Legend of the Ban Flower

In just a few nights, the dark green slopes of the northwestern mountains turn white. Peak after peak, the white runs on and on to the edge of the sky, as if someone had gently laid a thin layer of cloud over the forest. It happens every year as spring arrives, a strange sight across the whole Northwest. It is the season when the ban flowers bloom.

The flower has five petals, each one pure white, spread open like a small fan. Or it looks like the pretty hand of a girl, opening to catch the sunshine. The Thái people hold this flower very dear. They live in Sơn La and Điện Biên. Lai Châu is their home as well. Whenever it blooms, the old people of the village tell their grandchildren how the ban flower came to be. They tell why, every March, the whole sky of the Northwest turns such a tender white.

The story goes that long ago, in these mountains, there lived a girl named Ban. She was lovely in looks and in heart, and her hands were skilled at the loom, weaving smooth, fine cloth. But what everyone remembered most about her was her voice. Whenever she sang, her clear voice floated over the stilt houses, slipped along the stream and echoed up to the mountainside. People said that even the forest birds stilled their wings to listen.

In another village, on the far side of the mountain, lived a young man named Khum. He worked hard in his hillside fields, and he was the finest archer in the whole region. His arrows seldom missed, and he walked the forest as surely as a deer that knows its trail. Then the two of them met. Khum heard Ban sing, and Ban smiled at him. Before either of them knew it, they had fallen in love.

From then on, they met by the stream, under the trees at the edge of the village. Ban sang, and Khum listened in silence. They made a promise to each other. However high the mountains and however deep the streams, they would one day share one stilt house. Together they would listen to the flowers open every spring.

Then sorrow struck. The elders of the village had decided to send Ban away to another community, very far off, parting her from Khum. Ban did not want to be separated from the one she loved. Her heart held only one thought. She had to go and find Khum, and she had to see him again.

So one early morning, while mist still lay white over the stream, Ban quietly tied her piêu headscarf to the top of the stairs at his house. She left it there as a message. Then she set off alone through the forest to look for him. She crossed the first mountain, then the second. She called his name, and the call struck the rock walls and echoed back. Only the forest answered. Her feet grew tired and her voice grew hoarse, but still she walked on, and still she called.

But Khum was very far away. That day he had gone far up into the deep forest. He could not hear his beloved calling him across all those vast mountains. Ban walked on and on, past one range after another, until she reached a high, windswept mountain pass. There she stopped and sat down by the path to rest. Her eyes were still turned toward the distant forests, where she believed Khum must be.

The Thái say that the next morning, on the very spot where Ban had sat to rest, a strange tree grew. No one had ever seen one like it. It put out buds as white as her pure heart. When they bloomed, each flower spread five soft petals, white as new silk. The villagers looked at the flowers and remembered the faithful girl who sang so well. She had crossed the forest to find the one she loved. People believed that Ban had become that white flower, so that she could stay with the mountains and forests forever. And they named the flower after her, the ban flower.

Strangely, the ban did not grow as a single, lonely tree. Before long, the white flower spread across the hillsides, the passes and the forests of the Northwest. It was as if the love of Ban had followed the wind, searching everywhere. And every spring, around March, when the weather warms again, the ban flowers burst open all at once. They turn Sơn La and Điện Biên white. The white climbs all the way up to Lai Châu.

It has been the same every year since then. When March comes, the Thái see their mountains and forests put on a white coat of ban flowers. People call to one another to go to the festival. They hold the Ban Flower Festival in the loveliest days of the bloom, above all in Điện Biên. Young men and women from the villages go up into the forest to see the flowers. They pick blossoms to tuck into their hair. Together they dance the xòe dance and play the khèn mouth organ. They sing love songs to one another, just like the voice of Ban long ago, still carried on the mountain wind.

Up on the white slopes of the Northwest, each five-petaled flower spreads open like a tiny hand. The Thái still believe that each one is Ban, smiling as she welcomes the spring. Amid the endless mountains and forests, she waits quietly for the one she loves.