Note 9 — VI.—SUPERSTITIONS AS TO VARIOUS SUBJECTS.

But the superstitions regarding the uses of human blood or flesh are not confined to the instances above given. It used to be believed at Canton, and perhaps now is, that the blood of an unborn infant was all effective for magical purposes.9 It is used as a charm against husbands by a sect called 迷夫教, a set of young unmarried women, comprising a sisterhood who are sworn never to many. If forced by their parents to do so, they then employ this charm to destroy their husbands in order to remain single, and be faithful to the oaths of the sisterhood. A case is on record in which a Fokienese availed himself of this drug to influence a woman for improper purposes, and her subsequent death in child-birth was regarded as the natural result of her yielding to the horrible charm.