Page:Brief sketches of Siam (Smith, 1909).pdf/39

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
32
Brief Sketches of Siam

TH HINDOOS. There are a few of these residing in Bangkok along the Windmill Street. They are usually dealers in cattle from which the meat and fresh milk supply of Bangkok comes . These people have a Hindoo temple in that vicinity. DISPOSITION OF THE DEAD IN SIAM . The Chinese bury their dead and have a cemetery for that purpose along the Tanon -Seelom Street, The Mo hammedans bury their dead and have graveyards in the vicinity oftheir mosques, or places of worship. The Roman Catholics had a ceinetery in the rear of their church edifice a little above the south entrance of the K'nung Kut-mai canal . When H. M. P'ra - Chaumklau had that canal dug , he constructed a fort on that spot and gave them a piece of ground on the T'non - Seelom Street in lieu thereof , This is now the beautiful Ro . man Catholic cemetery of this city. His Excellency P’rayah P’ep’atkosah has constructed there a mauso leum within which are deposited the remains of his grand parents, his father and mother and near relatives . As previously stated H. M. gave a plot of land for a Protestant cemetery . The Siamese cremate their dead and have no use for cemeteries, At the teinple Wat Sakate, there is a place where those who die in the jails , or prisons of the city are borne and placed and their decaying bodies become the food of crows, vultures and other carrions. The different families according to their means, or rauk bury temporarily , or embalm the bodies of their deceased ones till they can cremate them with ceremo.