THE SECLUSION OF GIRLS AT PUBERTY
§ 1. _Seclusion of Girls at Puberty in Africa_
[Girls at puberty forbidden to touch the ground and to see the sun;
seclusion of girls at puberty among the A-Kamba; seclusion of girls at
puberty among the Baganda.]
Now it is remarkable that the foregoing two rules--not to touch the
ground and not to see the sun--are observed either separately or
conjointly by girls at puberty in many parts of the world. Thus amongst
the negroes of Loango girls at puberty are confined in separate huts,
and they may not touch the ground with any part of their bare body.[64]
Among the Zulus and kindred tribes of South Africa, when the first signs
of puberty shew themselves "while a girl is walking, gathering wood, or
working in the field, she runs to the river and hides herself among the
reeds for the day, so as not to be seen by men. She covers her head
carefully with her blanket that the sun may not shine on it and shrivel
her up into a withered skeleton, as would result from exposure to the
sun's beams. After dark she returns to her home and is secluded" in a
hut for some time.[65] During her seclusion, which lasts for about a
fortnight, neither she nor the girls who wait upon her may drink any
milk, lest the cattle should die. And should she be overtaken by the
first flow while she is in the fields, she must, after hiding in the
bush, scrupulously avoid all pathways in returning home.[66] A reason
for this avoidance is assigned by the A-Kamba of British East Africa,
whose girls under similar circumstances observe the same rule. "A girl's
first menstruation is a very critical period of her life according to
A-Kamba beliefs. If this condition appears when she is away from the
village, say at work in the fields, she returns at once to her village,
but is careful to walk through the grass and not on a path, for if she
followed a path and a stranger accidentally trod on a spot of blood and
then cohabited with a member of the opposite sex before the girl was
better again, it is believed that she would never bear a child." She
remains at home till the symptoms have ceased, and during this time she
may be fed by none but her mother. When the flux is over, her father and
mother are bound to cohabit with each other, else it is believed that
the girl would be barren all her life.[67] Similarly, among the Baganda,
when a girl menstruated for the first time she was secluded and not
allowed to handle food; and at the end of her seclusion the kinsman with
whom she was staying (for among the Baganda young people did not reside
with their parents) was obliged to jump over his wife, which with the
Baganda is regarded as equivalent to having intercourse with her. Should
the girl happen to be living near her parents at the moment when she
attained to puberty, she was expected on her recovery to inform them of
the fact, whereupon her father jumped over her mother. Were this custom
omitted, the Baganda, like the A-Kamba, thought that the girl would
never have children or that they would die in infancy.[68] Thus the
pretence of sexual intercourse between the parents or other relatives of
the girl was a magical ceremony to ensure her fertility. It is
significant that among the Baganda the first menstruation was often
called a marriage, and the girl was spoken of as a bride.[69] These
terms so applied point to a belief like that of the Siamese, that a
girl's first menstruation results from her defloration by one of a host
of aerial spirits, and that the wound thus inflicted is repeated
afterwards every month by the same ghostly agency.[70] For a like
reason, probably, the Baganda imagine that a woman who does not
menstruate exerts a malign influence on gardens and makes them
barren[71] if she works in them. For not being herself fertilized by a
spirit, how can she fertilize the garden?
[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the tribes of the Tanganyika
plateau.]
Among the Amambwe, Winamwanga, Alungu, and other tribes of the great
plateau to the west of Lake Tanganyika, "when a young girl knows that
she has attained puberty, she forthwith leaves her mother's hut, and
hides herself in the long grass near the village, covering her face with
a cloth and weeping bitterly. Towards sunset one of the older
women--who, as directress of the ceremonies, is called _nachimbusa_--
follows her, places a cooking-pot by the cross-roads, and boils therein
a concoction of various herbs, with which she anoints the neophyte. At
nightfall the girl is carried on the old woman's back to her mother's
hut. When the customary period of a few days has elapsed, she is allowed
to cook again, after first whitewashing the floor of the hut. But, by
the following month, the preparations for her initiation are complete.
The novice must remain in her hut throughout the whole period of
initiation, and is carefully guarded by the old women, who accompany her
whenever she leaves her quarters, veiling her head with a native cloth.
The ceremonies last for at least one month." During this period of
seclusion, drumming and songs are kept up within the mother's hut by the
village women, and no male, except, it is said, the father of twins, is
allowed to enter. The directress of the rites and the older women
instruct the young girl as to the elementary facts of life, the duties
of marriage, and the rules of conduct, decorum, and hospitality to be
observed by a married woman. Amongst other things the damsel must submit
to a series of tests such as leaping over fences, thrusting her head
into a collar made of thorns, and so on. The lessons which she receives
are illustrated by mud figures of animals and of the common objects of
domestic life. Moreover, the directress of studies embellishes the walls
of the hut with rude pictures, each with its special significance and
song, which must be understood and learned by the girl.[72] In the
foregoing account the rule that a damsel at puberty may neither see the
sun nor touch the ground seems implied by the statement that on the
first discovery of her condition she hides in long grass and is carried
home after sunset on the back of an old woman.
[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the tribes of British Central
Africa.]
Among the Nyanja-speaking tribes of Central Angoniland, in British
Central Africa, when a young girl finds that she has become a woman, she
stands silent by the pathway leading to the village, her face wrapt in
her calico. An old woman, finding her there, takes her off to a stream
to bathe; after that the girl is secluded for six days in the old
woman's hut. She eats her porridge out of an old basket and her relish,
in which no salt is put, from a potsherd. The basket is afterwards
thrown away. On the seventh day the aged matrons gather together, go
with the girl to a stream, and throw her into the water. In returning
they sing songs, and the old woman, who directs the proceedings, carries
the maiden on her back. Then they spread a mat and fetch her husband and
set the two down on the mat and shave his head. When it is dark, the old
women escort the girl to her husband's hut. There the _ndiwo_ relish is
cooking on the fire. During the night the woman rises and puts some salt
in the pot. Next morning, before dawn, while all is dark and the
villagers have not yet opened their doors, the young married woman goes
off and gives some of the relish to her mother and to the old woman who
was mistress of the ceremony. This relish she sets down at the doors of
their houses and goes away. And in the morning, when the sun has risen
and all is light in the village, the two women open their doors, and
there they find the relish with the salt in it; and they take of it and
rub it on their feet and under their arm-pits; and if there are little
children in the house, they eat of it. And if the young wife has a
kinsman who is absent from the village, some of the relish is put on a
splinter of bamboo and kept against his return, that when he comes he,
too, may rub his feet with it. But if the woman finds that her husband
is impotent, she does not rise betimes and go out in the dark to lay the
relish at the doors of her mother and the old woman. And in the morning,
when the sun is up and all the village is light, the old women open
their doors, and see no relish there, and they know what has happened,
and so they go wilily to work. For they persuade the husband to consult
the diviner that he may discover how to cure his impotence; and while he
is closeted with the wizard, they fetch another man, who finishes the
ceremony with the young wife, in order that the relish may be given out
and that people may rub their feet with it. But if it happens that when
a girl comes to maturity she is not yet betrothed to any man, and
therefore has no husband to go to, the matrons tell her that she must go
to a lover instead. And this is the custom which they call _chigango_.
So in the evening she takes her cooking pot and relish and hies away to
the quarters of the young bachelors, and they very civilly sleep
somewhere else that night. And in the morning the girl goes back to the
_kuka_ hut.[73]
[Abstinence from salt associated with a rule of chastity in many
tribes.]
From the foregoing account it appears that among these tribes no sooner
has a girl attained to womanhood than she is expected and indeed
required to give proof of her newly acquired powers by cohabiting with a
man, whether her husband or another. And the abstinence from salt during
the girl's seclusion is all the more remarkable because as soon as the
seclusion is over she has to use salt for a particular purpose, to which
the people evidently attach very great importance, since in the event of
her husband proving impotent she is even compelled, apparently, to
commit adultery in order that the salted relish may be given out as
usual. In this connexion it deserves to be noted that among the Wagogo
of German East Africa women at their monthly periods may not sleep with
their husbands and may not put salt in food.[74] A similar rule is
observed by the Nyanja-speaking tribes of Central Angoniland, with whose
puberty customs we are here concerned. Among them, we are told, "some
superstition exists with regard to the use of salt. A woman during her
monthly sickness must on no account put salt into any food she is
cooking, lest she give her husband or children a disease called _tsempo_
(_chitsoko soko_) but calls a child to put it in, or, as the song goes,
'_Natira nichere ni bondo chifukwa n'kupanda mwana_' and pours in the
salt by placing it on her knee, because there is no child handy. Should
a party of villagers have gone to make salt, all sexual intercourse is
forbidden among the people of the village, until the people who have
gone to make the salt (from grass) return. When they do come back, they
must make their entry into the village at night, and no one must see
them. Then one of the elders of the village sleeps with his wife. She
then cooks some relish, into which she puts some of the salt. This
relish is handed round to the people who went to make the salt, who rub
it on their feet and under their armpits."[75] Hence it would seem that
in the mind of these people abstinence from salt is somehow associated
with the idea of chastity. The same association meets us in the customs
of many peoples in various parts of the world. For example, ancient
Hindoo ritual prescribed that for three nights after a husband had
brought his bride home, the two should sleep on the ground, remain
chaste, and eat no salt.[76] Among the Baganda, when a man was making a
net, he had to refrain from eating salt and meat and from living with
his wife; these restrictions he observed until the net took its first
catch of fish. Similarly, so long as a fisherman's nets or traps were in
the water, he must live apart from his wife, and neither he nor she nor
their children might eat salt or meat.[77] Evidence of the same sort
could be multiplied,[78] but without going into it further we may say
that for some reason which is not obvious to us primitive man connects
salt with the intercourse of the sexes and therefore forbids the use of
that condiment in a variety of circumstances in which he deems
continence necessary or desirable. As there is nothing which the savage
regards as a greater bar between the sexes than the state of
menstruation, he naturally prohibits the use of salt to women and girls
at their monthly periods.
[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the tribes about Lake Nyassa and on
the Zambesi.]
With the Awa-nkonde, a tribe at the northern end of Lake Nyassa, it is a
rule that after her first menstruation a girl must be kept apart, with a
few companions of her own sex, in a darkened house. The floor is covered
with dry banana leaves, but no fire may be lit in the house, which is
called "the house of the Awasungu," that is, "of maidens who have no
hearts."[79] When a girl reaches puberty, the Wafiomi of Eastern Africa
hold a festival at which they make a noise with a peculiar kind of
rattle. After that the girl remains for a year in the large common hut
(_tembe_), where she occupies a special compartment screened off from
the men's quarters. She may not cut her hair or touch food, but is fed
by other women. At night, however, she quits the hut and dances with
young men.[80] Among the Barotse or Marotse of the upper Zambesi, "when
a girl arrives at the age of puberty she is sent into the fields, where
a hut is constructed far from the village. There, with two or three
companions, she spends a month, returning home late and starting before
dawn in order not to be seen by the men. The women of the village visit
her, bringing food and honey, and singing and dancing to amuse her. At
the end of a month her husband comes and fetches her. It is only after
this ceremony that women have the right to smear themselves with
ochre."[81] We may suspect that the chief reason why the girl during her
seclusion may visit her home only by night is a fear, not so much lest
she should be seen by men, as that she might be seen by the sun. Among
the Wafiomi, as we have just learned, the young woman in similar
circumstances is even free to dance with men, provided always that the
dance is danced at night. The ceremonies among the Barotse or Marotse
are somewhat more elaborate for a girl of the royal family. She is shut
up for three months in a place which is kept secret from the public;
only the women of her family know where it is. There she sits alone in
the darkness of the hut, waited on by female slaves, who are strictly
forbidden to speak and may communicate with her and with each other only
by signs. During all this time, though she does nothing, she eats much,
and when at last she comes forth, her appearance is quite changed, so
fat has she grown. She is then led by night to the river and bathed in
presence of all the women of the village. Next day she flaunts before
the public in her gayest attire, her head bedecked with ornaments and
her face mottled with red paint. So everybody knows what has
happened.[82]
[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Thonga on Delagoa Bay.]
Among the northern clans of the Thonga tribe, in South-Eastern Africa,
about Delagoa Bay, when a girl thinks that the time of her nubility is
near, she chooses an adoptive mother, perhaps in a neighbouring village.
When the symptoms appear, she flies away from her own village and
repairs to that of her adopted mother "to weep near her." After that she
is secluded with several other girls in the same condition for a month.
They are shut up in a hut, and whenever they come outside they must wear
a dirty greasy cloth over their faces as a veil. Every morning they are
led to a pool and plunged in the water up to their necks. Initiated
girls or women accompany them, singing obscene songs and driving away
with sticks any man who meets them; for no man may see a girl during
this time of seclusion. If he saw her, it is said that he would be
struck blind. On their return from the river, the girls are again
imprisoned in the hut, where they remain wet and shivering, for they may
not go near the fire to warm themselves. During their seclusion they
listen to lascivious songs sung by grown women and are instructed in
sexual matters. At the end of the month the adoptive mother brings the
girl home to her true mother and presents her with a pot of beer.[83]
[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Caffre tribes of South Africa.]
Among the Caffre tribes of South Africa the period of a girl's seclusion
at puberty varies with the rank of her father. If he is a rich man, it
may last twelve days; if he is a chief, it may last twenty-four
days.[84] And when it is over, the girl rubs herself over with red
earth, and strews finely powdered red earth on the ground, before she
leaves the hut where she has been shut up. Finally, though she was
forbidden to drink milk all the days of her separation, she washes out
her mouth with milk, and is from that moment regarded as a full-grown
woman.[85] Afterwards, in the dusk of the evening, she carries away all
the objects with which she came into contact in the hut during her
seclusion and buries them secretly in a sequestered spot.[86] When the
girl is a chief's daughter the ceremonies at her liberation from the hut
are more elaborate than usual. She is led forth from the hut by a son of
her father's councillor, who, wearing the wings of a blue crane, the
badge of bravery, on his head, escorts her to the cattle kraal, where
cows are slaughtered and dancing takes place. Large skins full of milk
are sent to the spot from neighbouring villages; and after the dances
are over the girl drinks milk for the first time since the day she
entered into retreat. But the first mouthful is drunk by the girl's aunt
or other female relative who had charge of her during her seclusion; and
a little of it is poured on the fire-place.[87] Amongst the Zulus, when
the girl was a princess royal, the end of her time of separation was
celebrated by a sort of saturnalia: law and order were for the time
being in abeyance: every man, woman, and child might appropriate any
article of property: the king abstained from interfering; and if during
this reign of misrule he was robbed of anything he valued he could only
recover it by paying a fine.[88] Among the Basutos, when girls at
puberty are bathed as usual by the matrons in a river, they are hidden
separately in the turns and bends of the stream, and told to cover their
heads, as they will be visited by a large serpent. Their limbs are then
plastered with clay, little masks of straw are put on their faces, and
thus arrayed they daily follow each other in procession, singing
melancholy airs, to the fields, there to learn the labours of husbandry
in which a great part of their adult life will be passed.[89] We may
suppose, though we are not told, that the straw masks which they wear in
these processions are intended to hide their faces from the gaze of men
and the rays of the sun.
[Seclusion of girls at puberty in the Lower Congo.]
Among the tribes in the lower valley of the Congo, such as the Bavili,
when a girl arrives at puberty, she has to pass two or three months in
seclusion in a small hut built for the purpose. The hair of her head is
shaved off, and every day the whole of her body is smeared with a red
paint (_takulla_) made from a powdered wood mixed with water. Some of
her companions reside in the hut with her and prepare the paint for her
use. A woman is appointed to take charge of the hut and to keep off
intruders. At the end of her confinement she is taken to water by the
women of her family and bathed; the paint is rubbed off her body, her
arms and legs are loaded with brass rings, and she is led in solemn
procession under an umbrella to her husband's house. If these ceremonies
were not performed, the people believe that the girl would be barren or
would give birth to monsters, that the rain would cease to fall, the
earth to bear fruit, and the fishing to be successful.[90] Such serious
importance do these savages ascribe to the performance of rites which to
us seem so childish.
§ 2. _Seclusion of Girls at Puberty in New Ireland, New Guinea, and
Indonesia_
[Seclusion of girls at puberty in New Ireland.]
In New Ireland girls are confined for four or five years in small cages,
being kept in the dark and not allowed to set foot on the ground. The
custom has been thus described by an eye-witness. "I heard from a
teacher about some strange custom connected with some of the young girls
here, so I asked the chief to take me to the house where they were. The
house was about twenty-five feet in length, and stood in a reed and
bamboo enclosure, across the entrance to which a bundle of dried grass
was suspended to show that it was strictly '_tabu_.' Inside the house
were three conical structures about seven or eight feet in height, and
about ten or twelve feet in circumference at the bottom, and for about
four feet from the ground, at which point they tapered off to a point at
the top. These cages were made of the broad leaves of the pandanus-tree,
sewn quite close together so that no light and little or no air could
enter. On one side of each is an opening which is closed by a double
door of plaited cocoa-nut tree and pandanus-tree leaves. About three
feet from the ground there is a stage of bamboos which forms the floor.
In each of these cages we were told there was a young woman confined,
each of whom had to remain for at least four or five years, without ever
being allowed to go outside the house. I could scarcely credit the story
when I heard it; the whole thing seemed too horrible to be true. I spoke
to the chief, and told him that I wished to see the inside of the cages,
and also to see the girls that I might make them a present of a few
beads. He told me that it was '_tabu_,' forbidden for any men but their
own relations to look at them; but I suppose the promised beads acted as
an inducement, and so he sent away for some old lady who had charge, and
who alone is allowed to open the doors. While we were waiting we could
hear the girls talking to the chief in a querulous way as if objecting
to something or expressing their fears. The old woman came at length and
certainly she did not seem a very pleasant jailor or guardian; nor did
she seem to favour the request of the chief to allow us to see the
girls, as she regarded us with anything but pleasant looks. However, she
had to undo the door when the chief told her to do so, and then the
girls peeped out at us, and, when told to do so, they held out their
hands for the beads. I, however, purposely sat at some distance away and
merely held out the beads to them, as I wished to draw them quite
outside, that I might inspect the inside of the cages. This desire of
mine gave rise to another difficulty, as these girls were not allowed to
put their feet to the ground all the time they were confined in these
places. However, they wished to get the beads, and so the old lady had
to go outside and collect a lot of pieces of wood and bamboo, which she
placed on the ground, and then going to one of the girls, she helped her
down and held her hand as she stepped from one piece of wood to another
until she came near enough to get the beads I held out to her. I then
went to inspect the inside of the cage out of which she had come, but
could scarcely put my head inside of it, the atmosphere was so hot and
stifling. It was clean and contained nothing but a few short lengths of
bamboo for holding water. There was only room for the girl to sit or lie
down in a crouched position on the bamboo platform, and when the doors
are shut it must be nearly or quite dark inside. The girls are never
allowed to come out except once a day to bathe in a dish or wooden bowl
placed close to each cage. They say that they perspire profusely. They
are placed in these stifling cages when quite young, and must remain
there until they are young women, when they are taken out and have each
a great marriage feast provided for them. One of them was about fourteen
or fifteen years old, and the chief told us that she had been there for
five years, but would soon be taken out now. The other two were about
eight and ten years old, and they have to stay there for several years
longer."[91] A more recent observer has described the custom as it is
observed on the western coast of New Ireland. He says: "A _buck_ is the
name of a little house, not larger than an ordinary hen-coop, in which a
little girl is shut up, sometimes for weeks only, and at other times for
months.... Briefly stated, the custom is this. Girls, on attaining
puberty or betrothal, are enclosed in one of these little coops for a
considerable time. They must remain there night and day. We saw two of
these girls in two coops; the girls were not more than ten years old,
still they were lying in a doubled-up position, as their little houses
would not admit of them lying in any other way. These two coops were
inside a large house; but the chief, in consideration of a present of a
couple of tomahawks, ordered the ends to be torn out of the house to
admit the light, so that we might photograph the _buck_. The occupant
was allowed to put her face through an opening to be photographed, in
consideration of another present."[92] As a consequence of their long
enforced idleness in the shade the girls grow fat and their dusky
complexion bleaches to a more pallid hue. Both their corpulence and
their pallor are regarded as beauties.[93]
[Seclusion of girls at puberty in New Guinea, Borneo, Ceram and Yap.]
In Kabadi, a district of British New Guinea, "daughters of chiefs, when
they are about twelve or thirteen years of age, are kept indoors for two
or three years, never being allowed, under any pretence, to descend from
the house, and the house is so shaded that the sun cannot shine on
them."[94] Among the Yabim and Bukaua, two neighbouring and kindred
tribes on the coast of German New Guinea, a girl at puberty is secluded
for some five or six weeks in an inner part of the house; but she may
not sit on the floor, lest her uncleanness should cleave to it, so a log
of wood is placed for her to squat on. Moreover, she may not touch the
ground with her feet; hence if she is obliged to quit the house for a
short time, she is muffled up in mats and walks on two halves of a
coconut shell, which are fastened like sandals to her feet by creeping
plants. During her seclusion she is in charge of her aunts or other
female relatives. At the end of the time she bathes, her person is
loaded with ornaments, her face is grotesquely painted with red stripes
on a white ground, and thus adorned she is brought forth in public to be
admired by everybody. She is now marriageable.[95] Among the Ot Danoms
of Borneo girls at the age of eight or ten years are shut up in a little
room or cell of the house, and cut off from all intercourse with the
world for a long time. The cell, like the rest of the house, is raised
on piles above the ground, and is lit by a single small window opening
on a lonely place, so that the girl is in almost total darkness. She may
not leave the room on any pretext whatever, not even for the most
necessary purposes. None of her family may see her all the time she is
shut up, but a single slave woman is appointed to wait on her. During
her lonely confinement, which often lasts seven years, the girl occupies
herself in weaving mats or with other handiwork. Her bodily growth is
stunted by the long want of exercise, and when, on attaining womanhood,
she is brought out, her complexion is pale and wax-like. She is now
shewn the sun, the earth, the water, the trees, and the flowers, as if
she were newly born. Then a great feast is made, a slave is killed, and
the girl is smeared with his blood.[96] In Ceram girls at puberty were
formerly shut up by themselves in a hut which was kept dark.[97] In Yap,
one of the Caroline Islands, should a girl be overtaken by her first
menstruation on the public road, she may not sit down on the earth, but
must beg for a coco-nut shell to put under her. She is shut up for
several days in a small hut at a distance from her parents' house, and
afterwards she is bound to sleep for a hundred days in one of the
special houses which are provided for the use of menstruous women.[98]
§ 3. _Seclusion of Girls at Puberty in the Torres Straits Islands and
Northern Australia_
[Seclusion of girls at puberty in Mabuiag, Torres Straits.]
In the island of Mabuiag, Torres Straits, when the signs of puberty
appear on a girl, a circle of bushes is made in a dark corner of the
house. Here, decked with shoulder-belts, armlets, leglets just below the
knees, and anklets, wearing a chaplet on her head, and shell ornaments
in her ears, on her chest, and on her back, she squats in the midst of
the bushes, which are piled so high round about her that only her head
is visible. In this state of seclusion she must remain for three months.
All this time the sun may not shine upon her, but at night she is
allowed to slip out of the hut, and the bushes that hedge her in are
then changed. She may not feed herself or handle food, but is fed by one
or two old women, her maternal aunts, who are especially appointed to
look after her. One of these women cooks food for her at a special fire
in the forest. The girl is forbidden to eat turtle or turtle eggs during
the season when the turtles are breeding; but no vegetable food is
refused her. No man, not even her own father, may come into the house
while her seclusion lasts; for if her father saw her at this time he
would certainly have bad luck in his fishing, and would probably smash
his canoe the very next time he went out in it. At the end of the three
months she is carried down to a fresh-water creek by her attendants,
hanging on to their shoulders in such a way that her feet do not touch
the ground, while the women of the tribe form a ring round her, and thus
escort her to the beach. Arrived at the shore, she is stripped of her
ornaments, and the bearers stagger with her into the creek, where they
immerse her, and all the other women join in splashing water over both
the girl and her bearers. When they come out of the water one of the two
attendants makes a heap of grass for her charge to squat upon. The other
runs to the reef, catches a small crab, tears off its claws, and hastens
back with them to the creek. Here in the meantime a fire has been
kindled, and the claws are roasted at it. The girl is then fed by her
attendants with the roasted claws. After that she is freshly decorated,
and the whole party marches back to the village in a single rank, the
girl walking in the centre between her two old aunts, who hold her by
the wrists. The husbands of her aunts now receive her and lead her into
the house of one of them, where all partake of food, and the girl is
allowed once more to feed herself in the usual manner. A dance follows,
in which the girl takes a prominent part, dancing between the husbands
of the two aunts who had charge of her in her retirement.[99]
[Seclusion of girls at puberty in Northern Australia.]
Among the Yaraikanna tribe of Cape York Peninsula, in Northern
Queensland, a girl at puberty is said to live by herself for a month or
six weeks; no man may see her, though any woman may. She stays in a hut
or shelter specially made for her, on the floor of which she lies
supine. She may not see the sun, and towards sunset she must keep her
eyes shut until the sun has gone down, otherwise it is thought that her
nose will be diseased. During her seclusion she may eat nothing that
lives in salt water, or a snake would kill her. An old woman waits upon
her and supplies her with roots, yams, and water.[100] Some tribes are
wont to bury their girls at such seasons more or less deeply in the
ground, perhaps in order to hide them from the light of the sun. Thus
the Larrakeeyah tribe in the northern territory of South Australia used
to cover a girl up with dirt for three days at her first monthly
period.[101] In similar circumstances the Otati tribe, on the east coast
of the Cape York Peninsula, make an excavation in the ground, where the
girl squats. A bower is then built over the hole, and sand is thrown on
the young woman till she is covered up to the hips. In this condition
she remains for the first day, but comes out at night. So long as the
period lasts, she stays in the bower during the day-time, but is not
again covered with sand. Afterwards her body is painted red and white
from the head to the hips, and she returns to the camp, where she squats
first on the right side, then on the left side, and then on the lap of
her future husband, who has been previously selected for her.[102] Among
the natives of the Pennefather River, in the Cape York Peninsula,
Queensland, when a girl menstruates for the first time, her mother takes
her away from the camp to some secluded spot, where she digs a circular
hole in the sandy soil under the shade of a tree. In this hole the girl
squats with crossed legs and is covered with sand from the waist
downwards. A digging-stick is planted firmly in the sand on each side of
her, and the place is surrounded by a fence of bushes except in front,
where her mother kindles a fire. Here the girl stays all day, sitting
with her arms crossed and the palms of her hands resting on the sand.
She may not move her arms except to take food from her mother or to
scratch herself; and in scratching herself she may not touch herself
with her own hands, but must use for the purpose a splinter of wood,
which, when it is not in use, is stuck in her hair. She may speak to
nobody but her mother; indeed nobody else would think of coming near
her. At evening she lays hold of the two digging-sticks and by their
help frees herself from the superincumbent weight of sand and returns to
the camp. Next morning she is again buried in the sand under the shade
of the tree and remains there again till evening. This she does daily
for five days. On her return at evening on the fifth day her mother
decorates her with a waist-band, a forehead-band, and a necklet of
pearl-shell, ties green parrot feathers round her arms and wrists and
across her chest, and smears her body, back and front, from the waist
upwards with blotches of red, white, and yellow paint. She has in like
manner to be buried in the sand at her second and third menstruations,
but at the fourth she is allowed to remain in camp, only signifying her
condition by wearing a basket of empty shells on her back.[103] Among
the Kia blacks of the Prosperine River, on the east coast of Queensland,
a girl at puberty has to sit or lie down in a shallow pit away from the
camp; a rough hut of bushes is erected over her to protect her from the
inclemency of the weather. There she stays for about a week, waited on
by her mother and sister, the only persons to whom she may speak. She is
allowed to drink water, but may not touch it with her hands; and she may
scratch herself a little with a mussel-shell. This seclusion is repeated
at her second and third monthly periods, but when the third is over she
is brought to her husband bedecked with savage finery. Eagle-hawk or
cockatoo feathers are stuck in her hair: a shell hangs over her
forehead: grass bugles encircle her neck and an apron of opossum skin
her waist: strings are tied to her arms and wrists; and her whole body
is mottled with patterns drawn in red, white, and yellow pigments and
charcoal.[104]
[Seclusion of girls at puberty in the islands of Torres Straits.]
Among the Uiyumkwi tribe in Red Island the girl lies at full length in a
shallow trench dug in the foreshore, and sand is lightly thrown over her
legs and body up to the breasts, which appear not to be covered. A rough
shelter of boughs is then built over her, and thus she remains lying for
a few hours. Then she and her attendant go into the bush and look for
food, which they cook at a fire close to the shelter. They sleep under
the boughs, the girl remaining secluded from the camp but apparently not
being again buried. At the end of the symptoms she stands over hot
stones and water is poured over her, till, trickling from her body on
the stones, it is converted into steam and envelops her in a cloud of
vapour. Then she is painted with red and white stripes and returns to
the camp. If her future husband has already been chosen, she goes to him
and they eat some food together, which the girl has previously brought
from the bush.[105] In Prince of Wales Island, Torres Strait, the
treatment of the patient is similar, but lasts for about two months.
During the day she lies covered up with sand in a shallow hole on the
beach, over which a hut is built. At night she may get out of the hole,
but she may not leave the hut. Her paternal aunt looks after her, and
both of them must abstain from eating turtle, dugong, and the heads of
fish. Were they to eat the heads of fish no more fish would be caught.
During the time of the girl's seclusion, the aunt who waits upon her has
the right to enter any house and take from it anything she likes without
payment, provided she does so before the sun rises. When the time of her
retirement has come to an end, the girl bathes in the sea while the
morning star is rising, and after performing various other ceremonies is
readmitted to society.[106] In Saibai, another island of Torres Straits,
at her first monthly sickness a girl lives secluded in the forest for
about a fortnight, during which no man may see her; even the women who
have spoken to her in the forest must wash in salt water before they
speak to a man. Two girls wait upon and feed the damsel, putting the
food into her mouth, for she is not allowed to touch it with her own
hands. Nor may she eat dugong and turtle. At the end of a fortnight the
girl and her attendants bathe in salt water while the tide is running
out. Afterwards they are clean, may again speak to men without ceremony,
and move freely about the village. In Yam and Tutu a girl at puberty
retires for a month to the forest, where no man nor even her own mother
may look upon her. She is waited on by women who stand to her in a
certain relationship (_mowai_), apparently her paternal aunts. She is
blackened all over with charcoal and wears a long petticoat reaching
below her knees. During her seclusion the married women of the village
often assemble in the forest and dance, and the girl's aunts relieve the
tedium of the proceedings by thrashing her from time to time as a useful
preparation for matrimony. At the end of a month the whole party go into
the sea, and the charcoal is washed off the girl. After that she is
decorated, her body blackened again, her hair reddened with ochre, and
in the evening she is brought back to her father's house, where she is
received with weeping and lamentation because she has been so long
away.[107]
§ 4. _Seclusion of Girls at Puberty among the Indians of North America_
[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Indians of California]
Among the Indians of California a girl at her first menstruation "was
thought to be possessed of a particular degree of supernatural power,
and this was not always regarded as entirely defiling or malevolent.
Often, however, there was a strong feeling of the power of evil inherent
in her condition. Not only was she secluded from her family and the
community, but an attempt was made to seclude the world from her. One of
the injunctions most strongly laid upon her was not to look about her.
She kept her head bowed and was forbidden to see the world and the sun.
Some tribes covered her with a blanket. Many of the customs in this
connection resembled those of the North Pacific Coast most strongly,
such as the prohibition to the girl to touch or scratch her head with
her hand, a special implement being furnished her for the purpose.
Sometimes she could eat only when fed and in other cases fasted
altogether. Some form of public ceremony, often accompanied by a dance
and sometimes by a form of ordeal for the girl, was practised nearly
everywhere. Such ceremonies were well developed in Southern California,
where a number of actions symbolical of the girl's maturity and
subsequent life were performed."[108] Thus among the Maidu Indians of
California a girl at puberty remained shut up in a small separate hut.
For five days she might not eat flesh or fish nor feed herself, but was
fed by her mother or other old woman. She had a basket, plate, and cup
for her own use, and a stick with which to scratch her head, for she
might not scratch it with her fingers. At the end of five days she took
a warm bath and, while she still remained in the hut and plied the
scratching-stick on her head, was privileged to feed herself with her
own hands. After five days more she bathed in the river, after which her
parents gave a great feast in her honour. At the feast the girl was
dressed in her best, and anybody might ask her parents for anything he
pleased, and they had to give it, even if it was the hand of their
daughter in marriage. During the period of her seclusion in the hut the
girl was allowed to go by night to her parents' house and listen to
songs sung by her friends and relations, who assembled for the purpose.
Among the songs were some that related to the different roots and seeds
which in these tribes it is the business of women to gather for food.
While the singers sang, she sat by herself in a corner of the house
muffled up completely in mats and skins; no man or boy might come near
her.[109] Among the Hupa, another Indian tribe of California, when a
girl had reached maturity her male relatives danced all night for nine
successive nights, while the girl remained apart, eating no meat and
blindfolded. But on the tenth night she entered the house and took part
in the last dance.[110] Among the Wintun, another Californian tribe, a
girl at puberty was banished from the camp and lived alone in a distant
booth, fasting rigidly from animal food; it was death to any person to
touch or even approach her.[111]
[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Indians of Washington State.]
In the interior of Washington State, about Colville, "the customs of the
Indians, in relation to the treatment of females, are singular. On the
first appearance of the menses, they are furnished with provisions, and
sent into the woods, to remain concealed for two days; for they have a
superstition, that if a man should be seen or met with during that time,
death will be the consequence. At the end of the second day, the woman
is permitted to return to the lodge, when she is placed in a hut just
large enough for her to lie in at full length, in which she is compelled
to remain for twenty days, cut off from all communication with her
friends, and is obliged to hide her face at the appearance of a man.
Provisions are supplied her daily. After this, she is required to
perform repeated ablutions, before she can resume her place in the
family. At every return, the women go into seclusion for two or more
days."[112] Among the Chinook Indians who inhabited the coast of
Washington State, from Shoalwater Bay as far as Grey's Harbour, when a
chief's daughter attained to puberty, she was hidden for five days from
the view of the people; she might not look at them nor at the sky, nor
might she pick berries. It was believed that if she were to look at the
sky, the weather would be bad; that if she picked berries, it would
rain; and that when she hung her towel of cedar-bark on a spruce-tree,
the tree withered up at once. She went out of the house by a separate
door and bathed in a creek far from the village. She fasted for some
days, and for many days more she might not eat fresh food.[113]
[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Nootka Indians of Vancouver
Island.]
Amongst the Aht or Nootka Indians of Vancouver Island, when girls reach
puberty they are placed in a sort of gallery in the house "and are there
surrounded completely with mats, so that neither the sun nor any fire
can be seen. In this cage they remain for several days. Water is given
them, but no food. The longer a girl remains in this retirement the
greater honour is it to the parents; but she is disgraced for life if it
is known that she has seen fire or the sun during this initiatory
ordeal."[114] Pictures of the mythical thunder-bird are painted on the
screens behind which she hides. During her seclusion she may neither
move nor lie down, but must always sit in a squatting posture. She may
not touch her hair with her hands, but is allowed to scratch her head
with a comb or a piece of bone provided for the purpose. To scratch her
body is also forbidden, as it is believed that every scratch would leave
a scar. For eight months after reaching maturity she may not eat any
fresh food, particularly salmon; moreover, she must eat by herself, and
use a cup and dish of her own.[115]
[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Haida Indians of the Queen
Charlotte Islands.]
Among the Haida Indians of the Queen Charlotte Islands girls at puberty
were secluded behind screens in the house for about twenty days. In some
parts of the islands separate fires were provided for the girls, and
they went out and in by a separate door at the back of the house. If a
girl at such a time was obliged to go out by the front door, all the
weapons, gambling-sticks, medicine, and other articles had to be removed
from the house till her return, for otherwise it was thought that they
would be unlucky; and if there was a good hunter in the house, he also
had to go out at the same time on pain of losing his good luck if he
remained. During several months or even half a year the girl was bound
to wear a peculiar cloak or hood made of cedar-bark, nearly conical in
shape and reaching down below the breast, but open before the face.
After the twenty days were over the girl took a bath; none of the water
might be spilled, it had all to be taken back to the woods, else the
girl would not live long. On the west coast of the islands the damsel
might eat nothing but black cod for four years; for the people believed
that other kinds of fish would become scarce if she partook of them. At
Kloo the young woman at such times was forbidden to look at the sea, and
for forty days she might not gaze at the fire; for a whole year she
might not walk on the beach below high-water mark, because then the tide
would come in, covering part of the food supply, and there would be bad
weather. For five years she might not eat salmon, or the fish would be
scarce; and when her family went to a salmon-creek, she landed from the
canoe at the mouth of the creek and came to the smoke-house from behind;
for were she to see a salmon leap, all the salmon might leave the creek.
Among the Haidas of Masset it was believed that if the girl looked at
the sky, the weather would be bad, and that if she stepped over a
salmon-creek, all the salmon would disappear.[116]
[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Tlingit Indians of Alaska.]
Amongst the Tlingit (Thlinkeet) or Kolosh Indians of Alaska, when a girl
shewed signs of womanhood she used to be confined to a little hut or
cage, which was completely blocked up with the exception of a small
air-hole. In this dark and filthy abode she had to remain a year,
without fire, exercise, or associates. Only her mother and a female
slave might supply her with nourishment. Her food was put in at the
little window; she had to drink out of the wing-bone of a white-headed
eagle. The time of her seclusion was afterwards reduced in some places
to six or three months or even less. She had to wear a sort of hat with
long flaps, that her gaze might not pollute the sky; for she was thought
unfit for the sun to shine upon, and it was imagined that her look would
destroy the luck of a hunter, fisher, or gambler, turn things to stone,
and do other mischief. At the end of her confinement her old clothes
were burnt, new ones were made, and a feast was given, at which a slit
was cut in her under lip parallel to the mouth, and a piece of wood or
shell was inserted to keep the aperture open.[117]
[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Tsetsaut and Bella Coola
Indians of British Columbia.]
In the Tsetsaut tribe of British Columbia a girl at puberty wears a
large hat of skin which comes down over her face and screens it from the
sun. It is believed that if she were to expose her face to the sun or to
the sky, rain would fall. The hat protects her face also against the
fire, which ought not to strike her skin; to shield her hands she wears
mittens. In her mouth she carries the tooth of an animal to prevent her
own teeth from becoming hollow. For a whole year she may not see blood
unless her face is blackened; otherwise she would grow blind. For two
years she wears the hat and lives in a hut by herself, although she is
allowed to see other people. At the end of two years a man takes the hat
from her head and throws it away.[118] In the Bilqula or Bella Coola
tribe of British Columbia, when a girl attains puberty she must stay in
the shed which serves as her bedroom, where she has a separate
fireplace. She is not allowed to descend to the main part of the house,
and may not sit by the fire of the family. For four days she is bound to
remain motionless in a sitting posture. She fasts during the day, but is
allowed a little food and drink very early in the morning. After the
four days' seclusion she may leave her room, but only through a separate
opening cut in the floor, for the houses are raised on piles. She may
not yet come into the chief room. In leaving the house she wears a large
hat which protects her face against the rays of the sun. It is believed
that if the sun were to shine on her face her eyes would suffer. She may
pick berries on the hills, but may not come near the river or sea for a
whole year. Were she to eat fresh salmon she would lose her senses, or
her mouth would be changed into a long beak.[119]
[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Tinneh Indians of British
Columbia.]
Among the Tinneh Indians about Stuart Lake, Babine Lake, and Fraser Lake
in British Columbia "girls verging on maturity, that is when their
breasts begin to form, take swans' feathers mixed with human hair and
plait bands, which they tie round their wrists and ankles to secure long
life. At this time they are careful that the dishes out of which they
eat, are used by no other person, and wholly devoted to their own use;
during this period they eat nothing but dog fish, and starvation _only_
will drive them to eat either fresh fish or meat. When their first
periodical sickness comes on, they are fed by their mothers or nearest
female relation by _themselves_, and on no account will they touch their
food with their own hands. They are at this time also careful not to
touch their heads with their hands, and keep a small stick to scratch
their heads with. They remain outside the lodge, all the time they are
in this state, in a hut made for the purpose. During all this period
they wear a skull-cap made of skin to fit very tight; this is never
taken off until their first monthly sickness ceases; they also wear a
strip of black paint about one inch wide across their eyes, and wear a
fringe of shells, bones, etc., hanging down from their foreheads to
below their eyes; and this is never taken off till the second monthly
period arrives and ceases, when the nearest male relative makes a feast;
after which she is considered a fully matured woman; but she has to
refrain from eating anything fresh for one year after her first monthly
sickness; she may however eat partridge, but it must be cooked in the
crop of the bird to render it harmless. I would have thought it
impossible to perform this feat had I not seen it done. The crop is
blown out, and a small bent willow put round the mouth; it is then
filled with water, and the meat being first minced up, put in also, then
put on the fire and boiled till cooked. Their reason for hanging fringes
before their eyes, is to hinder any bad medicine man from harming them
during this critical period: they are very careful not to drink whilst
facing a medicine man, and do so only when their backs are turned to
him. All these habits are left off when the girl is a recognised woman,
with the exception of their going out of the lodge and remaining in a
hut, every time their periodical sickness comes on. This is a rigidly
observed law with both single and married women."[120]
[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Tinneh Indians of Alaska.]
Among the Hareskin Tinneh a girl at puberty was secluded for five days
in a hut made specially for the purpose; she might only drink out of a
tube made from a swan's bone, and for a month she might not break a
hare's bones, nor taste blood, nor eat the heart or fat of animals, nor
birds' eggs.[121] Among the Tinneh Indians of the middle Yukon valley,
in Alaska, the period of the girl's seclusion lasts exactly a lunar
month; for the day of the moon on which the symptoms first occur is
noted, and she is sequestered until the same day of the next moon. If
the season is winter, a corner of the house is curtained off for her use
by a blanket or a sheet of canvas; if it is summer, a small tent is
erected for her near the common one. Here she lives and sleeps. She
wears a long robe and a large hood, which she must pull down over her
eyes whenever she leaves the hut, and she must keep it down till she
returns. She may not speak to a man nor see his face, much less touch
his clothes or anything that belongs to him; for if she did so, though
no harm would come to her, he would grow unmanly. She has her own dishes
for eating out of and may use no other; at Kaltag she must suck the
water through a swan's bone without applying her lips to the cup. She
may eat no fresh meat or fish except the flesh of the porcupine. She may
not undress, but sleeps with all her clothes on, even her mittens. In
her socks she wears, next to the skin, the horny soles cut from the feet
of a porcupine, in order that for the rest of her life her shoes may
never wear out. Round her waist she wears a cord to which are tied the
heads of femurs of a porcupine; because of all animals known to the
Tinneh the porcupine suffers least in parturition, it simply drops its
young and continues to walk or skip about as if nothing had happened.
Hence it is easy to see that a girl who wears these portions of a
porcupine about her waist, will be delivered just as easily as the
animal. To make quite sure of this, if anybody happens to kill a
porcupine big with young while the girl is undergoing her period of
separation, the foetus is given to her, and she lets it slide down
between her shirt and her body so as to fall on the ground like an
infant.[122] Here the imitation of childbirth is a piece of homoeopathic
or imitative magic designed to facilitate the effect which it
simulates.[123]
[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Thompson Indians of British
Columbia.]
Among the Thompson Indians of British Columbia, when a girl attained
puberty, she was at once separated from all the people. A conical hut of
fir branches and bark was erected at some little distance from the other
houses, and in it the girl had to squat on her heels during the day.
Often a deep circular hole was dug in the hut and the girl squatted in
the hole, with her head projecting above the surface of the ground. She
might quit the hut for various purposes in the early morning, but had
always to be back at sunrise. On the first appearance of the symptoms
her face was painted red all over, and the paint was renewed every
morning during her term of seclusion. A heavy blanket swathed her body
from top to toe, and during the first four days she wore a conical cap
made of small fir branches, which reached below the breast but left an
opening for the face. In her hair was fastened an implement made of
deer-bone with which she scratched herself. For the first four days she
might neither wash nor eat, but a little water was given her in a
birch-bark cup painted red, and she sucked up the liquid through a tube
made out of the leg of a crane, a swan, or a goose, for her lips might
not touch the surface of the water. After the four days she was allowed,
during the rest of the period of isolation, to eat, to wash, to lie
down, to comb her hair, and to drink of streams and springs. But in
drinking at these sources she had still to use her tube, otherwise the
spring would dry up. While her seclusion lasted she performed by night
various ceremonies, which were supposed to exert a beneficial influence
on her future life. For example, she ran as fast as she could, praying
at the same time to the Earth or Nature that she might be fleet of foot
and tireless of limb. She dug trenches, in order that in after life she
might be able to dig well and to work hard. These and other ceremonies
she repeated for four nights or mornings in succession, four times each
morning, and each time she supplicated the Dawn of the Day. Among the
Lower Thompson Indians she carried a staff for one night; and when the
day was breaking she leaned the staff against the stump of a tree and
prayed to the Dawn that she might be blessed with a good husband, who
was symbolized by the staff. She also wandered some nights to lonely
parts of the mountains, where she would dance, imploring the spirits to
pity and protect her during her future life; then, the dance and prayer
over, she would lie down on the spot and fall asleep. Again, she carried
four stones in her bosom to a spring, where she spat upon the stones and
threw them one after the other into the water, praying that all disease
might leave her, as these stones did. Also she ran four times in the
early morning with two small stones in her bosom; and as she ran the
stones slipped down between her bare body and her clothes and fell to
the ground. At the same time she prayed to the Dawn that when she should
be with child, she might be delivered as easily as she was delivered of
these stones. But whatever exercises she performed or prayers she
offered on the lonely mountains during the hours of darkness or while
the morning light was growing in the east, she must always be back in
her little hut before the sun rose. There she often passed the tedious
hours away picking the needles, one by one, from the cones on two large
branches of fir, which hung from the roof of her hut on purpose to
provide her with occupation. And as she picked she prayed to the
fir-branch that she might never be lazy, but always quick and active at
work. During her seclusion, too, she had to make miniatures of all the
articles that Indian women make, or used to make, such as baskets, mats,
ropes, and thread. This she did in order that afterwards she might be
able to make the real things properly. Four large fir-branches also were
placed in front of the hut, so that when she went out or in, she had to
step over them. The branches were renewed every morning and the old ones
thrown away into the water, while the girl prayed, "May I never bewitch
any man, nor my fellow-women! May it never happen!" The first four times
that she went out and in, she prayed to the fir-branches, saying, "If
ever I step into trouble or difficulties or step unknowingly inside the
magical spell of some person, may you help me, O Fir-branches, with your
power!" Every day she painted her face afresh, and she wore strings of
parts of deer-hoofs round her ankles and knees, and tied to her
waistband on either side, which rattled when she walked or ran. Even the
shape of the hut in which she lived was adapted to her future rather
than to her present needs and wishes. If she wished to be tall, the hut
was tall; if she wished to be short, it was low, sometimes so low that
there was not room in it for her to stand erect, and she would lay the
palm of her hand on the top of her head and pray to the Dawn that she
might grow no taller. Her seclusion lasted four months. The Indians say
that long ago it extended over a year, and that fourteen days elapsed
before the girl was permitted to wash for the first time. The dress
which she wore during her time of separation was afterwards taken to the
top of a hill and burned, and the rest of her clothes were hung up on
trees.[124]
[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Lillooet Indians of British
Columbia.]
Among the Lillooet Indians of British Columbia, neighbours of the
Thompsons, the customs observed by girls at puberty were similar. The
damsels were secluded for a period of not less than one year nor more
than four years, according to their own inclination and the wishes of
their parents. Among the Upper Lillooets the hut in which the girl
lodged was made of bushy fir-trees set up like a conical tent, the inner
branches being lopped off, while the outer branches were closely
interwoven and padded to form a roof. Every month or half-month the hut
was shifted to another site or a new one erected. By day the girl sat in
the hut; for the first month she squatted in a hole dug in the middle of
it; and she passed the time making miniature baskets of birch-bark and
other things, praying that she might be able to make the real things
well in after years. At the dusk of the evening she left the hut and
wandered about all night, but she returned before the sun rose. Before
she quitted the hut at nightfall to roam abroad, she painted her face
red and put on a mask of fir-branches, and in her hand, as she walked,
she carried a basket-rattle to frighten ghosts and guard herself from
evil. Among the Lower Lillooets, the girl's mask was often made of
goat-skin, covering her head, neck, shoulders and breast, and leaving
only a narrow opening from the brow to the chin. During the nocturnal
hours she performed many ceremonies. Thus she put two smooth stones in
her bosom and ran, and as they fell down between her body and her
clothes, she prayed, saying, "May I always have easy child-births!" Now
one of these stones represented her future child and the other
represented the afterbirth. Also she dug trenches, praying that in the
years to come she might be strong and tireless in digging roots; she
picked leaves and needles from the fir-trees, praying that her fingers
might be nimble in picking berries; and she tore sheets of birch-bark
into shreds, dropping the shreds as she walked and asking that her hands
might never tire and that she might make neat and fine work of
birch-bark. Moreover, she ran and walked much that she might be light of
foot. And every evening, when the shadows were falling, and every
morning, when the day was breaking, she prayed to the Dusk of the
Evening or to the Dawn of Day, saying, "O Dawn of Day!" or "O Dusk," as
it might be, "may I be able to dig roots fast and easily, and may I
always find plenty!" All her prayers were addressed to the Dusk of the
Evening or the Dawn of Day. She supplicated both, asking for long life,
health, wealth, and happiness.[125]
[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Shuswap Indians of British
Columbia.]
Among the Shuswap Indians of British Columbia, who are neighbours of the
Thompsons and Lillooets, "a girl on reaching maturity has to go through
a great number of ceremonies. She must leave the village and live alone
in a small hut on the mountains. She cooks her own food, and must not
eat anything that bleeds. She is forbidden to touch her head, for which
purpose she uses a comb with three points. Neither is she allowed to
scratch her body, except with a painted deer-bone. She wears the bone
and the comb suspended from her belt. She drinks out of a painted cup of
birch-bark, and neither more nor less than the quantity it holds. Every
night she walks about her hut, and plants willow twigs, which she has
painted, and to the ends of which she has attached pieces of cloth, into
the ground. It is believed that thus she will become rich in later life.
In order to become strong she should climb trees and try to break off
their points. She plays with _lehal_ sticks that her future husbands
might have good luck when gambling."[126] During the day the girl stays
in her hut and occupies herself in making miniature bags, mats, and
baskets, in sewing and embroidery, in manufacturing thread, twine, and
so forth; in short she makes a beginning of all kinds of woman's work,
in order that she may be a good housewife in after life. By night she
roams the mountains and practises running, climbing, carrying burdens,
and digging trenches, so that she may be expert at digging roots. If she
has wandered far and daylight overtakes her, she hides herself behind a
veil of fir branches; for no one, except her instructor or nearest
relatives, should see her face during her period of seclusion. She wore
a large robe painted red on the breast and sides, and her hair was done
up in a knot at each ear.[127]
[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Delaware and Cheyenne Indians.]
Ceremonies of the same general type were probably observed by girls at
puberty among all the Indian tribes of North America. But the record of
them is far less full for the Central and Eastern tribes, perhaps
because the settlers who first came into contact with the Red Man in
these regions were too busy fighting him to find leisure, even if they
had the desire, to study his manners and customs. However, among the
Delaware Indians, a tribe in the extreme east of the continent, we read
that "when a Delaware girl has her first monthly period, she must
withdraw into a hut at some distance from the village. Her head is
wrapped up for twelve days, so that she can see nobody, and she must
submit to frequent vomits and fasting, and abstain from all labor. After
this she is washed and new clothed, but confined to a solitary life for
two months, at the close of which she is declared marriageable."[128]
Again, among the Cheyennes, an Indian tribe of the Missouri valley, a
girl at her first menstruation is painted red all over her body and
secluded in a special little lodge for four days. However, she may
remain in her father's lodge provided that there are no charms
("medicine"), no sacred bundle, and no shield in it, or that these and
all other objects invested with a sacred character have been removed.
For four days she may not eat boiled meat; the flesh of which she
partakes must be roasted over coals. Young men will not eat from the
dish nor drink from the pot, which has been used by her; because they
believe that were they to do so they would be wounded in the next fight.
She may not handle nor even touch any weapon of war or any sacred
object. If the camp moves, she may not ride a horse, but is mounted on a
mare.[129]
[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Esquimaux.]
Among the Esquimaux also, in the extreme north of the continent, who
belong to an entirely different race from the Indians, the attainment of
puberty in the female sex is, or used to be, the occasion of similar
observances. Thus among the Koniags, an Esquimau people of Alaska, a
girl at puberty was placed in a small hut in which she had to remain on
her hands and knees for six months; then the hut was enlarged a little
so as to allow her to straighten her back, but in this posture she had
to remain for six months more. All this time she was regarded as an
unclean being with whom no one might hold intercourse. At the end of the
year she was received back by her parents and a great feast held.[130]
Again, among the Malemut, and southward from the lower Yukon and
adjacent districts, when a girl reaches the age of puberty she is
considered unclean for forty days and must therefore live by herself in
a corner of the house with her face to the wall, always keeping her hood
over her head and her hair hanging dishevelled over her eyes. But if it
is summer, she commonly lives in a rough shelter outside the house. She
may not go out by day, and only once at night, when every one else is
asleep. At the end of the period she bathes and is clothed in new
garments, whereupon she may be taken in marriage. During her seclusion
she is supposed to be enveloped in a peculiar atmosphere of such a sort
that were a young man to come near enough for it to touch him, it would
render him visible to every animal he might hunt, so that his luck as a
hunter would be gone.[131]
§ 5. _Seclusion of Girls at Puberty among the Indians of South America_
[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Guaranis, Chiriguanos, and
Lengua Indians of South America.]
When symptoms of puberty appeared on a girl for the first time, the
Guaranis of Southern Brazil, on the borders of Paraguay, used to sew her
up in her hammock, leaving only a small opening in it to allow her to
breathe. In this condition, wrapt up and shrouded like a corpse, she was
kept for two or three days or so long as the symptoms lasted, and during
this time she had to observe a most rigorous fast. After that she was
entrusted to a matron, who cut the girl's hair and enjoined her to
abstain most strictly from eating flesh of any kind until her hair
should be grown long enough to hide her ears. Meanwhile the diviners
drew omens of her future character from the various birds or animals
that flew past or crossed her path. If they saw a parrot, they would say
she was a chatterbox; if an owl, she was lazy and useless for domestic
labours, and so on.[132] In similar circumstances the Chiriguanos of
southeastern Bolivia hoisted the girl in her hammock to the roof, where
she stayed for a month: the second month the hammock was let half-way
down from the roof; and in the third month old women, armed with sticks,
entered the hut and ran about striking everything they met, saying they
were hunting the snake that had wounded the girl.[133] The Lengua
Indians of the Paraguayan Chaco under similar circumstances hang the
girl in her hammock from the roof of the house, but they leave her there
only three days and nights, during which they give her nothing to eat
but a little Paraguay tea or boiled maize. Only her mother or
grandmother has access to her; nobody else approaches or speaks to her.
If she is obliged to leave the hammock for a little, her friends take
great care to prevent her from touching the _Boyrusu_, which is an
imaginary serpent that would swallow her up. She must also be very
careful not to set foot on the droppings of fowls or animals, else she
would suffer from sores on the throat and breast. On the third day they
let her down from the hammock, cut her hair, and make her sit in a
corner of the room with her face turned to the wall. She may speak to
nobody, and must abstain from flesh and fish. These rigorous observances
she must practise for nearly a year. Many girls die or are injured for
life in consequence of the hardships they endure at this time. Their
only occupations during their seclusion are spinning and weaving.[134]
[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Yuracares of Bolivia.]
Among the Yuracares, an Indian tribe of Bolivia, at the eastern foot of
the Andes, when a girl perceives the signs of puberty, she informs her
parents. The mother weeps and the father constructs a little hut of palm
leaves near the house. In this cabin he shuts up his daughter so that
she cannot see the light, and there she remains fasting rigorously for
four days. Meantime the mother, assisted by the women of the
neighbourhood, has brewed a large quantity of the native intoxicant
called _chicha_, and poured it into wooden troughs and palm leaves. On
the morning of the fourth day, three hours before the dawn, the girl's
father, having arrayed himself in his savage finery, summons all his
neighbours with loud cries. The damsel is seated on a stone, and every
guest in turn cuts off a lock of her hair, and running away hides it in
the hollow trunk of a tree in the depths of the forest. When they have
all done so and seated themselves again gravely in the circle, the girl
offers to each of them a calabash full of very strong _chicha_. Before
the wassailing begins, the various fathers perform a curious operation
on the arms of their sons, who are seated beside them. The operator
takes a very sharp bone of an ape, rubs it with a pungent spice, and
then pinching up the skin of his son's arm he pierces it with the bone
through and through, as a surgeon might introduce a seton. This
operation he repeats till the young man's arm is riddled with holes at
regular intervals from the shoulder to the wrist. Almost all who take
part in the festival are covered with these wounds, which the Indians
call _culucute_. Having thus prepared themselves to spend a happy day,
they drink, play on flutes, sing and dance till evening. Rain, thunder,
and lightning, should they befall, have no effect in damping the general
enjoyment or preventing its continuance till after the sun has set. The
motive for perforating the arms of the young men is to make them skilful
hunters; at each perforation the sufferer is cheered by the promise of
another sort of game or fish which the surgical operation will
infallibly procure for him. The same operation is performed on the arms
and legs of the girls, in order that they may be brave and strong; even
the dogs are operated on with the intention of making them run down the
game better. For five or six months afterwards the damsel must cover her
head with bark and refrain from speaking to men. The Yuracares think
that if they did not submit a young girl to this severe ordeal, her
children would afterwards perish by accidents of various kinds, such as
the sting of a serpent, the bite of a jaguar, the fall of a tree, the
wound of an arrow, or what not.[135]
[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Indians of the Gran Chaco.]
Among the Matacos or Mataguayos, an Indian tribe of the Gran Chaco, a
girl at puberty has to remain in seclusion for some time. She lies
covered up with branches or other things in a corner of the hut, seeing
no one and speaking to no one, and during this time she may eat neither
flesh nor fish. Meantime a man beats a drum in front of the house.[136]
Similarly among the Tobas, another Indian tribe of the same region, when
a chief's daughter has just attained to womanhood, she is shut up for
two or three days in the house, all the men of the tribe scour the
country to bring in game and fish for a feast, and a Mataco Indian is
engaged to drum, sing, and dance in front of the house without
cessation, day and night, till the festival is over. As the merrymaking
lasts for two or three weeks, the exhaustion of the musician at the end
of it may be readily conceived. Meat and drink are supplied to him on
the spot where he pays his laborious court to the Muses. The proceedings
wind up with a saturnalia and a drunken debauch.[137] Among the Yaguas,
an Indian tribe of the Upper Amazon, a girl at puberty is shut up for
three months in a lonely hut in the forest, where her mother brings her
food daily.[138] When a girl of the Peguenches tribe perceives in
herself the first signs of womanhood, she is secluded by her mother in a
corner of the hut screened off with blankets, and is warned not to lift
up her eyes on any man. Next day, very early in the morning and again
after sunset, she is taken out by two women and made to run till she is
tired; in the interval she is again secluded in her corner. On the
following day she lays three packets of wool beside the path near the
house to signify that she is now a woman.[139] Among the Passes, Mauhes,
and other tribes of Brazil the young woman in similar circumstances is
hung in her hammock from the roof and has to fast there for a month or
as long as she can hold out.[140] One of the early settlers in Brazil,
about the middle of the sixteenth century, has described the severe
ordeal which damsels at puberty had to undergo among the Indians on the
south-east coast of that country, near what is now Rio de Janeiro. When
a girl had reached this critical period of life, her hair was burned or
shaved off close to the head. Then she was placed on a flat stone and
cut with the tooth of an animal from the shoulders all down the back,
till she ran with blood. Next the ashes of a wild gourd were rubbed into
the wounds; the girl was bound hand and foot, and hung in a hammock,
being enveloped in it so closely that no one could see her. Here she had
to stay for three days without eating or drinking. When the three days
were over, she stepped out of the hammock upon the flat stone, for her
feet might not touch the ground. If she had a call of nature, a female
relation took the girl on her back and carried her out, taking with her
a live coal to prevent evil influences from entering the girl's body.
Being replaced in her hammock, she was now allowed to get some flour,
boiled roots, and water, but might not taste salt or flesh. Thus she
continued to the end of the first monthly period, at the expiry of which
she was gashed on the breast and belly as well as all down the back.
During the second month she still stayed in her hammock, but her rule of
abstinence was less rigid, and she was allowed to spin. The third month
she was blackened with a certain pigment and began to go about as
usual.[141]
[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Indians of Guiana; custom of
beating the girls and of causing them to be stung by ants.]
Amongst the Macusis of British Guiana, when a girl shews the first signs
of puberty, she is hung in a hammock at the highest point of the hut.
For the first few days she may not leave the hammock by day, but at
night she must come down, light a fire, and spend the night beside it,
else she would break out in sores on her neck, throat, and other parts
of her body. So long as the symptoms are at their height, she must fast
rigorously. When they have abated, she may come down and take up her
abode in a little compartment that is made for her in the darkest corner
of the hut. In the morning she may cook her food, but it must be at a
separate fire and in a vessel of her own. After about ten days the
magician comes and undoes the spell by muttering charms and breathing on
her and on the more valuable of the things with which she has come in
contact. The pots and drinking-vessels which she used are broken and the
fragments buried. After her first bath, the girl must submit to be
beaten by her mother with thin rods without uttering a cry. At the end
of the second period she is again beaten, but not afterwards. She is now
"clean," and can mix again with people.[142] Other Indians of Guiana,
after keeping the girl in her hammock at the top of the hut for a month,
expose her to certain large ants, whose bite is very painful.[143]
Sometimes, in addition to being stung with ants, the sufferer has to
fast day and night so long as she remains slung up on high in her
hammock, so that when she comes down she is reduced to a skeleton. The
intention of stinging her with ants is said to be to make her strong to
bear the burden of maternity.[144] Amongst the Uaupes of Brazil a girl
at puberty is secluded in the house for a month, and allowed only a
small quantity of bread and water. Then she is taken out into the midst
of her relations and friends, each of whom gives her four or five blows
with pieces of _sipo_ (an elastic climber), till she falls senseless or
dead. If she recovers, the operation is repeated four times at intervals
of six hours, and it is considered an offence to the parents not to
strike hard. Meantime, pots of meats and fish have been made ready; the
_sipos_ are dipped into them and then given to the girl to lick, who is
now considered a marriageable woman.[145]
[Custom in South America of causing young men to be stung with ants as
an initiatory rite.]
The custom of stinging the girl at such times with ants or beating her
with rods is intended, we may be sure, not as a punishment or a test of
endurance, but as a purification, the object being to drive away the
malignant influences with which a girl in this condition is believed to
be beset and enveloped. Examples of purification, by beating, by
incisions in the flesh, and by stinging with ants, have already come
before us.[146] In some Indian tribes of Brazil and Guiana young men do
not rank as warriors and may not marry till they have passed through a
terrible ordeal, which consists in being stung by swarms of venomous
ants whose bite is like fire. Thus among the Mauhes on the Tapajos
river, a southern tributary of the Amazon, boys of eight to ten years
are obliged to thrust their arms into sleeves stuffed with great
ferocious ants, which the Indians call _tocandeira_ (_Cryptocerus
atratus_, F.). When the young victim shrieks with pain, an excited mob
of men dances round him, shouting and encouraging him till he falls
exhausted to the ground. He is then committed to the care of old women,
who treat his fearfully swollen arms with fresh juice of the manioc; and
on his recovery he has to shew his strength and skill in bending a bow.
This cruel ordeal is commonly repeated again and again, till the lad has
reached his fourteenth year and can bear the agony without betraying any
sign of emotion. Then he is a man and can marry. A lad's age is reckoned
by the number of times he has passed through the ordeal.[147] An
eye-witness has described how a young Mauhe hero bore the torture with
an endurance more than Spartan, dancing and singing, with his arms cased
in the terrible mittens, before every cabin of the great common house,
till pallid, staggering, and with chattering teeth he triumphantly laid
the gloves before the old chief and received the congratulations of the
men and the caresses of the women; then breaking away from his friends
and admirers he threw himself into the river and remained in its cool
soothing water till nightfall.[148] Similarly among the Ticunas of the
Upper Amazon, on the border of Peru, the young man who would take his
place among the warriors must plunge his arm into a sort of basket full
of venomous ants and keep it there for several minutes without uttering
a cry. He generally falls backwards and sometimes succumbs to the fever
which ensues; hence as soon as the ordeal is over the women are prodigal
of their attentions to him, and rub the swollen arm with a particular
kind of herb.[149] Ordeals of this sort appear to be in vogue among the
Indians of the Rio Negro as well as of the Amazon.[150] Among the
Rucuyennes, a tribe of Indians in the north of Brazil, on the borders of
Guiana, young men who are candidates for marriage must submit to be
stung all over their persons not only with ants but with wasps, which
are applied to their naked bodies in curious instruments of trellis-work
shaped like fantastic quadrupeds or birds. The patient invariably falls
down in a swoon and is carried like dead to his hammock, where he is
tightly lashed with cords. As they come to themselves, they writhe in
agony, so that their hammocks rock violently to and fro, causing the hut
to shake as if it were about to collapse. This dreadful ordeal is called
by the Indians a _maraké_.[151]
[Custom of causing men and women to be stung with ants to improve their
character and health or to render them invulnerable.]
The same ordeal, under the same name, is also practised by the Wayanas,
an Indian tribe of French Guiana, but with them, we are told, it is no
longer deemed an indispensable preliminary to marriage; "it is rather a
sort of national medicine administered chiefly to the youth of both
sexes." Applied to men, the _maraké_, as it is called, "sharpens them,
prevents them from being heavy and lazy, makes them active, brisk,
industrious, imparts strength, and helps them to shoot well with the
bow; without it the Indians would always be slack and rather sickly,
would always have a little fever, and would lie perpetually in their
hammocks. As for the women, the _maraké_ keeps them from going to sleep,
renders them active, alert, brisk, gives them strength and a liking for
work, makes them good housekeepers, good workers at the stockade, good
makers of _cachiri_. Every one undergoes the _maraké_ at least twice in
his life, sometimes thrice, and oftener if he likes. It may be had from
the age of about eight years and upward, and no one thinks it odd that a
man of forty should voluntarily submit to it."[152] Similarly the
Indians of St. Juan Capistrano in California used to be branded on some
part of their bodies, generally on the right arm, but sometimes on the
leg also, not as a proof of manly fortitude, but because they believed
that the custom "added greater strength to the nerves, and gave a better
pulse for the management of the bow." Afterwards "they were whipped with
nettles, and covered with ants, that they might become robust, and the
infliction was always performed in summer, during the months of July and
August, when the nettle was in its most fiery state. They gathered small
bunches, which they fastened together, and the poor deluded Indian was
chastised, by inflicting blows with them upon his naked limbs, until
unable to walk; and then he was carried to the nest of the nearest and
most furious species of ants, and laid down among them, while some of
his friends, with sticks, kept annoying the insects to make them still
more violent. What torments did they not undergo! What pain! What
hellish inflictions! Yet their faith gave them power to endure all
without a murmur, and they remained as if dead. Having undergone these
dreadful ordeals, they were considered as invulnerable, and believed
that the arrows of their enemies could no longer harm them."[153] Among
the Alur, a tribe inhabiting the south-western region of the upper Nile,
to bury a man in an ant-hill and leave him there for a while is the
regular treatment for insanity.[154]
[In such cases the beating or stinging was originally a purification; at
a later time it is interpreted as a test of courage and endurance.]
In like manner it is probable that beating or scourging as a religious
or ceremonial rite was originally a mode of purification. It was meant
to wipe off and drive away a dangerous contagion, whether personified as
demoniacal or not, which was supposed to be adhering physically, though
invisibly, to the body of the sufferer.[155] The pain inflicted on the
person beaten was no more the object of the beating than it is of a
surgical operation with us; it was a necessary accident, that was all.
In later times such customs were interpreted otherwise, and the pain,
from being an accident, became the prime object of the ceremony, which
was now regarded either as a test of endurance imposed upon persons at
critical epochs of life, or as a mortification of the flesh well
pleasing to the god. But asceticism, under any shape or form, is never
primitive. The savage, it is true, in certain circumstances will
voluntarily subject himself to pains and privations which appear to us
wholly needless; but he never acts thus unless he believes that some
solid temporal advantage is to be gained by so doing. Pain for the sake
of pain, whether as a moral discipline in this life or as a means of
winning a glorious immortality hereafter, is not an object which he sets
himself deliberately to pursue.
[This explanation confirmed with reference to the beating of girls at
puberty among the South American Indians; treatment of a girl at puberty
among the Banivas of the Orinoco; symptoms of puberty in a girl regarded
as wounds inflicted by a demon.]
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.
§ 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.
§ 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"
(_Garbh[=a]dh[=a]na_); 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]
§ 8. _Reasons for the Seclusion of Girls at Puberty_
[The reason for the seclusion of women at puberty is the dread of
menstruous blood.]