The Great Tree Hunt

Many centuries before a king is born, his tree bursts through the earth as a green finger.

--Laotian saying

Ever since he died last October, King Sisavang Vong has been waiting. His body, suitably embalmed with formaldehyde, crouches in a throne-shaped coffin in the Royal Palace in Luangprabang in the fetal position, for the Buddhist monks say, "As we came into this world, so we shall leave it." The dead King is dressed in his most glittering robes and wears a gem-encrusted conical crown. His gaze is turned toward the wide, murmuring Mekong River where during his long life of 74 years he loved to watch canoe races and fireworks displays, often in the company of some of his 25 wives and 100 children.

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 tribesmen, from the mountainous northern border with China to the arid southern plains where tigers roam.

Searching for the royal tree, sarongclad Laotians, silver-bedecked Meo tribesmen, naked Kha with blowpipes and poison darts move like shadows through the jungle. Black, White and Red Thai pad over the hills and into the deep valleys. "No one is forced to search, but all do," says the Minister of Cults. "By so doing they gain merit in the eyes of Buddha."

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.

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