Balder the Beautiful Part 6

[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 gra.s.s, 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 a.s.sociate 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 gra.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 princ.i.p.al part of her body. If a man ate or had any intercourse with a menstruous woman, nay if he merely wore clothes or moca.s.sins 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 sh.o.r.e 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 superst.i.tions 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 s.e.x, and many of them are remarkably a.n.a.logous 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 const.i.tution 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 p.u.b.erty.]

"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 pa.s.sers-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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s; 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 n.o.body 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 pa.s.sed 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 p.u.b.erty 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 G.o.d 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 inst.i.tutes 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 pa.s.sed 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.

[Superst.i.tions as to menstruous women in ancient and modern Europe.]

Amongst the civilized nations of Europe the superst.i.tions which cl.u.s.ter 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 bra.s.s (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 a.s.sists 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]

[The intention of secluding menstruous women is to neutralize the dangerous influences which are thought to emanate from them in that condition; suspension between heaven and earth.]

Thus the object of secluding women at menstruation is to neutralize 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 ill.u.s.trated above, namely, the rules that the girl 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 p.u.b.erty, and in some Brazilian tribes the young women think that a transgression of the rules would entail sores on the neck and throat. 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.

[The same explanation applies to the similar rules of seclusion observed by divine kings and priests; suspension between heaven and earth.]

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 p.u.b.erty and the sanct.i.ty 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.[248] Accordingly, if, like girls at p.u.b.erty, 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 the second part of this work;[249] 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.[250]

[Stories of immortality attained by suspension between heaven and earth.]

In legends and folk-tales, which reflect the ideas of earlier ages, we find this suspension between heaven and earth attributed to beings who have been endowed with the coveted yet burdensome gift of immortality.

The wizened remains of the deathless Sibyl are said to have been preserved in a jar or urn which hung in a temple of Apollo at c.u.mae; and when a group of merry children, tired, perhaps, of playing in the sunny streets, sought the shade of the temple and amused themselves by gathering underneath the familiar jar and calling out, "Sibyl, what do you wish?" a hollow voice, like an echo, used to answer from the urn, "I wish to die."[251] A story, taken down from the lips of a German peasant at Thomsdorf, relates that once upon a time there was a girl in London who wished to live for ever, so they say:

"_London, London is a fine town.

A maiden prayed to live for ever._"

And still she lives and hangs in a basket in a church, and every St.

John's Day, about the hour of noon, she eats a roll of bread.[252]

Another German story tells of a lady who resided at Danzig and was so rich and so blest with all that life can give that she wished to live always. So when she came to her latter end, she did not really die but only looked like dead, and very soon they found her in a hollow of a pillar in the church, half standing and half sitting, motionless. She stirred never a limb, but they saw quite plainly that she was alive, and she sits there down to this blessed day. Every New Year's Day the sacristan comes and puts a morsel of the holy bread in her mouth, and that is all she has to live on. Long, long has she rued her fatal wish who set this transient life above the eternal joys of heaven.[253] A third German story tells of a n.o.ble damsel who cherished the same foolish wish for immortality. So they put her in a basket and hung her up in a church, and there she hangs and never dies, though many a year has come and gone since they put her there. But every year on a certain day they give her a roll, and she eats it and cries out, "For ever! for ever! for ever!" And when she has so cried she falls silent again till the same time next year, and so it will go on for ever and for ever.[254] A fourth story, taken down near Oldenburg in Holstein, tells of a jolly dame that ate and drank and lived right merrily and had all that heart could desire, and she wished to live always. For the first hundred years all went well, but after that she began to shrink and shrivel up, till at last she could neither walk nor stand nor eat nor drink. But die she could not. At first they fed her as if she were a little child, but when she grew smaller and smaller they put her in a gla.s.s bottle and hung her up in the church. And there she still hangs, in the church of St. Mary, at Lubeck. She is as small as a mouse, but once a year she stirs.[255]

Notes:

[64] Pechuel-Loesche, "Indiscretes aus Loango," _Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie_, x. (1878) p. 23.

[65] Rev. J. Macdonald, "Manners, Customs, Superst.i.tions, and Religions of South African Tribes," _Journal of the Anthropological Inst.i.tute_, xx. (1891) p. 118.

[66] Dudley Kidd, _The Essential Kafir_ (London, 1904), p. 209. The prohibition to drink milk under such circ.u.mstances is also mentioned, though without the reason for it, by L. Alberti (_De Kaffersaan de Zuidkust van Afrika_, Amsterdam, 1810, p. 79), George Thompson (_Travels and Adventures in Southern Africa_, London, 1827, ii. 354 _sq._), and Mr. Warner (in Col. Maclean's _Compendium of Kafir Laws and Customs_; Cape Town, 1866, p. 98). As to the reason for the prohibition, see below, p. 80.

[67] C.W. Hobley, _Ethnology of A-Kamba and other East African Tribes_ (Cambridge, 1910), p. 65.

[68] Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), p. 80. As to the interpretation which the Baganda put on the act of jumping or stepping over a woman, see _id._, pp. 48, 357 note 1. Apparently some of the Lower Congo people interpret the act similarly. See J.H. Weeks, "Notes on some Customs of the Lower Congo People," _Folk-lore_, xix. (1908) p.

431. Among the Baganda the separation of children from their parents took place after weaning; girls usually went to live either with an elder married brother or (if there was none such) with one of their father's brothers; boys in like manner went to live with one of their father's brothers. See J. Roscoe, _op. cit._ p. 74. As to the prohibition to touch food with the hands, see _Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, pp. 138 _sqq._, 146 _sqq._, etc.

[69] Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_, p. 80.

[70] De la Loubere, _Du royaume de Siam_ (Amsterdam, 1691), i. 203. In Travancore it is believed that women at p.u.b.erty and after childbirth are peculiarly liable to be attacked by demons. See S. Mateer, _The Land of Charity_ (London, 1871), p. 208.

[71] Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_, p. 80.

[72] C. Gouldsbury and H. Sheane, _The Great Plateau of Northern Nigeria_ (London, 1911), pp. 158-160.

[73] R. Sutherland Rattray, _Some Folk-lore, Stories and Songs in Chinyanja_ (London, 1907), pp. 102-105.

[74] Rev. H. Cole, "Notes on the Wagogo of German East Africa," _Journal of the Anthropological Inst.i.tute_, x.x.xii. (1902) pp. 309 _sq._

[75] R. Sutherland Rattray, _op. cit._ pp. 191 _sq._

[76] _The Grihya Sutras_, translated by H. Oldenberg, Part i. p. 357, Part ii. p. 267 (_Sacred Books of the East_, vols. xxix., x.x.x.).

[77] Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), pp. 393 _sq._, compare pp. 396, 398.

[78] See _Totemism and Exogamy_, iv. 224 _sqq._

[79] Sir Harry H. Johnston, _British Central Africa_ (London, 1897), p.

411.

[80] Oscar Baumann, _Durch Ma.s.sailand zur Nilquelle_ (Berlin, 1894), p.

178.

[81] Lionel Decle, _Three Years in Savage Africa_ (London, 1898), p. 78.