[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]