If this view is correct, we can understand why so many Indian tribes of South America compel the youth of both sexes to submit to these painful and sometimes fatal ordeals. They imagine that in this way they rid the young folk of certain evils inherent in youth, especially at the critical age of puberty; and when they picture to themselves the evils in a personal form as dangerous spirits or demons, the ceremony of their expulsion may in the strict sense be termed an exorcism. This certainly appears to be the interpretation which the Banivas of the Orinoco put upon the cruel scourgings which they inflict on girls at puberty. At her first menstruation a Baniva girl must pass several days and nights in her hammock, almost motionless and getting nothing to eat and drink but water and a little manioc. While she lies there, the suitors for her hand apply to her father, and he who can afford to give most for her or can prove himself the best man, is promised the damsel in marriage. The fast over, some old men enter the hut, bandage the girl's eyes, cover her head with a bonnet of which the fringes fall on her shoulders, and then lead her forth and tie her to a post set up in an open place. The head of the post is carved in the shape of a grotesque face. None but the old men may witness what follows. Were a woman caught peeping and prying, it would go ill with her; she would be marked out for the vengeance of the demon, who would make her expiate her crime at the very next moon by madness or death. Every participant in the ceremony comes armed with a scourge of cords or of fish skins; some of them reinforce the virtue of the instrument by tying little sharp stones to the end of the thongs. Then, to the dismal and deafening notes of shell-trumpets blown by two or three supernumeraries, the men circle round and round the post, every one applying his scourge as he passes to the girl's back, till it streams with blood. At last the musicians, winding tremendous blasts on their trumpets against the demon, advance and touch the post in which he is supposed to be incorporate. Then the blows cease to descend; the girl is untied, often in a fainting state, and carried away to have her wounds washed and simples applied to them. The youngest of the executioners, or rather of the exorcists, hastens to inform her betrothed husband of the happy issue of the exorcism. "The spirit," he says, "had cast thy beloved into a sleep as deep almost as that of death. But we have rescued her from his attacks, and laid her down in such and such a place. Go seek her." Then going from house to house through the village he cries to the inmates, "Come, let us burn the demon who would have taken possession of such and such a girl, our friend." The bridegroom at once carries his wounded and suffering bride to his own house; and all the people gather round the post for the pleasure of burning it and the demon together. A great pile of firewood has meanwhile been heaped up about it, and the women run round the pyre cursing in shrill voices the wicked spirit who has wrought all this evil. The men join in with hoarser cries and animate themselves for the business in hand by deep draughts of an intoxicant which has been provided for the occasion by the parents-in-law. Soon the bridegroom, having committed the bride to the care of his mother, appears on the scene brandishing a lighted torch. He addresses the demon with bitter mockery and reproaches; informs him that the fair creature on whom he, the demon, had nefarious designs, is now his, the bridegroom's, blooming spouse; and shaking his torch at the grinning head on the post, he screams out, "This is how the victims of thy persecution take vengeance on thee!" With these words he puts a light to the pyre. At once the drums strike up, the trumpets blare, and men, women, and children begin to dance. In two long rows they dance, the men on one side, the women on the other, advancing till they almost touch and then retiring again. After that the two rows join hands, and forming a huge circle trip it round and round the blaze, till the post with its grotesque face is consumed in the flames and nothing of the pyre remains but a heap of red and glowing embers. "The evil spirit has been destroyed. Thus delivered from her persecutor, the young wife will be free from sickness, will not die in childbed, and will bear many children to her husband."[156] From this account it appears that the Banivas attribute the symptoms of puberty in girls to the wounds inflicted on them by an amorous devil, who, however, can be not only exorcised but burnt to ashes at the stake.

Sec. 6. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty in India and Cambodia

[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Hindoos; seclusion of girls at puberty in Southern India.]

When a Hindoo maiden reaches maturity she is kept in a dark room for four days, and is forbidden to see the sun. She is regarded as unclean; no one may touch her. Her diet is restricted to boiled rice, milk, sugar, curd, and tamarind without salt. On the morning of the fifth day she goes to a neighbouring tank, accompanied by five women whose husbands are alive. Smeared with turmeric water, they all bathe and return home, throwing away the mat and other things that were in the room.[157] The Rarhi Brahmans of Bengal compel a girl at puberty to live alone, and do not allow her to see the face of any male. For three days she remains shut up in a dark room, and has to undergo certain penances. Fish, flesh, and sweetmeats are forbidden her; she must live upon rice and ghee.[158] Among the Tiyans of Malabar a girl is thought to be polluted for four days from the beginning of her first menstruation. During this time she must keep to the north side of the house, where she sleeps on a grass mat of a particular kind, in a room festooned with garlands of young coco-nut leaves. Another girl keeps her company and sleeps with her, but she may not touch any other person, tree or plant. Further, she may not see the sky, and woe betide her if she catches sight of a crow or a cat! Her diet must be strictly vegetarian, without salt, tamarinds, or chillies. She is armed against evil spirits by a knife, which is placed on the mat or carried on her person.[159] Among the Kappiliyans of Madura and Tinnevelly a girl at her first monthly period remains under pollution for thirteen days, either in a corner of the house, which is screened off for her use by her maternal uncle, or in a temporary hut, which is erected by the same relative on the common land of the village. On the thirteenth day she bathes in a tank, and, on entering the house, steps over a pestle and a cake. Near the entrance some food is placed and a dog is allowed to partake of it; but his enjoyment is marred by suffering, for while he eats he receives a sound thrashing, and the louder he howls the better, for the larger will be the family to which the young woman will give birth; should there be no howls, there will be no children. The temporary hut in which the girl passed the days of her seclusion is burnt down, and the pots which she used are smashed to shivers.[160] Similarly among the Parivarams of Madura, when a girl attains to puberty she is kept for sixteen days in a hut, which is guarded at night by her relations; and when her sequestration is over the hut is burnt down and the pots she used are broken into very small pieces, because they think that if rain-water gathered in any of them, the girl would be childless.[161] The Pulayars of Travancore build a special hut in the jungle for the use of a girl at puberty; there she remains for seven days. No one else may enter the hut, not even her mother. Women stand a little way off and lay down food for her. At the end of the time she is brought home, clad in a new or clean cloth, and friends are treated to betel-nut, toddy, and arack.[162] Among the Singhalese a girl at her first menstruation is confined to a room, where she may neither see nor be seen by any male. After being thus secluded for two weeks she is taken out, with her face covered, and is bathed by women at the back of the house. Near the bathing-place are kept branches of any milk-bearing tree, usually of the jak-tree. In some cases, while the time of purification or uncleanness lasts, the maiden stays in a separate hut, which is afterwards burnt down.[163]

[Seclusion of girls at puberty in Cambodia.]

In Cambodia a girl at puberty is put to bed under a mosquito curtain, where she should stay a hundred days. Usually, however, four, five, ten, or twenty days are thought enough; and even this, in a hot climate and under the close meshes of the curtain, is sufficiently trying.[164] According to another account, a Cambodian maiden at puberty is said to "enter into the shade." During her retirement, which, according to the rank and position of her family, may last any time from a few days to several years, she has to observe a number of rules, such as not to be seen by a strange man, not to eat flesh or fish, and so on. She goes nowhere, not even to the pagoda. But this state of seclusion is discontinued during eclipses; at such times she goes forth and pays her devotions to the monster who is supposed to cause eclipses by catching the heavenly bodies between his teeth.[165] This permission to break her rule of retirement and appear abroad during an eclipse seems to shew how literally the injunction is interpreted which forbids maidens entering on womanhood to look upon the sun.

Sec. 7. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty in Folk-tales

[Traces of the seclusion of girls at puberty in folk-tales. Danish story of the girl who might not see the sun.]

A superstition so widely diffused as this might be expected to leave traces in legends and folk-tales. And it has done so. In a Danish story we read of a princess who was fated to be carried off by a warlock if ever the sun shone on her before she had passed her thirtieth year; so the king her father kept her shut up in the palace, and had all the windows on the east, south, and west sides blocked up, lest a sunbeam should fall on his darling child, and he should thus lose her for ever. Only at evening, when the sun was down, might she walk for a little in the beautiful garden of the castle. In time a prince came a-wooing, followed by a train of gorgeous knights and squires on horses all ablaze with gold and silver. The king said the prince might have his daughter to wife on condition that he would not carry her away to his home till she was thirty years old but would live with her in the castle, where the windows looked out only to the north. The prince agreed, so married they were. The bride was only fifteen, and fifteen more long weary years must pass before she might step out of the gloomy donjon, breathe the fresh air, and see the sun. But she and her gallant young bridegroom loved each other and they were happy. Often they sat hand in hand at the window looking out to the north and talked of what they would do when they were free. Still it was a little dull to look out always at the same window and to see nothing but the castle woods, and the distant hills, and the clouds drifting silently over them. Well, one day it happened that all the people in the castle had gone away to a neighbouring castle to witness a tournament and other gaieties, and the two young folks were left as usual all alone at the window looking out to the north. They sat silent for a time gazing away to the hills. It was a grey sad day, the sky was overcast, and the weather seemed to draw to rain. At last the prince said, "There will be no sunshine to-day. What if we were to drive over and join the rest at the tournament?" His young wife gladly consented, for she longed to see more of the world than those eternal green woods and those eternal blue hills, which were all she ever saw from the window. So the horses were put into the coach, and it rattled up to the door, and in they got and away they drove. At first all went well. The clouds hung low over the woods, the wind sighed in the trees, a drearier day you could hardly imagine. So they joined the rest at the other castle and took their seats to watch the jousting in the lists. So intent were they in watching the gay spectacle of the prancing steeds, the fluttering pennons, and the glittering armour of the knights, that they failed to mark the change, the fatal change, in the weather. For the wind was rising and had begun to disperse the clouds, and suddenly the sun broke through, and the glory of it fell like an aureole on the young wife, and at once she vanished away. No sooner did her husband miss her from his side than he, too, mysteriously disappeared. The tournament broke up in confusion, the bereft father hastened home, and shut himself up in the dark castle from which the light of life had departed. The green woods and the blue hills could still be seen from the window that looked to the north, but the young faces that had gazed out of it so wistfully were gone, as it seemed, for ever.[166]

[Tyrolese story of the girl who might not see the sun.]

A Tyrolese story tells how it was the doom of a lovely maiden with golden hair to be transported into the belly of a whale if ever a sunbeam fell on her. Hearing of the fame of her beauty the king of the country sent for her to be his bride, and her brother drove the fair damsel to the palace in a carefully closed coach, himself sitting on the box and handling the reins. On the way they overtook two hideous witches, who pretended they were weary and begged for a lift in the coach. At first the brother refused to take them in, but his tender-hearted sister entreated him to have compassion on the two poor footsore women; for you may easily imagine that she was not acquainted with their true character. So down he got rather surlily from the box, opened the coach door, and in the two witches stepped, laughing in their sleeves. But no sooner had the brother mounted the box and whipped up the horses, than one of the two wicked witches bored a hole in the closed coach. A sunbeam at once shot through the hole and fell on the fair damsel. So she vanished from the coach and was spirited away into the belly of a whale in the neighbouring sea. You can imagine the consternation of the king, when the coach door opened and instead of his blooming bride out bounced two hideous hags![167]

[Modern Greek stories of the maid who might not see the sun.]

In a modern Greek folk-tale the Fates predict that in her fifteenth year a princess must be careful not to let the sun shine on her, for if this were to happen she would be turned into a lizard.[168] In another modern Greek tale the Sun bestows a daughter upon a childless woman on condition of taking the child back to himself when she is twelve years old. So, when the child was twelve, the mother closed the doors and windows, and stopped up all the chinks and crannies, to prevent the Sun from coming to fetch away her daughter. But she forgot to stop up the key-hole, and a sunbeam streamed through it and carried off the girl.[169] In a Sicilian story a seer foretells that a king will have a daughter who, in her fourteenth year, will conceive a child by the Sun. So, when the child was born, the king shut her up in a lonely tower which had no window, lest a sunbeam should fall on her. When she was nearly fourteen years old, it happened that her parents sent her a piece of roasted kid, in which she found a sharp bone. With this bone she scraped a hole in the wall, and a sunbeam shot through the hole and got her with child.[170]

[The story of Danae and its parallel in a Kirghiz legend.]

The old Greek story of Danae, who was confined by her father in a subterranean chamber or a brazen tower, but impregnated by Zeus, who reached her in the shape of a shower of gold,[171] perhaps belongs to the same class of tales. It has its counterpart in the legend which the Kirghiz of Siberia tell of their ancestry. A certain Khan had a fair daughter, whom he kept in a dark iron house, that no man might see her. An old woman tended her; and when the girl was grown to maidenhood she asked the old woman, "Where do you go so often?" "My child," said the old dame, "there is a bright world. In that bright world your father and mother live, and all sorts of people live there. That is where I go." The maiden said, "Good mother, I will tell nobody, but shew me that bright world." So the old woman took the girl out of the iron house. But when she saw the bright world, the girl tottered and fainted; and the eye of God fell upon her, and she conceived. Her angry father put her in a golden chest and sent her floating away (fairy gold can float in fairyland) over the wide sea.[172] The shower of gold in the Greek story, and the eye of God in the Kirghiz legend, probably stand for sunlight and the sun.

[Impregnation of women by the sun in legends.]

The idea that women may be impregnated by the sun is not uncommon in legends. Thus, for example, among the Indians of Guacheta in Colombia, it is said, a report once ran that the sun would impregnate one of their maidens, who should bear a child and yet remain a virgin. The chief had two daughters, and was very desirous that one of them should conceive in this miraculous manner. So every day he made them climb a hill to the east of his house in order to be touched by the first beams of the rising sun. His wishes were fulfilled, for one of the damsels conceived and after nine months gave birth to an emerald. So she wrapped it in cotton and placed it in her bosom, and in a few days it turned into a child, who received the name of Garanchacha and was universally recognized as a son of the sun.[173] Again, the Samoans tell of a woman named Mangamangai, who became pregnant by looking at the rising sun. Her son grew up and was named "Child of the Sun." At his marriage he applied to his mother for a dowry, but she bade him apply to his father, the sun, and told him how to go to him. So one morning he took a long vine and made a noose in it; then climbing up a tree he threw the noose over the sun and caught him fast. Thus arrested in his progress, the luminary asked him what he wanted, and being told by the young man that he wanted a present for his bride, the sun obligingly packed up a store of blessings in a basket, with which the youth descended to the earth.[174]

[Traces in marriage customs of the belief that women can be impregnated by the sun.]

Even in the marriage customs of various races we may perhaps detect traces of this belief that women can be impregnated by the sun. Thus amongst the Chaco Indians of South America a newly married couple used to sleep the first night on a mare's or bullock's skin with their heads towards the west, "for the marriage is not considered ratified till the rising sun shines on their feet the succeeding morning."[175] At old Hindoo marriages the first ceremony was the "Impregnation-rite" (Garbhādhāna); during the previous day the bride was made to look towards the sun or to be in some way exposed to its rays.[176] Amongst the Turks of Siberia it was formerly the custom on the morning after the marriage to lead the young couple out of the hut to greet the rising sun. The same custom is said to be still practised in Iran and Central Asia under a belief that the beams of the rising sun are the surest means of impregnating the new bride.[177]

[Belief in the impregnation of women by the moon.]

And as some people think that women may be gotten with child by the sun, so others imagine that they can conceive by the moon. According to the Greenlanders the moon is a young man, and he "now and then comes down to give their wives a visit and caress them; for which reason no woman dare sleep lying upon her back, without she first spits upon her fingers and rubs her belly with it. For the same reason the young maids are afraid to stare long at the moon, imagining they may get a child by the bargain."[178] Similarly Breton peasants are reported to believe that women or girls who expose their persons to the moonlight may be impregnated by it and give birth to monsters.[179]

Sec. 8. Reasons for the Seclusion of Girls at Puberty

[The reason for the seclusion of women at puberty is the dread of menstruous blood.]

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;[180] 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.

[Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the aborigines of Australia.]

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."[181] And of the South Australian aborigines in general we read that there is a "custom requiring all boys and uninitiated young men to sleep at some distance from the huts of the adults, and to remove altogether away in the morning as soon as daylight dawns, and the natives begin to move about. This is to prevent their seeing the women, some of whom may be menstruating; and if looked upon by the young males, it is supposed that dire results will follow."[182] And amongst these tribes women in their courses "are not allowed to eat fish of any kind, or to go near the water at all; it being one of their superstitions, that if a female, in that state, goes near the water, no success can be expected by the men in fishing."[183] Similarly, among the natives of the Murray River, menstruous women "were not allowed to go near water for fear of frightening the fish. They were also not allowed to eat them, for the same reason. A woman during such periods would never cross the river in a canoe, or even fetch water for the camp. It was sufficient for her to say Thama, to ensure her husband getting the water himself."[184] 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. In this tribe a mark made with red ochre round a woman's mouth indicates that she has her courses; no one would offer fish to such a woman.[185] The Arunta of Central Australia forbid menstruous women to gather the irriakura bulbs, which form a staple article of diet for both men and women. They believe that were a woman to break this rule, the supply of bulbs would fail.[186] Among the aborigines of Victoria the wife at her monthly periods had to sleep on the opposite side of the fire from her husband; she might partake of nobody's food, and nobody would partake of hers, for people thought that if they ate or drank anything that had been touched by a woman in her courses, it would make them weak or ill. Unmarried girls and widows at such times had to paint their heads and the upper parts of their bodies red,[187] no doubt as a danger signal.

[Severe penalties inflicted for breaches of the custom of seclusion.]

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 with regard to certain tribes of New South Wales and Southern Queensland we are told that "during the monthly illness, the woman is not allowed to touch anything that men use, or even to walk on a path that any man frequents, on pain of death."[188] Again, "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."[189]

[Dread and seclusion of menstruous women in the Torres Straits Islands, New Guinea, Galela, and Sumatra.]

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. Again, in Mabuiag, another of these islands, women who have their courses on them may not eat turtle flesh nor turtle eggs, probably for a similar reason. And during the season when the turtles are pairing the restrictions laid on such a woman are much severer. She may not even enter a house in which there is turtle flesh, nor approach a fire on which the flesh is cooking; she may not go near the sea and she should not walk on the beach below high-water mark. Nay, the infection extends to her husband, who may not himself harpoon or otherwise take an active part in catching turtle; however, he is permitted to form one of the crew on a turtling expedition, provided he takes the precaution of rubbing his armpits with certain leaves, to which no doubt a disinfectant virtue is ascribed.[190] Among the Kai of German New Guinea women at their monthly sickness must live in little huts built for them in the forest; they may not enter the cultivated fields, for if they did go to them, and the pigs were to taste of the blood, it would inspire the animals with an irresistible desire to go likewise into the fields, where they would commit great depredations on the growing crops. Hence the issue from women at these times is carefully buried to prevent the pigs from getting at it. And conversely, if the pigs often break into the fields, the blame is laid on the women who by the neglect of these elementary precautions have put temptation in the way of the swine.[191] 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.[192] 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.[193]

[Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the tribes of South Africa.]

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 position they happen to occupy, with whatever they were holding in their hands, and are changed into trees that talk.[194] Cattle-rearing tribes of South Africa hold that their cattle would die if the milk were drunk by a menstruous woman;[195] 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.[196]

[Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the tribes of Central and East Africa.]

Similarly among the Bahima, a cattle-breeding tribe of Ankole, in Central Africa, no menstruous woman may drink milk, lest by so doing she should injure the cows; and she may not lie on her husband's bed, no doubt lest she should injure him. Indeed she is forbidden to lie on a bed at all and must sleep on the ground. Her diet is restricted to vegetables and beer.[197] Among the Baganda, in like manner, no menstruous woman might drink milk or come into contact with any milk-vessel;[198] 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.[199] Were she to handle any article of his, he would surely fall ill; were she to handle his weapons, he would certainly be killed in the next battle. Even a woman who did not menstruate was believed by the Baganda to be a source of danger to her husband, indeed capable of killing him. Hence, before he went to war, he used to wound her slightly with his spear so as to draw blood; this was thought to ensure his safe return.[200] Apparently the notion was that if the wife did not lose blood in one way or another, her husband would be bled in war to make up for her deficiency; so by way of guarding against this undesirable event, he took care to relieve her of a little superfluous blood before he repaired to the field of honour. 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.[201] 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 (thahu) both on her and on it.[202] In the Suk tribe of British East Africa warriors may not eat anything that has been touched by menstruous women. If they did so, it is believed that they would lose their virility; "in the rain they will shiver and in the heat they will faint." Suk men and women take their meals apart, because the men fear that one or more of the women may be menstruating.[203] The Anyanja of British Central Africa, at the southern end of Lake Nyassa, think that a man who should sleep with a woman in her courses would fall sick and die, unless some remedy were applied in time. And with them it is a rule that at such times a woman should not put any salt into the food she is cooking, otherwise the people who partook of the food salted by her would suffer from a certain disease called tsempo; hence to obviate the danger she calls a child to put the salt into the dish.[204]

[Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the tribes of West Africa.]

Among the Hos, a tribe of Ewe negroes of Togoland in West Africa, so long as a wife has her monthly sickness she may not cook for her husband, nor lie on his bed, nor sit on his stool; an infraction of these rules would assuredly, it is believed, cause her husband to die. If her husband is a priest, or a magician, or a chief, she may not pass the days of her uncleanness in the house, but must go elsewhere till she is clean.[205] Among the Ewe negroes of this region each village has its huts where women who have their courses on them must spend their time secluded from intercourse with other people. Sometimes these huts stand by themselves in public places; sometimes they are mere shelters built either at the back or front of the ordinary dwelling-houses. A woman is punishable if she does not pass the time of her monthly sickness in one of these huts or shelters provided for her use. Thus, if she shews herself in her own house or even in the yard of the house, she may be fined a sheep, which is killed, its flesh divided among the people, and its blood poured on the image of the chief god as a sin-offering to expiate her offence. She is also forbidden to go to the place where the villagers draw water, and if she breaks the rule, she must give a goat to be killed; its flesh is distributed, and its blood, diluted with water and mixed with herbs, is sprinkled on the watering-place and on the paths leading to it. Were any woman to disregard these salutary precautions, the chief fetish-man in the village would fall sick and die, which would be an irreparable loss to society.[206]

[Powerful influence ascribed to menstruous blood in Arab legend.]

The miraculous virtue ascribed to menstruous blood is well illustrated in a story told by the Arab chronicler Tabari. He relates how Sapor, king of Persia, besieged the strong city of Atrae, in the desert of Mesopotamia, for several years without being able to take it. But the king of the city, whose name was Daizan, had a daughter, and when it was with her after the manner of women she went forth from the city and dwelt for a time in the suburb, for such was the custom of the place. Now it fell out that, while she tarried there, Sapor saw her and loved her, and she loved him; for he was a handsome man and she a lovely maid. And she said to him, "What will you give me if I shew you how you may destroy the walls of this city and slay my father?" And he said to her, "I will give you what you will, and I will exalt you above my other wives, and will set you nearer to me than them all." Then she said to him, "Take a greenish dove with a ring about its neck, and write something on its foot with the menstruous blood of a blue-eyed maid; then let the bird loose, and it will perch on the walls of the city, and they will fall down." For that, says the Arab historian, was the talisman of the city, which could not be destroyed in any other way. And Sapor did as she bade him, and the city fell down in a heap, and he stormed it and slew Daizan on the spot.[207]

[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]

[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 illustrated 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 puberty, 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 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.[248] 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 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 Cumae; 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 noble 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 glass bottle and hung her up in the church. And there she still hangs, in the church of St. Mary, at Luebeck. She is as small as a mouse, but once a year she stirs.[255]

Notes:

[64] Pechuel-Loesche, "Indiscretes aus Loango," Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie, x. (1878) p. 23.

[65] Rev. J. Macdonald, "Manners, Customs, Superstitions, and Religions of South African Tribes," Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xx. (1891) p. 118.

[66] Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir (London, 1904), p. 209. The prohibition to drink milk under such circumstances 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 puberty 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 Institute, xxxii. (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., xxx.).

[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 Massailand zur Nilquelle (Berlin, 1894), p. 178.

[81] Lionel Decle, Three Years in Savage Africa (London, 1898), p. 78. Compare E. Jacottet, Etudes sur les Langues du Haut-Zambeze, Troisieme Partie (Paris, 1901), pp. 174 sq. (as to the A-Louyi).

[82] E. Beguin, Les Ma-rotse (Lausanne and Fontaines, 1903), p. 113.

[83] Henri A. Junod, The Life of a South African Tribe (Neuchatel, 1912-1913), i. 178 sq.

[84] G. McCall Theal, Kaffir Folk-lore (London, 1886), p. 218.

[85] L. Alberti, De Kaffers aan de Zuidkust van Afrika (Amsterdam, 1810), pp. 79 sq.; H. Lichtenstein, Reisen im suedlichen Africa (Berlin, 1811-1812), i. 428.

[86] Gustav Fritsch, Die Eingeborenen Sued-Afrika's (Breslau, 1872), p. 112. This statement applies especially to the Ama-Xosa.

[87] G. McCall Theal, Kaffir Folk-lore, p. 218.

[88] Rev. Canon Henry Callaway, Nursery Tales, Traditions, and Histories of the Zulus (Natal and London, 1868), p. 182, note 20. From one of the Zulu texts which the author edits and translates (p. 189) we may infer that during the period of her seclusion a Zulu girl may not light a fire. Compare above, p. 28.

[89] E. Casalis, The Basutos (London, 1861), p. 268.

[90] J. Merolla, "Voyage to Congo," in J. Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels (London, 1808-1814), xvi. 238; Father Campana, "Congo; Mission Catholique de Landana," Les Missions Catholiques, xxvii. (1895) p. 161; R.E. Dennett, At the Back of the Black Man's Mind (London, 1906), pp. 69 sq.. According to Merolla, it is thought that if girls did not go through these ceremonies, they would "never be fit for procreation." The other consequences supposed to flow from the omission of the rites are mentioned by Father Campana. From Mr. Dennett's account (op. cit. pp. 53, 67-71) we gather that drought and famine are thought to result from the intercourse of a man with a girl who has not yet passed through the "paint-house," as the hut is called where the young women live in seclusion. According to O. Dapper, the women of Loango paint themselves red on every recurrence of their monthly sickness; also they tie a cord tightly round their heads and take care neither to touch their husband's food nor to appear before him (Description de l'Afrique, Amsterdam, 1686, p. 326).

[91] The Rev. G. Brown, quoted by the Rev. B. Danks, "Marriage Customs of the New Britain Group," Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xviii. (1889) pp. 284. sq.; id., Melanesians and Polynesians (London, 1910), pp. 105-107. Compare id., "Notes on the Duke of York Group, New Britain, and New Ireland," Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, xlvii. (1877) pp. 142 sq.; A. Hahl, "Das mittlere Neumecklenburg," Globus, xci. (1907) p. 313. Wilfred Powell's description of the New Ireland custom is similar (Wanderings in a Wild Country, London, 1883, p. 249). According to him, the girls wear wreaths of scented herbs round the waist and neck; an old woman or a little child occupies the lower floor of the cage; and the confinement lasts only a month. Probably the long period mentioned by Dr. Brown is that prescribed for chiefs' daughters. Poor people could not afford to keep their children so long idle. This distinction is sometimes expressly stated. See above, p. 30. Among the Goajiras of Colombia rich people keep their daughters shut up in separate huts at puberty for periods varying from one to four years, but poor people cannot afford to do so for more than a fortnight or a month. See F.A. Simons, "An Exploration of the Goajira Peninsula," Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, N.S., vii. (1885) p. 791. In Fiji, brides who were being tattooed were kept from the sun (Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, Second Edition, London, 1860, i. 170). This was perhaps a modification of the Melanesian custom of secluding girls at puberty. The reason mentioned by Mr. Williams, "to improve her complexion," can hardly have been the original one.

[92] Rev. R.H. Rickard, quoted by Dr. George Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 107 sq.. His observations were made in 1892.

[93] R. Parkinson, Dreissig Jahre in der Suedsee (Stuttgart, 1907), p. 272. The natives told Mr. Parkinson that the confinement of the girls lasts from twelve to twenty months. The length of it may have been reduced since Dr. George Brown described the custom in 1876.

[94] J. Chalmers and W. Wyatt Gill, Work and Adventure in New Guinea (London, 1885), p. 159.

[95] H. Zahn and S. Lehner, in R. Neuhauss's Deutsch New-Guinea (Berlin, 1911), iii. 298, 418-420. The customs of the two tribes seem to be in substantial agreement, and the accounts of them supplement each other. The description of the Bukaua practice is the fuller.

[96] C.A.L.M. Schwaner, Borneo, Beschrijving van het stroomgebied van den Barito (Amsterdam, 1853-1854), ii. 77 sq.; W.F.A. Zimmermann, Die Inseln des Indischen und Stillen Meeres (Berlin, 1864-1865), ii. 632 sq.; Otto Finsch, Neu Guinea und seine Bewohner (Bremen, 1865), pp. 116 sq..

[97] J.G.F. Riedel, De sluik—en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua (The Hague, 1886), p. 138.

[98] A. Senfft, "Ethnographische Beitraege ueber die Karolineninsel Yap," Petermanns Mitteilungen, xlix. (1903) p. 53; id., "Die Rechtssitten der Jap-Eingeborenen," Globus, xci. (1907) pp. 142 sq..

[99] Dr. C.G. Seligmann, in Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxix. (1899) pp. 212 sq.; id., in Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, v. (Cambridge, 1904) pp. 203 sq.

[100] Dr. C.G. Seligmann, in Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, v. (Cambridge, 1904) p. 205.

[101] L. Crauford, in Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxiv. (1895) p. 181.

[102] Dr. C.G. Seligmann, op. cit. v. 206.

[103] Walter E. Roth, North Queensland Ethnography, Bulletin No. 5, Superstition, Magic, and Medicine (Brisbane, 1903), pp. 24 sq.

[104] Walter E. Roth, op. cit. p. 25.

[105] Dr. C.G. Seligmann, in Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, v. (Cambridge, 1904), p. 205.

[106] From notes kindly sent me by Dr. C.G. Seligmann. The practice of burying a girl at puberty was observed also by some Indian tribes of California, but apparently rather for the purpose of producing a sweat than for the sake of concealment. The treatment lasted only twenty-four hours, during which the patient was removed from the ground and washed three or four times, to be afterwards reimbedded. Dancing was kept up the whole time by the women. See H. R. Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes of the United States (Philadelphia, 1853-1856), v. 215.

[107] Dr. C.G. Seligmann, in Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, v. 201 sq.

[108] A.L. Kroeber, "The Religion of the Indians of California," University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology, vol. iv. No. 6 (September, 1907), p. 324.

[109] Roland B. Dixon, "The Northern Maidu," Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, vol. xvii. Part iii. (May 1905) pp. 232 sq., compare pp. 233-238.

[110] Stephen Powers, Tribes of California (Washington, 1877), p. 85 (Contributions to North American Ethnology, vol. iii.).

[111] Stephen Powers, op. cit. p. 235.

[112] Charles Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, New Edition (New York, 1851), iv. 456.

[113] Franz Boas, Chinook Texts (Washington, 1894), pp. 246 sq. The account, taken down from the lips of a Chinook Indian, is not perfectly clear; some of the restrictions were prolonged after the girl's second monthly period.

[114] G.M. Sproat, Scenes and Studies of Savage Life (London, 1868), pp. 93 sq.

[115] Franz Boas, in Sixth Report on the North-Western Tribes of Canada, pp. 40-42 (separate reprint from the Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Leeds meeting, 1890). The rule not to lie down is observed also during their seclusion at puberty by Tsimshian girls, who always sit propped up between boxes and mats; their heads are covered with small mats, and they may not look at men nor at fresh salmon and olachen. See Franz Boas, in Fifth Report on the North-Western Tribes of Canada, p. 41 (separate reprint from the Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Newcastle-upon-Tyne meeting, 1889); G.M. Dawson, Report on the Queen Charlotte Islands, 1878 (Montreal, 1880), pp. 130 B sq. Some divine kings are not allowed to lie down. See Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, p. 5.

[116] George M. Dawson, Report on the Queen Charlotte Islands, 1878 (Montreal, 1880), p. 130 B; J.R. Swanton, Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haida (Leyden and New York, 1905), pp. 48-50 (The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History, New York). Speaking of the customs observed at Kloo, where the girls had to abstain from salmon for five years, Mr. Swanton says (p. 49): "When five years had passed, the girl came out, and could do as she pleased." This seems to imply that the girl was secluded in the house for five years. We have seen (above, p. 32) that in New Ireland the girls used sometimes to be secluded for the same period.

[117] G.H. von Langsdorff, Reise um die Welt (Frankfort, 1812), ii. 114 sq.; H.J. Holmberg, "Ethnographische Skizzen ueber die Voelker des Russischen Amerika," Acta Societatis Scientiarum Fennicae, iv. (Helsingfors, 1856) pp. 319 sq.; T. de Pauly, Description Ethnographique des Peuples de la Russie (St. Petersburg, 1862), Peuples de l'Amerique Russe, p. 13; A. Erman, "Ethnographische Wahrnehmungen und Erfahrungen an den Kuesten des Berings-Meeres," Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie, ii. (1870) pp. 318 sq.; H.H. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States (London, 1875-1876), i. 110 sq.; Rev. Sheldon Jackson, "Alaska and its Inhabitants," The American Antiquarian, ii. (Chicago, 1879-1880) pp. 111 sq.; A. Woldt, Captain Jacobsen's Reise an der Nordwestkiiste Americas, 1881-1883 (Leipsic, 1884), p. 393; Aurel Krause, Die Tlinkit-Indianer (Jena, 1885), pp. 217 sq.; W.M. Grant, in Journal of American Folk-lore, i. (1888) p. 169; John R. Swanton, "Social Conditions, Beliefs, and Linguistic Relationship of the Tlingit Indians," Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology (Washington, 1908), p. 428.

[118] Franz Boas, in Tenth Report of the Committee on the North-Western Tribes of Canada, p. 45 (separate reprint from the Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Ipswich meeting, 1895).

[119] Franz Boas, in Fifth Report of the Committee on the North-Western Tribes of Canada, p. 42 (separate reprint from the Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Newcastle-upon-Tyne meeting, 1889); id., in Seventh Report, etc., p. 12 (separate reprint from the Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Cardiff meeting, 1891).

[120] "Customs of the New Caledonian women belonging to the Nancaushy Tine, or Stuart's Lake Indians, Natotin Tine, or Babine's and Nantley Tine, or Fraser Lake Tribes," from information supplied by Gavin Hamilton, chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company's service, who has been for many years among these Indians, both he and his wife speaking their languages fluently (communicated by Dr. John Rae), Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vii. (1878) pp. 206 sq.

[121] Emile Petitot, Traditions Indiennes du Canada Nord-ouest (Paris, 1886), pp. 257 sq.

[122] Fr. Julius Jette, S.J., "On the Superstitions of the Ten'a Indians," Anthropos, vi. (1911) pp. 700-702.

[123] Compare The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, i. 70 sqq.

[124] James Teit, The Thompson Indians of British Columbia, pp. 311-317 (The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, April, 1900). As to the customs observed among these Indians by the father of a girl at such times in order not to lose his luck in hunting, see Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, ii. 268.

[125] James Teit, The Lillooet Indians (Leyden and New York, 1906), pp. 263-265 (The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History, New York). Compare C. Hill Tout, "Report on the Ethnology of the Stlatlumh of British Columbia," Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxv. (1905) p. 136.

[126] Franz Boas, in Sixth Report of the Committee on the North-Western Tribes of Canada, pp. 89 sq. (separate reprint from the Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Leeds meeting, 1890).

[127] James Teit, The Shuswap (Leyden and New York, 1909), pp. 587 sq. (The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History, New York).

[128] G.H. Loskiel, History of the Mission of the United Brethren among the Indians of North America (London, 1794), Part i. pp. 56 sq.

[129] G.B. Grinnell, "Cheyenne Woman Customs," American Anthropologist, New Series, iv. (New York, 1902) pp. 13 sq. The Cheyennes appear to have been at first settled on the Mississippi, from which they were driven westward to the Missouri. See Handbook of American Indians north of Mexico, edited by F.W. Hodge (Washington, 1907-1910), i. 250 sqq.

[130] H.J. Holmberg, "Ueber die Voelker des Russischen Amerika," Acta Societatis Scientiarum Fennicae, iv. (Helsingfors, 1856) pp. 401 sq.; Ivan Petroff, Report on the Population, Industries and Resources of Alaska, p. 143.

[131] E.W. Nelson, "The Eskimo about Bering Strait," Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Part i. (Washington, 1899) p. 291.

[132] Jose Guevara, "Historia del Paraguay, Rio de la Plata, y Tucuman," pp. 16 sq., in Pedro de Angelis, Coleccion de Obras y Documentos relativos a la Historia antigua y moderna de las Provincias del Rio de la Plata, vol. ii. (Buenos-Ayres, 1836); J.F. Lafitau, Moeurs des Sauvages Ameriquains (Paris, 1724), i. 262 sq.

[133] Father Ignace Chome, in Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, Nouvelle Edition (Paris, 1780-1783), viii. 333. As to the Chiriguanos, see C.F. Phil. von Martius, Zur Ethnographie Amerika's, zumal Brasiliens (Leipsic, 1867), pp. 212 sqq.; Colonel G.E. Church, Aborigines of South America (London, 1912), pp. 207-227.

[134] A. Thouar, Explorations dans l'Amerique du Sud (Paris, 1891), pp. 48 sq.; G. Kurze, "Sitten und Gebraeuche der Lengua-Indianer," Mitteilungen der Geographischen Gesellschaft zu Jena, xxiii. (1905) pp. 26 sq. The two accounts appear to be identical; but the former attributes the custom to the Chiriguanos, the latter to the Lenguas. As the latter account is based on the reports of the Rev. W.B. Grubb, a missionary who has been settled among the Indians of the Chaco for many years and is our principal authority on them, I assume that the ascription of the custom to the Lenguas is correct. However, in the volume on the Lengua Indians, which has been edited from Mr. Grubb's papers (An Unknown People in an Unknown Land, London, 1911), these details as to the seclusion of girls at puberty are not mentioned, though what seems to be the final ceremony is described (op. cit. pp. 177 sq.). From the description we learn that boys dressed in ostrich feathers and wearing masks circle round the girl with shrill cries, but are repelled by the women.

[135] Alcide d'Orbigny, Voyage dans l'Amerique Meridionale vol. iii. 1to Partie (Paris and Strasburg, 1844), pp. 205 sq.

[136] A. Thouar, Explorations dans l'Amerique du Sud (Paris, 1891) pp. 56 sq.; Father Cardus, quoted in J. Pelleschi's Los Indios Matacos (Buenos Ayres, 1897), pp. 47 sq.

[137] A. Thouar, op. cit. p. 63.

[138] Francis de Castelnau, Expedition dans les parties centrales de l'Amerique du Sud (Paris, 1850-1851), v. 25.

[139] D. Luis de la Cruz, "Descripcion de la Naturaleza de los Terrenos que se comprenden en los Andes, poseidos por los Peguenches y los demas espacios hasta el rio de Chadileuba," p. 62, in Pedro de Angelis, Coleccion de Obras y Documentos relativos a la Historia antigua y moderna de las Provincias del Rio de la Plata, vol. i. (Buenos-Ayres, 1836). Apparently the Peguenches are an Indian tribe of Chili.

[140] J.B. von Spix und C.F. Ph. von Martius, Reise in Brasilien (Munich, 1823-1831), iii. 1186, 1187, 1318.

[141] Andre Thevet, Cosmographie Universelle (Paris, 1575), ii. 946 B [980] sq.; id., Les Singularites de la France Antarctique, autrement nommee Amerique (Antwerp, 1558), p. 76; J.F. Lafitau, Moeurs des Sauvages Ameriquains (Paris, 1724), i. 290 sqq.

[142] R. Schomburgk, Reisen in Britisch Guiana (Leipsic, 1847-1848), ii. 315 sq.; C.F.Ph. von Martius, Zur Ethnographie Amerika's, zumal Brasiliens (Leipsic, 1867), p. 644.

[143] Labat, Voyage du Chevalier des Marchais en Guinee, Isles voisines, et a Cayenne, iv. 365 sq. (Paris, 1730), pp. 17 sq. (Amsterdam, 1731).

[144] A. Caulin, Historia Coro-graphica natural y evangelica dela Nueva Andalucia (1779), p. 93. A similar custom, with the omission of the stinging, is reported of the Tamanaks in the region of the Orinoco. See F.S. Gilij, Saggio di Storia Americana, ii. (Rome, 1781), p. 133.

[145] A.R. Wallace, Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro, p. 496 (p. 345 of the Minerva Library edition, London, 1889).

[146] Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, pp. 105 sqq.; The Scapegoat> pp. 259 sqq.

[147] J.B. von Spix and C.F.Ph. von Martius, Reise in Brasilien (Munich, 1823-1831), iii. 1320.

[148] W. Lewis Herndon, Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon (Washington, 1854), pp. 319 sq. The scene was described to Mr. Herndon by a French engineer and architect, M. de Lincourt, who witnessed it at Manduassu, a village on the Tapajos river. Mr. Herndon adds: "The Tocandeira ants not only bite, but are also armed with a sting like the wasp; but the pain felt from it is more violent. I think it equal to that occasioned by the sting of the black scorpion." He gives the name of the Indians as Mahues, but I assume that they are the same as the Mauhes described by Spix and Martius.

[149] Francis de Castelnau, Expedition dans les parties centrals de l'Amerique du Sud (Paris, 1850-1851), v. 46.

[150] L'Abbe Durand, "Le Rio Negro du Nord et son bassin," Bulletin de la Societe de Geographie (Paris), vi. Serie, iii. (1872) pp. 21 sq. The writer says that the candidate has to keep his arms plunged up to the shoulders in vessels full of ants, "as in a bath of vitriol," for hours. He gives the native name of the ant as issauba.

[151] J. Crevaux, Voyages dans l'Amerique du Sud (Paris, 1883), pp. 245-250.

[152] H. Coudreau, Chez nos Indiens: quatre annees dans la Guyane Francaise (Paris, 1895), p. 228. For details as to the different modes of administering the marake see ibid. pp. 228-235.

[153] Father Geronimo Boscana, "Chinigchinich," in Life in California by an American [A. Robinson] (New York, 1846), pp. 273 sq.

[154] F. Stuhlmann, Mit Emin Pascha ins Herz von Afrika (Berlin, 1894), p. 506.

[155] As a confirmation of this view it may be pointed out that beating or scourging is inflicted on inanimate objects expressly for the purpose indicated in the text. Thus the Indians of Costa Rica hold that there are two kinds of ceremonial uncleanness, nya and bu-ku-ru. Anything that has been connected with a death is nya. But bu-ku-ru is much more virulent. It can not only make one sick but kill. "Bu-ku-ru emanates in a variety of ways; arms, utensils, even houses become affected by it after long disuse, and before they can be used again must be purified. In the case of portable objects left undisturbed for a long time, the custom is to beat them with a stick before touching them. I have seen a woman take a long walking-stick and beat a basket hanging from the roof of a house by a cord. On asking what that was for, I was told that the basket contained her treasures, that she would probably want to take something out the next day, and that she was driving off the bu-ku-ru. A house long unused must be swept, and then the person who is purifying it must take a stick and beat not only the movable objects, but the beds, posts, and in short every accessible part of the interior. The next day it is fit for occupation. A place not visited for a long time or reached for the first time is bu-ku-ru. On our return from the ascent of Pico Blanco, nearly all the party suffered from little calenturas, the result of extraordinary exposure to wet and cold and of want of food. The Indians said that the peak was especially bu-ku-ru since nobody had ever been on it before." One day Mr. Gabb took down some dusty blow-guns amid cries of bu-ku-ru from the Indians. Some weeks afterwards a boy died, and the Indians firmly believed that the bu-ku-ru of the blow-guns had killed him. "From all the foregoing, it would seem that bu-ku-ru is a sort of evil spirit that takes possession of the object, and resents being disturbed; but I have never been able to learn from the Indians that they consider it so. They seem to think of it as a property the object acquires. But the worst bu-ku-ru of all, is that of a young woman in her first pregnancy. She infects the whole neighbourhood. Persons going from the house where she lives, carry the infection with them to a distance, and all the deaths or other serious misfortunes in the vicinity are laid to her charge. In the old times, when the savage laws and customs were in full force, it was not an uncommon thing for the husband of such a woman to pay damages for casualties thus caused by his unfortunate wife." See Wm. M. Gabb, "On the Indian Tribes and Languages of Costa Rica," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society held at Philadelphia, xiv. (Philadelphia, 1876) pp. 504 sq.