Newar Menstrual Disabilities in Comparison with the Indo-Nepalese

Differences in comparative disabilities during their monthly menstruation is another way in which the Newar women feel themselves to have a better situation than Indo-Nepalese Chetri and Brahman women. A discussion of menstruation belongs most centrally to an examination of the "private lives" of Newars, but it may be useful to say something about it here in relation to the question of the comparative position of Newar women in relation to other Nepalese Hindus. Lynn Bennett's report on a Kathmandu Valley community of Indo-Nepalese women based on a study made at the same time as this present one suggested the extent of their stigmatization (Bennett 1983, 215):

In Brahman-Chetri culture menstrual blood is a strong source of pollution—particularly to initiated males. During the first three days of every menses, women become polluted and untouchable. As one woman explained, "We

become like female Damai. . . . We become like female dogs." For these three days a woman must not enter the kitchen, touch food or water that others will eat or drink, or even worship the gods or the ancestor spirits. She may not comb her hair or oil it, and she sleeps separately in a downstairs room. Also she may not touch an adult man. . . The segregation of women during their menstrual periods is strictly observed. . . Older informants told me that in the time of their mothers-in-law . . . women were hidden in a dark room away from the sun^[11] . . . and out of the sight of all males for the first three days of their periods.

Bennett also notes that Brahman-Chetri women of Jumla in western Nepal "may not enter the house at all for three days and so they must sleep in a cattle shed or outside with a fire. Linda Stone reports that this rule holds also for the Brahman-Chetri women of Nuwakot" (Bennett 1983, 215).

According to both male and female informants, Newar women's restrictions in Bhaktapur are, in comparison to these examples (insofar as they may be representative of Indo-Nepalese practices now or in the past), considerably less. Menstruating Newar women in Bhaktapur do comb their own hair, and may continue to sleep in their usual place, although they sometimes go to another household woman's sleeping area to sleep. Most upper-status families reportedly do not let women cook during menstruation, although according to Jyapu informants, in most Jyapu and middle-level (and probably lower-level) families, menstruating women can cook everything except rice to be used for ceremonial purposes. In many thar s, including Pa(n)cthariya and Chathariya (but not Newar Brahmans), menstruating women attend ceremonial family feasts. At all levels menstruating women are not supposed to carry water or touch god images, sacred utensils, or priests. They are not supposed to pluck flowers used for religious offerings. In the farming thar s, menstruating women work on the farms, but are not supposed to touch certain plants (e.g., ginger, chili peppers, turmeric), which would be harmed by their touch.

During menstruation Newar women may worship deities in the same way that a polluted man (say, during the course of death pollution) would. If initiated, she will perform the necessary worship of the Tantric lineage god (in upper-status families), but away from the actual shrine, using a dish and uncooked rice (app. 4), and worshiping a mental image of the god. She may also perform daily worship in the same way, imagining the steps of the puja (app. 4). She may also perform what would ordinarily be household shrine worship at the side of the

river. Women are supposed to eat rich foods during menstruation to prevent ill effects (including dizziness) from loss of blood. Cloths are used to absorb the menstrual blood, which are washed by the menstruating woman and kept for repeated use.

The period of contamination is supposed to last four days, following which the woman must purify herself and her sleeping area by bathing and cleansing with specially pure water—(Ga [n ]ga jal [app. 4]). For upper-status women, they may have a more formal purification with services of a woman of the barber thar (chap. 11). After purification women have no further menstruation-related disabilities, with the exception that they are not supposed, at least in upper level thar s, to participate in commemorative worship to deceased ancestors during the six days following purification.

Intercourse is supposed to be discontinued from the onset of menstruation until the fourth day after onset, that is, after the purification. Men believe that if they have intercourse during the wife's menstruation they will become seriously and perhaps chronically ill. They fear contact with the menstrual blood. (Menstrual blood is regarded, apparently, more as a dangerous^[12] and powerful rather than a disgusting substance.^[13] As we will see in chapter 9, chapter 11, and elsewhere, "disgusting" versus "dangerous" is a significant distinction in Bhaktapur's symbolic world.)

All this echoes G. S. Nepali's (1965, 115) earlier report on other Newar communities:

Menstrual impurity other than the first one [i.e., menarche rites] is not observed by the Newars as strictly as by the Gorkhas [the Indo-Nepalese]. During menses, a Gorkha woman byes practically in isolation. On the fourth day after her bath she is considered clean. But still she is not allowed to much water and attend to religious duties until the fifth day. Among the Newars, on the other hand, a woman during her menses can even attend to the domestic duties including kitchen. The only restriction imposed on her is that she should have her bath before attending m her normal duties. At the most she is forbidden to come in physical contact with objects of religious worship.

The details of menstrual practices vary among thar s within this general characterization. It is of great interest that one extreme exception was among the untouchable Po(n)s, among whom women must leave the inside of the house and go to the cheli (the porch or lowest story of the house which is considered outside the house) during their period of contamination, which lasts for six days, two days longer than for most Newar women.

We hope to deal elsewhere with the local doctrines explaining the origins of menstruation. It is not associated by our informants with bad karma or with a woman's own "sin." The widespread Hindu legend that it is one result of a great sin by Indra, his killing of a Brahman, is known but told in a considerably less misogynistic form than the version given by Bennett (1982, 216). It is said that menstruation represents the periodic draining of impurities from a woman's body. The male anxieties represented in interpretations of menstruation are, in short, more subtly and much more mildly expressed in the Newar response than in those of their Hindu neighbors.