During the monthly period of menstruation women are spoken of as 'Mund
maili' or having the head dirty, and are considered to be impure for
four or five days, for which time they sleep on the ground and not on
cots. In Kanker they are secluded in a separate room, and forbidden
to cook or to touch the clothes or persons of other members of the
family. They must not walk on a ploughed field, nor will the men of
their family drive the plough or sow seed during the time of their
impurity. On the fifth day they wash their heads with earth and boil
their clothes in water mixed with wood ashes. Cloth stained with the
menstrual blood is usually buried underground; if it is burnt it is
supposed that the woman to whom it belonged will become barren, and
if a barren woman should swallow the ashes of the cloth the fertility
of its owner would be transferred to her.