Page:Siam and Laos, as seen by our American missionaries (1884).pdf/257

 conch-shell blowers and trumpeters and pipers perform their several parts with the greatest possible harmony of such instruments. This act is called Ch'on p'ra sop K'u'n p'ra taan—literally, an invitation to the corpse to be seated on the platform.

When thus seated all the insignia of royalty which the prince was wont to have about him in life are arranged in due order at his feet—viz. his golden betel-box, his cigar-case, his golden spittoon, his writing apparatus, etc. The band of musicians now perform a funeral dirge; and they assemble daily at early dawn, at noon and at nightfall to perform in concert with a company of mourning women who bewail the dead and chant his virtues. In the intervals a company of Buddhist priests, four at a time, sitting on the floor a little distant from the platform, recite moral lessons and chant incantations in the Pali, with loud, clear, musical intonations.

This service is continued day and night, with only the intervals for the performance of the dirges and mourning women, and a few minutes each hour as the four priests retire and another four come in and take their place. This is kept up from week to week and month to month until the time appointed for burning the corpse has arrived, which may be from two to six or even eight months. The remains of a king are usually kept from eight to twelve months. (In the