Kundaung

Kundaung (Burmese: ကွမ်းတောင်, Burmese pronunciation: [kʊ́ɴdàʊɴ];"betel leaf holder") is an offertory commonly carried in Burmese celebrations, such as shinbyu (novitiation) and ear-boring procession ceremonies.[1][2] The bearers are known as kundaungkaing (ကွမ်းတောင်ကိုင်), which has the figurative meaning of "village belle."[3] The modern kundaung is typically made as an ornamental tray with leaf-like protrusions, gilt with lacquer, goldleaf, or glass mosaic.[4][5]

A kneeling girl (furthest left) carries as ornamental kundaung.

In Upper Myanmar, several localities, including Butalin Township in Sagaing Region,[6] have preserved a tradition to make elaborate multi-tiered kundaung, variously known as phetsein kundaung (ဖက်စိမ်းကွမ်းတောင်), myaphet kundaung (မြဖက်ကွမ်းတောင်), or myasein kundaung (မြစိမ်းကွမ်းတောင်), from tender banana leaves, flowers, and other ornamental plants, resembling a spired pagoda.[7] These floral arrangements are similar to Thai and Laotian offertories, variously called krathong (กระทง), baisri (บายศรี) and pha khwan (ພາ​ຂວັນ​). This traditional craft is disappearing.[8] Only virgin maidens whose mother and father are alive,[1] are specially selected to carry these kundaung for such processions. Burmese writer Khin Khin Htoo has featured the phetsein kundaung as the title of her short story collection, Phet Sein Kun Taung Shwe Wuttu-To Mya, as well as her novel Ma Ein Kan (မအိမ်ကံ).

References
  1. "ရှင်ပြုပွဲများမှာ ပြုလုပ်သည့် ကွမ်းတောင်၊ ပန်းတောင်များ ပြုလုပ်မှု". MRTV. 2015-01-13.
  2. Kay Thi Thant (2014). "Religious Beliefs of Shan-Gyi National Live in Ae-Nai Village, Lashio Township, Shan State in Myanmar" (PDF). Dagon University Research Journal. 6.
  3. "Beauty pageants expose dreams and dangers in modern Myanmar". Reuters. 2014-09-26. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  4. "Betel leaf holder". National Heritage Board. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  5. "Cone-Shaped Betel Leaf Holder (kun-daung)". Schoos Night Gallery. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  6. မောင်သာ (2015-05-11). "ဖက်စိမ်းကွမ်းတောင်". ပြန်ကြားရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန.
  7. "ဓလေ့ရိုးရာ ချစ်စရာ ကိုးခရိုင်မြေက "ဖက်စိမ်းလက်မှု အနုပညာ …"". Myanma Radio and Television (in Burmese). Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  8. Eleven Broadcasting (2018-03-20), စစ်ကိုင်းတိုင်းဒေသကြီးကလေးဝမြို့နယ် အတွင်း မြန်မာဓလေ့, retrieved 2019-03-26
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