Monk nails black magic curse

PHRAE: Somkiat Jummoh, 20, had been suffering from stomach pains for almost a month. His local doctor diagnosed the problem as hemorrhoids, but when the pains grew worse, Somkiat went to Phra Yuppharach Denchai Hospital where X-rays showed he had four two-inch nails and two fishhooks in his intestines. Somkiat was then taken to Phrae Hospital where doctors said he must have swallowed the nails and fishhooks, perhaps unknowingly. However, Somkiat firmly denied swallowing them. Although he wanted doctors to operate to remove the items, his family believed surgery wouldn’t help because they were certain the foreign objects in his insides were black magic at work. Somkiat’s aunt said a monk had told her that her nephew would fall victim to black magic performed by a Khmer witch doctor and that he might die if he was not brought to the monk for help. So Somkiat’s family had him discharged from hospital. They took him to the monk who gave him holy water to drink, told him to rest at home and that if he had to use the toilet, to do so out in the open. The next day, as Somkiat felt “number two” pressure building inside his bowels, he went to the middle of a field and defecated under the watchful eyes of his anxious family. After poking around in the excrement, Somkiat’s mother located the four nails, which she washed and showed to the monk. However, although Somkiat reported that his ablutions were painful, the two fishhooks remained within. Somkiat was scheduled for another appointment with the monk on August 2.