Wan Sia: The Bad Days of Each Lanna Month

Wan sia (วันฯเสยฯ), the "bad days" of Lanna, are inauspicious days in Northern Thai (Kham Mueang) belief. The Moradok Lanna dictionary defines them as "days that bring misfortune of all kinds, a basic rule of auspicious timing that the people of Lanna have kept until it became a tradition, from ancient times to the present".

Each month has its own bad days. They are called wan sia pracham duean, "the bad days of the month" (วันฯเสยฯระฯบจำเดิอฯร), and many elders remember them with a short verse of only four lines. This article reads that verse line by line, sets out the bad days of all 12 months, and shows how to find the bad days of the current month.

The verse the elders know by heart

The dictionary records that "many elders know it by heart in Kham Mueang":

Kiang, ha, kao — sia tit kap jan

Yi, hok, sip — sia angkan wan diao

Sam, jet, sip-et — sia phat kap sao

Si, paet, sip-song — sia put kap suk

— Moradok Lanna Dictionary (entry wan sia)

Every line has the same shape: three month numbers, then sia ("bad"), then day names. Kap means "and", and wan diao in the second line means "only one day": that group of months has a single bad day.

Day names and month names in the verse

The verse uses short Kham Mueang day names, such as tit for Sunday and phat for Thursday. The dictionary lists them as words beginning with wan ("day"):

The months in the verse are Kham Mueang numbers, except the first two, which have their own names: kiang (กยฯง), which the dictionary explains as "the name for the first month, duean kiang", and yi (ยี่), meaning "two".

Jet (seven), sip-et (eleven) and sip-song (twelve) are not yet headwords in the dictionary, so they are written without Lanna script here.

The bad days of all 12 months

The months in the verse are northern months (duean nuea), which the dictionary stresses "run two months ahead of central Thailand". The table therefore adds the central Thai month and an approximate Western month for comparison.

Wan thun: the good days paired with the bad days

The Lanna Calendar for 2022, compiled by Saknarin Chao-ngio of Rajamangala University of Technology Lanna, gives the bad days of the month another name, wan parassatham, and prints wan thun beside them. That calendar says that "wan thun is good for doing everything".

The same calendar quotes an old saying: if you act on a bad day, "build a house, and the roof will not have time to fade; marry a couple, and the bottom of the pot will not have time to blacken". It is an image of trouble arriving quickly: before the new roof has weathered, or before the new household's cooking pot has turned black with use.

When do people in Lanna check for bad days?

The dictionary explains that "before doing anything, whether auspicious or not, one must check whether it is a good day or a wan sia". So the occasions people traditionally checked include both happy and solemn events, for example:

• Khuen huean mai (ขึ้นฯเริอฯรไห่มฯ), the merit-making for moving into a new house
• Kin dong (กินฯดอฯง), a wedding
• Taking rice out of the granary. Some households hung a pak-kha-tuen tak khao (ปักขฯทืนฯตักฯเขั้า) at the granary, which the dictionary describes as "a table of days for taking rice out of the granary", believed in as a guide to good and bad days.

The bad days of the month are only the first layer of choosing a day. The Lanna calendar has several other layers, such as wan fu (วันฯฟู), a good day suited to auspicious ceremonies, wan jom (วันฯจ฿มฯ), a bad day on which auspicious ceremonies should be avoided, and wan muai (วันฯมัวฯยฯ...). For wan muai the dictionary gives the example that the 11th waxing day and the 8th waning day are days of "muai bao sao", on which one should not marry.

Pak lem months and hora months: why bad days differ by area

Lanna has two ways of counting months. The more common one, duean pak lem, runs two months ahead of central Thailand. The other, duean hora, runs one month ahead. The Lanna Calendar for 2022 states that the hora count is used where Tai Lue and Tai Khün culture is strong, such as Mae Sai, Chiang Khong, Chiang Kham and northern Nan.

The compiler points out that "when the months are counted differently, the bad days of the month will differ too". That calendar therefore prints the bad days for both counts side by side.

The verse is the same, but the month number fed into it differs by one. Read more about the two month counts in Duean Nuea.

Which days are bad this month?

There are two simple steps. First, find which northern month today falls in, using the Moradok Lanna calendar. Then match the month number to the verse or the table above.

Summary

• Wan sia are the inauspicious days of each month in Lanna belief, and each month has different ones.
• The verse "Kiang, ha, kao — sia tit kap jan · Yi, hok, sip — sia angkan wan diao · Sam, jet, sip-et — sia phat kap sao · Si, paet, sip-song — sia put kap suk" covers all 12 months.
• The months in the verse are northern months, two months ahead of central Thai months.
• Some Lanna calendars also print wan thun, good days paired with the bad days.
• Areas that use the hora month count get bad days one month apart from areas that use the pak lem count.

Look up wan sia and the seven day names in the Moradok Lanna Dictionary, and read more about how Lanna counts its months in Duean Nuea.

Sources

• Moradok Lanna Dictionary, entries wan sia (ref 9910), wan muai (9896), pak-kha-tuen tak khao (5218), and the day and month names cited in this article.
• ศักดิ์นรินทร์ ชาวงิ้ว (Saknarin Chao-ngio). (2022). ปฏิทินล้านนา พ.ศ. ๒๕๖๕ [Lanna Calendar 2022]. Rajamangala University of Technology Lanna. PDF
• Moradok Lanna calendar (Calenos), used for the start and end dates of the northern months in 2026: moradoklanna.com/calendar