There are very similar taboos among the savage races.  Among the Tshi peoples of West Africa women are not allowed to remain even in the town but retire at the period to huts erected for the purpose in the neighbouring bush, because they are supposed to be offensive to the tribal deities at that time.[14] The Karoks of California have a superstition like that of the Israelites.  Every month the woman is banished without the village to live in a booth by herself.  She is not permitted to partake of any meat, including fish.  If a woman at this time touches or even approaches any medicine which is about to be given to a sick man, it will cause his death.[15] Amongst other Indian tribes of North America women at menstruation are forbidden to touch men’s utensils, which would be so defiled by their touch that their subsequent use would be attended by certain misfortune.  The Canadian Denes believe that the very sight of a woman in this condition is dangerous to society, so that she wears a special skin bonnet to hide her from the public gaze.[16] In western Victoria a menstruous woman may not take anyone’s food or drink, and no one will touch food that has been touched by her.[17] Amongst the Maoris, if a man ate food cooked by a menstrous woman, he would be “tapu an inch thick."[18] Frazer quotes the case of an Australian blackfellow who discovered that his wife had lain on his blanket at her menstrual period, and who killed her and died of terror himself within a fortnight.[19] Australian women at this time are forbidden on pain of death to touch anything that men use or even to walk on a path that men frequent.[20] Among the Baganda tribes a menstruous woman is not permitted to come near her husband, cook his food, touch any of his weapons, or sit on his mats, bed, or seat.[21]

By some twist in the primitive way of thinking, some “false association by similarity and contiguity,” the function of childbirth, unlike that of pregnancy, where the emphasis seems to have been placed in most cases on the mana principle, was held to be unclean and contaminating, and was followed by elaborate rites of purification.  It may be that the pains of delivery were ascribed to the machinations of demonic powers, or possession by evil spirits,—­we know that this has sometimes been the case.  The use of charms and amulets, and the chanting of sacred formulae at this dangerous time all point to such beliefs.  At any rate, although the birth of the child would seem in every respect except in the presence of blood to be more closely connected with the phenomena of pregnancy than with that of menstruation, as a matter of fact the taboos on the woman in child-bed were intimately associated with those on menstruous women.

Among the ancients, the Zoroastrians considered the woman unclean at childbirth as at menstruation.[22] In the Old Testament, ritual uncleanness results from contact with a woman at childbirth.[23]