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Various - "Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861"

Comte de Lautreamont - "Les Chants de Maldoror"

Various - "Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 13, 1890"

Robert Kerr - "A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV."

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Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. by Sir James George Frazer

S >> Sir James George Frazer >> Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I.




[Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the Jews and in Syria.]

According to the Talmud, if a woman at the beginning of her period
passes between two men, she thereby kills one of them; if she passes
between them towards the end of her period, she only causes them to
quarrel violently.[208] Maimonides tells us that down to his time it was
a common custom in the East to keep women at their periods in a separate
house and to burn everything on which they had trodden; a man who spoke
with such a woman or who was merely exposed to the same wind that blew
over her, became thereby unclean.[209] Peasants of the Lebanon think
that menstruous women are the cause of 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.[210] In Syria to this day a
woman who has her courses on her may neither salt nor pickle, for the
people think that whatever she pickled or salted would not keep.[211]
The Toaripi of New Guinea, doubtless for a similar reason, will not
allow women at such times to cook.[212]

[Dread and seclusion of menstruous women in India.]

The Bhuiyars, a Dravidian tribe of South Mirzapur, are said to feel an
intense dread of menstrual pollution. Every house has two doors, one of
which is used only by women in this condition. During her impurity the
wife is fed by her husband apart from the rest of the family, and
whenever she has to quit the house she is obliged to creep out on her
hands and knees in order not to defile the thatch by her touch.[213] The
Kharwars, another aboriginal tribe of the same district, keep their
women at such seasons in the outer verandah of the house for eight days,
and will not let them enter the kitchen or the cowhouse; during this
time the unclean woman may not cook nor even touch the cooking vessels.
When the eight days are over, she bathes, washes her clothes, and
returns to family life.[214] Hindoo women seclude themselves at their
monthly periods and observe a number of rules, such as not to drink
milk, not to milk cows, not to touch fire, not to lie on a high bed, not
to walk on common paths, not to cross the track of animals, not to walk
by the side of flowering plants, and not to observe the heavenly
bodies.[215] The motive for these restrictions is not mentioned, but
probably it is a dread of the baleful influence which is supposed to
emanate from women at these times. The Parsees, who reverence fire, will
not suffer menstruous women to see it or even to look on a lighted
taper;[216] during their infirmity the women retire from their houses to
little lodges in the country, whither victuals are brought to them
daily; at the end of their seclusion they bathe and send a kid, a fowl,
or a pigeon to the priest as an offering.[217] In Annam a woman at her
monthly periods is deemed a centre of impurity, and contact with her is
avoided. She is subject to all sorts of restrictions which she must
observe herself and which others must observe towards her. She may not
touch any food which is to be preserved by salting, whether it be fish,
flesh, or vegetables; for were she to touch it the food would putrefy.
She may not enter any sacred place, she may not be present at any
religious ceremony. The linen which she wears at such times must be
washed by herself at sunrise, never at night. On reaching puberty girls
may not touch flowers or the fruits of certain trees, for touched by
them the flowers would fade and the fruits fall to the ground. "It is on
account of their reputation for impurity that the women generally live
isolated. In every house they have an apartment reserved for them, and
they never eat at the same table as the men. For the same reason they
are excluded from all religious ceremonies. They may only be present at
family ceremonies, but without ever officiating in them."[218]

[Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the Indians of South and
Central America.]

The Guayquiries of the Orinoco think 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.[219]
Among the Guaraunos of the same great river, women at their periods are
regarded as unclean and kept apart in special huts, where all that they
need is brought to them.[220] In like manner among the Piapocos, an
Indian tribe on the Guayabero, a tributary of the Orinoco, a menstruous
woman is secluded from her family every month for four or five days. She
passes the time in a special hut, whither her husband brings her food;
and at the end of the time she takes a bath and resumes her usual
occupations.[221] So among the Indians of the Mosquito territory in
Central America, when a woman is in her courses, she must quit the
village for seven or eight days. A small hut is built for her in the
wood, and at night some of the village girls go and sleep with her to
keep her company. Or if the nights are dark and jaguars are known to be
prowling in the neighbourhood, her husband will take his gun or bow and
sleep in a hammock near her. She may neither handle nor cook food; all
is prepared and carried to her. When the sickness is over, she bathes in
the river, puts on clean clothes, and returns to her household
duties.[222] Among the Bri-bri Indians of Costa Rica a girl at her first
menstruation retires to a hut built for the purpose in the forest, and
there she must stay till she has been purified by a medicine-man, who
breathes on her and places various objects, such as feathers, the beaks
of birds, the teeth of beasts, and so forth, upon her body. A married
woman at her periods remains in the house with her husband, but she is
reckoned unclean (_bukuru_) and must avoid all intimate relations with
him. She 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.[223]

[Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the Indians of North
America.]

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. No article of furniture used in
these menstrual huts might be used in any other, not even the flint and
steel with which in the old days the fires were kindled. No one would
borrow a light from a woman in her seclusion. If a white man in his
ignorance asked to light his pipe at her fire, she would refuse to grant
the request, telling him that it would make his nose bleed and his head
ache, and that he would fall sick in consequence. If an Indian's wooden
pipe cracked, his friends would think that he had either lit it at one
of these polluted fires or had held some converse with a woman during
her retirement, which was esteemed a most disgraceful and wicked thing
to do. Decent men would not approach within a certain distance of a
woman at such times, and if they had to convey anything to her they
would stand some forty or fifty paces off and throw it to her.
Everything which was touched by her hands during this period was deemed
ceremonially unclean. Indeed her touch was thought to convey such
pollution that if she chanced to lay a finger on a chief's lodge or his
gun or anything else belonging to him, it would be instantly destroyed.
If she crossed the path of a hunter or a warrior, his luck for that day
at least would be gone. Were she not thus secluded, it was supposed that
the men would be attacked by diseases of various kinds, which would
prove mortal. In some tribes a woman who infringed the rules of
separation might have to answer with her life for any misfortunes that
might happen to individuals or to the tribe in consequence, as it was
supposed, of her criminal negligence. When she quitted her tent or hut
to go into retirement, the fire in it was extinguished and the ashes
thrown away outside of the village, and a new fire was kindled, as if
the old one had been defiled by her presence. At the end of their
seclusion the women bathed in running streams and returned to their
usual occupations.[224]

[Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the Creek, Choctaw,
Omaha, and Cheyenne Indians.]

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.[225] Similarly, the Choctaw women had to quit their huts during
their monthly periods, and might not return till after they had been
purified. While their uncleanness lasted they had to prepare their own
food. The men believed that if they were to approach a menstruous woman,
they would fall ill, and that some mishap would overtake them when they
went to the wars.[226] When an Omaha woman has her courses on her, she
retires from the family to a little shelter of bark or grass, supported
by sticks, where she kindles a fire and cooks her victuals alone. Her
seclusion lasts four days. During this time she may not approach or
touch a horse, for the Indians believe that such contamination would
impoverish or weaken the animal.[227] Among the Potawatomis the women at
their monthly periods "are not allowed to associate with the rest of the
nation; they are completely laid aside, and are not permitted to touch
any article of furniture or food which the men have occasion to use. If
the Indians be stationary at the time, the women are placed outside of
the camp; if on a march, they are not allowed to follow the trail, but
must take a different path and keep at a distance from the main
body."[228] Among the Cheyennes menstruous women slept in special
lodges; the men believed that if they slept with their wives at such
times, they would probably be wounded in their next battle. A man who
owned a shield had very particularly to be on his guard against women in
their courses. He might not go into a lodge where one of them happened
to be, nor even into a lodge where one of them had been, until a
ceremony of purification had been performed. Sweet grass and juniper
were burnt in the tent, and the pegs were pulled up and the covering
thrown back, as if the tent were about to be struck. After this pretence
of decamping from the polluted spot the owner of the shield might enter
the tent.[229]

[Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the Indians of British
Columbia.]

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. Neither her husband nor her
father would dream of going out to hunt while she was in this state; and
even if he had wished to do so, the other hunters would not go with him.
Hence to keep them out of harm's way, the women, both married and
unmarried, were secluded at these times for four days in shelters.[230]
Among the Thompson Indians of British Columbia every woman had to
isolate herself from the rest of the people during every recurring
period of menstruation, and had to live some little way off in a small
brush or bark lodge made for the purpose. At these times she was
considered unclean, must use cooking and eating utensils of her own, and
was supplied with food by some other woman. If she smoked out of a pipe
other than her own, that pipe would ever afterwards be hot to smoke. If
she crossed in front of a gun, that gun would thenceforth be useless for
the war or the chase, unless indeed the owner promptly washed the weapon
in "medecine" or struck the woman with it once on each principal part of
her body. If a man ate or had any intercourse with a menstruous woman,
nay if he merely wore clothes or mocassins made or patched by her, he
would have bad luck in hunting and the bears would attack him fiercely.
Before being admitted again among the people, she had to change all her
clothes and wash several times in clear water. The clothes worn during
her isolation were hung on a tree, to be used next time, or to be
washed. For one day after coming back among the people she did not cook
food. Were a man to eat food cooked by a woman at such times, he would
have incapacitated himself for hunting and exposed himself to sickness
or death.[231]

[Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the Chippeway Indians.]

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."[232] 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;[233] and the Esquimaux of Bering
Strait believe that if hunters were to come near women in their courses
they would catch no game.[234]

[Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the Tinneh or Dene
Indians; customs and beliefs of the Carrier Indians in regard to
menstruous women.]

But the beliefs and superstitions of this sort that prevail among the
western tribes of the great Dene or Tinneh stock, to which the
Chippeways belong, have been so well described by an experienced
missionary, that I will give his description in his own words. Prominent
among the ceremonial rites of these Indians, he says, "are the
observances peculiar to the fair sex, and many of them are remarkably
analogous to those practised by the Hebrew women, so much so that, were
it not savouring of profanity, the ordinances of the Dene ritual code
might be termed a new edition 'revised and considerably augmented' of
the Mosaic ceremonial law. Among the Carriers,[235] as soon as a girl
has experienced the first flow of the menses which in the female
constitution are a natural discharge, her father believed himself under
the obligation of atoning for her supposedly sinful condition by a small
impromptu distribution of clothes among the natives. This periodical
state of women was considered as one of legal impurity fateful both to
the man who happened to have any intercourse, however indirect, with
her, and to the woman herself who failed in scrupulously observing all
the rites prescribed by ancient usage for persons in her condition.

[Seclusion of Carrier girls at puberty.]

"Upon entering into that stage of her life, the maiden was immediately
sequestered from company, even that of her parents, and compelled to
dwell in a small branch hut by herself away from beaten paths and the
gaze of passers-by. As she was supposed to exercise malefic influence on
any man who might inadvertently glance at her, she had to wear a sort of
head-dress combining in itself the purposes of a veil, a bonnet, and a
mantlet. It was made of tanned skin, its forepart was shaped like a long
fringe completely hiding from view the face and breasts; then it formed
on the head a close-fitting cap or bonnet, and finally fell in a broad
band almost to the heels. This head-dress was made and publicly placed
on her head by a paternal aunt, who received at once some present from
the girl's father. When, three or four years later, the period of
sequestration ceased, only this same aunt had the right to take off her
niece's ceremonial head-dress. Furthermore, the girl's fingers, wrists,
and legs at the ankles and immediately below the knees, were encircled
with ornamental rings and bracelets of sinew intended as a protection
against the malign influences she was supposed to be possessed
with.[236] To a belt girding her waist were suspended two bone
implements called respectively _Tsoenkuz_ (bone tube) and _Tsiltsoet_
(head scratcher). The former was a hollowed swan bone to drink with, any
other mode of drinking being unlawful to her. The latter was fork-like
and was called into requisition whenever she wanted to scratch her
head--immediate contact of the fingers with the head being reputed
injurious to her health. While thus secluded, she was called _asta_,
that is 'interred alive' in Carrier, and she had to submit to a rigorous
fast and abstinence. Her only allowed food consisted of dried fish
boiled in a small bark vessel which nobody else must touch, and she had
to abstain especially from meat of any kind, as well as fresh fish. Nor
was this all she had to endure; even her contact, however remote, with
these two articles of diet was so dreaded that she could not cross the
public paths or trails, or the tracks of animals. Whenever absolute
necessity constrained her to go beyond such spots, she had to be packed
or carried over them lest she should contaminate the game or meat which
had passed that way, or had been brought over these paths; and also for
the sake of self-preservation against tabooed, and consequently to her,
deleterious food. In the same way she was never allowed to wade in
streams or lakes, for fear of causing death to the fish.

"It was also a prescription of the ancient ritual code for females
during this primary condition to eat as little as possible, and to
remain lying down, especially in course of each monthly flow, not only
as a natural consequence of the prolonged fast and resulting weakness;
but chiefly as an exhibition of a becoming penitential spirit which was
believed to be rewarded by long life and continual good health in after
years.

[Seclusion of Carrier women at their monthly periods; reasons for the
seclusion of menstruous women among the Indians.]

"These mortifications or seclusion did not last less than three or four
years. Useless to say that during all that time marriage could not be
thought of, since the girl could not so much as be seen by men. When
married, the same sequestration was practised relatively to husband and
fellow-villagers--without the particular head-dress and rings spoken
of--on the occasion of every recurring menstruation. Sometimes it was
protracted as long as ten days at a time, especially during the first
years of cohabitation. Even when she returned to her mate, she was not
permitted to sleep with him on the first nor frequently on the second
night, but would choose a distant corner of the lodge to spread her
blanket, as if afraid to defile him with her dread uncleanness."[237]
Elsewhere the same writer tells us that most of the devices to which
these Indians used to resort for the sake of ensuring success in the
chase "were based on their regard for continence and their excessive
repugnance for, and dread of, menstruating women."[238] But the strict
observances imposed on Tinneh or Dene women at such times were designed
at the same time to protect the women themselves from the evil
consequences of their dangerous condition. Thus it was thought that
women in their courses could not partake of the head, heart, or hind
part of an animal that had been caught in a snare without exposing
themselves to a premature death through a kind of rabies. They might not
cut or carve salmon, because to do so would seriously endanger their
health, and especially would enfeeble their arms for life. And they had
to abstain from cutting up the grebes which are caught by the Carriers
in great numbers every spring, because otherwise the blood with which
these fowls abound would occasion haemorrhage or an unnaturally
prolonged flux in the transgressor.[239] Similarly Indian women of the
Thompson tribe abstained from venison and the flesh of other large game
during menstruation, lest the animals should be displeased and the
menstrual flow increased.[240] For a similar reason, probably, Shuswap
girls during their seclusion at puberty are forbidden to eat anything
that bleeds.[241] The same principle may perhaps partly explain the
rule, of which we have had some examples, that women at such times
should refrain from fish and flesh, and restrict themselves to a
vegetable diet.

[Similar rules of seclusion enjoined on menstruous women in ancient
Hindoo, Persian, and Hebrew codes.]

The philosophic student of human nature will observe, or learn, without
surprise that ideas thus deeply ingrained in the savage mind reappear at
a more advanced stage of society in those elaborate codes which have
been drawn up for the guidance of certain peoples by lawgivers who claim
to have derived the rules they inculcate from the direct inspiration of
the deity. However we may explain it, the resemblance which exists
between the earliest official utterances of the deity and the ideas of
savages is unquestionably close and remarkable; whether it be, as some
suppose, that God communed face to face with man in those early days,
or, as others maintain, that man mistook his wild and wandering thoughts
for a revelation from heaven. Be that as it may, certain it is that the
natural uncleanness of woman at her monthly periods is a conception
which has occurred, or been revealed, with singular unanimity to several
ancient legislators. The Hindoo lawgiver Manu, who professed to have
received his institutes from the creator Brahman, informs us that the
wisdom, the energy, the strength, the sight, and the vitality of a man
who approaches a woman in her courses will utterly perish; whereas, if
he avoids her, his wisdom, energy, strength, sight, and vitality will
all increase.[242] The Persian lawgiver Zoroaster, who, if we can take
his word for it, derived his code from the mouth of the supreme being
Ahura Mazda, devoted special attention to the subject. According to him,
the menstrous flow, at least in its abnormal manifestations, is a work
of Ahriman, or the devil. Therefore, so long as it lasts, a woman "is
unclean and possessed of the demon; she must be kept confined, apart
from the faithful whom her touch would defile, and from the fire which
her very look would injure; she is not allowed to eat as much as she
wishes, as the strength she might acquire would accrue to the fiends.
Her food is not given her from hand to hand, but is passed to her from a
distance, in a long leaden spoon."[243] The Hebrew lawgiver Moses, whose
divine legation is as little open to question as that of Manu and
Zoroaster, treats the subject at still greater length; but I must leave
to the reader the task of comparing the inspired ordinances on this head
with the merely human regulations of the Carrier Indians which they so
closely resemble.

[Superstitions as to menstruous women in ancient and modern Europe.]

Amongst the civilized 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.[244] 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.[245] In Brunswick people think that if a menstruous
woman assists at the killing of a pig, the pork will putrefy.[246] 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.[247]