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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.
Unmarried girls and widows at such times had to paint their heads and the upper parts of their bodies red, no doubt as a danger signal. 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.
To cure the painful and dangerous wound inflicted by a ray-fish, the Indians of the Gran Chaco smoke the wounded limb and then cause a woman in her courses to sit astride of it. An ancient Hindoo method of securing prosperity was to swallow a portion of the menstruous fluid.
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.
Or as the prophet Isaiah expresseth it, "Ye shall defile the covering of the graven images of silver, and the ornament of thy molten images of gold; thou shalt cast them away as a menstruous cloth, thou shalt say unto it, get thee hence."
But I think, rather that these must be Gynophagi, or woman-eaters, rather than women-breeders, because they consume one of the principles of generation, which gives a being to the world, viz., the menstruous blood.
These women's tracks may be seen at every Caffre village. 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.
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 "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.
Now menstruous rags, things that are an abomination and dung, are not fit matter to make a garment of to wear when I come to God for life, much less to be made my friend, my advocate, my mediator and spokesman, when I stand betwixt heaven and hell; Isa. lxiv. 6; Luke xvi. 15; Phil. iii. 6-8, to plead for me that I might be saved.
In western Victoria a menstruous woman may not take anyone's food or drink, and no one will touch food that has been touched by her. Amongst the Maoris, if a man ate food cooked by a menstrous woman, he would be "tapu an inch thick."
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