An issue of Blood

I woke up this morning craving a heavy breakfast: a bowl of grits with lots of butter, garlic and salt, salmon croquettes, hash browns and wheat toast or maybe a stack of pancakes with maple syrup and turkey bacon…I was able to fight of my taste buds and settle for my normal, health conscious bowl of steel cut, whole grain oats with almond milk but the cravings followed me through the day. Why am I so voracious ? A glance at the calendar answered that question. It’s the 18th day in my 21-28 day erratic menstrual cycle. This poses a bit of a problem because the Akan festival that, I’ve been excited to attend, falls on day 21.
Similar to other African Traditional Religions the Akan have a serious blood taboo. According to sister friends who practice the tradition in the New World, a woman who is cycling is excused from her normal household chores. Entering the kitchen and handling food, sexual contact and any religious or ritual items are off limits. Her attendance at spiritual gatherings like an Akom (the event I plan to attend this weekend) also has limits, as it is taboo for her to touch any of the Okomfo (priests), participate in the ritual dances performed to evoke the Abosom (deities) or approach any shrines where offerings are placed.
In the event that my cycle does appear, I would be relegated to the perimeter of the festival and forced to just observe.
While I fully respect the traditions, taboos and beliefs of others, the anthropologist in me wants to know why. How and why did these ideas about menstruation form? What social, spiritual factors were involved in the creation of this taboo?
I am not being critical. I recognize that I as an African in America conform to a set of unspoken taboos related to menstruation. In our culture women are regarded and unpredictable and emotional. Even I refer to my menstruation time as erratic, which implies some level of deviancy. But ideas about menstruation should be expected in a Eurocentric, male driven society like ours, right? How does a tradition like Akan, where women are expected to perform ritual and hold spiritual titles and matrilineal descent governs inheritance, succession, and land tenure develop a belief that women are unclean when menstruating?

In his anthological article titled Menstruation as a Verbal Taboo among the Akan of Ghana Kofi Agyekum examines the semantic and metaphorical relations between the euphemisms for menstruation and what they denote. Among the Akan, euphemisms for menstruation follow two basic models: (1) negative (indisposition and seclusion of the woman) and (2) positive (transition and fertility and the arrival of a protective visitor).
According to another account bad magic is thought to be possessed by all menstruating women. It is even believed that water or cloth which has been in contact with menstrual blood can be used to destroy supernatural influences and to cause harm. At the same time the menstruating woman is thought to have special powers so that no ghost, bad medicines or witchcraft can harm her (Field, 1948).

As a Yoruba / Ifa practitioner I’ve run into this issue before. In certain Orisha houses women who are cycling are also expected to follow a certain protocol. I’ve heard several suggestions, mostly from men, as to why these taboos exist:
a) if you approach a shrine while you’re bleeding, the orisha may think you’re the offering and attempt to consume you
b) women are in a fragile state during menstruation and the energies present during a ritual could be detrimental to her spirit
c) because, that’s just how it is.
While some of these suggestions seem a little far fetched, I respect the rules, even though I am not totally comfortable with them.
I am of the opinion that menstruation taboos have little to do with spiritual or physical fragility. Most of us have overheard our uncles talk about how they refuse to eat a woman’s food that was not prepared in their presence, we are familiar with amulets and juju that include a dash of menstrual blood for strength, and although they call it PMS, we all know that our sensitivities are heightened around that time of the month and that we cycle along with the gravitational pull of the moon. Could it be that these taboos have more to do with a patriarchal fear of women, our sexuality and our power?