page_title: Nat (spirit)
section_title: Popular nat festivals
hierarchical_section_title: Nat (spirit) / Popular nat festivals
caption_attribution_description: Offerings of alcohol to a Burmese nat (U Min Kyawzwa)in the evening the atmosphere in the nat festival turns even jollier, with the crowd jumping around. according to animistic belief the singer is possessed by one of the 37 nats. i wrote about the festival in the dutch newspaper ad. (Nat pwe in Amarapura)
context_page_description: The nats are spirits worshipped in Myanmar and neighboring countries in conjunction with Buddhism. They are divided between the 37 Great Nats and all the rest. Almost all of the 37 Great Nats were human beings who met violent deaths. They may thus also be called nat sein. The word 'sein', while meaning 'green', is being used to mean 'raw' in this context. There are however two types of nats in Burmese Buddhist belief.
  Nat spirits are termed lower nats or auk nats, whether named or unnamed, whereas ahtet nats or higher nat dewas inhabit the six heavens. Much like sainthood, nats can be designated for a variety of reasons, including those only known in certain regions in Burma. Nat worship is less common in urban areas than in rural areas, and is practised among ethnic minorities of Myanmar as well as in the mainstream Bamar society. It is however among the Theravada Buddhist Bamar that the most highly developed form of ceremony and ritual is seen.
  Every Burmese village has a nat sin which essentially serves as a shrine to the village guardian nat called the ywa saung nat.
context_section_description: The most important nat pilgrimage site in Burma is Mount Popa, an extinct volcano with numerous temples and relic sites atop a mountain 1300 metres tall located near Bagan in central Burma. The annual festival is held on the full moon of the month of Natdaw (December) of the Burmese calendar. Taungbyone, north of Mandalay in Madaya Township, is another major site with the festival held each year starting on the eleventh waxing day and including the full moon in the month Wagaung (August). Yadanagu at Amarapura, held a week later in honour of Popa Medaw ("Mother of Popa"), who was the mother of the Taungbyone Min Nyinaung ("Brother Lords"), is also a popular nat festival.
  Nats have human characteristics, wants, and needs. They are flawed, having desires considered derogatory and immoral in mainstream Buddhism. During a nat pwè, which is a festival during which nats are propitiated, nat kadaws (နတ်ကတော် "lord-consort", i.e. "medium, shaman") dance and embody the nat's spirit in a trance. Historically, the nat kadaw profession was hereditary and passed from mother to daughter. Until the 1980s, few nat gadaws were male. Since the 1980s, persons identified by outsiders as trans women or gay male transvestites have increasingly performed these roles.
  Music, often accompanied by a hsaing waing ("orchestra"), adds much to the mood of the nat pwè, and many are entranced. People come from far to take part in the festivities in various nat shrines called nat kun or nat naan, get drunk on palm wine and dance wildly in fits of ecstasy to the wild beat of the Hsaing waing music, possessed by the nats.
  Whereas nat pwès are annual events celebrating a particular member of the 37 Nats regarded as the tutelary spirit in a local region within a local community, with familial custodians of the place and tradition and with royal sponsorship in ancient times, hence evocative of royal rituals, there are also nat kannah pwès where individuals would have a pavilion set up in a neighbourhood and the ritual is generally linked to the entire pantheon of nats. The nat kadaws as an independent profession made their appearance in the latter half of the 19th century as spirit mediums, and nat kannahs are more of an urban phenomenon which evolved to satisfy the need of people who had migrated from the countryside to towns and cities but who wished to carry on their traditions or yo-ya of supplicating the mi hsaing hpa hsaing tutelary spirit of their native place.
caption: Offerings of alcohol and liquor to Min Kyawzwa at a nat pwe in Amarapura
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