INCIDENTS OF CAMBODIAN LIFE. jyj 



ous and less gifted race. The children have prodigious memories, 

 and I have often been surprised at the facility with which, without 

 giving themselves much trouble, they learn in a few months the 

 Roman characters and French writing and language. The faculty 

 of learning foreign languages persists in the adult; the grown 

 men, our servants, persons living near us, learn enough of our 

 language to make themselves understood, while we have to take 

 nearly two years to learn, without study, as much as they. The 

 children are very intelligent, but I have been assured, and am 

 disposed to believe it, that their intelligence, if it does not remain 

 stationary, becomes less active after their fifteenth year. It seems 

 as if a little darkness came over their minds when their primi- 

 tively pure features are deformed and they lose their atavistic re- 

 semblance to their ancestors. 



They are docile, obedient, quiet in their sports, and very re- 

 spectful to their parents. They are never seen presenting any- 

 thing to their father with one hand, negligently or hurriedly, but 

 well-brought-up children, observing well the old customs, offer 

 the object requested with both hands, gracefully bowing. They 

 do not eat with their father unless he invites them, but with their 

 mother and her women, in whose charge they are. They do not 

 sit with their father or on the same level, because it is proper for 

 children to be always placed below their father. They have like- 

 wise a great respect for their mother, but it is more intimate than 

 that for their father, who is also master of the house, and is desig- 

 nated by a word that means master and prince. Respect for the 

 mother, while less demonstrative, is more durable ; it continues 

 in sons and daughters long after their marriage, and with grand 

 mandarins and in the palace assumes a really touching appearance 

 of deep veneration. I was told that the king never came into the 

 presence of his mother without saluting her on his knees, and with- 

 out offering her the homage which his mandarins offered to him. 



At eleven years for the girls and thirteen years for the boys 

 or sometimes thirteen years for the girls and fifteen years for the 

 boys, but never twelve or fourteen years, for years of even num- 

 bers are considered unlucky the ceremony of cutting the hair is 

 performed ; that is, the shearing of the tuft which we have seen 

 is tied and fastened with a pin. This ceremony of Brahmanic 

 origin, a kind of sacrament instituted by Siva, which the Hindus 

 call kesenta, takes place usually in the anniversary month of the 

 child's birth, on the first day of the decrease of the moon, in the 

 presence of all the relatives and the friends and clients of the 

 family. The festivals already mentioned in connection with the 

 cutting of the hair are repeated in full, but this time it is the turn 

 of persons of higher importance to perform the ceremony. This 

 festival is the festival of puberty. From its celebration the child 



