BARBARA E. WARD
obviously be impossible for people whose fishing vessels do double duty as family homes to take this extreme view, and women once on board it would be uneconomic not to make use of their labour.
Nevertheless a few notions of pollution do apply. During the period under review in Kau Sai, a menstruating woman was not supposed to board a boat (other than her own dwelling) on which there was a shrine, she should not draw water from a well, nor should she take part in shooting nets or lines. There was no prohibition upon her helping to draw the nets in, it being assumed that the part of the fishing operations which was subject to supernatural influence was by that stage over and done with. These taboos were merely the extensions to the fishing people's world of views on pollution shared also by the landspeople, and including such customs as the careful separation of men's from women's clothes during washing and drying, the rule that no female should step over a male, that no male should ever wash or bathe in water previously used by a female, and that no menstruating woman should take any part in religious ritual.
This set of beliefs helps to explain also why so few boat women can swim, even though this disability leads quite frequently to death by drowning. Once past the age of 10, or a little more or less, the girls in Kau Sai gave up sea bathing, and unless they had become exceptionally good swimmers already they seemed to lose the knack. Most of the explanations I was given were in terms of proper female modesty. Certainly it was true that the girls' withdrawal from water play did take place at much the same time as the general separation of female from male play groups. Moreover all little girls, even when very small, always went swimming with all their clothes on. It does not follow that ideas of pollution played no part in local cultural explanations. On the contrary I was twice told specifically that the "real" (boon-loi, lit. original) reason for women not being able to swim was just this fear of uncleanness. On both occasions my informants were women, and they were careful to warn me that one did not talk about these matters in mixed company. One harbour boat woman explained the whole set of attitudes about the proper behaviour between the sexes by
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BARBARA E. WARD
obviously be impossible for people whose fishing vessels do double duty as family homes to take this extreme view, and women once on board it would be uneconomic not to make use of their labour.
Nevertheless a few notions of pollution do apply. During the period under review in Kau Sai, a menstruating woman was not supposed to board a boat (other than her own dwelling) on which there was a shrine, she should not draw water from a well, nor should she take part in shooting nets or lines. There was no prohibition upon her helping to draw the nets in, it being assumed that the part of the fishing operations which was subject to supernatural influence was by that stage over and done with. These taboos were merely the extensions to the fishing people's world of views on pollution shared also by the landspeople, and including such customs as the careful separation of men's from women's clothes during washing and drying, the rule that no female should step over a male, that no male should ever wash or bathe in water previously used by a female, and that no menstruating woman should take any part in religious ritual.
This set of beliefs helps to explain also why so few boat women can swim, even though this disability leads quite frequently to death by drowning." Once past the age of 10, or a little more or less, the girls in Kau Sai gave up sea bathing, and unless they had become exceptionally good swimmers already they seemed to lose the knack. Most of the explanations I was given were in terms of proper female modesty. Certainly it was true that the girls' withdrawal from water play did take place at much the same time as the general separation of female from male play groups. Moreover all little girls, even when very small, always went swimming with all their clothes on. It does not follow that ideas of pollution played no part in local cultural explanations. On the contrary I was twice told specifically that the "real" (boon-loi, lit. original) reason for women not being able to swim was just this fear of uncleanness." On both occasions my informants were women, and they were careful to warn me that one did not talk about these matters in mixed company. One harbour boat woman explained the whole set of attitudes about the proper behaviour between the sexes by
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