tapers; this offering is a public ceremony, and is performed once in the eleventh month and once in the twelfth month, the lighted boats and rafts making a very pretty illumination of the river.
When any one is dangerously ill, one method of appeasing the spirits is to make a miniature boat or raft, on which are placed clay images, rice, vegetables, meat, fruits and other food, flowers and wax tapers; the boat or raft is placed either upon the water or in the street, whichever is the public highway. The spirits are supposed to find this food, etc. and accept the token of homage.
For three months of the year, during Buddhist Lent, lanterns are hung aloft to guide the spirits through the air, and thus leave them no excuse for coming down in the streets. The observance of this custom is very general, and is probably so, partly at least, from the fact of its being a very sickly season, diseases being supposed to be due to the spirits.
During the latter part of the dry season (from February to May) the Laos people very religiously observe the various rites and ceremonies of spirit-worship. This is a season in which no remunerative work for the people at large can be engaged in, and, perhaps in consequence of this, the time is occupied in various religious observances, and these are principally spirit-worshipings.
