Further, the Baganda would not suffer a menstruous woman to
visit a well; if she did so, they feared that the water would dry up,
and that she herself would fall sick and die, unless she confessed her
fault and the medicine-man made atonement for her.[201] Among the
Akikuyu of British East Africa, if a new hut is built in a village and
the wife chances to menstruate in it on the day she lights the first
fire there, the hut must be broken down and demolished the very next
day. The woman may on no account sleep a second night in it; there is a
curse (_thahu_) both on her and on it.[202] In the Suk tribe of British
East Africa warriors may not eat anything that has been touched by
menstruous women. If they did so, it is believed that they would lose
their virility; "in the rain they will shiver and in the heat they will
faint." Suk men and women take their meals apart, because the men fear
that one or more of the women may be menstruating.[203] The Anyanja of
British Central Africa, at the southern end of Lake Nyassa, think that a
man who should sleep with a woman in her courses would fall sick and
die, unless some remedy were applied in time. And with them it is a rule
that at such times a woman should not put any salt into the food she is
cooking, otherwise the people who partook of the food salted by her
would suffer from a certain disease called _tsempo_; hence to obviate
the danger she calls a child to put the salt into the dish.
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