Warding Off Illness with Traditional Talismans in Lao PDR and Other Neighboring Countries by Tara Gujadhur et al
In March 2020, when the danger of COVID-19 became recognised, a number of effigies, bamboo woven talismans or taleos, and gates cropped up in rural and urban areas. They were meant as a marker and warning to delineate the boundary between the safe space of the village from the outside world, where potentially dangerous spirits and entities – including now the coronavirus—roam.