An elderly woman was found dead after being attacked by a python in central Indonesia, police and local officials said Friday, the third such death in the province in as many months.

Maga, a 74-year-old woman who like many Indonesians had one name, raised concerns when she did not return home on Wednesday, prompting a search by relatives.

She was found dead presumably "because of being constricted and bitten by the snake", said Supriadi, police spokesman in Palopo city in South Sulawesi province.

He told AFP the snake in question was a four-metre python.

The woman was found with bites on her head and legs near her family home after going to work in a field, said Awaluddin, head of Padang Lambe district in Palopo.

She was found in Padang Lambe by her daughter with the snake just metres from her body, Awaluddin told AFP. 

Locals beat the snake to death and said the woman had been swallowed up to her shoulders and vomited out, he added.

Deaths by large constrictors are considered rare, but several people in Indonesia have been killed by pythons in recent years.

Last month, a woman was found dead inside the belly of a snake after it swallowed her whole in Siteba village, in South Sulawesi province.

In June a woman was found dead inside the belly of a reticulated python in another district of South Sulawesi.

And last year, residents in the province killed an eight-metre python, which was found in a village eating a farmer it had killed. 

Similar incidents were also reported on Sulawesi Island in 2018 and 2017.