certainly be killed in the next battle.  Even a woman who did not menstruate was believed by the Baganda to be a source of danger to her husband, indeed capable of killing him.  Hence, before he went to war, he used to wound her slightly with his spear so as to draw blood; this was thought to ensure his safe return.[200] Apparently the notion was that if the wife did not lose blood in one way or another, her husband would be bled in war to make up for her deficiency; so by way of guarding against this undesirable event, he took care to relieve her of a little superfluous blood before he repaired to the field of honour.  Further, the Baganda would not suffer a menstruous woman to visit a well; if she did so, they feared that the water would dry up, and that she herself would fall sick and die, unless she confessed her fault and the medicine-man made atonement for her.[201] Among the Akikuyu of British East Africa, if a new hut is built in a village and the wife chances to menstruate in it on the day she lights the first fire there, the hut must be broken down and demolished the very next day.  The woman may on no account sleep a second night in it; there is a curse (thahu) both on her and on it.[202] In the Suk tribe of British East Africa warriors may not eat anything that has been touched by menstruous women.  If they did so, it is believed that they would lose their virility; “in the rain they will shiver and in the heat they will faint.”  Suk men and women take their meals apart, because the men fear that one or more of the women may be menstruating.[203] The Anyanja of British Central Africa, at the southern end of Lake Nyassa, think that a man who should sleep with a woman in her courses would fall sick and die, unless some remedy were applied in time.  And with them it is a rule that at such times a woman should not put any salt into the food she is cooking, otherwise the people who partook of the food salted by her would suffer from a certain disease called tsempo; hence to obviate the danger she calls a child to put the salt into the dish.[204]

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

Among the Hos, a tribe of Ewe negroes of Togoland in West Africa, so long as a wife has her monthly sickness she may not cook for her husband, nor lie on his bed, nor sit on his stool; an infraction of these rules would assuredly, it is believed, cause her husband to die.  If her husband is a priest, or a magician, or a chief, she may not pass the days of her uncleanness in the house, but must go elsewhere till she is clean.[205] Among the Ewe negroes of this region each village has its huts where women who have their courses on them must spend their time secluded from intercourse with other people.  Sometimes these huts stand by themselves in public places; sometimes they are mere shelters built either at the back or front of the ordinary dwelling-houses.  A woman is punishable if she does not pass the time of her