Seclusion of Girls at Puberty among the Indians of North America, pp.

The long-legged spindling "flapper," who was never quite sure where to stow her legs, became the reserved, well-proportioned girl with the mysterious gleam of puberty in her eyes.

The rule not to lie down is observed also during their seclusion at puberty by Tsimshian girls, who always sit propped up between boxes and mats; their heads are covered with small mats, and they may not look at men nor at fresh salmon and olachen.

Among the Goajiras of Colombia rich people keep their daughters shut up in separate huts at puberty for periods varying from one to four years, but poor people cannot afford to do so for more than a fortnight or a month.

Conceive the state of Tahiti, where, as through all Polynesia, the girls have their fling at promiscuity from puberty to the late teens or early twenties, when an immense and increasing population compelled the thinking men to devise a remedy for the starvation which in times of drought or comparative failure of the feis or breadfruit or a scarcity of fish menaced the nation!