Contents -- Preface -- Introduction: Laos and Its Religious Culture -- 1. Powers of the Place: Buddhism and the Spirit Cults of Muang Lao -- 2. Interventions from Afar: Nonspiritual Powers in Place -- 3. Questions of Place: Religious Culture in a Post-revolutionary Space -- 4. Commodities of the Place: Ritual Expressions and the Marketingof Religious Culture -- 5. The Spirit(s) of the Place: Buddhists and Contemporary Lao Religion Reconsidered -- APPENDIX 1: Transformations of the Ramayana -- APPENDIX 2: The Cult of Khwan -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.