In this state of seclusion she must remain for three months.
All this time the sun may not shine upon her, but at night she is
allowed to slip out of the hut, and the bushes that hedge her in are
then changed. She may not feed herself or handle food, but is fed by one
or two old women, her maternal aunts, who are especially appointed to
look after her. One of these women cooks food for her at a special fire
in the forest. The girl is forbidden to eat turtle or turtle eggs during
the season when the turtles are breeding; but no vegetable food is
refused her. No man, not even her own father, may come into the house
while her seclusion lasts; for if her father saw her at this time he
would certainly have bad luck in his fishing, and would probably smash
his canoe the very next time he went out in it. At the end of the three
months she is carried down to a fresh-water creek by her attendants,
hanging on to their shoulders in such a way that her feet do not touch
the ground, while the women of the tribe form a ring round her, and thus
escort her to the beach. Arrived at the shore, she is stripped of her
ornaments, and the bearers stagger with her into the creek, where they
immerse her, and all the other women join in splashing water over both
the girl and her bearers. When they come out of the water one of the two
attendants makes a heap of grass for her charge to squat upon. The other
runs to the reef, catches a small crab, tears off its claws, and hastens
back with them to the creek.
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