mouth of the supreme being
Ahura Mazda, devoted special attention to the subject. According to him,
the menstrous flow, at least in its abnormal manifestations, is a work
of Ahriman, or the devil. Therefore, so long as it lasts, a woman "is
unclean and possessed of the demon; she must be kept confined, apart
from the faithful whom her touch would defile, and from the fire which
her very look would injure; she is not allowed to eat as much as she
wishes, as the strength she might acquire would accrue to the fiends.
Her food is not given her from hand to hand, but is passed to her from a
distance, in a long leaden spoon."[243] The Hebrew lawgiver Moses, whose
divine legation is as little open to question as that of Manu and
Zoroaster, treats the subject at still greater length; but I must leave
to the reader the task of comparing the inspired ordinances on this head
with the merely human regulations of the Carrier Indians which they so
closely resemble.

[Superstitions as to menstruous women in ancient and modern Europe.]

Amongst the civilized nations of Europe the superstitions which cluster
round this mysterious aspect of woman's nature are not less extravagant
than those which prevail among savages. In the oldest existing
cyclopaedia--the _Natural History_ of Pliny--the list of dangers
apprehended from menstruation is longer than any furnished by mere
barbarians. According to Pliny, the touch of a menstruous woman turned
wine to vinegar, blighted crops, killed seedlings, blasted gardens,
brought down the fruit from trees, dimmed mirrors, blunted razors,
rusted iron and brass (especially at the waning of the moon), killed
bees, or at least drove them from their hives, caused mares to miscarry,
and so forth.[244] Similarly, in various parts of Europe, it is still
believed that if a woman in her courses enters a brewery the beer will
turn sour; if she touches beer, wine, vinegar, or milk, it will go bad;
if she makes jam, it will not keep; if she mounts a mare, it will
miscarry; if she touches buds, they will wither; if she climbs a cherry
tree, it will die.[245] In Brunswick people think that if a menstruous
woman assists at the killing of a pig, the pork will putrefy.[246] In
the Greek island of Calymnos a woman at such times may not go to the
well to draw water, nor cross a running stream, nor enter the sea. Her
presence in a boat is said to raise storms.[247]

[The intention of secluding menstruous women is to neu