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During the night she was attacked with pains resembling those of labor and a fetus slipped into the vagina without any hemorrhage; the placenta came away directly afterward. In this peculiar case the woman was menstruating regularly, suckling a child, and at the same time was unconsciously pregnant.
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."
In Uganda the pots which a woman touches, while the impurity of childbirth or of menstruation is on her, should be destroyed; spears and shields defiled by her touch are not destroyed, but only purified. "Among all the Déné and most other American tribes, hardly any other being was the object of so much dread as a menstruating woman.
Napier believes that it is extremely rare for the cessation to occur without some physical discomfort or some disturbance of the nervous system, but adds that: "Some women, however, cease menstruating with very slight inconvenience."
Squaws at the time of menstrual purgation are obliged to seclude themselves, and in most instances to occupy isolated lodges, and in all tribes are forbidden to prepare food for anyone save themselves. It was believed that, were a menstruating woman to step astride a rifle, a bow, or a lance, the weapon would have no utility.
With many North American Indians the use of weapons touched by women during these times would bring misfortune. A menstruating woman is with them the object they dread most. In Tahiti women are secluded. In some cases she is too dangerous to be even touched by others, and food is given her at the end of a stick.
Aristotle said that the very look of a menstruating woman would take the polish out of a mirror, and the next person looking in it would be bewitched. Frommann mentions a man who said he saw a tree in Goa which withered because a catamenial napkin was hung on it. Bourke remarks that the dread felt by the American Indians in this respect corresponds with the particulars recited by Pliny.
Any great drain on the system, whether from diabetes without nephritis, or from profuse diarrhea of any type, will cause hypotension. Occasionally a girl with chlorosis who is not menstruating may have an increased blood pressure. Many of the hemorrhagic or purpuric conditions will show a hypotension. Meningitis in various forms may show a hypertension from cerebral and nervous irritation.
Strasberger of Beeskow describes a woman who ceased menstruating at forty-two, who remained in good health up to eighty, suffering slight attacks of rheumatism only, and at this late age was seized with abdominal pains, followed by menstruation, which continued for three years; the woman died the next year. This late menstruation had all the sensible characters of the early one.
Such is the 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.
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