At the age of 14, he caught his first wild elephant. From that moment onwards, Boonma Saendee set his dream of becoming a top mo chang (elephant catcher) in motion. Boonma, just like his father, was born to an ethnic Kui family, whose ancestors were renowned as experts in capturing and taming wild elephants, so it was always expected that he would take this well-worn path.
In a picture taken in 2009, Boonma Saendee holds a buffalo’s horn for performing a Kui ritual.
Boonma is now 86 and is regarded as the most highly respected mo chang among the four who still live in Ban Ta Klang (Elephant Village) in the Tha Tum district of Surin, about 450km northeast of Bangkok.
As it has been illegal to hunt wild elephants since 1957 and there are no longer opportunities for a Kui villager to become elephant catchers, the profession of catching wild elephants is gradually dying out.
“There is nothing I can do. I cannot appoint just anyone to be a mo chang. One can only earn the status when he is able to catch one wild elephant,” he said.
Since the law was introduced, therefore, Boonma and other mo chang around Thailand have instead used their skills to train captive elephants and educate village visitors about the traditional life of members of the Kui community and their legendary elephant catchers. As such, Boonma spends most of his life nowadays as a Kui a-jiang (Kui elephant raiser).
Boonma demonstrates how to catch a wild elephant.
The ethnic group of Kui people started migrating from Laos to Thailand during the Ayutthaya period (1351-1767). Historical records show that during the early Rattanakosin period (1782-1932), leaders from the different Kui communities began to present Thai kings with the white elephants that they had caught.
“I grew up with elephants and later became a mahout,” he said. “My father was a well-known mo chang. He trained me and my five older brothers in elephant-catching skills, but none of us could accompany him in the forest. It’s the Kui belief that father and sons must not hunt wild elephants together, so each of us had our own teacher when we were out in the forest,” he said.
After being armed with the necessary knowledge and techniques and at the tender age of 14, Boonma was ready for his first journey.
“My teacher led me and a captive elephant [that was to be used as bait] to a forest in Cambodia. We had to walk for many days before we could find one elephant,” he said. The first time he spotted an elephant, he recounts, he was very anxious.
“I asked my teacher if we could catch that elephant because it was so big, much bigger than our elephant. My teacher just looked at me. Unfortunately, the elephant got away,” Boonma remembered.
Later on, they spotted another elephant with long tusks and Boonma immediately raised the same question to his teacher. This time, though, the target was gone in a blink.
The teacher finally turned to him and told him to be quiet.
The four elderly mo chang perform a blessing ceremony to welcome three Kui men back to the village after they became monks.
“He told me that I must not utter a word. He said a wild elephant had a very good ear. If it could hear a human’s voice, it would quickly run away. But I couldn’t stop myself. I remembered my voice slipping out of my mouth to ask the question for the third time, which also led to us failing,” he recalled with a betel-stained smile.
By the fourth time, however, Boonma had learned his lesson and his lips remained sealed. Sneaking up to the elephant, he managed to hook a leg of a wild elephant with a Kui catching rope, called a chueak prakam. It was a long thick leather rope made of dried buffalo skin.
Before leaving the forest on elephant-catching missions, it is customary for hunters to perform an offering ceremony to their ancestors at the village’s Pakam Shrine to request safety and success. In the ceremony for Boonma and his teacher, they presented the rope to be blessed.
The twisted chueak prakam rope is made very strong in order to withstand the strength of the wild elephant. When the elephant has been brought back to the village, the rope is tied around its neck. The animal fights for its freedom and pulls and strains while it is tied to a tree for about three days.
“When its neck becomes swollen, the elephant stops struggling to avoid getting hurt. Then I replace the leather rope with tham nam (collar with thorns) on its neck. The wild elephant must be hurt in order to be controlled. Then I can lead the elephant back home,” he said.
Boonma earned his first official elephant-catcher title — mo sadiang — immediately after that first success.
According to the information at the Elephant Study Centre in Ban Ta Klang, there is a hierarchy of elephant catchers based on the numbers of wild elephants they can trap. The first level is mo ja, which is a Kui man who has been officially blessed in a ceremony but has not yet caught an elephant. Mo sadiang is someone who has caught between one to five wild elephants. Mo sadam has caught six to 10 elephants. The highest rank of mo chang is khruba yai or kham luangphued, which is for someone who has caught more than 10 wild elephants. At present there are no living mo chang that currently hold this position. The highest rank that someone has is a mo sadam.
Boonma classifies himself as a senior mo sadiang, although he does technically qualify for the title of the higher rank of mo sadam, he insists, however, that he needs one more catch to become a mo sadam.
“I wanted to be like my late father who caught 50-60 wild elephants, but it was actually my old man who stopped me from hunting more elephants when I was just 15 years old. He told me that he didn’t want me to risk my life with this gruelling job. He said his family could earn a living without seeing his sons being injured, tortured or suffering,” he said. “I remember on one occasion our captive animal became sick and died while we were in Cambodia. My teacher and I couldn’t catch a wild elephant and we also lost our way in the forest. With the rain, fog and lack of food and water, I became very weak. It took us two months to be able to walk back home.”
Ever since that occasion his father told him he no longer wanted him to be in the forest. Boonma said that at that time he did not want to stop catching wild elephants, but he had to obey his father.
Boonma did as he was told, however, and from that moment onwards used his skills to train the elephants, and he has trained dozens since.
The first stage in the “training” process is to cuff the two front legs together and the back two together to prevent the elephant from running. Then the elephant is allowed to wander around the forest for three days to “soften its behaviour” before being taken back to the village and trained with other captive elephants. Bit by bit the wild elephant begins to follow his orders. After a while the elephant begins to recognise and respond to orders (in the Kui language) to sit, walk and pick up logs with its tusks.
“Some elephants were quick learners while others might take time to learn, but they all can be taught,” he said.
Boonma discounts the belief that mo chang must have mantras for catching and taming the wild elephants, clarifying that there are no magical spells and that it needed only time and patience.
Although there is no need for a mo chang nowadays, their high social status is still called upon during ceremonies performed in Kui villages. Surin’s annual monk ordination ceremony in May and the town’s yearly elephant show in November, for example, are occasions when mo chang from far and wide are often called upon. Mo chang also sometimes conduct ritual performances as part of various elephant shows at the Elephant Study Centre.
To prepare for these types of ceremonies, Boonma dons a green jongkraben — the traditional baggy Thai knee breeches made from one piece of cloth. He doesn’t wear a shirt, but instead slings a long piece of cloth over his shoulders. He also wears a Thai khru, which is a piece of cloth that is wrapped around various talismans around his waist. The final accessory is a knife that is hung around the back of his waist.
Apart from performing rituals, Boonma lives his life nowadays much like a farmer. He grows rice and owns four elephants of which two, raised by his son and son-in-law, work in tourist elephant camps in Phangnga.
Despite his years, Boonma is still in a good health, with just a slightly curved back. He has a good memory and always smiles to anyone who greets him along the street. He rides a motorcycle when he wants to go to temple or to visit someone. He also always carries a cotton bag loaded with betel nuts to chew and a small mortar and pestle.
Many locals call him ajarn (meaning teacher), but he simply sees himself as an old Kui man.
“I am still a mo chang and I’ll offer my service till my last breath,” he says with a smile.
Three pregnant elephants graze through a rice field in Tha Tum, Surin.
