All this time
she was regarded as an unclean being with whom no one might hold
intercourse.
When symptoms of puberty appeared on a girl for the first time, the
Guaranis of Southern Brazil, on the borders of Paraguay, used to sew
her up in her hammock, leaving only a small opening in it to allow
her to breathe. In this condition, wrapt up and shrouded like a
corpse, she was kept for two or three days or so long as the
symptoms lasted, and during this time she had to observe a most
rigorous fast. After that she was entrusted to a matron, who cut the
girl's hair and enjoined her to abstain most strictly from eating
flesh of any kind until her hair should be grown long enough to hide
her ears. In similar circumstances the Chiriguanos of South-eastern
Bolivia hoisted the girl in her hammock to the roof, where she
stayed for a month: the second month the hammock was let half-way
down from the roof; and in the third month old women, armed with
sticks, entered the hut and ran about striking everything they met,
saying they were hunting the snake that had wounded the girl.
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