Among the Kai of German New Guinea women at their monthly sickness must live in little huts built for them in the forest; they may not enter the cultivated fields, for if they did go to them, and the pigs were to taste of the blood, it would inspire the animals with an irresistible desire to go likewise into the fields, where they would commit great depredations on the growing crops.  Hence the issue from women at these times is carefully buried to prevent the pigs from getting at it.  And conversely, if the pigs often break into the fields, the blame is laid on the women who by the neglect of these elementary precautions have put temptation in the way of the swine.[191] In Galela, to the west of New Guinea, women at their monthly periods may not enter a tobacco-field, or the plants would be attacked by disease.[192] The Minangkabauers of Sumatra are persuaded that if a woman in her unclean state were to go near a rice-field, the crop would be spoiled.[193]

[Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the tribes of South Africa.]

The Bushmen of South Africa think that, by a glance of a girl’s eye at the time when she ought to be kept in strict retirement, men become fixed in whatever position they happen to occupy, with whatever they were holding in their hands, and are changed into trees that talk.[194] Cattle-rearing tribes of South Africa hold that their cattle would die if the milk were drunk by a menstruous woman;[195] and they fear the same disaster if a drop of her blood were to fall on the ground and the oxen were to pass over it.  To prevent such a calamity women in general, not menstruous women only, are forbidden to enter the cattle enclosure; and more than that, they may not use the ordinary paths in entering the village or in passing from one hut to another.  They are obliged to make circuitous tracks at the back of the huts in order to avoid the ground in the middle of the village where the cattle stand or lie down.  These women’s tracks may be seen at every Caffre village.[196]

[Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the tribes of Central and East Africa.]

Similarly among the Bahima, a cattle-breeding tribe of Ankole, in Central Africa, no menstruous woman may drink milk, lest by so doing she should injure the cows; and she may not lie on her husband’s bed, no doubt lest she should injure him.  Indeed she is forbidden to lie on a bed at all and must sleep on the ground.  Her diet is restricted to vegetables and beer.[197] Among the Baganda, in like manner, no menstruous woman might drink milk or come into contact with any milk-vessel;[198] and she might not touch anything that belonged to her husband, nor sit on his mat, nor cook his food.  If she touched anything of his at such a time it was deemed equivalent to wishing him dead or to actually working magic for his destruction.[199] Were she to handle any article of his, he would surely fall ill; were she to handle his weapons, he would