Salt Farming Ritual Ceremony: A Case Study of Banpadaeng Community Thamai District Chanthaburi Province.

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to study the belief of salt farming in Padaeng community, Thamai District, Chantaburi province. This was qualitative research by using the observation, interview and recording as a process. The research results showed in the descriptive statistic. The samples were the people in Padaeng community, Thamai District, Chantaburi province, who were salt farming farmers and the knowledgeable people in this community.The research results were as follows: Salt farming was the believing and the rite of Padaeng community, Thamai District, Chantaburi province that transitioning from generation to generation. Before farming the villagers will perform the ritual ceremony and in harvest season coming in each year, they will perform the ritual ceremony for the Earth goddess and the deities who protected their salt farm. This ritual perform was the morale to villager and also blessing the happiness to their family. Moreover they will perform the ritual ceremony for Ta-Puk who was the first salt farming farmer. The prohibitions of doing salt farming were 1) Do not use umbrella in salt farm area because they believe that it will disparage the god. 2) Do not sell and buy salt during the sunset time because from their believing, it made them confuse between salt and sugar.