pipe at her fire, she would refuse to grant the request, telling him that it would make his nose bleed and his head ache, and that he would fall sick in consequence.  If an Indian’s wooden pipe cracked, his friends would think that he had either lit it at one of these polluted fires or had held some converse with a woman during her retirement, which was esteemed a most disgraceful and wicked thing to do.  Decent men would not approach within a certain distance of a woman at such times, and if they had to convey anything to her they would stand some forty or fifty paces off and throw it to her.  Everything which was touched by her hands during this period was deemed ceremonially unclean.  Indeed her touch was thought to convey such pollution that if she chanced to lay a finger on a chief’s lodge or his gun or anything else belonging to him, it would be instantly destroyed.  If she crossed the path of a hunter or a warrior, his luck for that day at least would be gone.  Were she not thus secluded, it was supposed that the men would be attacked by diseases of various kinds, which would prove mortal.  In some tribes a woman who infringed the rules of separation might have to answer with her life for any misfortunes that might happen to individuals or to the tribe in consequence, as it was supposed, of her criminal negligence.  When she quitted her tent or hut to go into retirement, the fire in it was extinguished and the ashes thrown away outside of the village, and a new fire was kindled, as if the old one had been defiled by her presence.  At the end of their seclusion the women bathed in running streams and returned to their usual occupations.[224]

[Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the Creek, Choctaw, Omaha, and Cheyenne Indians.]

Thus, to take examples, the Creek and kindred Indians of the United States compelled women at menstruation to live in separate huts at some distance from the village.  There the women had to stay, at the risk of being surprised and cut off by enemies.  It was thought “a most horrid and dangerous pollution” to go near the women at such times; and the danger extended to enemies who, if they slew the women, had to cleanse themselves from the pollution by means of certain sacred herbs and roots.[225] Similarly, the Choctaw women had to quit their huts during their monthly periods, and might not return till after they had been purified.  While their uncleanness lasted they had to prepare their own food.  The men believed that if they were to approach a menstruous woman, they would fall ill, and that some mishap would overtake them when they went to the wars.[226] When an Omaha woman has her courses on her, she retires from the family to a little shelter of bark or grass, supported by sticks, where she kindles a fire and cooks her victuals alone.  Her seclusion lasts four days.  During this time she may not approach or touch a horse, for the Indians believe that such contamination would impoverish or weaken the animal.[227] Among the Potawatomis