FOR 21 days of every month, sometimes 24, the women of the Ethiopia Black International Congress Church of Salvation (EBICCS), more popularly known as ‘Bobo Hill’, must deny themselves male companionship.

Some Rastafarians who live outside the communal camp setting favoured by the Boboshantis, though claiming they are not strict followers, say the ritual possesses some merit, even as others dismiss it as religious dogma.

The Boboshanti who see themselves as the priestly sect among the 31 orders within the Rastafari movement, say that around the time of menstruation the female body is undergoing a process of cleansing and must be left alone until a seven-day window deemed fit for sexual intercourse.

“During that time, she is on a journey. it’s a purification,” Rastafari prophet Fisher told the Sunday Observer on a recent visit to the camp in the hills of Bull Bay, St Andrew.

The window for intercourse is usually seven days ahead of the woman’s monthly period.

This purification, the prophet said, “builds her up in life and health”.

Academic Aurthur Newland, a cultural expert and lecturer at the University of the West Indies, said the separation is referred to as the ’21-day purification principle’, adding that it represented a period of spiritual renewal and empowerment for women.

Newland, himself a member of the Boboshanti faith, said placing emphasis on the seven-day window “establishes a bias toward the male-construct”, but the separation principle, he added, is really about the woman and her empowerment.

Men and women – the latter constituting only 20 per cent of the EBICCS camp’s population of some 100 Boboshantis – live in separate dwellings and cohabit only for the week when sex is allowed. Some of the men have families that live outside the camp.

“She only sees her ‘kingman’ for seven days – the number of God,” said Empress Sharon, a resident of Bobo Hill, adding, “the (menstrual) blood is a holy sacrifice which goes back to the earth.”

In fact, the separation extends also to young males, including toddlers as young as three.

Empress Sharon said her faith holds that “the mother is the first teacher”, but that at age three, boys must be placed under the care of the ‘second teacher’ – his father – during the 21-day separation.

“A young boy should grow up with his father because that is who he is growing up to be,” she said.

But girls stay with their mothers learning how to do “craft work and the things that will prove economically viable for her and her kingman” in the future, she added.

Empress Sharon, who declined to be photographed, said that a pregnant Rastafari woman is allowed to see her ‘kingman’ anytime she wants, since there usually is no menstruation during pregnancy.

Another of the EBICCS council members, Rastafari priest Morant, interjected that the 21-day observation was determined astrologically, saying the woman’s cycle was regulated by the moon.

“The sun represents man; the moon, woman. Everyday the sun come up but is not every night the moon come out,” he said.

But even mainstream Rastafarians believe in the separation rule, some for religious as well as practical reasons, though they may not adhere to the practice.

Rastafarian attorney Sandra Alcott said the 21 days apart serves to regulate the Bobo population.

“Apart from being a spiritual manifestation of livity, the effect is also a natural birth control,” said Alcott, speaking with the Sunday Observer by telephone.

Boboshanti is the only Rastafari order known to practise this degree of separation, she said, noting that all Rasatafari women acknowledge the “power of the goddess” – a term Alcott uses to describe a woman’s ovulation cycle.

“The blood cycle is a part of creativity. it is the womb that is shedding; it must make room to house a young human,” she said.

Before her advent into law, Alcott said she once led an isolated life in the Blue Mountains, where she farmed various crops.

“In my early Rastafari journey, I would not go into the fields during my menses,” she said, noting that for her it was a time of serious reflection.

The attorney blasted industrialisation and modern technology for perpetuating what she described as a chasm between “woman and the natural order”, in an apparent reference to child-bearing.

“So many young women are having hysterectomies nowadays, and that shouldn’t be,” she said.

Legal assistant and Rastafari-sister Tzhdne Ishigyhd said she does not strictly follow the 21-day observation, but she respects the practice, at least from a spiritual perspective.

“It’s a time of glorification that you have the ability to bring life into this world,” said Ishigyhd, who refuses to be confined to any particular Rastafari order.

Instead, she describes herself as a woman who “trods all mansions and is welcomed by all as an international agent of His Imperial Majesty (Haile Selassie I)”, but admits that she sways towards the Nyahbinghi order.

Ishigyhd said the Nyahbinghis observe some aspects of the separation rule since women, during their menses, are discouraged from taking part in the ‘binghi’, or Rastafari celebration.

“The alter must remain pure. No blood can enter the temple,” said the legal assistant.

But, the ban is not exclusive to women since “men with sores or flesh wounds also cannot enter.”

Not all Rastafarians, however, read spiritual messages into a woman’s monthly period.

For Chandis, a 30-year old Rastafarian poet, it is a biological function and nothing more.

The notions held by the Boboshanti, she said, are “simply ridiculous.”

“I really don’t see it as a big issue,” she said, adding that it’s a little hard for her to buy into the philosophy since she has an irregular period that comes four times per year.

“It’s nothing,” she said dismissively, noting that medical science had long demystified ovulation. “It just comes out (as menses) because you’re not pregnant and your body doesn’t need it.”

An individual’s sex life, added Chandis, should not be dictated by group norms.

Rastafarian activist and radio personality Muta Baruka, who also discounts the separation rule, said despite its Biblical origins, the practice is impractical outside of the secluded camp setting.

“When a woman a see her period, me low her still, but me no really put her away,” he said.

The Rastafarian said he is unsure whether male-female separation is a spiritual mandate to be observed in ‘modern’ society, or a rule that Moses had documented as a scheme to govern the Israelites of the Old Testament.

Muta said he sees a woman’s monthly cycle only as proof of her fertility.

“Me no see the woman as unclean. A sore foot is unclean. Menses is a natural thing that occur every month.”

henryr@jamaicaobserver.com