permanent gold and silver stands, the golden canopy and the ornaments of the pyramid. But the timber of which the P'ramene and its appendages are made is taken down and converted to other uses, usually the building of Buddhist temples.[A]
Funerals Among the People.
These very costly funerals of the royal family and nobility are not possible, of course, among the common people. The priests, however, are generally sent for to attend the dying, and when there sprinkle the suffering one with holy water, recite passages from their sacred books and pronounce the name of Buddha repeatedly.
After death there is a season of weeping and wailing by the family, and the body is then washed and wrapped tightly in white cloth. An urn or wooden coffin covered with gilt paper and decorated with tinsel flowers is brought, and the body placed therein.
Among the people the corpse is not kept long in the dwelling, and instances have been known
[Footnote A: The ceremonies at the cremation of the body of the late first king lasted from the 12th of March, 1870, till the 21st of the same month. The king of Cheung Mai came from his distant home among the Laos Mountains to be present on the occasion; and the pomp and expense of the ceremony, for which preparations had been more than a year in progress, surpassed anything that had been known in the history of Siam.]
