will shiver and in the heat they will
faint." Suk men and women take their meals apart, because the men fear
that one or more of the women may be menstruating.[203] The Anyanja of
British Central Africa, at the southern end of Lake Nyassa, think that a
man who should sleep with a woman in her courses would fall sick and
die, unless some remedy were applied in time. And with them it is a rule
that at such times a woman should not put any salt into the food she is
cooking, otherwise the people who partook of the food salted by her
would suffer from a certain disease called _tsempo_; hence to obviate
the danger she calls a child to put the salt into the dish.[204]

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

Among the Hos, a tribe of Ewe negroes of Togoland in West Africa, so
long as a wife has her monthly sickness she may not cook for her
husband, nor lie on his bed, nor sit on his stool; an infraction of
these rules would assuredly, it is believed, cause her husband to die.
If her husband is a priest, or a magician, or a chief, she may not pass
the days of her uncleanness in the house, but must go elsewhere till she
is clean.[205] Among the Ewe negroes of this region each village has its
huts where women who have their courses on them must spend their time
secluded from intercourse with other people. Sometimes these huts stand
by themselves in public places; sometimes they are mere shelters built
either at the back or front of the ordinary dwelling-houses. A woman is
punishable if she does not pass the time of her monthly sickness in one
of these huts or shelters provided for her use. Thus, if she shews
herself in her own house or even in the yard of the house, she may be
fined a sheep, which is killed, its flesh divided among the people, and
its blood poured on the image of the chief god as a sin-offering to
expiate her offence. She is also forbidden to go to the place where the
villagers draw water, and if she breaks the rule, she must give a goat
to be killed; its flesh is distributed, and its blood, diluted with
water and mixed with herbs, is sprinkled on the watering-place and on
the paths leading to it. Were any woman to disregard these salutary
precautions, the chief fetish-man in the village would fall sick and
die, which would be an irreparable loss to society.[206]

[Powerful influence ascribed to menstruous blood in Arab legend.]

The miraculous virtue ascribed to menstruous