The Birth of Menstruation

The man with a hole in his sack does not know he is being followed.

A silent arrow sliced the air, sailing a straight line to the deer's heart. Its hind legs buckled and it fell tail first to the earth before rolling on its side, dead. Its legs were still kicking when the hunter ran to it; even in death it tried to escape. When it lay silent and unmoving, the hunter let out a great cry, his powerful arms holding the bow above his head in triumph.

Blood trickled from where the arrow pierced the animal's body.

He hoisted it on his back and walked deeper into the forest, dropping it gently at the roots of an ancient Iroko tree. With a sharp knife and a few minutes' work he sawed off the deer's head, and blood gushed from the neck's stump. He laid the head among the roots and waited for the lights to come, the soft, gentle orbs that traveled down the tree's trunk bringing Olófin's spirit with them. They were subtle at first, those orbs, faint balls of light barely visible; and something almost transparent rose from the blood as they came. It was a soft shimmer against the dark wood of the tree like heat rising in the desert, and it disappeared into the orbs. When they faded an old man stood in their place; in his hands was the deer's head.

The pact was sealed. Olófin blessed the hunter silently before fading; and the hunter, having renewed his pact with the ancient orisha, returned home with the carcass. His pact was simple—he fed Olófin and he, in return, gave him the ashe to hunt so he could feed his family.

The hunter's wife was a curious woman; she wondered about the headless animals he brought home. One night her curiosity got the best of her and she filled his hunting sack with ashes, cutting a tiny hole in the bag's bottom. When he left for the forest in the morning, the ashes would leave a trail and she could follow him at a distance wherever he went; thus would she learn the mystery.

The next day, after her husband arose early and left for the hunt, the curious wife followed the ashes at a distance, silently. It was not long before he had tracked game. A swift arrow found its mark and the animal found death. The hunter gathered the carcass and went to the Iroko tree, and there he let the blood fall onto the earth. Once the head was in its roots, Olófin came for the offering and asked, "My son, why have you allowed another to follow you to this sacred place?"

Olófin pointed to a thick grove of trees, and the hunter turned to see his wife standing among them, her mouth open in a gesture of disbelief for having been discovered. "Woman," said Olófin, "blood you wished to see, and blood you shall ever shed to honor me!" Because of the wife's curiosity and Olófin's decree, women from that day have shed their own blood every month. It was a pact born of one woman's curiosity, and since that time women have shielded themselves from men as they bled from the womb.