which chiefly wields sway in Amoy and the surrounding country, regularly
stigmatises a certain number of days as _ting-sng jit_: 'days of
reduplication of death,' because encoffining or burying a dead person on
such a day will entail another loss in the family shortly afterwards."
(_De Groot_, I. 103, 99-100.)--H. C.]

NOTE 6.--The Chinese have also, according to Duhalde, a custom of making a
new opening in the wall of a house by which to carry out the dead; and in
their prisons a special hole in the wall is provided for this office. This
same custom exists among the Esquimaux, as well as, according to Sonnerat,
in Southern India, and it used to exist in certain parts both of Holland
and of Central Italy. In the "clean village of Broek," near Amsterdam,
those special doors may still be seen. And in certain towns of Umbria,
such as Perugia, Assisi, and Gubbio, this opening was common, elevated
some feet above the ground, and known as the "Door of the Dead."

I find in a list, printed by Liebrecht, of popular French superstitions,
amounting to 479 in number, condemned by Maupas du Tour, Bishop of Evreux
in 1664, the following: "When a woman lies in of a dead child, it must not
be taken out by the door of the chamber but by the window, for if it were
taken out by the door the woman would never lie in of any but dead
children." The Samoyedes have the superstition mentioned in the text, and
act exactly as Polo describes.

["The body [of the Queen of Bali, 17th century] was drawn out of a large
aperture made in the wall to the right hand side of the door, in the
absurd opinion of _cheating the devil_, whom these islanders believe to
lie in wait in the ordinary passage." (_John Crawfurd, Hist. of the Indian
Archipelago_, II. p. 245.)--H. C.]

And the Rev. Mr. Jaeschke writes to me from Lahaul, in British Tibet: "Our
Lama (from Central Tibet) tells us that the owner of a house and the
members of his family when they die are carried through the house-door;
but if another person dies in the house his body is removed by some other
aperture, such as a window, or the smokehole in the roof, or a hole in the
wall dug expressly for the purpose. Or a wooden frame is made, fitting
into the doorway, and the body is then carried through; it being
considered that by this contrivance the evil consequences are escaped that
might ensue, were it carried through the ordinary, and, so to say,
_undisguised_ house-door! Here, in Lahaul and the ne