Reviving Burmese Nat Shrines to Protect Myanmar’s Mount Popa National Park — The Revealer
On the morning of December 26, 2023, a willowy transgender woman huddled on a carpet in front of a wooden structure resembling a house, the size of a telephone booth, placed at the bottom of a giant fig tree in a village bordering Mount Popa National Park in central Myanmar. Her wavy hair was tied in a top knot, her eyes closed and hands supplicating in prayer. A group of people knelt around her in reverence, all draped in traditional Burmese attire. Not long afterwards she donned a purple gaung