ABSTRACT
Hat Ang and his sister wanted to build a new city to replace Luang Prabang. But just as Hat Ang had started building, the King of Luang Prabang and his people heard about San Ang. Hat Ang, or Ba Hat, as he is also called, was already a key actor at Hintang in the 1930s when Madeleine and Eleonore Colani came to work there. The Hat Ang tale in its 2007 version contain such longings, struggles, and dreams to make Hintang into a place of high morals and prosperity, and recognised as an important place by the political centre. Hat Ang can also offer us insights into how spirits work at a heritage site like Hintang. This is a tricky path to tread, though; modern Western discourse early defined the magical and spiritual as the antithesis of rational modernity, and this dichotomy is still at work in Western common sense and popular culture.
