Among the Akikuyu
of British East Africa, if a new hut is built in a village and the
wife chances to menstruate in it on the day she lights the first
fire there, the hut must be broken down and demolished the very next
day. The woman may on no account sleep a second night in it; there
is a curse both on her and on it.
According to the Talmud, if a woman at the beginning of her period
passes between two men, she thereby kills one of them. Peasants of
the Lebanon think that menstruous women are the cause or many
misfortunes; their shadow causes flowers to wither and trees to
perish, it even arrests the movements of serpents; if one of them
mounts a horse, the animal might die or at least be disabled for a
long time.
The Guayquiries of the Orinoco believe that when a woman has her
courses, everything upon which she steps will die, and that if a man
treads on the place where she has passed, his legs will immediately
swell up. Among the Bri-bri Indians of Costa Rica a married woman at
her periods uses for plates only banana leaves, which, when she has
done with them, she throws away in a sequestered spot; for should a
cow find and eat them, the animal would waste away and perish.
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