cambodia. According to legend, when he was cremated, his tooth fell into the river down to the nāga kingdom.
  In pagodas along the river, men prepare for the festival by either restoring sacred canoes that have existed for hundreds of years or building new canoes when the old ones are beyond repair. Canoes are made from one piece of a trunk of a coki tree; the wood of the coki tree is resistant to rotting. Each canoe is painted with patterns and eyes that symbolize the guardian goddess, often the spirit of a young tillage girl. This is a modification from the superstitious tradition of sacrifice of nailing actual eyes to the boat dating back before Buddhism. The morning after completion and after three sacred shouts by the crew, the canoes are pushed into the river and head for the capital at full moon. Some crews must row for hours, and others will row for several days. Being chosen as a member of the crew is one of a man’s highest honors, and members must practice to perfect team coordination. Only the best crews will get to the finals in the capital.
  After two days of racing, all of the canoes come together to encourage the nāga to spit out the swelling waters of the Tonlé sap towards the sea. Firecrackers light the water, the royal palace, and the sky. This moment lets the legendary snake master of water know to return to the depths of the Tonlé sap and leave the power to the sun gods. This also marks the end of the rainy season.
  The area is home to many ethnic Vietnamese and numerous Cham communities, living in floating villages around the lake. Approximately 1.2 million people living in the greater Tonle sap make their living by fishing on the local waters. Cambodia produces about 400,000 tonnes of freshwater fish per year, the majority of which comes from Tonle sap. These fisheries account for 16 percent of national GDP, making the fish industry not only essential to the diet of local populations but to the Cambodian economy as a whole.
  During more than five months of the year, the great lake of Cambodia, Touli-Sap, covers an immense space of ground: after that period there is a diminution in depth owing to the great evaporation, but its width remains nearly unaltered. Although its waters increase in volume during the rainy season, these are not swelled by the streams from the mountains on its western boundary, but by the strength of the current from the Mekon which pours into it its overflow.[sic]—Henri Mouhot (1864)
caption: Tonle Sap stilt houses
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