Pop (ghost)

Sources do not provide a single cosmogonic origin story. Traditional village legends and ethnographic accounts present Pop as a spirit that can live inside a sorceress or other afflicted person and that leaves the body during sleep to feed. Some narratives describe Pop moving from body to body after a body's destruction and continuing to consume intestines as it wanders; a belief that Pop may be transmitted from an older sorceress to another person (via consuming saliva) is recorded in village lore.

Accounts emphasize behavior over fixed visual form. Pop are primarily described by their nocturnal feeding and possession of hosts rather than a definitive appearance. In Isan belief Pop may assume animal shapes (a black dog is cited as a common animal form). A high-ranking Pop called Ha Gom is said to be able to shapeshift into human or animal form and blend among people by day.

Pop are said to depart a host during sleep and attempt to eat the intestines or viscera of sleeping persons. They can inhabit a living person (commonly described as a sorceress), and local belief holds that Pop may be hereditary or transmissible between people. A subtype, Pop Laek Na (face-switching Pop), is described as changing appearance to resemble others and concealing its true master. Ha Gom is described as the lord of Pops, able to command lesser Pops and other ghosts, not afraid of sunlight, immune to ordinary sacred objects/monks/amulets, and capable of daytime shapeshifting.