CHAPTERXXVII.SUPERSTITIONS OF THE LAOS.Afullaccount of the superstitions of the Laos would very fairly represent their intellectual attainments: their reasoning facilities are entirely in subjection to the imagination in accounting for the most ordinary natural phenomena; their reverential awe of supposed supernatural agencies stands in the place of any rational perception of natural causes. As, however, anything like a full statement of their superstitions would fill a volume, nothing more than a slight sketch of some of their more common superstitions will be attempted in this chapter.It is difficult for any one living in a community surrounded with all the products of the inventive genius of man, and in the enjoyment of the varied results of intellectual development, to form any adequate conception of the benighted condition of the Laos mind as is indicated by a statement of some of the miserable absurdities entertained by them as sober and fundamental truths. Among them we can see examples in daily life of those hideous spectres of superstition such as served to guide the pitiful gropings of the intellectual and moral life of Europe three centuries ago. The man who should speak lightly of necromancy or deny the existence of spirits of every shade of malignity presiding over the affairs of society, or question the propriety of cutting off the heads of sorcerers, would be, in the ordinary affairs of life, untrustworthy, in religion a heretic, and in legislation a candidate for the honor of decapitation. Average Laos credulity—and the Laos are all average—will accept any absurdity, however monstrous, provided only it be supernatural. Consequently, any operation of nature outside of the most ordinary is satisfactorily accounted for by reference to some demon or spirit, or some other equally plausible account is given in explanation of the phenomenon. So the uprooting of a tree by a hurricane is the work of an enraged spirit; an earthquake is produced by an immense fish moving its fins; while a horde of demons preside over the mountains, the forests, the fields and streams. A special divinity is supposed to preside over each forest, and the hunter who collects the honey of the wild bee must make an offering to this divinity to ensure a good yield of honey. Indeed, almost every transaction of social or domestic life must be effected with direct reference to one or another of a multitude of spirits.A Laos going on a journey must hunt him out a wise man, one who can read, and ascertain a lucky day for starting; this is done by consulting a kind of astrological table. A day of the week being found to coincide properly with a day of the moon and with the nativity of the pilgrim, offerings are duly made to the spirits, to ensure, if not their good-will, at least their neutrality; then with a feeling of security the journey is undertaken. No imaginable exigency of business could induce a Laos to depart from this method; and the occasional impetuosity of a foreigner arouses in a Laotian a sleepy kind of compassionate wonder. The commander entering upon a campaign can move only upon a lucky day and after making the necessary offerings, which is a ceremony involving delay and careful attention just in proportion to the importance of the expedition. Traders traveling by boats cannot enter or leave the mountains through which the river winds without a prayer and an offering of wax tapers, flowers and incense to the mountain-spirits; a neglect of this ceremony may entail the loss of a boat in the rapids, or indeed any calamity.Twice a year offerings are made to the spirits of the river for having defiled the water by bathing and by throwing refuse into it. Toy boats and rafts are made, upon which are placed flowers, betel-nut, seri-leaf, incense and lighted 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.One ceremony which was originally peculiar to the Peguans (descendants of war-captives), but has been to a considerable extent adopted by the Laos, is observed at this season. All the family connections join in having a spirit-festival. A booth is built; food and drink are provided in abundance for those who participate in the ceremony; the booth is canopied with white muslin supported by light bamboo posts, and is open all around, with arches made of cocoanut-leaves; at one side of the booth is a space partially enclosed with gay screens, in which the offerings to the spirits are placed on a table. These offerings consist of food and drink, also clothing. From the centre of the canopy is suspended a white cotton sheet. The ceremony is a dance performed only by women, who enter the enclosure, and, after partaking freely of the food—these spirits have a special weakness for pork and whiskey—bury their faces in the suspended sheet mentioned above, waiting for the descent of the spirit. The dancers do not have to wait long for the entrance of the spirit, for the whiskey has made them very sensitive to the spirit-influence; when the spirit has entered the medium begins to sway her body to and fro and to gesticulate with the hands and arms, after the fashion of Laos dancing, to the music of a Laos orchestra. Laos music is appropriate to such an occasion, for it is a combination of agonizing sounds which for harshness cannot perhaps be excelled. The spirits seem to have thirsted for a year, for the fair dancers make frequent visits to the whiskey, and even affectionately take a bottle in each hand and dance around with them, never neglecting to administer to the insatiable thirst of the spirit. After attaining to an advanced stage of intoxication the dancers array themselves in the costumes provided for the spirits—usually articles of men’s clothing—and, arming themselves with swords and spears, they stagger after intruders or acquaintances, who, if caught, must engage in the dance. This unseemly revelry continues from early morn until dark, the Laos band rendering the one favorite air without ceasing, except to take an occasional draught of the beverage sacred to the spirits.While the Laos believe that the universe is controlled by spirits, their belief in magic implies that certain persons can command the services of some of the spirits to accomplish the darkest designs. No superstition is more general throughout Siam and Laos than the belief in magic. Among the Laos it is supposed that a sorcerer can command a spirit to assume the form of an insect, which, flying against the person whose destruction is intended, enters him and is transformed usually into a buffalo hide, though it may assume after entering the body of the victim any form, according to the will of the sorcerer. The Siamese very generally believe that the Laos possess this occult power, and the Laos, knowing little concerning it, credit the Karens and other mountain-tribes with it. About two years ago two Karens were brought to the city of Cheung Mai by some of their neighbors, charged with having caused the death of a young man by enchantment. The case was very clear against the accused. The young man had a musical instrument which these Karens wished to purchase; the owner refused to sell it, and a short time afterward he became ill, and died, I believe, on the fourteenth day of his illness; at his cremation a portion of his body would not burn and was of a shape similar to the musical instrument. Thus it was clear that his death had been caused by a spirit entering his body and taking the form of the coveted musical instrument. The Karens were beheaded, protesting that they were innocent of the crime charged against them, and threatening that their spirits should return and wreak vengeance for their unjust punishment. It is but just to add that cases of this kind are not of frequent occurrence.These nightmares of the Laos imagination are almost incredible to us, though they are terrible realities to them.
Afullaccount of the superstitions of the Laos would very fairly represent their intellectual attainments: their reasoning facilities are entirely in subjection to the imagination in accounting for the most ordinary natural phenomena; their reverential awe of supposed supernatural agencies stands in the place of any rational perception of natural causes. As, however, anything like a full statement of their superstitions would fill a volume, nothing more than a slight sketch of some of their more common superstitions will be attempted in this chapter.
It is difficult for any one living in a community surrounded with all the products of the inventive genius of man, and in the enjoyment of the varied results of intellectual development, to form any adequate conception of the benighted condition of the Laos mind as is indicated by a statement of some of the miserable absurdities entertained by them as sober and fundamental truths. Among them we can see examples in daily life of those hideous spectres of superstition such as served to guide the pitiful gropings of the intellectual and moral life of Europe three centuries ago. The man who should speak lightly of necromancy or deny the existence of spirits of every shade of malignity presiding over the affairs of society, or question the propriety of cutting off the heads of sorcerers, would be, in the ordinary affairs of life, untrustworthy, in religion a heretic, and in legislation a candidate for the honor of decapitation. Average Laos credulity—and the Laos are all average—will accept any absurdity, however monstrous, provided only it be supernatural. Consequently, any operation of nature outside of the most ordinary is satisfactorily accounted for by reference to some demon or spirit, or some other equally plausible account is given in explanation of the phenomenon. So the uprooting of a tree by a hurricane is the work of an enraged spirit; an earthquake is produced by an immense fish moving its fins; while a horde of demons preside over the mountains, the forests, the fields and streams. A special divinity is supposed to preside over each forest, and the hunter who collects the honey of the wild bee must make an offering to this divinity to ensure a good yield of honey. Indeed, almost every transaction of social or domestic life must be effected with direct reference to one or another of a multitude of spirits.
A Laos going on a journey must hunt him out a wise man, one who can read, and ascertain a lucky day for starting; this is done by consulting a kind of astrological table. A day of the week being found to coincide properly with a day of the moon and with the nativity of the pilgrim, offerings are duly made to the spirits, to ensure, if not their good-will, at least their neutrality; then with a feeling of security the journey is undertaken. No imaginable exigency of business could induce a Laos to depart from this method; and the occasional impetuosity of a foreigner arouses in a Laotian a sleepy kind of compassionate wonder. The commander entering upon a campaign can move only upon a lucky day and after making the necessary offerings, which is a ceremony involving delay and careful attention just in proportion to the importance of the expedition. Traders traveling by boats cannot enter or leave the mountains through which the river winds without a prayer and an offering of wax tapers, flowers and incense to the mountain-spirits; a neglect of this ceremony may entail the loss of a boat in the rapids, or indeed any calamity.
Twice a year offerings are made to the spirits of the river for having defiled the water by bathing and by throwing refuse into it. Toy boats and rafts are made, upon which are placed flowers, betel-nut, seri-leaf, incense and lighted 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.
One ceremony which was originally peculiar to the Peguans (descendants of war-captives), but has been to a considerable extent adopted by the Laos, is observed at this season. All the family connections join in having a spirit-festival. A booth is built; food and drink are provided in abundance for those who participate in the ceremony; the booth is canopied with white muslin supported by light bamboo posts, and is open all around, with arches made of cocoanut-leaves; at one side of the booth is a space partially enclosed with gay screens, in which the offerings to the spirits are placed on a table. These offerings consist of food and drink, also clothing. From the centre of the canopy is suspended a white cotton sheet. The ceremony is a dance performed only by women, who enter the enclosure, and, after partaking freely of the food—these spirits have a special weakness for pork and whiskey—bury their faces in the suspended sheet mentioned above, waiting for the descent of the spirit. The dancers do not have to wait long for the entrance of the spirit, for the whiskey has made them very sensitive to the spirit-influence; when the spirit has entered the medium begins to sway her body to and fro and to gesticulate with the hands and arms, after the fashion of Laos dancing, to the music of a Laos orchestra. Laos music is appropriate to such an occasion, for it is a combination of agonizing sounds which for harshness cannot perhaps be excelled. The spirits seem to have thirsted for a year, for the fair dancers make frequent visits to the whiskey, and even affectionately take a bottle in each hand and dance around with them, never neglecting to administer to the insatiable thirst of the spirit. After attaining to an advanced stage of intoxication the dancers array themselves in the costumes provided for the spirits—usually articles of men’s clothing—and, arming themselves with swords and spears, they stagger after intruders or acquaintances, who, if caught, must engage in the dance. This unseemly revelry continues from early morn until dark, the Laos band rendering the one favorite air without ceasing, except to take an occasional draught of the beverage sacred to the spirits.
While the Laos believe that the universe is controlled by spirits, their belief in magic implies that certain persons can command the services of some of the spirits to accomplish the darkest designs. No superstition is more general throughout Siam and Laos than the belief in magic. Among the Laos it is supposed that a sorcerer can command a spirit to assume the form of an insect, which, flying against the person whose destruction is intended, enters him and is transformed usually into a buffalo hide, though it may assume after entering the body of the victim any form, according to the will of the sorcerer. The Siamese very generally believe that the Laos possess this occult power, and the Laos, knowing little concerning it, credit the Karens and other mountain-tribes with it. About two years ago two Karens were brought to the city of Cheung Mai by some of their neighbors, charged with having caused the death of a young man by enchantment. The case was very clear against the accused. The young man had a musical instrument which these Karens wished to purchase; the owner refused to sell it, and a short time afterward he became ill, and died, I believe, on the fourteenth day of his illness; at his cremation a portion of his body would not burn and was of a shape similar to the musical instrument. Thus it was clear that his death had been caused by a spirit entering his body and taking the form of the coveted musical instrument. The Karens were beheaded, protesting that they were innocent of the crime charged against them, and threatening that their spirits should return and wreak vengeance for their unjust punishment. It is but just to add that cases of this kind are not of frequent occurrence.
These nightmares of the Laos imagination are almost incredible to us, though they are terrible realities to them.