is
inserting its snout, while the same museum contains another figure of a
snake-like crocodile crawling out of a woman's vulva, and a third figure
shows a small round snake with a small head, and closely resembling a
penis, at the mouth of the vagina. All these figures are reproduced by
Ploss and Bartels. Even in modern Europe the same ideas prevail. In
Portugal, according to Reys, it is believed that during menstruation women
are liable to be bitten by lizards, and to guard against this risk they
wear drawers during the period. In Germany, again, it was believed, up to
the eighteenth century at least, that the hair of a menstruating woman, if
buried, would turn into a snake. It may be added that in various parts of
the world virgin priestesses are dedicated to a snake-god and are married
to the god.[359] At Rome, it is interesting to note, the serpent was the
symbol of fecundation, and as such often figures at Pompeii as the _genius
patrisfamilias_, the generative power of the family.[360] In Rabbinical
tradition, also, the serpent is the symbol of sexual desire.

There can be no doubt that--as Ploss and Bartels, from whom some of these
examples have been taken, point out--in widely different parts of the
world menstruation is believed to have been originally caused by a snake,
and that this conception is frequently associated with an erotic and
mystic idea.[361] How the connection arose Ploss and Bartels are unable to
say. It can only be suggested that its shape and appearance, as well as
its venomous nature, may have contributed to the mystery everywhere
associated with the snake--a mystery itself fortified by the association
with women--to build up this world-wide belief regarding the origin of
menstruation.

This primitive theory of the origin of menstruation probably brings before
us in its earliest shape the special and intimate bond which has ever been
held to connect women, by virtue of the menstrual process, with the
natural or supernatural powers of the world. Everywhere menstruating women
are supposed to be possessed by spirits and charged with mysterious
forces. It is at this point that a serious misconception, due to ignorance
of primitive religious ideas, has constantly intruded. It is stated that
the menstruating woman is "unclean" and possessed by an evil spirit. As a
matter of fact, however, the savage rarely discriminates between bad and
good spirits. Every spirit may have either a beneficial or mal