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	---> MORE Thai Proverbs: _________________________________ When the Cat's Away You've Got to be Stupid Before You Get Wise Measuring Someone's Footprint Be compliant! Snake Snake Fish Fish Bid Tong Lang Phra - To do good by stealth The Menacing Tiger Little birds nest according to their size Keeping Your Head Down The Chameleon That Lost Its Head Out of Pride Wisdom come from Stupidity Follow the old, and the dogs won't bite you LOOKING AT THE TSUNAMI DISASTER Measuring Someone's Footprint One drop of honey Keeping Your Head Down Avoiding Victory Blame and Responsibility Beware of Appearances When the cat’s away, the mice play Water, water everywhere…

Mom… we need more rain!!!

Mom in this context doesn't really mean mommy or mother. Mom is one of the legendary creatures who lives in the Himmapan Forest.

According to Hindu belief, (the) Mom is the vehicle of the Rain Angel, while Lanna tradition knows it as 'The Angel of the West' - (no, not you, sweetie. This is mythology). This Mom is a strange hybrid, half cat, half lion, though some Lanna artisans present it as a big lizard. As a result, it's often a decorative feature of the entrance to the vihara (chapel) of Buddhist temples. The story behind them is that they are a great deal smarter than human beings (which may not be saying much - just look at us!) but because they cling to what they have and know, they are unable to achieve enlightenment and have forfeited Nirvana. We are supposed to take it as warning to avoid trishna/tanha - 'clinging' - if we want to move beyond our limitations.

Ceremonially, just as for other aquatic creatures - frogs etc - the Mom is invoked for rain. During the hot dry period, before planting, farmers would put a carved representation of the Mom in a wicker basket and take it in procession through the village and to the temple...rain sure to follow - sometimes. For some reason this rain-making business is also attributed to cats. One of the Chiang Mai historians, the late Ajarn Kraisi Nimmanahaeminda, has written of the custom of dowsing a cat during the Songkran period, which citizens believed to be a sure-fire method of getting the downpour they needed. And even nowadays, during the Songkran ceremonies, an important Buddha image is carried through town and respectfully lustrated for the same reason.

To come back to the Mom, some folklorists believe it's akin to the Chinese kilen - a sort of dog/lion hybrid, but the fact is that accurate memory of origins and function have faded, so that to most of us it's become just a decorative feature. One of the places you can see it is in the back of Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, next to the sightseeing area.

What's that? You don't want to invoke the rain. You're going trekking? Well, OK, but remember the poor farmers. Just a little bit of rain, Mom, but not too much.