A woman from Cambodia’s Kratié Province has married a cow from her family’s cattle farm, international media reports.
Khim Hang, 74, married the cow after the passing of her husband. Hang claims that shortly after her husband died, the cow followed her upstairs and kissed her.
“I believe that the calf is my husband because whatever he does...is in exactly the same way as my husband did when he was alive,” she told Reuters Television in 2017, a year after her husband passed away. After what appears to be an extended relationship with the calf, who gained a sizable following on social media when the newlywed’s initial story broke in 2017, Hang finally tied the knot with her cow/reincarnated husband.
“I thought it was quite unusual to see a cow go up to the house like this… so I came here to see it with my own eyes,” Kratie resident Thach Vin, 32, told Reuters in reference to a video she saw on Facebook in which the calf walked upstairs into the family’s one-story home.
The woman insists the children may not mistreat the cow, who she cares for by feeding, bathing and putting to bed in her late husband’s pillow and sheets. Hang has ordered her kids to take care of their “father” until the animal passes away.
“I will keep him and take care of him for my entire life,” she said.
Cambodia is 95% Buddhist and many residents believe in the concept of reincarnation – the idea that a person remains alive after death and moves to another host, which is typically another species of animal.