[156] J. Chaffanjon, _L'Orénoque et le Caura_ (Paris, 1889), pp. 213-215.
[157] Shib Chunder Bose, _The Hindoos as they are_ (London and Calcutta, 1881), p. 86. Similarly, after a Brahman boy has been invested with the sacred thread, he is for three days strictly forbidden to see the sun. He may not eat salt, and he is enjoined to sleep either on a carpet or a deer's skin, without a mattress or mosquito curtain (_ibid._ p. 186). In Bali, boys who have had their teeth filed, as a preliminary to marriage, are kept shut up in a dark room for three days (R. Van Eck, "Schetsen van het eiland Bali," _Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Indië_, N.S., ix. (1880) pp. 428 _sq._).
[158] (Sir) H.H. Risley, _Tribes and Castes of Bengal, Ethnographic Glossary_ (Calcutta, 1891-1892), i. 152.
[159] Edgar Thurston, _Castes and Tribes of Southern India_ (Madras, 1909), vii. 63 _sq._
[160] Edgar Thurston, _op. cit._ iii. 218.
[161] Edgar Thurston, _op. cit._ vi. 157.
[162] S. Mateer, _Native Life in Travancore_ (London, 1883), p. 45.
[163] Arthur A. Perera, "Glimpses of Singhalese Social Life," _Indian Antiquary_ xxxi, (1902) p. 380.
[164] J. Moura, _Le Royaume du Cambodge_ (Paris, 1883), i. 377.
[165] Étienne Aymonier, "Notes sur les coutumes et croyances superstitieuses des Cambodgiens," _Cochinchine Française: Excursions et Reconnaissances_, No. 16 (Saigon, 1883), pp. 193 _sq._ Compare _id., Notice sur le Cambodge_ (Paris, 1875), p. 50 _id., Notes sur le Laos_ (Saigon, 1885), p. 177.
[166] Svend Grundtvig, _Dänische Volks-märchen_, übersetzt von A. Strodtmann, Zweite Sammlung (Leipsic, 1879), pp. 199 _sqq._
[167] Christian Schneller, _Märchen und Sagen aus Wälschtirol_ (Innsbruck, 1867), No. 22, pp. 51 _sqq._
[168] Bernbard Schmidt, _Griechische Märchen, Sagen und Volkslieder_ (Leipsic, 1877), p. 98.
[169] J.G. von Hahn, _Griechische und albanesische Märchen_ (Leipsic, 1864), No. 41, vol. i. pp. 245 _sqq._
[170] Laura Gonzenbach, _Sicilianische Märchen_ (Leipsic, 1870), No. 28, vol. i. pp. 177 _sqq._ The incident of the bone occurs in other folk-tales. A prince or princess is shut up for safety in a tower and makes his or her escape by scraping a hole in the wall with a bone which has been accidentally conveyed into the tower; sometimes it is expressly said that care was taken to let the princess have no bones with her meat (J.G. von Hahn, _op. cit._ No. 15; L. Gonzenbach, _op. cit._ Nos. 26, 27; _Der Pentamerone, aus dem Neapolitanischen übertragen_ von Felix Liebrecht (Breslau, 1846), No. 23, vol. i. pp. 294 _sqq._). From this we should infer that it is a rule with savages not to let women handle the bones of animals during their monthly seclusions. We have already seen the great respect with which the savage treats the bones of game (_Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild_ ii. 238 _sqq._, 256 _sqq._); and women in their courses are specially forbidden to meddle with the hunter or fisher, as their contact or neighbourhood would spoil his sport (see below, pp. 77, 78 _sq._, 87, 89 _sqq._). In folk-tales the hero who uses the bone is sometimes a boy; but the incident might easily be transferred from a girl to a boy after its real meaning had been forgotten. Amongst the Tinneh Indians a girl at puberty is forbidden to break the bones of hares (above, p. 48). On the other hand, she drinks out of a tube made of a swan's bone (above, pp. 48, 49), and the same instrument is used for the same purpose by girls of the Carrier tribe of Indians (see below, p. 92). We have seen that a Tlingit (Thlinkeet) girl in the same circumstances used to drink out of the wing-bone of a white-headed eagle (above, p. 45), and that among the Nootka and Shuswap tribes girls at puberty are provided with bones or combs with which to scratch themselves, because they may not use their fingers for this purpose (above, pp. 44, 53).