It gets a lot stranger

Posted by Catherine Cartwright JOnes on August 20, 1999 at 16:33:24:

In Reply to: Re: Polution and silliness posted by Shanon Lavender on August 20, 1999 at 13:45:15:

I spent most of yestarday in the library going through astonishing
material on how dangerous menstruating women were percieved as being.
If I started posting what I found, this forum would go off topic for
months. Years, even. The short story is, that in many groups, henna
was used precisely between menarchy and menopause, and in some, had
the purpose of "an anti-pollution device". I did find one source that
stated that the diamond shaped pattern so common in henna patterns
through Arabia represented a vulva. Other sources say evil
eye...maybe some folks regard them as one and the same.

Most of the meanings and traditions are tribal and scattered to the
winds now anyway...and are very difficult to recover and harder still
to interpret in their original context.

Granted, a woman could do no cooking, baking, tending of animals,
sleeping with the husband...(the list is endless) while she was
menstruating...(in an annoying marriage I can envision a lady having
virtually endless menses) (in several groups, while menstruating, she
got to go live in a little tent by herself, and have someone bring her
food) ...and if her clothing touched a man's clothing, even in the
laundy, he was polluted. The specifics of the effects of the
pollution were not ennumerated, but a major concern was
causing male impotence.

So, to pollute your office manager, it is only necessary that you walk
in from of him. You could even just look him in the eyes.... There
is a huge list of magic spells that were done with menstrual
blood...most of which would have been extremely threatening to men.
Until well into this century a man could hardly have looked at his
morning coffee without fear and trepidation. Especially his morning
coffee.

One of the anthro books that has a lot of info on henna in rural Saudi
(about 50 years ago, and very rural) records a young bride going
through her "night of the Henna" with a curiously self-confident
demeanour.....when she was taken by her husband, she showed him that
her period had just started...and he had to explain (a virtual
impossibility in a rather prudish society...where men really can't
even say the word) exactly why he wasn't coming forth with proof of
virginal blood as the "conquering Sultan". The fellow was in a
miserable state for 2 weeks...unable to prove his manly prowess (for
fear of pollution) and unable to explain to the community why it
wasn't happening.

Part of the scope of this was that if a girl is married at 13 and is
continuously pregnant or nursing until her death, there are probably
virtually no menses. If a woman was menstruating...something was going
very wrong in the order of tribal life.

Also, about 2500 years ago, the uterus was considered to be a very
sneaky and peculiar creature, apt to go roaming all around a woman's
innards... and to keep it in place and healty, the best thing for it
was to "moistened" frequently by sexual intercourse, with careful
attention paid to keeping the lady wet and happy.

Follow-ups:

• Re: It gets a lot stranger SeeSee 20:20:57 8/20/99 (1)
  • Great Link! Catherine Cartwright Jones 20:33:04 8/20/99 (0)
• Matriarchial vs Patriarchial Sara T 20:05:12 8/20/99 (0)