Menstrual food restrictions and taboos: A qualitative study on rural, resettlement and urban indigenous Temiar of Malaysia.

Autor: Syed Abdullah SZ; Unit for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, George Town, Malaysia.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: PloS one [PLoS One] 2022 Dec 27; Vol. 17 (12), pp. e0279629. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Dec 27 (Print Publication: 2022).
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0279629
Abstrakt: Menstruation is arguably the first stage in a woman's reproductive cycle. Among the Temiar, as in many other traditional societies, menstruation represents a time during which a woman is considered to be vulnerable or polluted and there may be food or behavior avoidances and restrictions. The Temiar is one of the eighteen indigenous sub-ethnic groups in Peninsular Malaysia. The objective of this study was to examine the food restrictions and taboos imposed on menstruating Temiar women. A total of 38 participants from four different locations took part in five focus group discussions which represents different lifestyle experiences of the Temiar sub-ethnic group. The findings unfolds many practices: foods to be avoided and spirit in the landscape in order to protect the menstruating woman; isolating the menstruating woman in order to protect the community; consequences of not observing the menstruation food taboos and maintenance of the menstrual taboos. The menstruating women in all locations were prohibited from consuming salt, cooking oils, wild or domesticated animals, and Monosodium glutamate to protect themselves from the excessive flow of menstrual blood and future ill-health. They must eat separately from others because they are deemed polluted and dangerous to the community. The study concludes that the taboos directed towards the menstruating women often do have a caring and protective intention. Menstrual restrictions function not only to protect the menstruating women and the community but also to keep intact the symbolic boundary between human and the non-human world from which disease and weakness comes.
Competing Interests: The author has declared that no competing interests exist.
(Copyright: © 2022 Sharifah Zahhura Syed Abdullah. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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