The roof of the pork stand was collapsing. It was made of corrugated zinc. It would have crushed my neck, but luckily I was wearing a crash helmet so I could push it away. I was conscious. I was able to push it off. I was really shocked. It was a good thing there was no blood at all, even though my leg was so badly hurt. You can imagine what it was like before the surgery. He was shocked, too. If he had seen blood, the guy who hit me, he probably would have died. After they brought me to the hospital, he had to be admitted himself at another hospital. He was an old man, you know? I felt sorry for him.

He said he had no feeling, it was as if someone [i.e., a ghost] was pushing his car. That's what he told me. At the corner of that shop, there had been fatal accidents. Three or four children had been killed. . . . The pork shop is near a mango tree, which is where I was standing. And near the mango tree, a lot of people had died [indicating the presence of a ghost].

[After he hit me] he just sat in his car in a state of shock. The villagers took me to the hospital. They put on a splint for support, because the bones were broken, both of them. [Later] the old man came to see me one time. He came and said something like, "You don't have to report this, right? I'll take care of things. I'll pay all your expenses." Then he just disappeared. His son came to visit me when I had my surgery. He came, but he didn't say much. He just visited and brought me a gift. He came to see me while I was hurting, and then he disappeared.

Buajan is among a number of interviewees who were deeply involved with spiritual beliefs and practices. Her conversation constantly turns to religious interpretations of everyday experiences and to her own daily efforts to act according to her beliefs. Her everyday spirituality is expressed in several vocabularies. At times, Buajan speaks explicitly of Buddhist-related practices, and she states that she prays to a Buddha image every day. Buajan's conversation is also dominated by references to spirits and ghosts, which are associated with animist belief systems in Thailand. As much as any of the interviewees, Buajan's everyday perceptions and actions revolve around the spirit world. She propitiates the household spirits and the village guardian spirits in her family's home in Lamphun on regular occasions and on special days, such as her wedding, the birth of her children, and when members of her family become ill.

Like many interviewees, she says her beliefs in spirits are "50-50." She still believes in traditional practices related to the spirits of northern Thailand such as healing rituals, although she acknowledges that important new technological developments especially in medicine--can benefit her family. Like her parents' generation, Buajan believes that the ghosts around us may attempt to communicate with us. We cannot see them, but they see us. When ghosts try to contact us, people, especially children, may become startled or ill and their khwan may be harmed. The khwan is a flighty spiritual essence found in all living beings and in some natural objects such as rice fields or mountains. When the khwan is injured or flies out of the body, its owner may develop a fever for which the cause cannot be determined. In such cases, it is necessary to make a promise to the ghost, to light incense and tell the ghost that if it is the cause of the child's illness, the parents will offer it chicken or sweets when it allows the child to recover.

Injuries, therefore, may originate in efforts by ghosts to communicate with humans, and one appropriate response is to perform rituals to propitiate the khwan. The most dangerous contacts involve ghosts of persons who died abnormal or violent deaths. Such ghosts are known as phii taai hoong. Initially, Buajan is reluctant even to discuss them. But then she, like other interviewees, describes the suut thoon ceremony performed at the site of a fatal accident in order to lead the winyaan [soul] of the deceased person away from that place where it might otherwise become a dangerous and malevolent ghost. Buajan describes the purpose of the ritual offerings that are presented at the accident site:

The winyaan fell there. It must be invited to leave, to float away so it won't stay there. If it stays, it will attempt to contact other people, and soon other winyaan will fall there as well. They perform this ceremony; I've seen them do it. They still do it today.

During the suut thoon ceremony, black, white, and red flags are planted at the spot of the accident along with food and incense in order to symbolize the progression of the winyaan from darkness and confused disorder into light and spiritual release:

The black flag represents the winyaan of the person who died. The white flag leads him away toward the light. Black means darkness. He cannot go anywhere, especially the person who dies an abnormal death [taai hoong]. He can't enter the house of his relatives. He can't go anywhere. It's dark on all eight sides [an idiom meaning one is completely lost and enclosed in darkness]. This is represented by the color black. Then monks and relatives come and make merit there [with ceremonial offerings and prayers]. After their prayers, the white flag leads him to follow the red flag upwards, so he can be released and float up and escape from the darkness. So he can encounter the light, so he can emerge and be reborn.

The ceremony of suut thoon is still widely performed, and travelers can observe flags beside the road where fatal accidents have taken place. Humans, as Buajan and many others still believe, must attempt to ward off the malevolent ghosts that can cause illness or injury, but human efforts are never enough. People who go out of their houses may encounter ghosts at any time, through no fault of their own. This may have been one of the causes of Buajan's own injury, but there are also other causes and other explanations. Buajan, like every interviewee, refers to a number of causes during the course of her narrative:

Causation: Sexual Impropriety. They said that my injury, the accident when the car hit me, it was because a child, a girl related to me, she went and violated our customs. She acted improperly and it caused my harm. Probably a girl, if she went with a boy, that violated the customs of the northern region. She shouldn't have done that. By chance, an ancestor [i.e., a spirit] may have been visiting us then, although we weren't aware of it because we couldn't see him, right? He punished us because the adults, the father and mother, they should have warned the girl not to do this. The spirit medium said it was a relative, I don't know who, who did wrong, and it fell on me. By chance, my stars were weak at that time. The spirit may have come to visit just then and saw this.

Causation: Negligence of the Elderly Driver. I believe he was negligent. He drove a car even though he had really lost the ability to drive well. He was 74, and they shouldn't let him drive anymore. His eyesight was bad, and he had gout, too. So we blame him. He was in poor health. That's how we look at it. He has a disability; everyone knows he suffers from gout.

He didn't take proper precautions. He knew the car was out of control, so why didn't he brake? Instead, he steered the car in my direction. He accepted all the blame. I was just standing there. There's no reason why he should have hit me, when you think about it.

He said he wasn't well. That's just an easy excuse. He had no feeling in his leg. If this case had actually gone to court, he would have been in big trouble.

Causation: Negligence of Buajan Herself. We have to take precautions. Both sides have to take precautions, both the one who hits us and the one who gets hit. We need to watch out, too.

I think that I was also negligent. I wasn't looking ahead and behind. I didn't turn to my left and my right. I heard the sound of a car coming, "Brrrmmm, brrrmmm!", and I thought it was going down the highway. I never thought it would turn into the area where they were selling things.

When I say that I was negligent, I mean that I didn't watch out. If I had been a little more careful, if I had been out of the way just a little bit more, then I probably wouldn't have been this badly hurt.

Causation: Ghosts Near the Mango Tree. Truthfully, I don't like to think about it, but they [ghosts] did play a part. . . . There was another vendor, right? And she placed some food as an offering there for the person to eat, the person who had died. And the owner of the pork stand came and pissed all over it. He said, "Hey, let's add a little fish sauce [salty food flavoring]." Yes, it was that guy.

This is what they told me later. He had been sick a lot, the older brother of the pork vendor [i.e., as a result of desecrating the food offered to the ghosts]. His motorcycle had overturned four or five times, but his stars were still strong, when you think about it. Nothing happened to him. But one young kid, a hill tribe person, his motorcycle hit the tree and he lost a patch of his hair. It stuck right onto the tree. And after my accident, in less than a month, a lot of other people had accidents there, too. But now they're making a new road, and it looks like they're going to cut that tree down and throw it away. That should remove the bad spirit.

Just before he ran into me, there was still hair and blood stuck to the tree. I mean that tree, where the kid had run into it, it was still fresh. [That accident] just happened a few days before. I didn't know about this until the old man told me. He said, "Oh, that ghost was what did it. He must have wanted to eat the laap [minced pork]. When the other woman who sold pork presented the offering, the 'uncle' at the pork stand went and pissed on it. That's why the ghost never ate it. It must have been a starving ghost."

He blamed the ghost. That was his excuse. He tried to get out of it by saying the ghost did it. Actually, I half believe it, too. Most likely, it really did want something to eat. But I don't live in that village, so there's no way I could have known. If I'd known, I probably would have made something to give it [as an offering].

Causation: Khro (Fate). [FN12] If we want to consider this in depth, the cause would be the khro that we created before that time, and then it came back and caught up with us. We don't know when. We don't know what previous existence it was when we did this. It comes back to us in this existence, at this time. Often we don't know, right? We may have struck a dog or a chicken and broken its leg. Or sometimes we didn't do it. Our husband or our children were the ones who did it, but it falls directly on us just because our stars are not especially good at that time.