t such times to cook.[212]

[Dread and seclusion of menstruous women in India.]

The Bhuiyars, a Dravidian tribe of South Mirzapur, are said to feel an
intense dread of menstrual pollution. Every house has two doors, one of
which is used only by women in this condition. During her impurity the
wife is fed by her husband apart from the rest of the family, and
whenever she has to quit the house she is obliged to creep out on her
hands and knees in order not to defile the thatch by her touch.[213] The
Kharwars, another aboriginal tribe of the same district, keep their
women at such seasons in the outer verandah of the house for eight days,
and will not let them enter the kitchen or the cowhouse; during this
time the unclean woman may not cook nor even touch the cooking vessels.
When the eight days are over, she bathes, washes her clothes, and
returns to family life.[214] Hindoo women seclude themselves at their
monthly periods and observe a number of rules, such as not to drink
milk, not to milk cows, not to touch fire, not to lie on a high bed, not
to walk on common paths, not to cross the track of animals, not to walk
by the side of flowering plants, and not to observe the heavenly
bodies.[215] The motive for these restrictions is not mentioned, but
probably it is a dread of the baleful influence which is supposed to
emanate from women at these times. The Parsees, who reverence fire, will
not suffer menstruous women to see it or even to look on a lighted
taper;[216] during their infirmity the women retire from their houses to
little lodges in the country, whither victuals are brought to them
daily; at the end of their seclusion they bathe and send a kid, a fowl,
or a pigeon to the priest as an offering.[217] In Annam a woman at her
monthly periods is deemed a centre of impurity, and contact with her is
avoided. She is subject to all sorts of restrictions which she must
observe herself and which others must observe towards her. She may not
touch any food which is to be preserved by salting, whether it be fish,
flesh, or vegetables; for were she to touch it the food would putrefy.
She may not enter any sacred place, she may not be present at any
religious ceremony. The linen which she wears at such times must be
washed by herself at sunrise, never at night. On reaching puberty girls
may not touch flowers or the fruits of certain trees, for touched by
them the flowers would fade and the fruits fall to the ground. "It is on