Anyway, what i am trying to say is that whereas i felt the blue vadeli antics were unsubtle - the fact that they played on sexuality was not wrong, because it is a horror technique applied by all the greatest masters of horror - Bloch, Lovecraft, Stoker. Indeed, the act itself of the blue vadeli is not totally wrong - but i don't think the pc's should know about it (i think hearing despairing screams in the night is better).
As for the stuff about menstruation taboos, it can be found in a great
many societies. I would not suggest that it is a feature unique to all
societies - but because it is such a curious and wondrous occurance
(spontaneous bleeding from genitals), it often acquires great symbolic
significance and is invested with ideology.
I do not think it is a uniquely 'western' belief either. Many hunter-gatherers in africa (eg. baka pygmy, the hadza, etc.) have these kind of taboos - no menstruating woman shall cross the path of a beast being hunted, for example. In Papua new Guinea too, in the sepik river valley, there are extensive menstruation taboos associated with yam growing. No woman shall plant seeds or walk in a plot where yams are growing, or their 'bad magic' will poison the yams. The yams are treated like people - in festivals, mighty yams are dressed in fine ceremonial clothing, and paraded round the villages. At night, the farmers visit the yams where they are growing, and tell stories to them so that they don't get bored. Menstruating women must stay away, though.
As for the blue vadeli beliefs on sexuality, they are not that
strange when considered in a RW context. Once more, in papua new guinea,
one tribe does not consider a child to have become a man until they have
(ahem) fellated a priest. This is because semen is considered to be a
life force, held within priests, but this life force can be given to
adolescents to make them become adults (as the semen is taken into their
bodies) - before this ritual act, they are not considered to have a soul,
and if someone dies before receiving their soul, they are buried with
great fear, as they will probably come back as a ghost.
In some areas of papua new guinea in the 19th cent, cannibalism and
necrophilia was common (albeit supported by appropriate ritual belief).
The male-female sexual act was one filled with great significance - the
woman was seen as 'eating' the man (as she ate his semen, his life
force), and gained power over him via this. Many stories said that women
had the power to turn into dogs at night, and that they went among the
grave plots to dig up men's corpses and eat them - as they did in life
symbolically. Of course, this never happened (at least i hope not!), they
were just stories, However, anthropologists did record that women did eat
some of the corpse of a dead relative when he died. Similarly, in ireland
(pre 19th cent), some women used to taste the blood of a male relative who
had died. If you want to find out more, i suggest you read bloch and
parry's 'death and the regeneration of life' (1981 i think, cambridge uni
press).
One Durkheimian interpretation of these gross acts is that death, or the coming of age, holds great symbolic significance, which potentially may rupture a community. Therefore people create these rituals to reestablish social relations, to create society anew. i hope these examples illustrate that truth is sometimes as strange as fiction, so the blue vadeli rituals are not totally wrong (as they merely offend my bourgeois sensibilities, because i am imperfect). I do feel, however, that they ought to be supported with some ritual colouring. I would suggest something akin to the papua new ginea rites. I can't think of any gods or legends which could be associated with this though, as my knowledge of the vadeli is woefully inadequate. Can anyone else help?
Dominic.
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