Pickled & Burned

One hundred weary widows completed last week some seven months of funeral rites for their eccentric Lord: His Majesty Samdach Preah Bat Kampuchea Sisowath, later King of Cambodia (TIME, Aug. 22). Because King Sisowath's little realm on the Gulf of Siam became a French protectorate in 1863, his seven-months-old corpse was honored, last week, not only by black, flat-faced, wide-mouthed Cambodians, but by French officials whose glossy, narrow-waisted clothes spelled Paris.

Through his capital, Phnom-Penh, the body of King Sisowath was borne, last week, in a jewel-studded golden urn, displayed atop a tall, pyramid-like funeral car. At the time of his death, the once straight and stocky King Sisowath, delight of his 100 wives, had been doubled up and forced into the urn. Over him was poured mercury and then a topping of aromatic oils. Previously the Monarch's eldest son, now King Monivong of Cambodia, had intoned in the dead King's ear: "May Buddha receive you. May Buddha receive you! MAY BUDDHA RECEIVE YOU!"

The ceremonies of last week were designed to get pickled King Sisowath finally into the presence of that being who appeared on earth as Gau ama (circa 480 B.C.) and was deified as the serene, immortal Buddha.

Before the funeral car advanced 200 heralds and standard bearers, caparisoned, magnificent. Squealing and rasping followed an immense native orchestra. Next came, lumbering and lurching, a score of royal elephants bearing jewel-studded howdahs. Shielded by the howdah curtains sat King Monivong and others of the blood royal whose stern stomachs easily withstood the motion. As the procession passed, both French and native troops lined the way, saluted the funeral car, and kept the multitude of mourners back.

The procession came at last to a funeral pyre, high, mighty and well laid. Round it the hundred widows grouped themselves for a final chorus of wails and lamentations. Slowly, reverently all that remained of Monarch Sisowath was borne to the top of the pyre and there set down. In life he had been an amiable if do-nothing puppet of France. His pleasures were slumber, meditation and degustation. Fittingly and honorably he was borne away to Buddha, amid the swelling and sizzling of mercury, and the sweet stench of aromatics.