Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 July 1886 — Cambojia and Its People. [ARTICLE]

Cambojia and Its People.

Cambojia, in the by-gone centuries, beginning with the sixteenth, is credibly reputed to have been a flourishing kingdom, and its warlike people far more advanced in civilization than the adjacent monarchies of Siam and Cochin China. Since the year 1820 Cambojia has been generally in vassalage to one of these two neighboring powers, first one and then the other gaining the pre-enrinence. Yet with singular fidelity the Cambojians have {•reserved intact the purity of their anguage and literature, as well as all their peculiarities of dress, architecture, and the institutions of social and domestic life. Indeed, they seem to abhor changes in everything, clinging with loving tenacity to the memory of the past; and, unlike other Oriental nations in this particular, they eschew even European fashions and fabrics, dressing, as did their ancestors, in rich crepes, satins, and silks, modeled in the quaint, picturesque styles of the centuries long past. The garb of both sexes consists of two or more loose robes with long, flowing sleeves, and buttoned close about the neck. Beneath these are worn full trousers, while a turban of delicate crepe covers the head; and for full dress a mantle of brocade silk is thrown over the shoulders, and draped with a patrician air. Even the common people go fully clothed, and thus present a more comely appearance than the populace of most other Oriental nationalities. Cambojian houses are, as a rule, large and comfortable, built in general with mud walls, but roofed with beautiful tiles laid on in contrasting shades, and the floors of mosaics of different colored woods,'while the walls are prettily decorated with creeping vines or such other simple ornaments as may be available in the present depressed state of the country. Of the interior, one-half forms an open hall for the reception of guests and the transaction of businfess, like the gate-rooms so often referred to in the Scriptures. There, in a conspicuous position, are placed the household altar and “god,” with the “incense pot” and other emblems of his idolatrous rites; for such an anomaly as a household without an altar of worship or a man or woman who forgets or neglects to offer daily oblations to his god is unknown in heathen lands. Can the same be said of all the families and individuals who profess the name of Jesus? The private apartments of Cambojian homes, disposed in curtained recesses behind the large outer room, are always in the form of square chambers open on one side only; and the beds, each formed of a bench overlaid with soft, mat-covered cushions, are raised about a foot from the floor, thus serving for both seats by day and couches by night. The other furniture is extremely simple, though pretty and tasteful; but it is upon their temples, “the house es the god,” and not their own abodes, that Orientals lavish unsparingly their wealth and ingenuity. The religion of the country is Buddhism, and all the people, men, women, and children, are devotees of the r strictest sort, at least so far as pertains to the outward forms of worship. All their temples, or “wats,” as they call them, are very costly, being carved, gilded, and’ decorated with precious stones, and neither gold nor jewels, time nor labor, is doled out stintingly when a new temple is to be erected or a religious festival celebrated.— Illustrated Christian Weekly.