124 TABOO AND GENETICS 



themselves to a woman during the menstrual 

 period. (12 : p. 448). Rabbinic laws demand 

 that " a woman during all the days of her 

 separation shall be as if under a ban." The 

 epithet Niddah, applied to a woman at that 

 time, means " to lay under a ban." The re- 

 construction of the ancient Assyrian texts shows 

 that the law of the unclean taboo on the woman 

 in her courses holds for them. Up to the 

 present time the Semitic woman is carefully 

 segregated from the rest of the tribe, often for a 

 long time, and becomes taboo again on each 

 successive occasion. (13). Peoples in the 

 eastern Mediterranean region will not permit a 

 woman in her courses to salt or pickle ; what- 

 ever she might perpare would not keep. This 

 belief survives among the folk to-day in America, 

 and was evidently brought early in the history 

 of the country, for it is common among pioneer 

 stock. 



There are very similar taboos among the 

 savage races. Among the Tshi peoples of West 

 Africa women are not allowed to remain even 

 in the town but retire at the period to huts 

 erected for the purpose in the neighbouring bush, 

 because they are supposed to be offensive to 

 the tribal deities at that time. (14). The 

 Karoks of California have a superstition like 

 that of the Israelites. Every month the woman 

 is banished without the village to live in a booth 



