Word: sandalwood
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Last week the Royal Laotian Cabinet announced confidently that the King's funeral will take place next October. But before then, the King's tree must be found. As always, it will be a rare sandalwood tree of the first quality, free of rot, and large enough so that it can be hollowed out to take the body of the King in a sitting position. The Minister of Cults has already summoned the nation's provincial governors. In turn, the governors summoned the district and village chiefs. Thus the word was passed to the most remote Laotian...
Inferior logs of sandalwood have already arrived at Luangprabang, the gifts of rich and poor alike. Each log bears the name and address of the sender, and will be piled on a hilltop in October to serve as a sweet-smelling funeral pyre for the dead King. When the royal tree is at last found, the news will be spread by couriers, bronze drums, temple gongs, buffalo-hide tom-toms and by telegraph...
Less than two months remain before the rainy season, beginning in April, will make further searching impossible. But no one in Laos doubts that the royal sandalwood will be found. After all, the tree has been growing through the centuries just for this moment and this royal purpose-to enclose in its sun-yellowed heartwood the body of its predestined King...