Yeay Mao, Grandmother Guardian of the Coast
Yeay Mao, respectfully 'Lok Yeay Mao' ('Grandmother Mao'), is the most famous individually named neak ta (ancestral guardian spirit) of southern Cambodia, venerated across Kampot, Kep, and Sihanoukville and along the mountain passes and coast. Legend makes her a formidable woman who learned magic from a mountain hermit; when her husband, a coastal commander, fell to a Siamese invasion, she took command and conjured a supernatural army out of grass and tamarind leaves to drive the enemy out. After death she became the tutelary spirit of the region, credited with power over travel, the sea, fertility, and fortune, and drivers, fishermen, and pilgrims still stop at her shrines with offerings; a colossal statue of her crowns Bokor Mountain. She exemplifies the way Khmer popular religion individuates the otherwise anonymous class of land-guardian spirits into a specific named heroine with her own biography and cult.
Domains
- protection of travellers and coast
- fertility and fortune
Powers
- to turn leaves and grass into a phantom army
Epithets
- លោកយាយម៉ៅ
Sources
- Ang Choulean, Les êtres surnaturels dans la religion populaire khmère (Paris: Cedoreck, 1986).
- Alain Forest, Le culte des génies protecteurs au Cambodge: analyse et traduction d'un corpus de textes sur les neak ta (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1992).