Puthisan Neang Kong Rei - Cambodian Version

Cambodian Version

In Cambodia this legend is known as Puthisen Neang Kong Rei. The story goes thus:

Once upon a time, there was a rich man who turned to a poor man because of his twelve daughters. So he abandoned his daughters in a deep forest. There the giant Neang Santema took the 12 foundlings to be the servants of her daughter, Kong Rei.

Eventually tiring of the toil of their lives under the terrifying giants, the 12 fled their bondage and made their way to a neighboring kingdom where they were wed en masse to its king, Preah Bath Rothasith.

But the giant Santema was unwilling to allow the dozen former servants of her daughter to live in even the relative freedom that polygamous relationships of the time allowed. Instead, Santema concealed her identity - not a small matter considering her physical stature and reputation - and charmed Rothasith into making her his 13th wife.

Once she had gained the trust and sympathy of her new husband, Santema feigned a deadly illness, one that all the doctors and medicines of her husband failed to cure.

Santema capitalized on Rothasith's growing desperation and informed him that only a potion concocted from the eyeballs of her 12 pregnant co-wives would save her life. Entranced by Santema's wiles, Roth-asith ordered his soldiers to carve out the eyes of 11 of the 12 women, with wife Neang Pov allowed to keep one of her eyes.

After their ritual mutilation, the now blind or nearly blind women were confined in a cave, where they were forced to consume their newly born children one by one.

Only one-eyed Neang Pov was allowed to let her son, Puthisan, survive. In the darkness of the cave with his blind, grief-crazed aunts, Sen quietly fortified himself with dreams of revenge as he nourished himself with the flesh of his dead cousins.

When he became an adult, the evil Santema began to fear the consequences if Puthisan became King. To circumvent any possible acts of revenge by Sen, Santema sent him a letter instructing him to use it for passage into the Forest of Giants. In fact, the letter was a death warrant that stated "When Pothisan arrives, eat him".

But the letter was cunningly altered by a hermit living in the forest to read : "When Puthisan arrives, marry him to my daughter."

Thus when Pothisan entered the Forest of Giants, the letter was read and its instructions obeyed by the sentinel giants. Unbeknownst to Santema, her beloved daughter Kong Rei became the adoring wife of her greatest enemy.

After their marriage, Kong Rei had told Puthisan all about the magic thing in her Kingdom including the Eyeballs that belonged to Puthisen's mother and aunts. Predictably, rather than fulfilling his conjugal duties Puthisen took advantage of his new position to steal back the eyeballs of his long-suffering aunts along with some magical potions designed to facilitate his escape.

When a stricken Kong Rei attempted to pursue Sen, he used the magical potion to turn the land between them into water, allowing him to flee. Kong Rei cried and begged him to come back to live with her but he refused cause he should thought of his mother stronger than wife. Kong rei cried until she died and became the Mountain called Kong Rei Mountain at Kampong Chhnang

When he arrived in his kingdom, he made his mother and aunts have their eyeballs again and killed Santema. Finally, Putisan, his mother and aunts lived happily in the royal palace with Santema's body turned to stone and abandoned in the deep forest.

Phnom Kong Rei is a mountain in Kampong Chhnang Province, Central Cambodia. The silhouette of the mountain seen from afar looks like a sleeping lady. According to local folklore this mountain is related to the story. Kompong Cham province of Cambodia as the temple of the 12 sisters rest in Siemreap, Cambodia. The story was adapted to movie and released in 1968.