Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language

164 Forbidden Words
‘unclean’. Traditionally, the menstruation taboo is based on a fear of contagion
because catamenia is seen as purging or purifying, a cleansing away of ill
humours – hence the Middle Dutch terms purgacy and reynicheit. In the
Middle Ages, menstrual blood was believed to contain defiled spirits, and
many of the most feared diseases, like leprosy and syphilis, were thought to
be transmitted through menstruating women. So, because of the danger she
posed, a menstruating woman was usually prevented from mingling freely in
the community. Perhaps because men can only experience catamenia as the
effluvium of a woman, menstrual blood is especially tabooed by men. In
Manhattan, the Hasidic Jews who work in the diamond district have a private
bus to take them to and from Brooklyn where they live, so as to avoid
contamination from menstruating women on public transportation. In some
societies, men will not even walk where a menstruating woman might have
passed above; 55 and in many more, men are forbidden to have sexual intercourse
with a menstruating woman.
Also thou shalt not approach unto a woman to uncover her nakedness, as long as she is
put apart for her uncleanness. (Leviticus 18: 19)
And if a man shall lie with a woman having her sickness, and shall uncover her
nakedness; he hath discovered her fountain, and she hath uncovered the fountain of her
blood: and both of them shall be cut off from among their people. (Leviticus 20: 18)
In these passages her nakedness is apparently a euphemism for ‘vagina’ and
fountain has the sense ‘source’. We see that the menstruating woman is not
only ‘unclean’ but that menstruation is a ‘sickness’. So menstruation is seen
as a polluting discharge that weakens the woman; the pollution and
weakening can be transferred to a male partner and, at worst, may lead to
the man’s death.
In most communities, the malefactions of menstruation are not fatal.
Navajo people frequently attribute severe arthritis, rheumatism and becoming
hunchbacked or similarly deformed to inappropriate contact with menstrual
blood. 56 Women are required to be very careful to cleanse themselves, and
contaminated clothing and sheets have to be washed separately lest the
pollution spread to other linen. The odour of menstrual fluid reputedly causes
headaches. However, a girl’s first and second periods have healing properties;
they are kinaalda or kinaaldsti, whereas later cycles are chooyin. This is
because the girl is pure and cannot yet conceive, but the kinaalda is an
indication of her reproductive potential. By the third month, she is ready to
be married. When menstruating, Navajo women cannot go into a sweathouse,
a cornfield, or to ceremonies; they cannot weave baskets, butcher meat, ride
horses, or sleep with either husband or children. These constraints often
require that others in the community know when a woman is menstruating.