TÂY NINH, THE HIDDEN WONDERS
OF THE PROVINCE OF THE PEACE OF THE WEST

Tây Ninh Province, the Peace of the West and the ancient region of the Sacred Elephants, is one of the most picturesque in South Vietnam, yet the least known. It is famous for the Black Virgin Mountain (Nui Ba Den), old rubber plantations, stunning natural areas, its history as the stronghold of Caodaism, and the operations carried out there during the Vietnam War.

Before colonial maps drew straight lines through jungle and plateau, Tây Ninh was a frontier marked by wilderness and cultural crossings, a land of forests, luminous swamps, and clearings with enigmatic temples. Its lower regions were flooded for part of the year, turning into wide marshes, while the higher areas were covered by dense forests. Their remnants can be found in the Lo Go-Xat Mat National Park, which runs along the northern part of the area known as the Duck's Beak (or Parrot's Beak), an indentation in Cambodian territory and the province of Svay Rieng (the aligned mango trees).

Two major rivers cross the province: the Vam Co Dong and the Saigon. The Vam Co Dong (western Vaico, literally the river of western grass) is a tributary of Cambodia, where it is called the Prek Kompong Krabas; to the east, it flows along the Khmer border at Bec de Canard and into Svay Rieng Province. The Saigon River rises in Cambodia via a series of small streams, including the Prek Ankom, Prek Paplam and Prek Kray; in Vietnam, it becomes the Prek Clock, the Suoi Ba Hao, and finally the Saigon River.

Men walked slowly in these shifting lands, in tune with the seasons, stars, and spirits of the place. The Khmer Krom, descendants of the ancient Khmer kingdoms, settled on the plains in the wetlands and around the temples. According to oral lore, these lands were the Preah Trapeang Domrey, the region of the Sacred Elephants. The Stieng people lived in small semi-nomadic communities in the forested hills, practicing slash-and-burn agriculture, hunting, basketry, and maintaining a sacred relationship with the Black Virgin Mountain. A few Cham Muslims, exiled from Panduranga, populated the area around present-day Tây Ninh town. The land was red, dense, and alive, its forests home to tigers, gaurs, elephants, rhinos, and other creatures lost to time.

Khmer remnants are fairly evenly distributed across the province, although they are more numerous in the south, the richest part, which was probably always the most densely populated. Only the north has buildings or parts of buildings still standing, some of them abandoned and untouched by the destruction of the Vietnam War. The vestiges of these buildings trace back to Khmer art, while there is nothing to link them to Cham art. All these buildings, the most ruined as well as the best preserved, bear witness to the ancient occupation of the country by the Khmers – an occupation that seems unavoidable given that no real frontier separated Cambodia from the Cochinchina glacis, while a long, almost uninhabitable region of sand isolated the latter from the ancient Cham kingdom of Panduranga. Today, the province's most notable temples are Cho Mat (Ba Bau) and Binh Thanh (Tien Thuan).

From 1862, following the Treaty of Saigon, France established a protectorate over Cochinchin, including Tây Ninh. Military outposts were built around the Black Virgin Mountain, notably to guard the border with Cambodia. Missionaries from the Missions Étrangères ventured in, seeking to evangelize the ethnic minorities, with little success. Between 1905 and 1910, the French, inspired by the success of rubber cultivation in Malaysia, identified the basaltic red soils of Tây Ninh as ideal for rubber trees (Hevea brasiliensis).

This discovery marked the beginning of a radical transformation of the region. Land concessions were granted to private companies, including Société Financière des Caoutchoucs d'Indochine, Société des Plantations de Tây Ninh, and Franco-Vietnamese Enterprises. Ancestral forests were cleared by machete and fire. Colonial roads were built to transport latex to Saigon. Geometric rows of rubber trees covered the landscape. The Stieng were the first victims of this transformation, driven off their ancestral lands and forced to work as day laborers or relocated to the bangs of the plantations. The Khmer Krom lost most of their rice fields to the colonists, and their ancient temples were abandoned, absorbed, or ignored. Working conditions on the plantations were often brutal; oppressive heat, precarious housing, 12-hour workdays, and military surveillance were common.

From the 1920s to the 1930s, resistance movements began to form around syncretic religions such as Caodaism, which saw the sacred mountain of Nui Ba Den as a place of refuge from colonial materialism. Peasant revolts broke out locally, while in the shadows plantations, misery, and humiliation nurtured the seeds of Vietnamese nationalism. During the Vietnam War, many plantations found themselves in the midst of fighting.

Tây Ninh is the Holy See of the Caodaist religion, a religious and political movement that emerged in South Vietnam between 1920 and 1930. The doctrine revolves around the reconciliation of East and West, bringing together Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism in a pantheon around Cao Dai, the supreme creator whose symbol is the eye adorning the temples. From 1930 to 1940, the Caodaistes took a path of nationalism tinged with monarchism, and in 1941 formed an alliance with the Japanese imperial army to carry out anti-French propaganda. In 1949, the Cao Dai Armed Forces (F.A.C.D) expanded into the region, allying with the French to guard against the growing Vietminh presence. By 1954, the Caodaïst army had grown to 215 posts with an estimated strength of 65,000 men. Between 1956 and 1958, 3,400 Caodaists were imprisoned, the army was disbanded, and some remained in the maquis. In 1997, Caodaism was once again legally recognized and practiced without restriction.

During the Vietnam War, Tây Ninh Province became the scene of several battles and operations. The most important one was Junction City, initiated on February 14, 1967, by forces of the United States and the Republic of Vietnam. It was the largest U.S. airborne operation since Varsity in March 1945 on the Rhine, the largest airborne operation in Vietnam, and one of the largest U.S. operations of the Vietnam War. The nearly three-month operation involved almost three divisions with the objective of locating and destroying COSVN, the elusive headquarters of the Northern forces, and cutting off the Cambodian exits from the Ho Chi Minh Trail. According to American analysts at the time, the COSVN headquarters were considered a mini Pentagon.

After the Vietnam War, Tây Ninh fell back into its protective oblivion. Apart from the Black Virgin Mountain and Caodaist Holy See, the province is virtually unknown to the travelers. In 2025, Secret Indochina carried out a number of research projects, resulting in discovery modules that feature old Khmer temples, tropical forests, Buddhist temples, and relics of the colonial era and the Vietnam War, as well as the enigmatic mists of the Black Virgin Mountain and a Level 2 trek to its sacred summit. After discovering Tây Ninh, travelers may enter Cambodia via the Xat Mat border post (Trapang Phlong), then continue on to Phnom Penh, Kratie or Mondulkiri. 
 

The Black Virgin Mountain, Nui Ba Den, the Phnom Chol Baden of the Cambodians, has been revered since time immemorial as the seat of a local tutelary deity of Cambodian origin. The mountain is an ancient volcano extended by two other mounts, Nui Heo and Nui Voi (Nui Phung).

Nui Ba Den is an inselberg, an isolated relief dominating a relatively flat plain. Formed some 60 to 100 million years ago during the Upper Cretaceous period in a tectonically and volcanically active context, it is the result of the slow solidification of magma beneath the surface (plutonism), forming a mass of highly resistant granite. Over millions of years, erosion wore away the surrounding terrain, revealing this massive granite core as a rocky island dominating the plain. The rocks are dense, erosion-resistant, light grey to pinkish in color, and they contain mainly quartz, alkali feldspar and biotite. In the humid tropical climate, chemical decomposition processes (hydrothermal alteration) shaped rounded rocks (typical erosion balls), overhangs, detached boulders and pockets of red laterite on the lower slopes. The volcano appears massive and solitary, with steep, sometimes abrupt slopes and localized cliffs. The summit forms a small plateau covered with scattered boulders.

Clear streams gush forth from its hills, particularly during the rainy season. Several of these are considered sacred and are associated with local legends or places of prayer. The most notable are Suoi Da (stone stream), Suoi Vang (golden stream), Suoi Ong Ho (tiger stream) and Suoi Lua (fire stream), whose red quartz-flecked stones sometimes cause the stream to glitter like a tongue of fire.

On Nui Ba Den’s steep slopes, between moss-covered granite boulders, lie the remains of the dense tropical forest that once covered the mountain. A few hundred-year-old dipterocarps still stand, their trunks bearing lianas and hanging orchids. On the ground, bare roots snake over carpets of crunching dead leaves, bluish mushrooms hide under stones, twisted bamboos creak in the south wind, and red flamboyants bleed in April. Wild guava trees perch on rocky slopes and a forgotten orchid appears here and there, a discreet witness to an ancient time. Various bird species nest on the mountain, including bulbuls, bee-eaters, shrikes, solitary buzzards and migratory species such as herons.

There are various legends about Nui Ba Den. One of the oldest, a Khmer myth, involves a female deity, the Neang Khmau, who is said to have left her footprints on the rocks and faces of the mountain.

The primordial mountain spirit is the oldest, animist version. Long before temples or men, there was a naked, proud, silent mountain. Later, the Khmers and local Proto-Indochinese groups spoke of an ancient, fierce female spirit who inhabited the peak. She was neither human nor goddess, but guardian of wild forces, protector of births and deaths, and mistress of storms and harvests. She was invoked by burning precious woods, sacrificing buffaloes and black roosters. The elders said that she would unite with the clouds and howl at the full moon if the people forgot to honor her.

When organized religions arrived, the spirit kept quiet for a while, before joining in with the new cults. The bonzes said: “She's not a goddess, she's a Bodhisattva in the making.” But in simple hearts, she remained the Old Mother, Ba Co, the all-seeing one. Buddhist tradition sees her as the reincarnation of the Bodhisattva Kwan Am, the Goddess of Compassion. Having seen too much suffering on the plains of the Mekong, she chose to reincarnate on this mountain where she welcomed prayers, sorrows and hopes. Every rock would be an ear, every breeze a mantra. Her choice of a brown, austere form, without dazzling beauty, would be a lesson in humility and inner purity.

The best-known, most modern version evokes Ly Thien Huong, the martyr of love and faith. At the time of the Nguyen lords, a young girl of rare beauty and ardent Buddhist faith named Ly Thien Huong lived in Trang Bang. Her skin was as dark as black lotus seeds, her eyes as clear as spring water. The villagers affectionately nicknamed her Ba Den. One day, she met a young scholar, Le Si Triet, at Linh Son temple. They fell in love, pure love, but their union was cursed by jealous nobles. When he left to study far away, she was left alone to pray on the mountain. One day, attacked by bandits on the mountainside, she chose to throw herself into the void rather than lose her honor. According to legend, the rocks wept, the clouds descended to cover her, the Buddha sent a glow to gather her soul, and the pious made pilgrimages there.

Pilgrims to the Black Virgin – then simple folk, monks, hermits, traders or peasants from the forest – followed red earth paths winding through tall grass and forests, linked by the murmur of ritual drums and bronze bells. These columns of pilgrims from Cambodia or the deltaic regions headed for the mountain that rose above the forest like a finger of stone between heaven and earth, the sacred mountain (in ancient Khmer Phnom Preah Vihear Thmei, the mountain of the new sanctuary). Forest shamans and monks said it was the home of a discreet goddess, guardian of the passage between worlds.

Every year, in the dry season, a silent procession crossed the lowlands, led by barefoot bonzes. They carried on their shoulders small statues of Buddha, Shiva or ancient goddesses, depending on their faith. Ritual stops were punctuated by chanting in Pali and Khmer, offerings of incense, palm sugar and gold leaf, and nights under the moon listening to stories passed down by the elders. It was said that whoever reached the mountain without averting his eyes from its summit would gain clarity of mind and appeasement of heart.

On the road to the Black Virgin Mountain – across the plains of present-day Ben Cau, Go Dau or Trang Bang –Khmer brick temples stood here and there, sometimes half-engulfed by vegetation, sometimes restored by itinerant monks. At the time, they were linked by red earth tracks through immense forests dotted with small clearings where the buildings stood, and Buddhist temples and salas were grafted onto them. These were red-brick sanctuaries, decorated with geometric and floral motifs, surrounded by giant trees. People stopped to recite mantras, while women placed rattan bracelets and frangipani flowers on them. The end of the pilgrimage was the winding path up to the summit of the Black Virgin, where a small temple was the object of much veneration.

During the Second World War, the mountain was occupied by the Japanese, then by the Viet Minh, the French, and the Viet Cong, and its surroundings were the scene of clashes during the Vietnam War. Its summit was first captured by Special Forces during a helicopter assault in May 1964. The U.S. army built a highly complex two-hectare camp among the rocks and boulders at the summit of Nui Ba Den. In November 1967, the U.S. Army's 25th Infantry Division took over from the Special Forces and the Civilian Irregular Defense Group to monitor the radio installations. Nui Ba Den became a sensitive and secret military communications station, used as a listening post to pick up enemy signals and direct air raids. Personnel and equipment for numerous units of the 25th Infantry Division and non-divisional units were administered by Company “D” of the 125th Signal Battalion. The main unit atop Nui Ba Den was the 372nd Radio Relay Unit (RRU) of Sobe, Okinawa, a special section of the U.S. Security Agency.

But on the night of May 13, everything changed. The mountain was asleep, when around midnight, the American sentries first saw points of light appearing in the thicket, like fireflies. The silence was broken by a thunderous explosion; mortar fire rained down like black rain, and the eastern flank of the summit burst into flames. Vietnamese forces, made up of trained Viet Cong fighters, emerged from the wooded slopes, some climbing, others passing through the forgotten rock tunnels that were the legacy of monks and hermits of yesteryear. The American soldiers were overwhelmed. Panic-stricken, they fired back in all directions, but the assailants seemed to emerge from the rocks themselves. Hand-to-hand combat ensued in radio sets, trenches, and metal barracks. An explosion ripped open the main bunker. At dawn, silence fells again. The ground was black with ashes and red with blood. The camp was all but wiped out. Some 30 American soldiers were killed. The haggard survivors were airlifted out, while the Vietnamese fighters retreat into the shadows, disappearing into the mountain like specters. The summit was later retaken by the Americans, but fear remained.

After the war, Black Virgin Mountain continued to be a major pilgrimage site in southern Indochina. Between 2018 and 2020, SunWorld Group built a cable car and landscaped the summit, including constructing the famous large statue.

There are three main festivals dedicated to the Black Virgin, the Vesak, and the monsoon. The Black Virgin Festival is held every year during the full moon of the first lunar month. (In 2026, it will take place from January 29 to February 2, 2026, culminating on February 1, 2026). The biggest of the three festivals, thousands of pilgrims climb the mountain or take the cable car up to the main temple of Ba Den. Offerings of incense, flowers, fruit, and food are placed at the shrine. Dances, collective prayers, and sometimes nocturnal processions are held here. Buddhist rituals are also held in adjacent temples (Trung pagoda, Hang pagoda, Ha pagoda). The Vesak Festival, a major Buddhist festival celebrating the birth, enlightenment and death of Gautama Buddha, takes place on May 1, 2026. Rituals include ceremonies in Buddhist pagodas on the summit and southern slopes, offerings, sutra readings and bathing of the Buddha statue. Lanterns are hung in the trees or placed on the small Zen ponds. The third festival marking the arrival of the monsoon and the beginning of rice planting is less formal, observed locally in late April or early May. Prayers are made to the Black Virgin for a bountiful harvest, involving rituals in the villages at the foot of the mountain.


CAPTION

- Banner: Bodhisattva of the Holy Mother Linh Son (the Black Lady). By Hoang Phong, 2025.
- Image 1: Nui Ba Den. By Hoang Phong.
- Image 2: Temple of the Holy Mother of Linh Son. By Hoang Phong.
 

YEAY MAU
BIRTH AND REPRESENTATION OF A DIVINITY

In a seminal article, Paul Mus (1933) evokes this "true religion of Asia, that of the soil" of which the Neak Ta are the eminent representatives. The Neak Ta – a term translated as "Ancestors", "tutelary deities", "protective deities," and others – are omnipresent in the Khmer space, and they constitute its true spiritual structure.

If the traveler manages to look away from the Angkorian temples or Buddhist pagodas for a moment, he will see a hut with a statue inside with attributes, often a stick and an explanatory caption "the genius with the stick of precious stones" or "the genius with the iron stick," etc. These deities are still the object of worship; it is important not only to protect oneself from natural disasters, but also to obtain a good harvest and protection for the clan or village.

It is precisely within this cult space that Yeay Mau exists.

A coastal legend

Yeay means "grandmother, old woman," and Mau is a person name derived from the Khmau "black, dark." The name Yeay Mau is often preceded by the respectful term "Lok," generally attributed to the Neak Ta.

“There was a sailor who used to sail along the coast from here [Kep] to very far places. His wife, Mau, waited patiently for him to come back, sometimes for several months. One time he didn’t come back. It finally turned out that he had died in a storm. His young wife despaired not only because she truly loved him; but, because of his absence, she had to face strong sexual frustration, too. So here when people set sail, they offer her a wooden phallus to keep her quiet and to avoid her causing storms.”

Many other stories echo this version. Yeay Mau replaces her husband with a soldier who died in the war, Yeay Mau drowns in a storm while searching for her husband... but the underlying narrative structure remains, in all cases, the same: lack [sexual frustration] – warding off Yeay Mau's possible anger [offering of wooden phallus].

Originally, it was therefore a coastal cult consisting of offerings of small wooden phalluses to a spirit whose anger one did not want to provoke; in this coastal context, there was no anthropomorphic representation in the form of a statue.

From offerings to statuary representations

Anthropomorphic representations probably appeared later inland, although it is difficult to establish a chronology. The photograph depicts an altar built in the Cardamom Mountains. It shows a statue of Yeay Mau flanked by a large phallus on its right side (Filippi, 2008, 2012).

Only in recent years has this anthropomorphic representation conquered the coastal area. Today, altars with statues of Yeay Mau can be seen all along the coast, such as in Kep, where the legend probably originated.

Chronologically, we can ascertain the following cult sequence:
1. Wooden phallus on the coast
2. Erection of statues inland
3. Yeay Mau returns to the coast, this time in the form of statues

What does this sequence, presumably chronological, reveal to us about the deep nature of Yeay Mau?

From initial neutrality to the positive activity of Neak Ta

So, what role does Yeay Mau play?

The Yeay Mau of legend initially plays none of these roles. Placing phalluses on the beach is not a common way to worship a deity. Travelers and fishermen might demand something from Yeay Mau – a good journey, or a bountiful catch – but this is not the case. Other Neak Ta are there to satisfy these desires. As for Yeay Mau, she is not asked to act positively; quite the contrary, the phalluses are offered to her to ask her not to act, not to get angry, and not to cause storms.

Yeay Mau can be compared to the Preah Phum. It is a dimensionless point that comprehends the village as a set of houses. Since a point has no dimension, a wooden pillar is often used to mark the place where the point is supposed to be. Negative, neutral, deprived of any kind of positive function to such a point that Eveline Porée Maspéro could write:

“It is impossible to know what the Preah Phum represents. The word Phum designates the land on which the house is built and in the same time the smallest administrative unit. But the Preah Phum appears to be a very unclear entity: the real active part is played by the Neak Ta (Maspéro, 1962).”

The Preah Phum won’t be solicited for a better harvest; other local gods fulfill such a function. In cases of calamities such as numerous sudden deaths, epidemics or climate problems, however, the villagers may act on the Preah Phum through a number of ceremonies.

In contrast, the human figure representation is perfectly illustrated by the photo where Yeay Mau stands with a phallus on her right. Various offerings, including phallic symbols, incense sticks, etc., are used by the faithful, this time to solicit a positive attitude from Yeay Mau, whose protection is very often sought by travelers and, in times of war, by soldiers.

The most famous examples are found on National Highway N.4 between Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville. In Pech Nil, due to a dangerous bend that caused numerous road accidents, altars began to be built to house statues of Yeay Mau. A thriving industry of phallic symbols developed around this cult, until the local authorities decided to put an end to it, although wealthy "pilgrims" are still rumored to be allowed to discreetly offer copies of the linga made of sandstone and concrete.

The famous "Kampot Gate" is another prominent example. The heavy presence of Khmer Rouge soldiers in the 1990s made the Kampot region dangerous. While the city was relatively well protected, the Khmer Rouge laid ambushes on a pass overlooking the Kampot plain. The task of protecting travelers was assigned to Yeay Mau, to whom a superb temple was dedicated, featuring statues adorned with the usual attributes... including the ever-present phallus.

Conclusion

Yeay Mau is now present almost everywhere in Cambodia. Moreover, unlike the other Neak Ta, her presence adheres to a strict normative approach; for instance, Yeay Mau was never represented in the space of the pagoda. There are very few recent exceptions, such as Ream Pagoda, where a statue of Yeay Mau can be found, and this representation excludes phalluses.

Many narratives describe Yeay Mau’s religion as Brahmanism. This term (in Khmer Sahsana, priem literally refers to the religion of Brahma) is used to designate a number of religious practices different from Buddhism. The word was heard several times in surveys of the linguistic and ethnic situation in the Cardamom Mountain Chain, particularly in O Som commune (Filippi, 2008, 2012). The content of this religion is syncretic par excellence: ghost festivals in September, local gods, and… Yeay Mau always represented with a huge phallus. In the Cardamom Mountains, the phallus is a necessary part of the representation of Yeay Mau, and people do not worship her by offering phalluses.

In contrast to the passivity of the spirit in the legend, the representation of Yeay Mau in the form of a statue asserts a strong positivity. From now on, Yeay Mau is required to perform a certain number of actions, just like a Neak Ta. In other words, Yeay Mau has become a Neak Ta in her own right.

By J-M Filippi.


References

- Ang, Choulean. 2016. Yay Mau. In Le passé des Khmers, langue, textes, rites, edited by Nasir Abdoul-Carime, Grégory Mikaélian and Joseph Thach. Pages 249-262. Peter Lang.
- Ang, Choulean. 1986. Les êtres surnaturels dans la religion populaire khmère. Paris : CEDOREK.
- Filippi, Jean-Michel. 2008. Recherches préliminaires sur les langues des minorités du Cambodge. Phnom Penh: Funan et UNESCO.
- Filippi, Jean-Michel. 2012. A Research about Languages and Cultures in the Cardamom Mountains. Report presented to the UNESCO.
- Mus, Paul. 1933. L’inde vue de l’Est. Cultes indiens et indigènes au Champa, pp. 367-410, BEFEO, XXXIV, n.1.
- Porée-Maspero, Eveline. 1962. Etude sur les rites agraires des Cambodgiens. Paris: Mouton.


CAPTION

- Banner: Bodhisattva.
- Image 1: Yeay Mau in the Cardamom Mountains.
- Image 2: Bodhisattva.