kill those who handle them, so do the things which have been touched by a menstruous woman. An Australian blackfellow, who discovered that his wife had lain on his blanket at her menstrual period, killed her and died of terror himself within a fortnight.[1] Hence Australian women at these times are forbidden under pain of death to touch anything that men use. They are also secluded at child-birth, and all vessels used by them during their seclusion are burned.[2] Amongst some of the Indians of North America also women at menstruation are forbidden to touch men’s utensils, which would be so defiled by their touch that their subsequent use would be attended by certain mischief or misfortune.[3] Amongst the Eskimo of Alaska no one will willingly drink out of the same cup or eat out of the same dish that has been used by a woman at her confinement until it has been purified by certain incantations.[4] Amongst some of the Tinneh Indians of North America the dishes out of which girls eat during their seclusion at puberty “are used by no other person, and wholly devoted to their own use.”[5] Again amongst some Indian tribes of North America men who have slain enemies are considered to be in a state of uncleanness, and will not eat or drink out of any dish or smoke out of any pipe but their own for a considerable time after the slaughter, and no one will willingly use their dishes or pipes. They live in a kind of seclusion during this time, at the end of which all
- ↑ Journ. Anthrop. Inst. ix. 458.
- ↑ W. Ridley, “Report on Australian Languages and Traditions,” in Journ. Anthrop. Inst. ii. 268.
- ↑ Alexander Mackenzie, Voyages from Montreal through the Continent of North America, cxxiii.
- ↑ Report of the International Polar Expedition to Point Barrow, Alaska (Washington, 1885), p. 46.
- ↑ “Customs of the New Caledonian Women,” in. Journ. Anthrop. Inst. vii. 206.
