but stillborn infants."[758]
In Perche, another province of France, the same rule is observed with
regard to stillborn children, though the reason for it is not
alleged.[759] But of all ghosts none perhaps inspire such deep and
universal terror as the ghosts of women who have died in childbed, and
extraordinary measures are accordingly taken to disable these dangerous
spirits from returning and doing a mischief to the living.[760] Amongst
the precautions adopted to keep them at bay is the custom of carrying
their corpses out of the house by a special opening, which is afterwards
blocked up. Thus in Laos, a province of Siam, "the bodies of women dying
in childbirth, or within a month afterwards, are not even taken out of
the house in the ordinary way by the door, but are let down through the
floor."[761] The Kachins of Burma stand in such fear of the ghosts of
women dying in childbed that no sooner has such a death occurred than
the husband, the children, and almost all the people in the house take
to flight lest the woman's ghost should bite them. "The body of the
deceased must be burned as soon as possible in order to punish her for
dying such a death, and also in order to frighten her ghost (_minla_).
They bandage her eyes with her own hair and with leaves to prevent her
from seeing anything; they wrap her in a mat, and they carry her out of
the house, not by the ordinary door, but by an opening made for the
purpose in the wall or the floor of the room where she breathed her
last. Then they convey her to a deep ravine, where no one dares to pass;
they lay her in the midst of a great pyre with all the clothes,
jewellery, and other objects which belonged to her and of which she made
use; and they burn the whole to cinders, to which they refuse the rites
of sepulture. Thus they destroy all the property of the unfortunate
woman, in order that her soul may not think of coming to fetch it
afterwards and to bite people in the attempt."[762] Similarly among the
Kayans or Bahaus of Central Borneo "the corpses of women dying in
childbed excite a special horror; no man and no young woman may touch
them; they are not carried out of the house through the front gallery,
but are thrown out of the back wall of the dwelling, some boards having
been removed for the purpose."[763] Indeed so great is the alarm felt by
the Kayans at a miscarriage of this sort that when a woman labours hard
in childbed, the news quickly spreads through the l