64 
FASCICULI MALATENSES 
by a brother or sister to desist. The milk from the left breast is supposed 
to be more nourishing than that from the right, the former being compared 
to water and the latter to rice. 
Labour, according to our informants, is frequently very difficult, lasting 
not infrequently for a whole day. The death-rate, too, seems, from their 
accounts, to be enormous. One of them told us that she had attended eighteen 
births herself in the preceding year, and that three of them had proved fatal; 
she added the remark, that £ some Mdan were very careless, and lost a great 
many of their patients, 1 evidently not meaning the reflection to apply to her¬ 
self. She said that the deaths usually occurred some hours or days after 
parturition. Madness or delirium at this period is known as gila mertyang , 
and is believed to be caused by a spirit called Jinn Mensiah, 
Twins appear to be rare. They are not regarded with any suspicion, 
but are considered lucky rather than the reverse. It is otherwise with 
triplets, which are 1 accursed ’ (cbel&kd). A case had occurred, at which both 
our informants were present, some years previously in a Malay family in 
Jalor, The Earth Spirits had been very strong during the birth, and had 
possessed the younger of the two midwives, who had become delirious. The 
‘roasting’ ceremony had been performed under the house instead of in the 
kitchen, and the woman had been forced to spend her forty days’ seclusion in 
this ignominious position on a mat on the ground ; she was said to be ‘just 
like a dog *—a phrase which, curiously enough, is applied to the mothers of 
twins in certain parts of Africa. The three children all survived and grew up 
healthy ; their father has been known, since their birth, as Pa Tiga, 4 Father 
of Three,’ It is believed in Rhaman that in a case of the kind one of the 
triplets will become raja of the country, his two brothers being his chief 
ministers. Hence, under the old regime, triplets were always killed by the 
reigning raja, as being a menace to his throne, even if they did not all chance 
to be boys. 
One of our informants had had two cases of monstrous births—-a child 
with a face like a pig and another with a face like a monkey. The mother of 
the latter had also been the mother of the triplets. Such abnormalities are 
believed to be changelings, substituted for the true child by the Earth Spirits, 
which are also called Chinn in this connexion, and many bidan claim the power 
to bring them back to their proper form by ‘ science ’ {bilmu\ /.<?., magic 
incantations, in the event of their being alive ; but if they are born dead, 
nothing can be done. 
