the women at their monthly periods “are not allowed to associate with the rest of the nation; they are completely laid aside, and are not permitted to touch any article of furniture or food which the men have occasion to use.  If the Indians be stationary at the time, the women are placed outside of the camp; if on a march, they are not allowed to follow the trail, but must take a different path and keep at a distance from the main body."[228] Among the Cheyennes menstruous women slept in special lodges; the men believed that if they slept with their wives at such times, they would probably be wounded in their next battle.  A man who owned a shield had very particularly to be on his guard against women in their courses.  He might not go into a lodge where one of them happened to be, nor even into a lodge where one of them had been, until a ceremony of purification had been performed.  Sweet grass and juniper were burnt in the tent, and the pegs were pulled up and the covering thrown back, as if the tent were about to be struck.  After this pretence of decamping from the polluted spot the owner of the shield might enter the tent.[229]

[Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the Indians of British Columbia.]

The Stseelis Indians of British Columbia imagined that if a menstruous woman were to step over a bundle of arrows, the arrows would thereby be rendered useless and might even cause the death of their owner; and similarly that if she passed in front of a hunter who carried a gun, the weapon would never shoot straight again.  Neither her husband nor her father would dream of going out to hunt while she was in this state; and even if he had wished to do so, the other hunters would not go with him.  Hence to keep them out of harm’s way, the women, both married and unmarried, were secluded at these times for four days in shelters.[230] Among the Thompson Indians of British Columbia every woman had to isolate herself from the rest of the people during every recurring period of menstruation, and had to live some little way off in a small brush or bark lodge made for the purpose.  At these times she was considered unclean, must use cooking and eating utensils of her own, and was supplied with food by some other woman.  If she smoked out of a pipe other than her own, that pipe would ever afterwards be hot to smoke.  If she crossed in front of a gun, that gun would thenceforth be useless for the war or the chase, unless indeed the owner promptly washed the weapon in “medecine” or struck the woman with it once on each principal part of her body.  If a man ate or had any intercourse with a menstruous woman, nay if he merely wore clothes or mocassins made or patched by her, he would have bad luck in hunting and the bears would attack him fiercely.  Before being admitted again among the people, she had to change all her clothes and wash several times in clear water.  The clothes worn during her isolation were hung on a tree, to be used next time, or to be washed.  For one day after coming back among the people she did not cook food.  Were a man to eat food cooked by a woman at such times, he would have incapacitated himself for hunting and exposed himself to sickness or death.[231]