Menarche, Cultural and Spiritual Meanings

Menarche denotes a young woman's first menstruation; it signifies her transformation from childhood to adulthood. Most traditional cultures celebrated this transition with religious ceremonies of varying complexity, honoring not only the girl but womanhood itself. Those cultures that no longer have such a ritual are usually patriarchal and no longer consider women to have a special sacred nature. Contrary to the andocentric literature, menarche rituals are the only true puberty rituals, for males do not evidence so obvious a marker of physical maturity as menarche.

MENARCHE RITUALS IN EARLY SOCIETIES

The earliest cultures were gathering-hunting traditions, which were and remain egalitarian in all aspects including gender. In these cultures, women were equated with the Earth aspect of the female-male primary complementary divine couple, Sky-Earth, from whom all life came. Menstrual flowing was equated with springs and streams, the flowing of Earth, and the menstrual cycle was equated with the female aspect of the complementary divine couple of male Sun-female Moon, as the two cycles tend to be the same. Thus menarche brought the girl becoming woman not only to her physical reproductive power but to her spiritual power, making her equivalent to Earth and Moon.

In caves throughout the world, one finds images of the vulva engraved or painted on the walls from tens of thousands of years ago to the present. In Iowa there are vagina-shaped caves, by streams near old village sites, whose walls are inscribed over and over again with the symbol for the vulva, which in some contemporary Anshinaabe traditions in the Great Lakes region, is also the symbol for Earth. Less than a century ago, young women sequestered themselves in these caves during menarche, fasting to attain guardian spirits, and bonding themselves with Earth. As they sat on the earthen floor, their menstrual flow merged with Earth as they heard Her flowing water nearby. To commemorate their newly gained spiritual power, these young women inscribed the vagina/earth sign on the cave wall. More commonly, they sequestered themselves in a small wigwam or teepee for the same purpose.

MENARCHE AND WOMEN AS POWERFUL BEINGS

This separation from community tends to be completely misunderstood by misogynous cultures. Modern European and North American scholars assume that other traditions have the same hatred for the female body as their own and usually interpret menstrual seclusion as a way to avoid the polluting nature of females, particularly during menstruation. This understanding has led to theories of pollution and purity. The actuality is the opposite.

Before the spread of Christian misogyny, women's bodies were thought to be spiritually powerful. This power increased during menstruation, when the life-force of the body, blood, flowed from the center of her reproductive/ spiritual power. At this time women were so powerful that their power would overwhelm male power, which would be deleterious to both men and women. Thus women removed themselves from contact with males. As a practical consideration, if the pheromones produced by women during menstruation were to adhere to men or their hunting weapons, they could be smelled at a distance by animals and the hunt would be unsuccessful, thus reducing the available food for the entire community.

It is at menarche that this spiritual power is perceived as dangerous to the community, because the young woman has yet to learn how to control it. Thus during the menarche sequestering, young women receive instruction from older women and fast for spiritual power. Their return to the community is celebrated with a feast. In agricultural traditions, where hunting is replaced by farming, this sequestering tends to be more symbolic than actual, and the celebration may be put off for a year or more to enable the accumulation of all that is needed for a major ceremony and feast.

Menarche rituals can be found in traditional societies around the world, but perhaps the most outstanding is that of the Navajo and Apache. These cultures migrated from the northwestern part of Canada to the U.S. Southwest 500 years ago. In the north, the related cultures, such as the gathering-hunting Dené, consider women to be more spiritually powerful than men and a partial menarche seclusion lasts for a year. In the south, the cultures fused with the matrifocal, agricultural Pueblo traditions, creating a complex four-day menarche ritual which brings powerful spirits to heal the people of the community. During the ceremony, the young woman becomes temporarily divine; she is the Earth Mother herself and can heal those around her. The ceremony is the major ritual of these cultures, serving as a means for continuing tradition and for the community to reaffirm its solidarity in the presence of the sacred. For those women who undergo the arduous ritual, it remains the most important and empowering ritual of their lives.

EFFECTS OF RITUAL CELEBRATION OF MENARCHE

Celebrating menarche enhances social approbation by the community and engenders a strong sense of self-worth for the initiate. In addition the ritual also has positive effects on the body decades after the ceremony takes place. A 1999 study by Clo Mingo found that few Navajo women who had the puberty ceremony experienced menopausal problems, even if they did not continue traditional spiritual practices or had undergone hysterectomy. In contrast those Navajo women who did not have the ceremony had the same physiological problems with menopause as most women in the United States. Thus where menarche is celebrated, the effects of the ritual lasts a lifetime. The ceremony ensures a positive self-understanding—physically, spiritually, socially, and mentally—that is empowering and timeless.

see also Menstruation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Buckley, Thomas, and Alma Gottlieb, eds. 1988. Blood Magic: The Anthropology of Menstruation. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Frisbie, Charlotte. 1967. Kinaaldá: A Study of the Navajo Girl's Puberty Ceremony. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.

Mingo, Clo. 1999 "From the Research: Kinaaldá." Newsletter of the New Mexico Geriatric Education Center. October: 3-4.

Opler, Morris Edward. 1965. An Apache Life-Way: The Economic, Social, and Religious Institutions of the Chiricahua Indians. New York: Cooper Square. (Orig. pub. 1941.)

Paper, Jordan. 1997. Through the Earth Darkly: Female Spirituality in Comparative Perspective. New York: Continuum.

                                            Jordan Paper