The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 10 of 12)Frazer, James George
Religion
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 10 of 12)
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
forehead-band, and a necklet of pearl-shell, ties green parrot feathers
round her arms and wrists and across her chest, and smears her body, back
and front, from the waist upwards with blotches of red, white, and yellow
paint. She has in like manner to be buried in the sand at her second and
third menstruations, but at the fourth she is allowed to remain in camp,
only signifying her condition by wearing a basket of empty shells on her
back.(103) Among the Kia blacks of the Prosperine River, on the east coast
of Queensland, a girl at puberty has to sit or lie down in a shallow pit
away from the camp; a rough hut of bushes is erected over her to protect
her from the inclemency of the weather. There she stays for about a week,
waited on by her mother and sister, the only persons to whom she may
speak. She is allowed to drink water, but may not touch it with her hands;
and she may scratch herself a little with a mussel-shell. This seclusion
is repeated at her second and third monthly periods, but when the third is
over she is brought to her husband bedecked with savage finery. Eagle-hawk
or cockatoo feathers are stuck in her hair: a shell hangs over her
forehead: grass bugles encircle her neck and an apron of opossum skin her
waist: strings are tied to her arms and wrists; and her whole body is
mottled with patterns drawn in red, white, and yellow pigments and
charcoal.(104)
(M31) Among the Uiyumkwi tribe in Red Island the girl lies at full length
in a shallow trench dug in the foreshore, and sand is lightly thrown over
her legs and body up to the breasts, which appear not to be covered. A
rough shelter of boughs is then built over her, and thus she remains lying
for a few hours. Then she and her attendant go into the bush and look for
food, which they cook at a fire close to the shelter. They sleep under the
boughs, the girl remaining secluded from the camp but apparently not being
again buried. At the end of the symptoms she stands over hot stones and
water is poured over her, till, trickling from her body on the stones, it
is converted into steam and envelops her in a cloud of vapour. Then she is
painted with red and white stripes and returns to the camp. If her future
husband has already been chosen, she goes to him and they eat some food
together, which the girl has previously brought from the bush.(105) In
Prince of Wales Island, Torres Strait, the treatment of the patient is
similar, but lasts for about two months. During the day she lies covered
up with sand in a shallow hole on the beach, over which a hut is built. At
night she may get out of the hole, but she may not leave the hut. Her
paternal aunt looks after her, and both of them must abstain from eating
turtle, dugong, and the heads of fish. Were they to eat the heads of fish
no more fish would be caught. During the time of the girl’s seclusion, the
aunt who waits upon her has the right to enter any house and take from it
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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