The Palm of My Heart Poerty by African American Children ; Edited by Davida Adedjouma
From the Publisher Stephen O. Murray earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Toronto and undertook post-doctoral training in anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley. Based in San Francisco, Dr. Murray has been a public-health consultant since 1982. He has done fieldwork on three continents and the island of Taiwan, and is the author of ten previous books, including Taiwanese Culture, Taiwanese Society (with Keelung Hong). He has been fascinated by Khmer ruins and art since childhood and was finally able to visit Cambodia in 1993. About the Author Stephen O. Murray, Ph.D., is the author or coauthor of more than a dozen books, including Taiwanese Culture, Taiwanese Society and American Sociolinguistics. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. DRESS AND RANK: Zhou and other Chinese regarded the Khmer as repellantly dark, coarse, frizzy-haired, and ugly, except for a few noblewomen who mostly kept out of the sun, and thus were (pleasingly to Chinese tastes) as "pale as jade." Both men and women went bare-chested as well as bare-headed and barefoot. Both sexes wore loincloths indoors. When they went out, they wrapped a band of cloth like a sarong around their waists. Khmer sculptures show complex pleating and knotting both for women's skirts and men's sampots. Men's reached mid-thigh, while women's reached to their ankles. Elite men or women might have added a gold or jeweled clasp or belt. These were decorative, not necessary to keep the garment in place. Elaborate sumptuary laws specified what ranks could wear what materials. Some were woven in Cambodia, but most of the bolts of cotton were imported from the east (Champa) or the west (Siam and India). Only the king could wear sampots with a continuous floral design. High officials and priests could wear cloths with recurring groups of flowers. Lower-rank officials and women were permitted to wear material with two groups of flowers. Occasionally the king would set aside his bejeweled gold diadem and had servants weave fragrant flowers (reminding Zhou of jasmine) into his hair. He wore two kilograms of large pearls around his neck, golden bracelets and rings set with agates on his wrists, ankles, and fingers. The soles of his feet and palms of his hands were stained red with henna, and, as already mentioned, he never left the palace without the sacred gold sword of his office. According to Zhou, commoner women wore their hair in a knot (chignon) without any visible hairpins or combs. Women of all classes wore gold rings and bracelets. Market-women (and men, including soldiers) in the bas-reliefs have pierced ears without earrings. The elaborate earrings of apsara/devata and of kings, gods, and heroes give some idea of what dangled from the ears of elite women and men. Men as well as women oiled their bodies with a mixture of sandalwood, styrax, musk, dried flowers, yellow cane sugar, and other aromatics. Men, other than the king, were forbidden to dye their palms and soles with henna, although commoner women could. Zhou wrote that there was a hierarchy of ministers, generals and astronomers, and all sorts of less important employees (differing only in name from those of China, he reported). These included inspectors, provincial governors, district and village chiefs, superintendents of warehouses, supervisors of corvée labor, and more. Usually, the king selected princes for high office. Men not of princely rank offered their daughters as royal concubines. Strict sumptuary laws regulated officials' public insignia and the number of attendants they could have, as well as allowable dress. The highest officials rode in palanquins with golden shafts and four gold-handled umbrellas. The next highest rank had palanquins with gold shafts and two gold-handled umbrellas. The next highest had a single gold-handled umbrella. Lower ones (ssu-la-ti in contrast to the pating, entitled to one or more gold-handled umbrellas) had palanquins with sil