My grandma said that back in Laos, her cousin's wife died a few weeks after giving birth. Apparently her chicken diet literally killed her - she choked on one of the bone pieces and it got stuck in her throat. They ua neeb later, several years later, and the shaman said that it was her deceased mom who came and took her. The wife's family was what grandma said was "tsis huv" or not clean/pure. Grandma said that it means that when someone in the family died they kept coming back.
Well, the cousin had three older kids besides the newborn. My uncle was still a baby, grandma said that he was beginning to sit by himself, so she had breast milk and because of that the cousin asked her to take care of the newborn. The three older kids were split up and put into different families until the funeral was done. My grandpa attended the funeral and he said that she was so rotten and the stench was so bad that they had to rush the funeral and bury her as soon as possible.
During the day the newborn was with her family but my grandma took care of her at night because she needed to nurse the baby. Well, as soon as the cousin's wife was buried, she came back. Grandma said that the night the dead wife was buried, she came back. Grandma said that she and grandpa were sleeping with the babies in between them when they heard shuffling footsteps outside the house, it was one of those traditional Hmong houses, tsev nqeeb. She said that they could smell the stench of rotten flesh inside the house. The dead wife would walk around the house, pause outside of where my grandparents were sleeping, walk around and pause again outside where they were sleeping. It would continue until morning comes and then you can hear the footsteps fading away into the distant. This occurred for several nights and throughout those nights they could not sleep at all.
Well, the husband gave the newborn to some distant relative who couldn't have children. The relatives do some shaman stuff, spiritually making the baby theirs, renamed her and everything. Grandma just says,"Txiv neeb muab tus me nyuam rub los ua kawv tug, muab pauv peb pauv xeem, pauv ntsej pauv muag".
My grandma said that about a few months after the dead wife died the third child was found, drowned in the water. About a year after that the oldest child fell sick suddenly and died that very night. Grandma said that she was there when the second child died, a few months after the oldest child passed away. She said that it was the oddest thing. One moment the child was happily playing and the next minute she was gasping, as though someone was choking her, within a few minutes the child was dead on the ground.
Like I said before, they finally did ask a shaman to come and look into it. The shaman told them that it was the dead wife who had came back and took the children with her. He said that if they would've ua neeb right after the wife passed away, the children would've been alive. As it was, it was too little too late but they did change the husband's name. The only surviving child was the newborn who was adopted by the distant relative. She survived only because the dead wife couldn't find her, having her name changed and everything.
Grandma said that the dead wife did try to find the last child but couldn't. A few months after the second child's death the dead wife came to grandma in a dream. She said,"Kuv pais lawm es tseg kuv tus me nyuam qaib es nrhiav tsis tau, nej puas paub nws nyob twg os?" (Translation: I went but left my little chick and I can't find it, do you know where it's at?). Grandma said that in her dream she responded,"Kuv tsis paub es, koj tus me nyuam qaib nyob twg kuv tsis paub os". (Translation: I don't know, where your little chick is, at I don't know). The dead wife then went to several relatives and asked if they've seen the newborn or know where she's at. None of them gave her the answer. This went on for years and years until everyone went their separate ways in the war and they lost contact with that family.
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Sorry if it's long. My grandma used to tell us this story when me and my cousins were little and she usually was able to scare us into behaving after that. Just thought I'll share as so many of you have shared and I've enjoyed your stories.
It's way better when my grandma tells it in Hmong though, the words and the rhythms are just scarier. She usually ends by saying,"If you guys keep on misbehaving, she'll come and take you in place of her fourth child....".
