Page:Journal Of The Indian Archipelago And Eastern Asia Series.i, Vol.3 (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.107696).pdf/412

that the dead could still employ all the articles of which they have made use during life. When the body was deposited in the coffin, it was carried to a richly ornamented house, made expressly for the purpose, and sundry buffaloes, swine, poultry and other animals were immolated, and meals were set out upon a table made on purpose near the coffin. The new king, son of the defunct, clothed in a mourning dress, came each day to prostrate himself before the body of his father, and to offer prayers to him. Every day also, wax candles were lighted, or incense burned. Betel or areca nut, tobacco, &c., were prepared, and were all placed near the coffin. It was above all on the sacred days, declared such by the sorcerers of the kingdom, amongst others the 1st and the 15th of each month, that the sacrifices were made with the greatest splendour. The body remained exposed thus in its lighted chamber, until the 21st of the 9th moon 1818 (21st June,) a day indicated by the soothsayers and the astrologers as propitious to commence the funeral rites. Here nothing in regard to the sepulture of the dead is done by chance; it is necessary that the place of interment, the day, the hour in which a deceased person ought to be interred, should be indicated by the sorcerers and the astrologers, who chuse the place by means of a compass, and read in the stars the propitious or unpropitious day. If all the formalities have not been fulfilled, and if what has been prescribed by the sorcerers has not been followed in every thing, they predict to the children or the parents of the deceased, that they will have no more good fortune, but that all kinds of evils will unceasingly pursue them. It often happens that a deceased person is disinterred several times in order to inter him in another spot when a family sorcerer, to gain a little, throws them into a fright by announcing misfortunes, because their dead parent has not been interred in a proper spot. It is not the people only who conform to all these absurdities, but the great also, the king himself and the mandarins. Many how. ever do not believe in them, and when it is represented to them how much all that they thus do is contrary to the most simple good sense, they say that is true, but it is a crime not to do what the king does, and what our ancestors did. As for the sorcerers and the soothsayers, I have caused many of them to be questioned confidentially, to know if they believe in all that they profess, and they have always frankly replied to the christians who interrogated them, that they did not believe the least in the world, but when they have been pressed to quit their disreputable profession they have a strong argument, which is—if we abandon our occupation we