When a Hindoo maiden reaches maturity she is kept in a dark room for
four days, and is forbidden to see the sun. She is regarded as
unclean; no one may touch her. Her diet is restricted to boiled
rice, milk, sugar, curd, and tamarind without salt. On the morning
of the fifth day she goes to a neighbouring tank, accompanied by
five women whose husbands are alive. Smeared with turmeric water,
they all bathe and return home, throwing away the mat and other
things that were in the room. The Rarhi Brahmans of Bengal compel a
girl at puberty to live alone, and do not allow her to see the face
of any male. For three days she remains shut up in a dark room, and
has to undergo certain penances. Fish, flesh, and sweetmeats are
forbidden her; she must live upon rice and ghee. Among the Tiyans of
Malabar a girl is thought to be polluted for four days from the
beginning of her first menstruation. During this time she must keep
to the north side of the house, where she sleeps on a grass mat of a
particular kind, in a room festooned with garlands of young coco-nut
leaves.
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