The Spiritual Belief on "Thuat" Influencing the Local Culture in Trang Province

Abstract

This research is about the great spiritual beliefs, called “tuat”, that influence local culture in Trang province. The objective is to study legends and the pattern of beliefs about great-grandparents (taut) study the influence of tuat on local culture and to study the distribution of tuat influence in Trang province. The data were collected from field visits and in-depth interviews. The analyze process included analyzing the data through the structure of the four pillars of cultural theory. The results are as follows. The first pillar, instrumental and symbolic objects, found that the tuat in Trang is a great-grandfather belief in the form of the king cobra. The second pillar, concept, found that the resolution or ideology of tuat in Trang province. Most of them began with communities that had strong faith in religion before beginning with worshiping ghosts and accept the belief later. The third pillar, association or organization, found that tuat in the form of sacred animals in the area of Trang province, there are community leaders and villagers, appearing as a statue of a tuat and often playing a role in being a leader in various rituals. Whether it is the maintenance of statues and worship or the care of the four worship places. The fourth pillar, usage, is divided into 2 parts. The first part of the influence of the ceremony, found that religion, spirits or beliefs about sacred things and supernatural power considered as the origin of the beliefs of tuat in various animal species, after that, the beliefs of other religions were combined. The second, the element of the ritual, it was found that there were factors of ritual: location, date, time, group of people attending sacrifices and rituals or rituals.