Modern Myths of Cambodia: Ghevoon the Magic Man
Vannah spoke in a low, hoarse voice, pausing occasionally out of deference to my hurried scratching of notes on a tattered piece of receipt paper. We had met in the Mekong Crossing for a drink, and were huddled around my usual table in the back sipping from cans of beer and leaning close, exchanging conspiratorial whispers. The globe lights cast strange shadows across the sparely populated bar, but even had the place had shone bright with fluorescent suns and been backed to capacity with squalling tourists, my attention would have been locked on him and the story he told.
I felt tense, almost anxious as I scrambled to write out as much of what he was telling me as I could, struggling to understand the rougher spots of his English and devil-may-care attitude towards chronology. But I had to record what was coming out of his mouth, because it was a story that had to be told.
Vannah spoke of his uncle, a man named Ghevoon, who in the time prior to the KR regime was given special dispensation by the Khmer Government to go to the border of Thailand and study with the powerful Magic Men there, on the holy mountain Kam Chai. He, along with other ex-monks and holy men were sent, about one hundred and fifty of them. Twenty remained after the first week.
The training was hard, martial arts, shamanism and medicine, combined with severe physical conditioning and traditional ritualistic tattooing. The Magic Men in the mountain lived in a deep cavern system, a maze-like network of tunnels and caves in which the prospective shamans must bed down and live the life ascetic. They were sternly cautioned that should they leave the mountain before their training was complete, and their tattoos finished, they would lose all of their magic.
So Ghevoon stayed, and learned. Early mornings and late nights, training every day in Vietnamese Wing Chun and traditional Thai boxing, in natural medicine, and finally in magic. His tattoos radiated out from his chest like a sun of flowing, magical words, across his back like a bandolier, and on his tongue, the secret name of the Buddha, known only to the Magic Men.
There were conditions placed on his status as a Magic Man. He could not commit adultery, he had to respect his parents, and he could not eat dog (one of the lowest animals in the view of Buddhists), or the fruit of the Spu tree, which a diagram revealed to be Star Fruit. Should he break these commandments, the magic would flee him forever.
When Ghevoon came down from the mountain, he was changed. He bristled with an occult power that frightened those around him. Vannah told of a time when, while speaking to his uncle, he mentioned a girl he had grown fond of. With a smile, Ghevoon took a staff, and began a dance-like ritual kata, finishing with a shout. The girl appeared minutes later, as if in a trance. Shocked, and afraid, Vannah asked his uncle to make her leave. With a wink, Ghevoon made a strange motion with his hand, then flicked droplets of water on the girl’s face. She gave a little yelp of fright and fled.
Things would have remained such in an ideal world. Ghevoon would have lived out his life exploding land mines with his feet, and grenades in his hand, producing cures for villagers and pronouncing curses on those who threatened him. However, things soon went all to hell.
He was called upon to teach the Khmer military, and fight against the Thais in border skirmishes. Though little is known of that time, tales survive of him being shot repeatedly, walking towards enemy soldiers, the bullets tearing his clothes but leaving no mark on his flesh, and slaughtering all who opposed him with a knife, as methodically as a man cuts corn.
Then, the Khmer Rouge came to power. Ghevoon went underground, a hunted man and a rebel, surfacing with small bands of fighters to harass and harry the KR flanks, shooting and killing those who threatened his country. Clad in torn clothes and sheathed in tattoos, he became a symbol of hope and power for any Khmers he came into contact with, and his ferocity and apparent invincibility in combat made him a powerful leader.
He did not see his family for all this time, as he was constantly on the move, constantly fighting. All they heard of him was whispered reports as he flitted like a ghost around the country, killing all the KR soldiers he could. When the Khmer Rouge was finally toppled, Ghevoon traveled on foot to South Vietnam, to live and study.
In 1990, Ghevoon returned to Kompong Cham, eighty two years old and still as strong as an ox. He came to check up on his family, and make sure none of them had died during the dark times under the KR. At that advanced age, he was drinking two liters of whiskey a day, without noticeable effect, as a man would drink water. He was still strong and virile enough to teach Vannah some of his martial arts, though Vannah’s poor wife objected to this quite strongly, due to their children.
Ghevoon died some years later, peacefully in his bed, at the age of ninety years old. As far as I know, this is the only written record of his life. He has passed from mouth to mouth, a story that grows in the telling. Ghevoon, soldier, monk, shaman and hero is just one of the thousands of modern myths that go untold in this country of heroes and monsters. He is a modern myth, remembered here, in Cambodia.
I felt tense, almost anxious as I scrambled to write out as much of what he was telling me as I could, struggling to understand the rougher spots of his English and devil-may-care attitude towards chronology. But I had to record what was coming out of his mouth, because it was a story that had to be told.
Vannah spoke of his uncle, a man named Ghevoon, who in the time prior to the KR regime was given special dispensation by the Khmer Government to go to the border of Thailand and study with the powerful Magic Men there, on the holy mountain Kam Chai. He, along with other ex-monks and holy men were sent, about one hundred and fifty of them. Twenty remained after the first week.
The training was hard, martial arts, shamanism and medicine, combined with severe physical conditioning and traditional ritualistic tattooing. The Magic Men in the mountain lived in a deep cavern system, a maze-like network of tunnels and caves in which the prospective shamans must bed down and live the life ascetic. They were sternly cautioned that should they leave the mountain before their training was complete, and their tattoos finished, they would lose all of their magic.
So Ghevoon stayed, and learned. Early mornings and late nights, training every day in Vietnamese Wing Chun and traditional Thai boxing, in natural medicine, and finally in magic. His tattoos radiated out from his chest like a sun of flowing, magical words, across his back like a bandolier, and on his tongue, the secret name of the Buddha, known only to the Magic Men.
There were conditions placed on his status as a Magic Man. He could not commit adultery, he had to respect his parents, and he could not eat dog (one of the lowest animals in the view of Buddhists), or the fruit of the Spu tree, which a diagram revealed to be Star Fruit. Should he break these commandments, the magic would flee him forever.
When Ghevoon came down from the mountain, he was changed. He bristled with an occult power that frightened those around him. Vannah told of a time when, while speaking to his uncle, he mentioned a girl he had grown fond of. With a smile, Ghevoon took a staff, and began a dance-like ritual kata, finishing with a shout. The girl appeared minutes later, as if in a trance. Shocked, and afraid, Vannah asked his uncle to make her leave. With a wink, Ghevoon made a strange motion with his hand, then flicked droplets of water on the girl’s face. She gave a little yelp of fright and fled.
Things would have remained such in an ideal world. Ghevoon would have lived out his life exploding land mines with his feet, and grenades in his hand, producing cures for villagers and pronouncing curses on those who threatened him. However, things soon went all to hell.
He was called upon to teach the Khmer military, and fight against the Thais in border skirmishes. Though little is known of that time, tales survive of him being shot repeatedly, walking towards enemy soldiers, the bullets tearing his clothes but leaving no mark on his flesh, and slaughtering all who opposed him with a knife, as methodically as a man cuts corn.
Then, the Khmer Rouge came to power. Ghevoon went underground, a hunted man and a rebel, surfacing with small bands of fighters to harass and harry the KR flanks, shooting and killing those who threatened his country. Clad in torn clothes and sheathed in tattoos, he became a symbol of hope and power for any Khmers he came into contact with, and his ferocity and apparent invincibility in combat made him a powerful leader.
He did not see his family for all this time, as he was constantly on the move, constantly fighting. All they heard of him was whispered reports as he flitted like a ghost around the country, killing all the KR soldiers he could. When the Khmer Rouge was finally toppled, Ghevoon traveled on foot to South Vietnam, to live and study.
In 1990, Ghevoon returned to Kompong Cham, eighty two years old and still as strong as an ox. He came to check up on his family, and make sure none of them had died during the dark times under the KR. At that advanced age, he was drinking two liters of whiskey a day, without noticeable effect, as a man would drink water. He was still strong and virile enough to teach Vannah some of his martial arts, though Vannah’s poor wife objected to this quite strongly, due to their children.
Ghevoon died some years later, peacefully in his bed, at the age of ninety years old. As far as I know, this is the only written record of his life. He has passed from mouth to mouth, a story that grows in the telling. Ghevoon, soldier, monk, shaman and hero is just one of the thousands of modern myths that go untold in this country of heroes and monsters. He is a modern myth, remembered here, in Cambodia.