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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.

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.

This offer was the effect of no merit, neither of congruity nor of condignity in the Jews; for they were like that wretched and menstruous infant, Ezek. xvi. 3, 4, unswaddled, unwashen, uncleansed, "lying in its blood, its navel not cut, nor salted at all, nor swaddled at all, cast out in the open field, having no eye to pity it."

These women's tracks may be seen at every Caffre village. 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.

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 in such cases, the revolution of the month ought to be observed, which perfects itself in four bare weeks, or somewhat less than twenty-eight days; in which space of the revolution, the blood being agitated by the force of the moon, the courses of women flow from them; which being spent, and the matrix cleansed from the menstruous blood which happens on the fourth day, then, if a man on the seventh day lie with his wife, the copulation is most natural, and then the conception is best: and the child thus begotten may be born in the seventh month and prove very healthful.

Her diet is restricted to vegetables and beer. Among the Baganda, in like manner, no menstruous woman might drink milk or come into contact with any milk-vessel; and she might not touch anything that belonged to her husband, nor sit on his mat, nor cook his food.

Amongst the Maoris, if a man touched a menstruous woman, he would be taboo 'an inch thick. An Australian black fellow, who discovered that his wife had lain on his blanket at her menstrual period, killed her, and died of terror himself within a fortnight. In Uganda the pots which a woman touches while the impurity of childbirth or menstruation is on her, are destroyed.

As the garments which have been touched by a sacred chief kill those who handle them, so do the things which have been touched by a menstruous women. An Australian blackfellow, who discovered that his wife had lain on his blanket at her menstrual period, killed her and died of terror himself within a fortnight.

Cattle-rearing tribes of South Africa hold that their cattle would die if the milk were drunk by a menstruous woman; 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.