[Dread and seclusion of menstruous women in India.]

The Bhuiyars, a Dravidian tribe of South Mirzapur, are said to feel an intense dread of menstrual pollution.  Every house has two doors, one of which is used only by women in this condition.  During her impurity the wife is fed by her husband apart from the rest of the family, and whenever she has to quit the house she is obliged to creep out on her hands and knees in order not to defile the thatch by her touch.[213] The Kharwars, another aboriginal tribe of the same district, keep their women at such seasons in the outer verandah of the house for eight days, and will not let them enter the kitchen or the cowhouse; during this time the unclean woman may not cook nor even touch the cooking vessels.  When the eight days are over, she bathes, washes her clothes, and returns to family life.[214] Hindoo women seclude themselves at their monthly periods and observe a number of rules, such as not to drink milk, not to milk cows, not to touch fire, not to lie on a high bed, not to walk on common paths, not to cross the track of animals, not to walk by the side of flowering plants, and not to observe the heavenly bodies.[215] The motive for these restrictions is not mentioned, but probably it is a dread of the baleful influence which is supposed to emanate from women at these times.  The Parsees, who reverence fire, will not suffer menstruous women to see it or even to look on a lighted taper;[216] during their infirmity the women retire from their houses to little lodges in the country, whither victuals are brought to them daily; at the end of their seclusion they bathe and send a kid, a fowl, or a pigeon to the priest as an offering.[217] In Annam a woman at her monthly periods is deemed a centre of impurity, and contact with her is avoided.  She is subject to all sorts of restrictions which she must observe herself and which others must observe towards her.  She may not touch any food which is to be preserved by salting, whether it be fish, flesh, or vegetables; for were she to touch it the food would putrefy.  She may not enter any sacred place, she may not be present at any religious ceremony.  The linen which she wears at such times must be washed by herself at sunrise, never at night.  On reaching puberty girls may not touch flowers or the fruits of certain trees, for touched by them the flowers would fade and the fruits fall to the ground.  “It is on account of their reputation for impurity that the women generally live isolated.  In every house they have an apartment reserved for them, and they never eat at the same table as the men.  For the same reason they are excluded from all religious ceremonies.  They may only be present at family ceremonies, but without ever officiating in them."[218]

[Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the Indians of South and Central America.]