h, fasting rigidly from animal food; it was death to any person to
touch or even approach her.[111]

[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Indians of Washington State.]

In the interior of Washington State, about Colville, "the customs of the
Indians, in relation to the treatment of females, are singular. On the
first appearance of the menses, they are furnished with provisions, and
sent into the woods, to remain concealed for two days; for they have a
superstition, that if a man should be seen or met with during that time,
death will be the consequence. At the end of the second day, the woman
is permitted to return to the lodge, when she is placed in a hut just
large enough for her to lie in at full length, in which she is compelled
to remain for twenty days, cut off from all communication with her
friends, and is obliged to hide her face at the appearance of a man.
Provisions are supplied her daily. After this, she is required to
perform repeated ablutions, before she can resume her place in the
family. At every return, the women go into seclusion for two or more
days."[112] Among the Chinook Indians who inhabited the coast of
Washington State, from Shoalwater Bay as far as Grey's Harbour, when a
chief's daughter attained to puberty, she was hidden for five days from
the view of the people; she might not look at them nor at the sky, nor
might she pick berries. It was believed that if she were to look at the
sky, the weather would be bad; that if she picked berries, it would
rain; and that when she hung her towel of cedar-bark on a spruce-tree,
the tree withered up at once. She went out of the house by a separate
door and bathed in a creek far from the village. She fasted for some
days, and for many days more she might not eat fresh food.[113]

[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Nootka Indians of Vancouver
Island.]

Amongst the Aht or Nootka Indians of Vancouver Island, when girls reach
puberty they are placed in a sort of gallery in the house "and are there
surrounded completely with mats, so that neither the sun nor any fire
can be seen. In this cage they remain for several days. Water is given
them, but no food. The longer a girl remains in this retirement the
greater honour is it to the parents; but she is disgraced for life if it
is known that she has seen fire or the sun during this initiatory
ordeal."[114] Pictures of the mythical thunder-bird are painted on the
screens behind which she hides. During