strike the projecting ends of some of the house-beams in order to loosen them; for they think that “everything must be open and loose to facilitate the delivery.”(1091) At a difficult birth the Battas of Sumatra make a search through the possessions of husband and wife and untie everything that is tied up in a bundle.(1092) In some parts of Java, when a woman is in travail, everything in the house that was shut is opened, in order that the birth may not be impeded; not only are doors opened and the lids of chests, boxes, rice-pots, and water-buts lifted up, but even swords are unsheathed and spears drawn out of their cases.(1093) Customs of the same sort are practised with the same intention in other parts of the East Indies.(1094) In Chittagong, when a woman cannot bring her child to the birth, the midwife gives orders to throw all doors and windows wide open, to uncork all bottles, to remove the bungs from all casks, to unloose the cows in the stall, the horses in the stable, the watchdog in his kennel, to set free sheep, fowls, ducks, and so forth. This universal liberty accorded to the animals and even to inanimate things is, according to the people, an infallible means of ensuring the woman’s delivery and allowing the babe to be born.(1095) At the moment of childbirth the Chams of Cochin-China hasten to open the stall of the buffaloes and to unyoke the plough, doubtless with the intention of aiding the woman in travail, though the writer who reports the custom is unable to explain it.(1096) Among the Singhalese, a few hours before a birth is expected to take place, all the cupboards in the house are unlocked with the express purpose of facilitating the delivery.(1097) In the island of Saghalien, when a woman is in labour, her husband undoes everything that can be undone. He loosens the plaits of his hair and the laces of his shoes. Then he unties whatever is tied in the house or its vicinity. In the courtyard he takes the axe out of the log in which it is stuck; he unfastens the boat, if it is moored to a tree, he withdraws the cartridges from his gun, and the arrows from his crossbow.(1098) In Bilaspore a woman’s hair is never allowed to remain knotted while she is in the act of giving birth to a child.(1099) Among some modern Jews of Roumania it is customary for the unmarried girls of a household to unbraid their hair and let it hang loose on their shoulders while a woman is in hard labour in the house.(1100)