And
Sapor did as she bade him, and the city fell down in a heap, and he
stormed it and slew Daizan on the spot.[207]
[Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the Jews and in Syria.]
According to the Talmud, if a woman at the beginning of her period
passes between two men, she thereby kills one of them; if she passes
between them towards the end of her period, she only causes them to
quarrel violently.[208] Maimonides tells us that down to his time it was
a common custom in the East to keep women at their periods in a separate
house and to burn everything on which they had trodden; a man who spoke
with such a woman or who was merely exposed to the same wind that blew
over her, became thereby unclean.[209] Peasants of the Lebanon think
that menstruous women are the cause of many misfortunes; their shadow
causes flowers to wither and trees to perish, it even arrests the
movements of serpents; if one of them mounts a horse, the animal might
die or at least be disabled for a long time.[210] In Syria to this day a
woman who has her courses on her may neither salt nor pickle, for the
people think that whatever she pickled or salted would not keep.[211]
The Toaripi of New Guinea, doubtless for a similar reason, will not
allow women at such times to cook.[212]
[Dread and seclusion of menstruous women in India.]
The Bhuiyars, a Dravidian tribe of South Mirzapur, are said to feel an
intense dread of menstrual pollution.
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