Untouchability

The more positive or neutral associations of menstruation typically are found in small-scale, relatively egalitarian societies, where misogyny is in general less well developed. In many such societies, the menstruating woman was perceived as emitting a supernatural power, or mana; as anthropologists such as Mary Douglas have found, this sacred power is neither inherently good nor inherently bad. It is, however, extremely powerful, with a potential to be creative and energetic or destructive and even deadly. Thus menstruating women, like women who have recently given birth, had to observe strict taboos and to remain segregated from ordinary society, especially from men, who could be inadvertently hurt by a menstruating woman's mana.(It is noteworthy that males who had shed blood in war typically suffered similar proscriptions.)

Foragers such as the Eskimo feared the perceived danger of menstruating women on men's ability to hunt. The attitudes of Australian Aborigines, in contrast, are more complex and not altogether negative. Agricultural peoples too exhibit a variety of attitudes, with some making positive connections between agricultural fertility, the moon, and women's cycles, whereas others constructed symbolic oppositions between breast milk and menstrual blood as representations of birth and death and so found menstruating women to be a danger to crops and animals, and still others, such as Andean peoples, attached little significance to menstrual blood.

Menstrual taboos also serve to underline the gender segregation characteristic of many tribal societies, such as the Maori of New Zealand or the Arapesh of New Guinea. Sexual intercourse, in the case of the Mae Enga of the Central Highlands, was strictly limited in order to preserve male vitality, with menstrual blood, according to Mervyn Meggitt, perceived as especially corrupting to men's "vital juices."

Menstruating women, for the Lele of Africa, were prohibited from poking the fire or cooking for their husbands due to their polluting presence, while Bemba women feared pollution from the adulterous actions of men. These often rigid demarcations of sexual roles were thought to be necessary in upholding the foundation of community and preventing "sex pollution" from outside intermingling; the result, however, especially in the rigidly segregated societies of highland New Guinea, reflected and perpetuated a view that men and women belonged to two mutually distinct, hostile, and antagonistic spheres, both of which constituted a danger to the other.

Many such societies feature a special enclosed spaced, referred to in the anthropological literature as a "menstrual hut"—a nomenclature that reveals the unconscious biases of earlier scholars, who routinely referred to male ritual spaces as "men's houses," even when the "huts and "houses" were of similar size and construction. The retreat into sacred space protected the women themselves—as vulnerable carriers of a divine power—as well as other members of their society, who could be injured by a glance alone. Not all retreats to the hut constituted a punishment, however; for the Mbuti of Zaire, seclusion among women in the hut, or elima, gave rise to a spirit of community as younger and older women sang special songs to one another, sometimes to be joined by the musical replies of men who stood outside. Menstruation and isolation were also connected in rites of passage for young girls. Existing in a marginal state between childhood and adulthood, such girls could undergo seclusion followed by a ritual deflowerment, mortification, and beatings (as with the Uaupes of Brazil) or, in the case of the Deshast Brahmins of India, joyous celebrations, feasts, and the exchange of presents.