Section 4. Reasons for the Seclusion of Girls at Puberty.
THE MOTIVE for the restraints so commonly imposed on girls at puberty is
the deeply engrained dread which primitive man universally entertains of
menstruous blood. He fears it at all times but especially on its first
appearance; hence the restrictions under which women lie at their first
menstruation are usually more stringent than those which they have to
observe at any subsequent recurrence of the mysterious flow. Some
evidence of the fear and of the customs based on it has been cited in an
earlier part of this work; but as the terror, for it is nothing less, which the
phenomenon periodically strikes into the mind of the savage has deeply
influenced his life and institutions, it may be well to illustrate the subject
with some further examples. 1
Thus in the Encounter Bay tribe of South Australia there is, or used to be,
a "superstition which obliges a woman to separate herself from the camp at
the time of her monthly illness, when if a young man or boy should
approach, she calls out, and he immediately makes a circuit to avoid her.
If she is neglectful upon this point, she exposes herself to scolding, and
sometimes to severe beating by her husband or nearest relation, because
the boys are told from their infancy, that if they see the blood they will
early become grey-headed, and their strength will fail prematurely." The
Dieri of Central Australia believe that if women at these times were to eat
fish or bathe in a river, the fish would all die and the water would dry up.
The Arunta of the same region forbid menstruous women to gather the
irriakura bulbs, which form a staple article of diet for both men and women.
They think that were a woman to break this rule, the supply of bulbs would
fail. 2
In some Australian tribes the seclusion of menstruous women was even
more rigid, and was enforced by severer penalties than a scolding or a
beating. Thus "there is a regulation relating to camps in the Wakelbura
tribe which forbids the women coming into the encampment by the same
path as the men. Any violation of this rule would in a large camp be
punished with death. The reason for this is the dread with which they
regard the menstrual period of women. During such a time, a woman is
kept entirely away from the camp, half a mile at least. A woman in such a
condition has boughs of some tree of her totem tied round her loins, and is
constantly watched and guarded, for it is thought that should any male be
so unfortunate as to see a woman in such a condition, he would die. If
such a woman were to let herself be seen by a man, she would probably
be put to death. When the woman has recovered, she is painted red and
white, her head covered with feathers, and returns to the camp." 3
In Muralug, one of the Torres Straits Islands, a menstruous woman may
not eat anything that lives in the sea, else the natives believe that the
fisheries would fail. In Galela, to the west of New Guinea, women at their
monthly periods may not enter a tobacco-field, or the plants would be
attacked by disease. The Minangkabauers of Sumatra are persuaded that
if a woman in her unclean state were to go near a rice-field, the crop
would be spoiled. 4
The Bushmen of South Africa think that, by a glance of a girl's eye at the
time when she ought to be kept in strict retirement, men become fixed in
whatever positions they happen to occupy, with whatever they were
holding in their hands, and are changed into trees that talk. Cattle-rearing
tribes of South Africa hold that their cattle would die if the milk were drunk
by a menstruous woman; and they fear the same disaster if a drop of her
blood were to fall on the ground and the oxen were to pass over it. To
prevent such a calamity women in general, not menstruous women only,
are forbidden to enter the cattle enclosure; and more than that, they may
not use the ordinary paths in entering the village or in passing from one
hut to another. They are obliged to make circuitous tracks at the back of
the huts in order to avoid the ground in the middle of the village where the
cattle stand or lie down. These women's tracks may be seen at every
Caffre village. Among the Baganda, in like manner, no menstruous woman
might drink milk or come into contact with any milk-vessel; and she might
not touch anything that belonged to her husband, nor sit on his mat, nor
cook his food. If she touched anything of his at such a time it was deemed
equivalent to wishing him dead or to actually working magic for his
destruction. Were she to handle any article of his, he would surely fall ill;
were she to touch his weapons, he would certainly be killed in the next
battle. Further, the Baganda would not suffer a menstruous woman to visit
a well; if she did so, they feared that the water would dry up, and that she
herself would fall sick and die, unless she confessed her fault and the
medicine-man made atonement for her. Among the Akikuyu of British East
Africa, if a new hut is built in a village and the wife chances to menstruate
in it on the day she lights the first fire there, the hut must be broken down
and demolished the very next day. The woman may on no account sleep a
second night in it; there is a curse both on her and on it. 5
According to the Talmud, if a woman at the beginning of her period
passes between two men, she thereby kills one of them. Peasants of the
Lebanon think that menstruous women are the cause or many misfortunes;
their shadow causes flowers to wither and trees to perish, it even arrests
the movements of serpents; if one of them mounts a horse, the animal might
die or at least be disabled for a long time. 6
The Guayquiries of the Orinoco believe that when a woman has her
courses, everything upon which she steps will die, and that if a man treads
on the place where she has passed, his legs will immediately swell up.
Among the Bri-bri Indians of Costa Rica a married woman at her periods
uses for plates only banana leaves, which, when she has done with them,
she throws away in a sequestered spot; for should a cow find and eat
them, the animal would waste away and perish. Also she drinks only out of
a special vessel, because any person who should afterwards drink out of
the same vessel would infallibly pine away and die. 7
Among most tribes of North American Indians the custom was that women
in their courses retired from the camp or the village and lived during the
time of their uncleanness in special huts or shelters which were
appropriated to their use. There they dwelt apart, eating and sleeping by
themselves, warming themselves at their own fires, and strictly abstaining
from all communications with men, who shunned them just as if they were
stricken with the plague. 8
Thus, to take examples, the Creek and kindred Indians of the United
States compelled women at menstruation to live in separate huts at some
distance from the village. There the women had to stay, at the risk of being
surprised and cut off by enemies. It was thought "a most horrid and
dangerous pollution" to go near the women at such times; and the danger
extended to enemies who, if they slew the women, had to cleanse
themselves from the pollution by means of certain sacred herbs and roots.
The Stseelis Indians of British Columbia imagined that if a menstruous
woman were to step over a bundle of arrows, the arrows would thereby be
rendered useless and might even cause the death of their owner; and
similarly that if she passed in front of a hunter who carried a gun, the
weapon would never shoot straight again. Among the Chippeways and
other Indians of the Hudson Bay Territory, menstruous women are
excluded from the camp, and take up their abode in huts of branches.
They wear long hoods, which effectually conceal the head and breast.
They may not touch the household furniture nor any objects used by men;
for their touch "is supposed to defile them, so that their subsequent use
would be followed by certain mischief or misfortune," such as disease or
death. They must drink out of a swan's bone. They may not walk on the
common paths nor cross the tracks of animals. They "are never permitted
to walk on the ice of rivers or lakes, or near the part where the men are
hunting beaver, or where a fishing-net is set, for fear of averting their
success. They are also prohibited at those times from partaking of the head
of any animal, and even from walking in or crossing the track where the
head of a deer, moose, beaver, and many other animals have lately been
carried, either on a sledge or on the back. To be guilty of a violation of this
custom is considered as of the greatest importance; because they firmly
believe that it would be a means of preventing the hunter from having an
equal success in his future excursions." So the Lapps forbid women at
menstruation to walk on that part of the shore where the fishers are in the
habit of setting out their fish; and the Esquimaux of Bering Strait believe
that if hunters were to come near women in their courses they would catch
no game. For a like reason the Carrier Indians will not suffer a menstruous
woman to cross the tracks of animals; if need be, she is carried over them.
They think that if she waded in a stream or a lake, the fish would die. 9
Amongst the civilised nations of Europe the superstitions which cluster
round this mysterious aspect of woman's nature are not less extravagant
than those which prevail among savages. In the oldest existing
cyclopaedia-the Natural History of Pliny-the list of dangers apprehended
from menstruation is longer than any furnished by mere barbarians.
According to Pliny, the touch of a menstruous woman turned wine to
vinegar, blighted crops, killed seedlings, blasted gardens, brought down
the fruit from trees, dimmed mirrors, blunted razors, rusted iron and brass
(especially at the waning of the moon), killed bees, or at least drove them
from their hives, caused mares to miscarry, and so forth. Similarly, in
various parts of Europe, it is still believed that if a woman in her courses
enters a brewery the beer will turn sour; if she touches beer, wine,
vinegar, or milk, it will go bad; if she makes jam, it will not keep; if she
mounts a mare, it will miscarry; if she touches buds, they will wither; if she
climbs a cherry tree, it will die. In Brunswick people think that if a
menstruous woman assists at the killing of a pig, the pork will putrefy. In the
Greek island of Calymnos a woman at such times may not go to the well to
draw water, nor cross a running stream, nor enter the sea. Her presence in
a boat is said to raise storms. 10
Thus the object of secluding women at menstruation is to neutralise the
dangerous influences which are supposed to emanate from them at such
times. That the danger is believed to be especially great at the first
menstruation appears from the unusual precautions taken to isolate girls at
this crisis. Two of these precautions have been illustrated above, namely,
the rules that the girls may not touch the ground nor see the sun. The
general effect of these rules is to keep her suspended, so to say, between
heaven and earth. Whether enveloped in her hammock and slung up to the
roof, as in South America, or raised above the ground in a dark and
narrow cage, as in New Ireland, she may be considered to be out of the
way of doing mischief, since, being shut off both from the earth and from
the sun, she can poison neither of these great sources of life by her
deadly contagion. In short, she is rendered harmless by being, in electrical
language, insulated. But the precautions thus taken to isolate or insulate
the girl are dictated by a regard for her own safety as well as for the safety
of others. For it is thought that she herself would suffer if she were to
neglect the prescribed regimen. Thus Zulu girls, as we have seen, believe
that they would shrivel to skeletons if the sun were to shine on them at
puberty, and the Macusis imagine that, if a young woman were to
transgress the rules, she would suffer from sores on various parts of her
body. In short, the girl is viewed as charged with a powerful force which, if
not kept within bounds, may prove destructive both to herself and to all
with whom she comes in contact. To repress this force within the limits
necessary for the safety of all concerned is the object of the taboos in
question. 11
The same explanation applies to the observance of the same rules by
divine kings and priests. The uncleanness, as it is called, of girls at
puberty and the sanctity of holy men do not, to the primitive mind, differ
materially from each other. They are only different manifestations of the
same mysterious energy which, like energy in general, is in itself neither
good nor bad, but becomes beneficent or maleficent according to its
application. Accordingly, if, like girls at puberty, divine personages may
neither touch the ground nor see the sun, the reason is, on the one hand,
a fear lest their divinity might, at contact with earth or heaven, discharge
itself with fatal violence on either; and, on the other hand, an
apprehension that the divine being, thus drained of his ethereal virtue,
might thereby be incapacitated for the future performance of those magical
functions, upon the proper discharge of which the safety of the people and
even of the world is believed to hang. Thus the rules in question fall under
the head of the taboos which we examined in an earlier part of this book;
they are intended to preserve the life of the divine person and with it the
life of his subjects and worshippers. Nowhere, it is thought, can his
precious yet dangerous life be at once so safe and so harmless as when it
is neither in heaven nor in earth, but, as far as possible, suspended
between the two. 12