A Queer Custom.

Otago Witness, Issue 2817, 4 March 1908, Page 73

A Queer Custom.

If the " basket 6upper " of worthy tradition is a feature of Ne-w England church sociability, the Orient has a fashion of its own connected with baskets and religious ceremony. Mary Cost, in her book on Siam, tells of a custom which forms a mysterious part of Siamese ancestral worship. The ceremony is called krachat, which means basket. ' When the time for observing it is at hand the king commands the princess to make large baskets and to buy articles with which to fill them. Around the palace booths are built, covered with red and white cloth, and liere the baskets are displayed. The king himself goes out to inspect them. The baskets are filled with all sorts of things, from rice, sweetmeats, sugar, cakes, and onions to articles of a more lasting nature. The baskets are woven in all sorts of curious shapes. One may be in the form of a cart hauled by two buffaloes covered with tobacco instead of hair, and with many useful things in the carl. Tree baskets have all sorts of articles hanging to the branches, such as saws, knives, handkerchiefs, and so forth. Bushel basket" are pierced with doors, in and out of which run automatic dolls covered with coins. Some of the baskets are immense, bping 16 feet long. The show lasts a week, at the end of which the priests diaw lots for the spoil.