The political borders of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam separate peoples who speak Austronesian and Austro-Asiatic languages, who once lived in the forest, practicing slash-and-burn agriculture and training elephants. These peoples share an instrumental heritage: playing gongs. Music of gongs has a power over the mind, the spirit, a power that influences each person?s destiny. In spite of the Communist revolution, the war and the disappearance of vast portions of the forest, these people continue striking their gongs. But the spirit animating this music has changed and, today, these instruments are the object of an altogether different power.