men and women.  They believe that were a woman to break this rule, the supply of bulbs would fail.[186] Among the aborigines of Victoria the wife at her monthly periods had to sleep on the opposite side of the fire from her husband; she might partake of nobody’s food, and nobody would partake of hers, for people thought that if they ate or drank anything that had been touched by a woman in her courses, it would make them weak or ill.  Unmarried girls and widows at such times had to paint their heads and the upper parts of their bodies red,[187] no doubt as a danger signal.

[Severe penalties inflicted for breaches of the custom of seclusion.]

In some Australian tribes the seclusion of menstruous women was even more rigid, and was enforced by severer penalties than a scolding or a beating.  Thus with regard to certain tribes of New South Wales and Southern Queensland we are told that “during the monthly illness, the woman is not allowed to touch anything that men use, or even to walk on a path that any man frequents, on pain of death."[188] Again, “there is a regulation relating to camps in the Wakelbura tribe which forbids the women coming into the encampment by the same path as the men.  Any violation of this rule would in a large camp be punished with death.  The reason for this is the dread with which they regard the menstrual period of women.  During such a time, a woman is kept entirely away from the camp, half a mile at least.  A woman in such a condition has boughs of some tree of her totem tied round her loins, and is constantly watched and guarded, for it is thought that should any male be so unfortunate as to see a woman in such a condition, he would die.  If such a woman were to let herself be seen by a man, she would probably be put to death.  When the woman has recovered, she is painted red and white, her head covered with feathers, and returns to the camp."[189]

[Dread and seclusion of menstruous women in the Torres Straits Islands, New Guinea, Galela, and Sumatra.]

In Muralug, one of the Torres Straits Islands, a menstruous woman may not eat anything that lives in the sea, else the natives believe that the fisheries would fail.  Again, in Mabuiag, another of these islands, women who have their courses on them may not eat turtle flesh nor turtle eggs, probably for a similar reason.  And during the season when the turtles are pairing the restrictions laid on such a woman are much severer.  She may not even enter a house in which there is turtle flesh, nor approach a fire on which the flesh is cooking; she may not go near the sea and she should not walk on the beach below high-water mark.  Nay, the infection extends to her husband, who may not himself harpoon or otherwise take an active part in catching turtle; however, he is permitted to form one of the crew on a turtling expedition, provided he takes the precaution of rubbing his armpits with certain leaves, to which no doubt a disinfectant virtue is ascribed.[190]