Tradition
Sbai
ស្បៃ
The sbai (ស្បៃ) is the long shawl that Khmer women drape over the left shoulder and across the breast with traditional and wedding dress.[1][2] The word appears in Khmer temple inscriptions of the ninth and tenth centuries, where it names a costly stole with a gold border.[3]
Name
The Old Khmer forms of the word are spai and spāy, meaning a long scarf, shawl or stole.[3] In modern Khmer, sbai also names a thin, open-weave cloth such as gauze or the cloth used for mosquito nets. This is the only meaning given in the 1967 dictionary of Samdech Chuon Nath and in the 1977 Cambodian-English dictionary, while the 1997 dictionary adds the shawl.[1]
How it is worn
The sbai is usually silk brocade or embroidered silk. It hangs over the left shoulder with its wider part at the back, and the narrow end passes diagonally across the breast and is fastened to the back part at the right side.[1] Wearing a cloth this way, under one arm and over the opposite shoulder, is called peanea (ពានា).[2] The sbai is worn this way with traditional dress and with wedding dress, for ceremonies and dance performances, and is usually silk decorated with sequins.[4][2]
The wedding sbai is the most finely embroidered, and the bride wears it with a sampot (សំពត់) in silk such as phamuong (ផាមួង), lboek (ល្បើក) or sarabap (សារបាប់) (brocade). There is also a plainer sbai of ordinary cloth, worn only with the sampot and kben (ក្បិន) in the traditional way.[2]
History
The oldest written record of the word is in the stele of Preah Ko at Roluos.[5] Its Khmer text, dated 893, lists among the gifts to the temple "one sacred stole with gold border [and] gold bottom" (vraḥ spai pyaḥ). A temple inscription at Prasat Komphus, dated 972, names the same kind of stole again.[3] Both are lists of offerings, so they record the cloth and its value but not who wore it or how.[3]
The Chinese envoy Zhou Daguan, who lived at Angkor in 1296 and 1297, wrote that everyone from the ruler down, men and women alike, wore the hair in a knot and left the shoulders bare. They wore only a cloth wrapped around the hips. Women left the breast uncovered, and this was so even for the ruler's wives.[6]
In the statues of the sixteenth century, women's dress is completed by a scarf, at times worn across the chest.[7] The word lasted into Middle Khmer. An inscription at Angkor dated 1747 uses spai for a long scarf, shawl or stole.[3]
A British officer from Madras who visited the court of King Ang Duong at Oudong in 1854 saw the palace women dressed lightly, with a long silk scarf thrown over one shoulder and across the body.[8] In 1863 the scholar Pétrus Ky wrote that the king's women wore the langouti and added a scarf that passed from right to left and veiled the breast.[8] The French naturalist Henri Mouhot met the King of Cambodia at Kampot around 1859. The young women in the king's boat wore a wrapped lower cloth with its corners looped up and fastened to the sash behind. Over it they wore a red scarf, passed around the body under the arms and tied at the bosom, and some also wore a tight jacket.[9]
In the wedding
Near the end of a Khmer wedding ceremony comes the blessing with areca flowers (bach phkar slar). The groom then takes hold of the end of the bride's sbai and follows her into the bridal chamber while musicians play "Preah Thong Neang Neak".[10] The rite is called Preah Thong tong sbai (ព្រះថោងតោងស្បៃ), "Preah Thong holds the sbai".[2][1]
The rite recalls the legend of Preah Thong and the naga princess Neang Neak. When the prince went with her to her father's kingdom beneath the sea, he followed her holding the end of her scarf.[10] Wearing the sbai is part of a Khmer woman's dignity at her wedding and at the other great ceremonies of her life.[2]
In classical dance
In the Royal Ballet of Cambodia, the sbai is the most decorated part of the female costume. Also called robang khnang, "back covering", it is worn on the left shoulder over a silk bodice whose short sleeve shows on the left arm.[11] It is embroidered with tiny beads and sequins. The usual motif today is a diamond-shaped flower, and older costumes show a wider range of floral patterns.[11] Embroidered sbai of the wedding kind are also worn in classical dance.[2]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 SEAlang Library, Khmer dictionaries: ស្បៃ (Headley 1977 and 1997, Chuon Nath 1967)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Khmernote, ក្រសួងវប្បធម៌ អំពាវនាវដល់អ្នកច្នៃម៉ូតសម្លៀកបំពាក់ (Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts appeal to clothing designers) (February 26, 2026)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 SEAlang Library, Philip N. Jenner, Dictionary of Angkorian Khmer and Dictionary of Middle Khmer: spai (2009)
- ↑ Magali An Berthon, 100 fashion and textile terms in Khmer, English, and French (2025)
- ↑ Michael Vickery, The Khmer inscriptions of Roluos (Preah Ko and Lolei), Seksa Khmer (1999)
- ↑ Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient, Paul Pelliot, Mémoires sur les coutumes du Cambodge (in French, 1902)
- ↑ Agence Kampuchea Presse, Le costume khmer à travers le temps (in French, April 16, 2019)
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Péninsule, Jacques Népote, Un visiteur britannique à la cour de Oudong en 1854 (in French, 2005)
- ↑ Project Gutenberg, Henri Mouhot, Travels in the central parts of Indo-China (Siam), Cambodia, and Laos, volume 1 (1864)
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Sakou Samoth, Le mariage cambodgien, from Le livre du mariage khmer (1965) and Pich Sal, Les rites du mariage khmer (1964) (in French, undated)
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Sounds of Angkor, Patrick Kersalé, Le Ballet royal du Cambodge au XXIe siècle (in French, April 29, 2021)