Samoa, where the manufacture of cloth is allotted to the women, it is
taboo for a man to engage in any part of the process.[30] Among the
Andamanese the performance of most of the domestic duties falls to the
lot of the women and children. Only in cases of stern necessity will the
husband procure wood or water.[50] An Eskimo even thinks it an indignity
to row in an _umiak_, the large boat used by women.

They also distinguish very definitely between the offices of husband
and wife. For example, when a man has brought a seal to land, it would
be a stigma on his character to draw it out of the water, since that is
the duty of the female.[51] In the Marquesas Islands, the use of canoes
in all parts of the islands is rigorously prohibited to women, for whom
it is death even to be seen entering one when hauled on shore; while
Tapa-making, which belongs exclusively to women, is taboo to men.[30]
Among the Betchuanas of South Africa the men will not let women touch
the cattle.[52] The Baganda think that if a woman steps over a man's
weapons they will not aim straight or kill until they have been
purified.[21] Among many South African tribes, if a wife steps over her
husband's assegais, they are considered useless from that time and are
given to the boys to play with. This superstition rings many changes and
is current among the natives of all countries.

The taboos which have thus been exemplified and reviewed are based on
the feeling that woman is possessed of a demonic power, or perhaps of a
_mana_ principle which may work injury; or else upon the fear that she
may contaminate man with her weakness. It is very probable that many of
these taboos originated even as far back as the stage of society in
which the line of descent was traced through the mother. There seems
little doubt that the framework of ancient society rested on the basis
of kinship, and that the structure of the ancient gens brought the