ABSTRACT
The lower one goes in the social scale in Siam, as perhaps in every country, the more one finds that superstitions and the belief in the existence of spirits who require propitiation come to the fore at the expense of the established religion. So it is that in Siam, despite the teachings of Buddhism, which especially denounce such beliefs, the spirits of the dead and other innumerable varieties of phi, all more or less objectionable, make considerable demands on the time of the Siamese, at least of the uneducated classes, in order to keep them at bay. In the small and dark interior there stands a carved and gilded pillar of wood, draped in red cloth. This pillar is the home of the Guardian Spirit of the City, and around it are grouped phallic emblems, images of lesser phi, and paper votive offerings in piles.
