For the Sake of All Living Things by John M. Del Vecchio

horde of villagers, men and children mostly, came to greet them. Samnang slithered out his side window and immediately was lifted by the soldier who had ridden the right fender.
    “Hey! Hey! Hallo! Hallo!” An old man leading the procession called out joyously in heavily accented Khmer.
    “Hello, My Brother,” Chhuon clucked back in Jarai.
    “Hello, Uncle.” Samnang ran to Y Ksar. “What’s that?”
    “Come, come inside and I’ll tell you everything.” Y Ksar laughed gaily. “Come, we shall open a jar and get drunk.”
    The common room of Y Ksar’s longhouse was hot and dark, the still air thick with humidity and smoke. To one side, on a raised hearth a large caldron sat on inverted iron cones embedded in hot embers. Chhuon paired off with Y Ksar; Samnang, accepted as an adult, paired with Y Bhur. On the floor between them was a five-gallon earthenware jar. Mayana, her eyes tearing from the smoke, squatted with Sraang, her grandmother Jaang, and other women, sisters and aunts, near the hearth. By the door, Draam Chung, Y Ksar’s eldest son (in the village Y Ksar was known as Ama Chung, “father of Chung,” as it was the tradition to call a parent after the firstborn), held a live chicken by the neck. At the back wall, on an elevated pallet which ran the length of the room, were sixteen more huge jars.
    “To you, Y Chhuon, father of Samnang, my newest brother,” Y Ksar began a buoyant, poetic invocation:
    You have brought us rice.
    You have brought us fat breeding
    pigs.
    You have honored the Spirit of our
    Door.
    May your body be cool,
    sleep deep
    snore loud.
    Y Ksar presented Chhuon with an elaborately woven winnowing basket heaped with glutinous rice and topped with bananas and slivers of chicken. He dipped his hands into the basket and lifted a sticky mass of food to Chhuon’s lips. From a second basket Y Bhur followed suit, offering Samnang both friendship and sustenance. Y Ksar continued with the sonorous coughing prayer:
    May our young brothers
    and our old brothers catch no sickness.
    May you again return in peace to
    your village and again to ours.
    May your truck tires remain plump.
    May no one stop you on the road.
    Samnang took his cues from Chhuon. When his father raised his head from Y Ksar’s hands, the boy raised his from Y Bhur’s. He felt uneasy yet proud. Chhuon scooped up a large handful and held it up for Y Ksar. In Jarai he attempted:
    Spirit of the Mountain watch over all
    men, all things,
    watch over those who live in Plei
    Srepok,
    I command you, watch over the high
    villages and the low.
    At that moment Draam Chung slit the chicken’s neck. Blood spurted, then dripped into a neckless jug. Y Ksar, finished with the exchange of food, broke the seal on the large jar before him. His rich voice chittered gaily.
Rice beer be dark and ripe and strong
    as the nightstar,
    May all be in unison and full of joy.
    I command all here in my home
    to eat your fill of chicken
    to drink your fill from the jar
    May your bodies be cool
    Do not let me hear an angry voice
    Do not kill me with your words.
    As he recited the verse, Jaang stuffed the jar with lalang grass to keep the thick bran at the bottom. Then the jar was topped off with water. Y Ksar tipped the jar as he inserted a four-foot-long straw to the bottom. Properly, a few drops of beer spilled onto the floor. He incanted:
    May the Spirit of the Belly of the
    paddies
    make the rice grow,
    May the pigs get fat and have many
    piglets,
    Let us do as the ancestors did in
    bygone days,
    as the Mother of Yesterday did in
    bygone days,
    Let us eat chicken until we are full, Let us drink rice beer until we belch, Soul of this food and drink do not
    fear us,
    so we may again eat food and drink
    numpai.
    With those words the women and other villagers began to eat, but Draam Chung’s bellowing voice halted them:
    May the magic of the elephant plant
    strengthen all
    May the snake slither away before
    you step on him.
    We are about to anoint my