Housebuilding expert “exorcising the earth”. This ritual is performed prior to the “planting of the house posts”. Behind the expert are offerings to his “spirit teacher” (mat, rice alcohol etc.) and to the sao phaya (coconuts, sugar-cane and large offering tray top left).

After that is done the offering is made to the spirit teacher, as already mentioned. Then thirdly: the exorcism of taboo-which is a recitation of a text with no material

symbolism. The aim is to for-fend the consequences of all kinds of past, current or future breaches of rules which are said to be khu’t, which I gloss as ‘taboo’. This is a large set of rules. Interestingly they refer very largely to what we may call village community rules rather than state-political rules. They include rules about marital and sexual relations; about animal categories; about behaviour proper to forest and non-forest zones; about short-comings in ritual observance. One important category concerns basically cognitive distinctions relating to houses and house-sites. For instance, to mention a few, it is taboo:

and the list is by no means complete. Fourthly, there is the exorcism of the wood. This refers only to the house-post timber.