A Cambodian couple who mummified their deceased premature baby to keep at home as a lucky charm had broken no laws and were merely adhering to ancient superstitions, police said on Wednesday.
Yem Polil (39) and his wife Lour Lin (38) featured on the front page of a local Khmer-language newspaper, photographed with the mummified corpse of their unnamed son, whom they smoked to preserve after he died within minutes of birth.
”This is their choice. It is their body,” the police chief of Santouk district in central Kampong Thom province, Math Maly, said by telephone.
He said Polil, a former soldier, had dreamed that a mummified baby monkey that he had previously been given as a magic charm to protect him in battle, and subsequently lost, wanted to return to him. Within months he discovered that his wife was pregnant.
When Lin miscarried seven months into the pregnancy, the couple took it as an omen and preserved the child’s body.
Cambodians believe that the mummified bodies of children and some primates born prematurely have powerful magical powers and can predict everything from impending disaster to the best time to sow and harvest crops.
”I believe this is a lucky sign and that this being has been sent to help us,” the mother of two daughters was quoted as saying by the Khmer-language daily Kampuchea Thmey. — Sapa-dpa