severer. She may not even enter a house in which there is turtle flesh,
nor approach a fire on which the flesh is cooking; she may not go near
the sea and she should not walk on the beach below high-water mark. Nay,
the infection extends to her husband, who may not himself harpoon or
otherwise take an active part in catching turtle; however, he is
permitted to form one of the crew on a turtling expedition, provided he
takes the precaution of rubbing his armpits with certain leaves, to
which no doubt a disinfectant virtue is ascribed.[190] Among the Kai of
German New Guinea women at their monthly sickness must live in little
huts built for them in the forest; they may not enter the cultivated
fields, for if they did go to them, and the pigs were to taste of the
blood, it would inspire the animals with an irresistible desire to go
likewise into the fields, where they would commit great depredations on
the growing crops. Hence the issue from women at these times is
carefully buried to prevent the pigs from getting at it. And conversely,
if the pigs often break into the fields, the blame is laid on the women
who by the neglect of these elementary precautions have put temptation
in the way of the swine.[191] In Galela, to the west of New Guinea,
women at their monthly periods may not enter a tobacco-field, or the
plants would be attacked by disease.[192] The Minangkabauers of Sumatra
are persuaded that if a woman in her unclean state were to go near a
rice-field, the crop would be spoiled.[193]

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

The Bushmen of South Africa think that, by a glance of a girl's eye at
the time when she ought to be kept in strict retirement, men become
fixed in whatever position they happen to occupy, with whatever they
were holding in their hands, and are changed into trees that talk.[194]
Cattle-rearing tribes of South Africa hold that their cattle would die
if the milk were drunk by a menstruous woman;[195] and they fear the
same disaster if a drop of her blood were to fall on the ground and the
oxen were to pass over it. To prevent such a calamity women in general,
not menstruous women only, are forbidden to enter the cattle enclosure;
and more than that, they may not use the ordinary paths in entering the
village or in passing from one hut to another. They are obliged to make
circuitous tracks at the back of the huts in order to avoid the ground
in the middle of