18/05/2026
Sacred blessings for our gentle giants. 🐘🙏 The elders of XiengLom village gathered to perform a special elephant baci ceremony, blessing each of our elephants with love, protection, and good health. Participating in this sacred tradition filled every heart on our team with gratitude and joy, a beautiful example of culture, community, and compassion coming together for the welfare of our rescued elephants.
Every Lao New Year (Pi Mai), MandaLao holds a special Baci for our elephants. A Baci, or "calling of the souls" ceremony, is rich in Lao tradition, symbolism, and pure intent for happiness, health, and well-being.
Thin white cotton strings, along with flowers wrapped in small bamboo leaves, are tied around each elephant's ears to "bind their 32 kwan," or souls, to their bodies. The belief is that when souls wander, it creates imbalance, leading to bad luck, illness, or sadness.
The beauty and power of the chants, the flowers, the ritual, and the physical presence of each elephant is a profoundly moving expression of the respect, honor, and love for these deeply sentient creatures.
🙏 Thank you to the elders of Ban XiengLom for leading the Baci prayers and chants, and to the MandaLao mahouts for placing the cotton string wishes on each elephant.
