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As a teacher of sociology I am often quizzed by my curious students about contempo­rary issues they encounter on social media. This week one of them showed me a photo (printed alongside) on the cover page of March 15-21 edition of The Annapurna Express.

The photo is of a young girl stand­ing alone among tall bushes. The caption reads, “Nita of Oligaun, Ach­ham in Far-western province does not want to go to the cattle shed. But if she does not go there for a month or two, her family and the villagers start asking questions: “Why aren’t you menstruating?”, “What has hap­pened?”, “Did you have physical relations with some man?”, “Are you pregnant?” These questions keep her going to the cattle shed.” The conversation with students took me into a long, reflective journey of which this article is a part.

The picture represents stories of many women and girls from mid- and far-western Nepal, where, during menstruation, they have to live in cattle sheds for three days. In many far-western districts, there are sheds especially built to keep women during their periods when they are totally secluded from day-to-day activities.

They are forbidden from enter­ing their homes, touching kitchen appliances, fetching water, visiting holy shrines or performing any reli­gious activity. Only on the fourth day the ‘pollution’ caused by menstrua­tion is believed to go away. This day is marked by purifying baths and resuming normal household and religious activities.

Some women’s rights activists have rightly criticized this tra­dition as being oppressive to women. While such opinions are gaining support from the govern­ment and the international donor community, the practice itself has not seen a significant drop. This is more so in far-western districts where, unlike in many other parts of Nepal, women are not even allowed to stay within the house throughout their periods.

Since this tradition has proven harmful to women, many have asked why it even began

The sheds where they are to stay are built quite far from the house so that there is less chance of acci­dentally polluting the kitchen or places of worship. Living in such sheds however has made women vulnerable in several ways. The cases of women being raped or sex­ually assaulted are not new, nor are the cases where they succumb to snake bites.

Since this tradition has proven harmful to women, many have asked why it even began. Although I am not aware of any studies on its origins in Nepal, studies from else­where in the subcontinent provides various justifications. According to one, this practice among the Madia Gond tribe in eastern Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh of India are based on their belief that a vagina is like a mouth and has teeth. The teeth, they believed, were removed, and the resulting wound makes it occa­sionally bleed.

Rather than going deep into myths about menstruation taboos practiced by various communities, I went to Hindu religious scriptures that are regarded as authoritative texts by large populations in the subcontinent. While going through them, I found contradictory justifi­cations. For example, the Brihada­ranyaka Upanishada argues that the menstrual taboo relieve women of domestic works and provide them free time for rest. During this time it is imperative for her to drink water from a bell metal pot and remain untouched. After spending three nights in seclusion, she should reclaim her purity by taking a bath and wearing new clothes. At the end, she should eat the thresh rice cooked for her by her husband.

This arguments makes it appear like the menstrual taboo could have first evolved to serve the interests of women, as menstruating women are not just exhausted but also prone to bacterial infections. Of course people were not aware of the organ­ism called bacteria then, but their empirical observations must have pointed that certain works or envi­ronment made women more vul­nerable. The taboo freed women of domestic chores and gave them a few days of rest.

On the other hand, Hindu treatise such as Taittiriya Samhita, Taittiriya Brahman, Jaimini Sutras, Parasara Smriti, and Vishnu Dharma Sutra discourage women from eating, rest­ing or keeping themselves clean during the periods. Taittairiya Sam­hita goes on to argue that menstru­ating women should not have inter­course or take a bath during her periods. She is also forbidden from combing her hair and maintaining her nails. Applying oil massage on her body is forbidden too.

The contradictory Hindu texts on this taboo forced me to search for other sources. The one that pro­vided an answer of a sort was the work of Beverly I. Strassmann, an anthropologist. Her ethnographic work on the Dogon tribe of the Afri­can country of Mali concludes that menstrual taboo was institution­alized among the Dogon so that they could monitor the chastity and reproductive status of the women.

According to her, the patriar­chal structure of the society made women do particular things during menstruation which they do not do normally. Visiting menstrual shed or remaining secluded from the socio-cultural life will signal their reproductive status to their husband and family members. This, she con­cludes, helps the male members and patrilineages avoid cuckoldry.

The agony of the girl captured in the photo published in The Annapurna Express hints that the study conducted by Strass­mann among the Dogon could be useful background information for researchers to explore the functions of menstrual taboos in Nepal.