Leaving the Metaphorical Menstrual Hut
Today I want to delve into the topic of menstrual taboos in heathenry. I started to write this entry and was completely unsatisfied with the initial product and started again. There is a lot of ground to cover, and honestly this is going to be longer than I had initially intended. Stick around or don’t.
First of all, I want to lay out a bit of a plan so you can see where I am heading without getting lost. This is as much for me as it is for you, because there are so many side topics that I could get onto…
I think the crucial place to start is discussing gender roles in historical context and comparing them to how gender roles are viewed in more modern times. Then I will lay the groundwork for discussing menstrual taboos in a cross-cultural examination, before narrowing the focus to a more heathen context. Before all of that though I want to say briefly what got me onto this topic.
There have been a lot of blogs, essays, and videos lately in the heathen community discussing using blood for ritual purposes. (Read this as sacrifice, within a ritual to the gods, and not as an ingredient in magical workings.) I don’t particularly want to get into my own views on the matter of blood sacrifice in my second blog entry, so I won’t, but my problem with the discussions I have seen of it so far is how quickly some might jump from blood sacrifice to menstrual taboos in context.
The question is, do you see women participating in ritual during their periods as ritually unclean? I personally do not. I understand that some women have their own personal preferences about ritual practice while on their periods, and I firmly believe they should do what makes them comfortable. As a blanket practice however, women who are menstruating have as much right to that space as anyone else and I hope to show how historically there is no basis for exclusion, and no reason for it in modern heathenry either. Women who are practicing ritual during their menstrual period are not attempting to use their menstrual blood as a sacrifice (or at least that is not the topic I am discussing here.) The menstrual blood is contained by whatever method that woman has chosen, and has nothing to do with ritual cleanliness. If you are offended by this, take it somewhere else. Telling a woman they are ritually unclean for up to a quarter of their adult lives is fairly debilitating, and baseless in the heathen context. Check yourself!
Okay, so let’s get into it then. I am not just spewing claims without doing my homework. So, gender roles…
Where we get caught up off the top is with gender roles. I have read some delightful articles about the strict gender roles of the Viking Age for example. These are immediately problematic in a heathen context. First, we are falling into the usual trap of focusing on too narrow of a point in history to truly encompass heathen practice historically. The other problem is that christianity had already started to influence heathen thought in the Viking Age. So yes, the gender roles of vikings certainly started to take on a stricter set of rules in the Viking Age. I would argue this is a direct result of christian influence.
I am not saying that there were no gender roles in pre-christian heathen worldview. Division of labour would have been crucial to surviving in the harsh environments of pre-christian Scandinavia. I am merely suggesting that these gender roles were not as strict as we might think they are. For evidence of this we need only look as far as the lore. How many stories are there where one god or another takes on an opposite gender role for various reasons? Odin in particular does so specifically to learn women’s knowledge, and this seems like a critical point in this discussion. There were specific sets of knowledge historically that were specific to the genders people in that time period, however, people who were perceived to be of the opposite gender were able to learn this knowledge in some cases. This suggests that even back then there was some understanding of the fluidity of gender roles or the existence of people who for whatever reason fit outside the more commonly perceived genders of the time.
Historically, and not necessarily in a heathen worldview, but more broadly, menstrual taboos were not meant to subjugate women, but rather to empower them. Women were the keepers of the homes and this was a very busy, tireless role. The idea of retreating with other women once a month to a menstrual hut and not have all those responsibilities that would normally come from running a household is very empowering. Women could tell stories, sing songs, and support one another. This was the perfect time to pass on that particular women’s knowledge from mother to daughter. The menstrual hut was never meant as a taboo. Menstrual blood was never meant to be unclean and unfit for ritual. The purpose of the metaphorical menstrual hut (as this was not always a literal place in all cultures historically) was to allow for separation of genders so that each could pass on knowledge to the next generations that would be crucial to the survival of the tribe. The menstrual time was a celebration of that life giving force within all women.
There is no historical evidence to support that there were menstrual taboos in pre-christian Scandinavia. What seems to actually be going on within heathenry today is that we are stuck in a flawed worldview that has been influenced by a couple of key factors. The primary one is the overshadowing influence of judeo-christian beliefs within mainstream modern culture. It is difficult for us as heathens to escape this baggage within our ideologies and our practice. Historically there is a ton of evidence of menstrual taboos, particularly within judaism, but also within christianity.
The other source seemingly of the ideas of these taboos in modern heathenry is borrowed mythos from hellenic practice around the concept of miasma and ritual purity. Bodily fluids are seen as ritually unclean, so of course this includes menstrual blood, as well as other blood, saliva, semen, vaginal fluids, urine, feces, and even sweat. The hellenic concept of miasma is fascinating as it can blind one to witnessing the gods in ritual and attract malevolent spirits. Another interesting feature is that miasma is contagious. This most certainly must be what causes a certain amount of the aversion to women who are menstruating taking part in heathen rituals, as many practitioners moved first through hellenism or other pagan traditions before coming to heathenry. It is understandable that many of these people may hold onto personal taboos regarding ritual cleanliness and miasma, but this should not reflect on broader heathen practice, where it has no place.
To further complicate things if you are a heathen in North America, we have the influence of some of the indigenous beliefs regarding menstrual taboos. I have heard from some representatives of some indigenous groups that they see menstruating women as too powerful to take part in rituals. (Oh look, evidence of my previous claims that the metaphorical menstrual hut was meant to empower women.) I don’t want to speak too much on this however, since it is not something I feel qualified to talk about in detail. I am sure these beliefs are likely to be representative of only some of the indigenous groups in North America, and I also have no way of knowing if these are historical beliefs or beliefs that are the result of christianity’s influence on these peoples.
I am sure you can see the pattern emerging. Historically, heathenry did not have menstrual taboos. In modern practice there is also no place for menstrual taboos on a tribal level. (Personal taboos are simply that, personal.) We live in a time where we should be making progressive action on gender roles as well as expectations based upon biological sex within our heathenry. We have no reason to have more taboos than our predecessors, if anything, the modern context should have more room to be even more accepting of differences as overall we are not relying on gender roles for the survival of our tribes.
Sources:
“Before the Male Gaze: The Absence of the Female Body in Old Norse” by Jenny Jochens
Blood Magic: The Anthropology of Menstruation edited by Thomas Buckley and Alma Gottlieb
“Blood Relations: Menstruation and the Origins of Culture” by Ian Watts
“Caught Between Worlds: Gendering the Maiden Warrior in Old Norse” by William Layher
“Cultural aspects and mythologies surrounding menstruation and abnormal uterine bleeding” by Delfin A. Tan, Rohana Haththotuwa, and Ian S. Fraser
First Blood: A Cultural Study of Menarche by Sally Dammery
“Female Leaders: A Re-evaluation of Women During the Viking Age” by Sorayda Santos
Issues of Blood: The Politics of Menstruation by Sophie Laws
"Katharsis & Miasma" https://hellenicfaith.com/katharsis-miasma/
"Lokasenna" https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/poe/poe10.htm
“Menstrual Taboos Among Major Religions” by M Guterman, P Mehta, and M Gibbs
"Miasma & Purification" https://hellenicfaith.wordpress.com/miasma-and-purification/
Norse Revival: Transformations of Germanic Neopaganism by Stefanie von Schnurbein
"Purification in Hellenismos" http://baringtheaegis.blogspot.com/2013/07/purification-in-hellenismos.html
The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Menstruation Studies edited by Chris Bobel, Inga T. Winkler, Breanne Fahs, Katie Ann Hasson, Elizabeth Arveda Kissling, and Tomi-Ann Roberts
“Viking Gender Roles” https://norse-mythology.org/viking-gender-roles/
“Viking Women” by Marit Synnøve Vea https://avaldsnes.info/en/viking/vikingkvinner/
“What Did Vikings Use for Menstruation?” by Dyanne https://dyannehs.tumblr.com/vikingculture
“Women in Prehistoric Art” by Camilla Power
“Women Were Considered Ritually Unclean” https://web.archive.org/web/20090727022048/http://www.womenpriests.org/traditio/unclean.asp
Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years by Elizabeth Wayland Barber
“Words and Expressions for Menstruation Around the World” http://www.mum.org/words.html
Picture Source:
Vikings TV Series
