Tian Seng Saeyang
Hundreds of years ago, there was a king who was called Dorngh Hungh*. He controlled all the Mien people during that time. When he passed away another king, Luang Hungh, took his place.
However, the second king was a water spirit, and one day he was very mean to the people and made a flood to destroy the world. Everybody died except for a brother and a sister who had hidden inside a water barrel and floated on the water until the disaster was over. Then, since they were the only people left, they had to marry each other. They raised a family, and everyone worked on the farm to produce food for themselves.
Many years went by and this family grew and became a village. Eventually, the people in the village all planned to move to a new location to farm, but in order to get to the new place they had to cross the sea.
While they floated in a boat in the middle of the big sea on their way to the other side, they prayed to their ancestors to protect them and save their lives. They promised that when they reached their new land they would make sacrifices to them by killing dozens of pigs and chickens in payment for saving their lives.
When they got to the new location their young children began to get very ill, and many of them died. So they decided to do the ceremonies that they had promised to do. They discovered that their ancestors, who had used their powers to save everybody’s life when they crossed the sea, wanted to be remembered and honored for nine generations.
Since then the Mien people worship their ancestors as gods.
* Dorngh Hungh is pronounced dong hung. The final h is a tone marker and is not pronounced.