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Title: Scatalogic Rites of All Nations - A dissertation upon the employment of excrementitious remedial agents in religion, therapeutics, divination, witchcraft, love-philters, etc., in all parts of the globe
Author: Bourke, John Gregory
Language: English
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NATIONS ***
SCATALOGIC RITES
OF ALL NATIONS.
_A Dissertation upon the Employment of Excrementitious Remedial
Agents in Religion, Therapeutics, Divination, Witchcraft,
Love-Philters, etc., in all Parts of the Globe._
BASED UPON ORIGINAL NOTES AND PERSONAL OBSERVATION, AND UPON
COMPILATION FROM OVER ONE THOUSAND AUTHORITIES.
BY
CAPTAIN JOHN G. BOURKE,
THIRD CAVALRY, U. S. A.,
FELLOW OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF
SCIENCE; MEMBER OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY, OF WASHINGTON,
D.C.; MEMBER OF THE “CONGRES DES AMÉRICANISTES;” ASSOCIATE
MEMBER OF THE VICTORIA INSTITUTE AND PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF
GREAT BRITAIN; MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY OF AMERICAN FOLK-LORE;
AUTHOR OF THE “SNAKE DANCE OF THE MOQUIS OF ARIZONA;” “AN
APACHE CAMPAIGN;” “NOTES ON THE THEOGONY AND COSMOGONY OF
THE MOJAVES”; “THE GENTILE ORGANIZATION OF THE APACHES;”
“MACKENZIE’S LAST FIGHT WITH THE CHEYENNES,” AND OTHER WORKS.
NOT FOR GENERAL PERUSAL.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
W. H. LOWDERMILK & CO.
1891.
_Copyright, 1891_,
BY JOHN G. BOURKE.
University Press:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
PREFACE.
The subject of SCATALOGIC or STERCORACEOUS RITES AND PRACTICES, however
repellent it may be under some of its aspects, is none the less deserving
of the profoundest consideration,—if for no other reason than that from
the former universal dissemination of such aberrations of the intellect,
as well as of the religious impulses of the human race, and their present
curtailment or restriction, the progress of humanity upward and onward
may best be measured.
Philosophical and erudite thinkers of past ages have published tomes of
greater or less magnitude upon this subject; among these authors, it may
be sufficient, at this moment, to mention Schurig, Etmuller, Flemming,
Paullini, Beckherius, Rosinus Lentilius, and Levinus Lemnius. The
historian Buckle regarded the subject as one well worthy of examination
and study, as will appear in the text from the memoranda found in his
scrap-books after his death.
The philosopher Boyle is credited with the paternity of a work which
appeared over the signature “B,” bearing upon the same topic.
The anonymous author or authors of the very learned pamphlet “Bibliotheca
Scatalogica,” for the perusal of which I am indebted to the courtesy
of Surgeon John S. Billings, collected a mass of most valuable
bibliographical references.
Quite recently there have appeared in the “Mitterlungen Gesselsch.,”
Wien, 1888, two pages of the work of Dr. M. Hofler, “Volksmedicin und
Aberglaube in Oberbayern Gegenwart und Vergangenheit,” describing some
of the excrementitious remedies still existing in the folk-medicine of
Bavaria.
But while treatises upon this subject are by no means rare, they are
not accessible, except to those scholars who are within reach of
the largest libraries; and while all, or nearly all, indicate the
association of these practices with sorcery and witchcraft, as well
as with folk-medicine, no writer has hitherto ventured to suggest the
distinctively religious derivation to be ascribed to them.
From the moment when the disgusting “Urine Dance of the Zuñis” was
performed in the author’s presence down to the hour of concluding this
work, a careful examination has been made of more than one thousand
treatises of various kinds and all sizes, from the musty pig-skin covered
black letter of the fifteenth century to the more modest but not less
valuable pamphlet of later years. These treatises have covered the field
of primitive religion, medicine, and magic, and have likewise included
a most liberal portion of the best books of travel and observation
among primitive peoples in every part of the world; not only English
authorities, but also the writings of the best French, Spanish, German,
Latin, Greek, Arabic, and Celtic authors are here presented, together
with an examination of what has come down to us from leaders of Eastern
religious thought and from the monastic “leeches” of the Anglo-Saxons.
A great number of examples of the use of stercoraceous remedies has
been inserted under the head of “Therapeutics,” for two excellent
reasons: first, to show that the use of such remedies was most widely
disseminated; and secondly, to demonstrate that this use had been handed
down from century to century.
Had any other course been followed, objection might have been raised that
unusual remedies, or those of eccentric practitioners only, had been
sought for and quoted for the purpose of proving that Filth Pharmacy was
a thoroughly consistent and fully developed school in the science of
therapeutics, from the most primitive times down to and even overlapping
our own days.
A perusal of this volume cannot fail to convince the most critical that
it has been written in a spirit of fairness as much as is possible to
human nature, and without prepossession or prejudice in any direction.
The fact that so many citations have been incorporated in this
compilation without comment, may be claimed as an additional proof of the
unbiassed character of the work.
No collection of facts constitutes a science. All that can properly be
done with facts not positively known to be related, is to place them,
as here placed, in juxtaposition, leaving the reader to frame his own
conclusions; by no other method can an author escape the imputation of
distorting or perverting evidence.
The great number of letters received from distinguished scholars in
all parts of the world, from Edinburgh to New South Wales, attests the
interest felt in this treatise, and at the same time places the author
under obligations which words cannot express. Special acknowledgments are
due to:—
Professor W. ROBERTSON SMITH, Editor of the Encyclopædia
Britannica.
Major-General J. G. FORLONG, author of “The Rivers of Life,”
Edinburgh.
HAVELOCK ELLIS, Esq., Editor of the Contemporary Science Series.
Prof. TYRRELL S. LEITH, of Bombay (since dead).
FRANK REDE FOWKE, Esq., South Kensington Museum, London.
JAMES G. FRAZER, Esq., M. A., author of “The Golden Bough,”
Trinity College, Cambridge.
Dr. GUSTAV JAEGER, of Stuttgart.
Dr. J. W. KINGSLEY, of Cambridge.
Prof. E. B. TYLOR, Oxford.
Prof. E. N. HORSFORD, Harvard University.
Prof. F. W. PUTNAM, Peabody Archæological Museum, Cambridge,
Mass.
Surgeon WASHINGTON MATTHEWS, U. S. Army.
Surgeon B. J. D. IRWIN, U. S. Army.
F. B. KYNGDON, Esq., Secretary Royal Society, Sydney, New South
Wales.
J. F. MANN, Esq., Sydney, New South Wales.
JOHN FRAZER, Esq., LL.D., Sydney, New South Wales.
Capt. HENRI JOUAN, French Navy.
Dr. BERNARD, Cannes, France.
Dr. ROBERT FLETCHER.
Dr. FRANZ BOAS, Clark University, Worcester, Mass.
Dr. HENRY STRICKER, Frankfort, Germany.
Chief Engineer MELVILLE, U. S. Navy.
Prof. OTIS T. MASON, National Museum, Washington, D. C.
WILLIAM H. GILDER, the Arctic explorer and writer.
Dr. ALBERT S. GATSCHET, Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, D. C.
Rev. HENRY CLAY TRUMBULL, Editor of “The Sunday School Times,”
of Philadelphia, Penn.
Hon. LAMBERT TREE, ex-minister to Russia.
ANDREW LANG.
J. S. HITTEL, San Francisco, Cal.
M. M. H. GAIDOZ, editor of “Mélusine,” Paris.
Dr. S. B. EVANS, Ottumwa, Ia.
Rev. J. OWEN DORSEY, Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, D. C.
Mr. W. W. ROCKHILL, the distinguished Oriental scholar and
explorer.
Hon. H. T. ALLEN, Secretary Corean Legation.
Mrs. F. D. BERGEN, and many other correspondents.
Last, but not least, to Dr. J. HAMPDEN PORTER, of the city of
Washington, whose friendly offices amounted practically to a
collaboration.
All papers of this series which relate to the manners and usages of
the Indians of the southwestern portion of our territory, especially
those concerning the urine dances, phallic dances, snake dances of the
Zuñis, Mokis, and other Pueblos; the Navajoes of New Mexico; the sun
dance of the Sioux, etc., have been compiled from memoranda gathered
under the direction of Lieutenant-General P. H. SHERIDAN, in 1881 and
1882. Those referring to Apaches, etc., of Arizona; to Northern Mexico;
to pueblo ruins and cliff and cave dwellings; to Sioux, Cheyennes,
Crows, Arapahoes, Pawnees, Shoshones, Utes, and other tribes, extending
back to 1869, were mainly obtained while the author was serving as
aide-de-camp upon the staff of Brigadier-General GEORGE CROOK, during the
campaigns conducted by that officer against hostile tribes west of the
Missouri, from the British line down into Mexico, and to a considerable
extent under General CROOK’S direction, and with his encouragement and
assistance.
The translations from German texts were made by Messrs. Smith, Pratz,
and Bunnemeyer, while for the analysis of the pills made out of the
ordure of the Grand Lama of Thibet, the author desires to express his
acknowledgments to Dr. W. M. Mew.
J. G. B.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. PRELIMINARY REMARKS 1
II. THE URINE DANCE OF THE ZUÑIS 4
III. THE FEAST OF FOOLS IN EUROPE 11
Comparison between the Feast of Fools and the
Urine Dance.—The Feast of Fools traced back to
most ancient times.—Disappearance of the Feast of
Fools.—The “Szombatiaks” of Transylvania.
IV. THE COMMEMORATIVE CHARACTER OF RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS 24
The generally sacred character of dancing.—Fray
Diego Duran’s account of the Mexican festivals.—The
Urine Dance of the Zuñis may conserve a tradition of
the time when vile aliment was in use.
V. HUMAN EXCREMENT USED IN FOOD BY THE INSANE AND OTHERS 29
VI. THE EMPLOYMENT OF EXCREMENT IN FOOD BY SAVAGE TRIBES 33
VII. URINE IN HUMAN FOOD 38
Chinook olives.—Urine in bread-making.—Human ordure
eaten by East Indian fanatics.
VIII. THE ORDURE OF THE GRAND LAMA OF THIBET 42
Huc and Dubois compared.
IX. THE STERCORANISTES 54
Un Dalai-Lamas Irlandais.
X. THE BACCHIC ORGIES OF THE GREEKS 62
Bacchic orgies in North America.—The sacrifice of
the dog a substitution for human sacrifice.
XI. POISONOUS MUSHROOMS USED IN UR-ORGIES 65
The mushroom drink of the Borgie well.
XII. THE MUSHROOM IN CONNECTION WITH THE FAIRIES 85
XIII. A USE OF POISONOUS FUNGI QUITE PROBABLY EXISTED AMONG
THE MEXICANS 89
Mushrooms and toadstools worshipped by American
Indians.—A former use of fungus indicated in the
myths of Ceylon, and in the laws of the Brahmins.
XIV. THE ONION ADORED BY THE EGYPTIANS 94
XV. SACRED INTOXICATION AND PHALLISM 97
XVI. AN INQUIRY INTO THE DRUIDICAL USE OF THE MISTLETOE 99
Former employment of an infusion or decoction of
mistletoe.—The mistletoe alleged to have been held
sacred by the Mound-builders.—The mistletoe festival
of the Mexicans.—Vestiges of Druidical rites at the
present day.—The Linguistics of the mistletoe.
XVII. COW DUNG AND COW URINE IN RELIGION 112
Cow dung also used by the Israelites.
XVIII. ORDURE ALLEGED TO HAVE BEEN USED IN FOOD BY THE
ISRAELITES 119
The sacred cow’s excreta a substitute for human
sacrifice.—Human ordure and urine still used in
India.
XIX. EXCREMENT GODS OF ROMANS AND EGYPTIANS 127
The Assyrian Venus had offerings of dung placed upon
her altars.—The Mexican goddess Suchiquecal eats
ordure.—Israelitish dung-gods.
XX. LATRINES 134
Posture in urination.
XXI. AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE OF THE RITES CONNECTED WITH
THE WORSHIP OF BEL-PHEGOR 154
XXII. OBSCENE TENURES 165
XXIII. TOLLS OF FLATULENCE EXACTED OF PROSTITUTES IN FRANCE 168
The sacred character of bridge-building.
XXIV. OBSCENE SURVIVALS IN THE GAMES OF ENGLISH RUSTICS 173
XXV. URINE AND ORDURE AS SIGNS OF MOURNING 176
XXVI. URINE AND ORDURE IN INDUSTRIES 177
Tanning.—Bleaching.—Dyeing.—Plaster.—As a cure
for tobacco.—To restore the odor of musk and
the color of coral.—Cheese manufacture.—Opium
adulteration.—Egg-hatching.—Taxes on
urine.—Chrysocollon.—For removing ink stains.—As an
article of jewelry.—Tattooing.—Agriculture.—Urine
used in the manufacture of salt.—Preparation of sal
ammoniac, phosphorus, solution of indigo.—Manure
employed as fuel.—Smudges.—Human and animal excreta
to promote the growth of the hair and eradicate
dandruff.—As a means of washing vessels.—Filthy
habits in cooking.
XXVII. URINE IN CEREMONIAL ABLUTIONS 201
XXVIII. URINE IN CEREMONIAL OBSERVANCES 206
Stercoraceous chair of the Popes.
XXIX. ORDURE IN SMOKING 214
XXX. COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE 216
Ordure in love-philters.—Anti-philters.
XXXI. SIBERIAN HOSPITALITY 228
XXXII. PARTURITION 233
Weaning.
XXXIII. INITIATION OF WARRIORS.—CONFIRMATION 237
Fearful rite of the Hottentots.—War-customs.—Arms
and armor.
XXXIV. HUNTING AND FISHING 244
XXXV. DIVINATION.—OMENS.—DREAMS 246
XXXVI. ORDEALS AND PUNISHMENTS, TERRESTRIAL AND SUPERNAL 249
XXXVII. INSULTS 256
XXXVIII. MORTUARY CEREMONIES 261
XXXIX. MYTHS 266
XL. URINOSCOPY, OR DIAGNOSIS BY URINE 272
On the influence of the emotions upon the egestæ.
XLI. ORDURE AND URINE IN MEDICINE 277
Extracts from the writings of Dioscorides.—The
views of Galen.—Sextus Placitus.—“Saxon
Leechdoms.”—Avicenna.—Miscellaneous.—Human
Ordure.—Schurig’s ideas regarding the use in
medicine of the egestæ of animals.—Ordure and
urine in folk-medicine.—Occult influences ascribed
to ordure and urine.—Other excrementitious
remedies.—Hair.—Superstitions connected with
the human saliva.—Cerumen or ear-wax.—Woman’s
milk.—Human sweat.—Superstitions connected with the
catamenial fluid.—After-birth and lochiæ.—Human
semen.—Human blood.—Human skin, flesh, and
tallow.—Human skull.—Brain.—Moss growing on human
skull.—Moss growing on statue.—Lice.—Wool.—Bones
and teeth.—Marrow.—Human teeth.—Tartar impurities
from the teeth.—Renal and biliary calculi.—Human
bile.—Bezoar stones.—Lyncurius.—Cosmetics.
XLII. AMULETS AND TALISMANS 370
XLIII. WITCHCRAFT.—SORCERY.—CHARMS.—SPELLS.—INCANTATIONS.—MAGIC 373
XLIV. A FEW REMARKS UPON TEMPLE OR SACRED PROSTITUTION, AND
UPON THE HORNS OF CUCKOLDS 405
XLV. CURES BY TRANSPLANTATION 411
XLVI. THE USE OF THE LINGAM IN INDIA 428
XLVII. PHALLIC SUPERSTITIONS IN FRANCE AND ELSEWHERE 431
XLVIII. BURLESQUE SURVIVALS 432
The use of bladders in religious ceremonies.
XLIX. THE WORSHIP OF COCKS AND HENS 440
The Spanish-American sport of “Correr el Gallo,”
and the English pastime of “Throwing at ‘Shrove
Cocks.’”—The scarabæus of Egypt.
L. THE PERSISTENCE OF FILTH REMEDIES 456
Epilepsy.
LI. AN EXPLANATION OF THE REASON WHY HUMAN ORDURE AND HUMAN
URINE WERE EMPLOYED IN MEDICINE AND RELIGIOUS
CEREMONIES 459
LII. EASTER EGGS 461
LIII. THE USE OF BLADDERS IN MAKING EXCREMENT SAUSAGES 464
LIV. CONCLUSION 467
BIBLIOGRAPHY 469
INDEX 485
SCATALOGIC RITES OF ALL NATIONS.
I.
PRELIMINARY REMARKS.
“The proper study of mankind is man.”
“The study of man is the study of man’s religion.”—MAX MÜLLER.
“Few who will give their minds to master the general principles
of savage religion will ever again think it ridiculous....
Far from its beliefs and practices being a rubbish heap of
miscellaneous folly, they are consistent and logical in so
high a degree as to begin, as soon as even roughly classified,
to display the principles of their formation and development;
and these principles prove to be essentially rational, though
working in a mental condition of intense and inveterate
ignorance.”—Primitive Culture, E. B. Tylor, New York, 1874,
vol. i. p. 21.
The object of the present monograph is to arrange in a form for easy
reference such allusions as have come under the author’s notice bearing
upon the use of human or animal ordure or urine or articles apparently
intended as substitutes for them, whether in rites of a clearly religious
or “medicine” type, or in those which, while not pronouncedly such, have
about them suggestions that they may be survivals of former urine dances
or ur-orgies among tribes and peoples from whose later mode of life and
thought they have been eliminated.
The difficulties surrounding the elucidation of this topic will no
doubt occur to every student of anthropology or ethnology. The rites
and practices herein spoken of are to be found only in communities
isolated from the world, and are such as even savages would shrink from
revealing unnecessarily to strangers; while, too frequently, observers
of intelligence have failed to improve opportunities for noting the
existence of rites of this nature, or else, restrained by a false
modesty, have clothed their remarks in vague and indefinite phraseology,
forgetting that as a physician, to be skilful, must study his patients
both in sickness and in health, so the anthropologist must study man, not
alone wherein he reflects the grandeur of his Maker, but likewise in his
grosser and more animal propensities.
When the first edition of “Notes and Memoranda,” etc., upon this
subject, was distributed by the Smithsonian Institution, the author was
prepared to believe that, to a large and constantly increasing circle
of scholars, the subject would prove of unusual interest, and that, to
repeat the words of a great emperor, as quoted by a greater philosopher,
all belonging to primitive man was worthy of scrutiny and examination by
those who would become familiar with his history and evolution.
“We ought to be able to say, like the Emperor Maximilian, ‘homo sum,
humani nihil a me alienum puto,’ or translating his words literally, ‘I
am a man; nothing pertaining to man I deem foreign to myself.’”—(Max
Müller, “Chips from a German Workshop.” Maximilian was using a citation
from Terence.)
The author also felt that to such a circle it would not be necessary for
him to make an apology analogous to that with which Pellegrini sought to
defend the noble profession of medicine in the early days of printing.[1]
But it was with no inconsiderable amount of pride that he saw his
pamphlet honored by the earnest attention of men eminent in the world of
thought, who by suggestion and criticism, given in kindness and received
with gratitude, have contributed to the amplification of the original
“Notes and Memoranda” into the present treatise.
That these disgusting rites are distinctively religious in origin, no
one, after a careful perusal of all that is to be presented upon that
head, will care to deny; and that their examination will be productive of
important results will be equally incontrovertible when that examination
shall be conducted on the broad principle that the benefit or detriment
mankind may have received from religion in general or from any particular
form of religion, can be ascertained only by a comparison between man’s
actions and principles of conduct in the earliest stages of culture, and
those observable while actuated by the religious sentiment of the present
day.
Hebrews and Christians will discover a common ground of congratulation in
the fact that believers in their systems are now absolutely free from any
suggestion of this filth taint, every example to the contrary being in
direct opposition to the spirit and practice of those two great bodies to
which the world’s civilization is so deeply indebted.
But under another point of view, the study of primitive man is an
impossibility and an absurdity unless prosecuted as an investigation
into his mode of religious thought, since religion guided every thought
and deed of his daily life. Rink, after saying that the “whole study of
prehistoric man ... which has hitherto almost exclusively been founded
upon the study of the ornaments, weapons, and other remains of primitive
peoples,” must in future be based upon an inquiry into their spiritual
thought, remarks that “The time will surely come when any relic of
spiritual life brought down to us from prehistoric mankind, which may
still be found in the folk-lore of the more isolated and primitive
nations, will be valued as highly as those primitive remains.”—(“Tales
and Traditions of the Eskimo,” Rink, Edinburgh, 1875, page 6 of Preface.)
Repugnant, therefore, as the subject is under most points of view, the
author has felt constrained to reproduce all that he has seen and read,
hoping that, in the fuller consideration that all forms of primitive
religion are now receiving, this, the most brutal, possibly, of all, may
claim some share of examination and discussion. To serve as a nucleus
for notes and memoranda since gleaned, the author has reproduced his
original monograph, first published in the Transactions of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, 1885, and read by title at
the Ann Arbor, Michigan, meeting, in the same year.
II.
THE URINE DANCE OF THE ZUÑIS.
On the evening of November 17, 1881, during my stay in the village of
Zuñi, New Mexico, the _Nehue-Cue_, one of the secret orders of the Zuñis,
sent word to Mr. Frank H. Cushing,[2] whose guest I was, that they would
do us the unusual honor of coming to our house to give us one of their
characteristic dances, which, Cushing said, was unprecedented.
The squaws of the governor’s family put the long living-room to rights,
sweeping the floor and sprinkling it with water to lay the dust.
Soon after dark the dancers entered; they were twelve in number, two
being boys. The centre men were naked, with the exception of black
breech-clouts of archaic style. The hair was worn naturally, with a
bunch of wild-turkey feathers tied in front, and one of corn husks over
each ear. White bands were painted across the face at eyes and mouth.
Each wore a collar or neckcloth of black woollen stuff. Broad white
bands, one inch wide, were painted around the body at the navel, around
the arms, the legs at mid-thighs, and knees. Tortoise-shell rattles
hung from the right knee. Blue woollen footless leggings were worn with
low-cut moccasins, and in the right hand each waved a wand made of an
ear of corn, trimmed with the plumage of the wild turkey and macaw. The
others were arrayed in old, cast-off American Army clothing, and all wore
white cotton night-caps, with corn-husks twisted into the hair at top of
head and ears. Several wore, in addition to the tortoise-shell rattles,
strings of brass sleigh-bells at knees. One was more grotesquely attired
than the rest, in a long India-rubber gossamer “overall,” and with a
pair of goggles, painted white, over his eyes. His general “get-up”
was a spirited take-off upon a Mexican priest. Another was a very good
counterfeit of a young woman.
To the accompaniment of an oblong drum and of the rattles and bells
spoken of they shuffled into the long room, crammed with spectators
of both sexes and of all sizes and ages. Their song was apparently a
ludicrous reference to everything and everybody in sight, Cushing,
Mindeleff, and myself receiving special attention, to the uncontrolled
merriment of the red-skinned listeners. I had taken my station at one
side of the room, seated upon the banquette, and having in front of me
a rude bench or table, upon which was a small coal-oil lamp. I suppose
that in the halo diffused by the feeble light, and in my “stained-glass
attitude,” I must have borne some resemblance to the pictures of saints
hanging upon the walls of old Mexican churches; to such a fancied
resemblance I at least attribute the performance which followed.
The dancers suddenly wheeled into line, threw themselves on their knees
before my table, and with extravagant beatings of breast began an
outlandish but faithful mockery of a Mexican Catholic congregation at
vespers. One bawled out a parody upon the pater-noster, another mumbled
along in the manner of an old man reciting the rosary, while the fellow
with the India-rubber coat jumped up and began a passionate exhortation
or sermon, which for mimetic fidelity was incomparable. This kept the
audience laughing with sore sides for some moments, until, at a signal
from the leader, the dancers suddenly countermarched out of the room in
single file as they had entered.
An interlude followed of ten minutes, during which the dusty floor
was sprinkled by men who spat water forcibly from their mouths. The
_Nehue-Cue_ re-entered; this time two of their number were stark
naked. Their singing was very peculiar, and sounded like a chorus of
chimney-sweeps, and their dance became a stiff-legged jump, with heels
kept twelve inches apart. After they had ambled around the room two
or three times, Cushing announced in the Zuñi language that a “feast”
was ready for them, at which they loudly roared their approbation, and
advanced to strike hands with the munificent “Americanos,” addressing
us in a funny gibberish of broken Spanish, English, and Zuñi. They then
squatted upon the ground and consumed with zest large “ollas” full of
tea, and dishes of hard tack and sugar. As they were about finishing this
a squaw entered, carrying an “olla” of urine, of which the filthy brutes
drank heartily.
I refused to believe the evidence of my senses, and asked Cushing if
that were really human urine. “Why, certainly,” replied he, “and here
comes more of it.” This time it was a large tin pailful, not less than
two gallons. I was standing by the squaw as she offered this strange and
abominable refreshment. She made a motion with her hand to indicate to
me that it was urine, and one of the old men repeated the Spanish word
_mear_ (to urinate), while my sense of smell demonstrated the truth of
their statements.
The dancers swallowed great draughts, smacked their lips, and, amid the
roaring merriment of the spectators, remarked that it was very, very
good. The clowns were now upon their mettle, each trying to surpass his
neighbors in feats of nastiness. One swallowed a fragment of corn-husk,
saying he thought it very good and better than bread; his _vis-à-vis_
attempted to chew and gulp down a piece of filthy rag. Another expressed
regret that the dance had not been held out of doors, in one of the
plazas; there they could show what they could do. There they always made
it a point of honor to eat the excrement of men and dogs.
For my own part, I felt satisfied with the omission, particularly as the
room, stuffed with one hundred Zuñis, had become so foul and filthy as to
be almost unbearable. The dance, as good luck would have it, did not last
many minutes, and we soon had a chance to run into the refreshing night
air.
To this outline description of a disgusting rite, I have little to add.
The Zuñis, in explanation, stated that the _Nehue-Cue_ were a Medicine
Order, which held these dances from time to time to inure the stomachs
of members to any kind of food, no matter how revolting. This statement
may seem plausible enough when we understand that religion and medicine,
among primitive races, are almost always one and the same thing, or at
least so closely intertwined, that it is a matter of difficulty to decide
where one begins and the other ends.[3]
Religion, in its dramatic ceremonial, preserves, to some extent, the
history of the particular race in which it dwells. Among nations of high
development, miracles, moralities, and passion plays have taught, down
to our own day, in object lessons, the sacred history in which the
spectators believed. Some analogous purpose may have been held in view
by the first organizers of the urine dance. In their early history,
the Zuñis and other Pueblos suffered from constant warfare with savage
antagonists and with each other. From the position of their villages,
long sieges must of necessity have been sustained, in which sieges famine
and disease, no doubt, were the allies counted upon by the investing
forces. We may have in this abominable dance a tradition of the extremity
to which the Zuñis of the long ago were reduced at some unknown period.
A similar catastrophe in the history of the Jews is intimated in 2 Kings
xviii. 27; and again in Isaiah xxxvi. 12: “But Rab-shakeh said unto them:
hath my master sent me to thy master, and to thee to speak these words?
hath he not sent me to the men which sit on the wall, that they may _eat
their own dung and drink their own piss_ with you?” In the course of my
studies I came across a reference to a very similar dance, occurring
among one of the fanatical sects of the Arabian Bedouins, but the journal
in which it was recorded, the “London Lancet,” I think, was unfortunately
mislaid.[4]
As illustrative of the tenacity with which such vile ceremonial, once
adopted by a sect, will adhere to it and become ingrafted upon its life,
long after the motives which have suggested or commended it have vanished
in oblivion, let me quote a few lines from Max Müller’s “Chips from a
German Workshop,” “Essay upon the Parsees,” pp. 163, 164, Scribner’s
edition, 1869: “The _nirang_ is the urine of a cow, ox, or she-goat, and
the rubbing of it over the face and hands is the second thing a Parsee
does after getting out of bed. Either before applying the _nirang_
to the face and hands, or while it remains on the hands after being
applied, he should not touch anything directly with his hands; but, in
order to wash out the _nirang_, he either asks somebody else to pour
water on his hands, or resorts to the device of taking hold of the pot
through the intervention of a piece of cloth, such as a handkerchief
or his _sudra_,—that is, his blouse. He first pours water on his hand,
then takes the pot in that hand and washes his other hand, face, and
feet.”—(Quoting from Dadabhai-Nadrosi’s “Description of the Parsees.”)
Continuing, Max Müller says: “Strange as this process of purification
may appear, it becomes perfectly disgusting when we are told that women,
after childbirth, have not only to undergo this sacred ablution, but
actually to drink a little of the _nirang_, and that the same rite is
imposed on children at the time of their investiture with the _Sudra_ and
_Koshti_,—the badges of the Zoroastrian faith.”
Before proceeding further it may be advisable to clinch the fact that the
Urine Dance of the Zuñis was not a sporadic instance, peculiar to that
pueblo, or to a particular portion of that pueblo; it was a tribal rite,
recognized and commended by the whole community, and entering into the
ritual of all the pueblos of the Southwest.
Upon this point a few words from the author’s personal journal of Nov.
24, 1881, may well be introduced to prove its existence among the
Moquis,—the informant, Nana-je, being a young Moqui of the strictest
integrity and veracity: “In the circle I noticed Nana-je and the young
Nehue-cue boy who was with us a few nights since. During a pause in
the conversation I asked the young Nehue if he had been drinking any
urine lately. This occasioned some laughter among the Indians; but to
my surprise Nana-je spoke up and said: ‘I am a Nehue also. The Nehue of
Zuñi are nothing to the same order among the Moquis. There the Nehue not
only drink urine, as you saw done the other night, but also eat human
and animal excrement. They eat it here too; but we eat all that is set
before us. We have a medicine which makes us drunk like whiskey; we drink
a lot of that before we commence; it makes us drunk. We don’t care what
happens; and nothing of that kind that we eat or drink can ever do us any
harm.’ The Nehue-cue are to be found in all the pueblos on the Rio Grande
and close to it; only there they don’t do things openly.”
In addition to the above, we have the testimony of Mr. Thomas V. Keam,
who has lived for many years among the Moquis, and who confirms from
personal observation all that has been here said.
The extracts from personal correspondence with Professor Bandelier are
of special value, that gentleman having devoted years of painstaking
investigation to the history of the Pueblos, and acquired a most
intimate knowledge of them, based upon constant personal observation and
scholarship of the highest order.
In a personal letter, dated Santa Fé, N. M., June 7, 1888, he tells,
among much other most interesting information, that he saw at the Pueblo
of Cochiti, on Nov. 10, 1880, “the Koshare eating their own excrement.”
The following description of the “Club-house” of the Nehue-cue may be
of interest: “It was twenty-one paces long, nine paces wide, with a
banquette running round on three sides; in front of the altar were sacred
bowls of earthenware, with paintings of tadpoles to typify water of
summer, frogs for perennial water, and the sea-serpent for ocean water.
(They describe the sea-serpent (_vibora del mar_) as very large, with
feathers (spray?) on its head, eating people who went into the water,
and when cut up with big knives yielding a great deal of oil.) In the
first of the sacred dishes was a conch-shell from the sea, wands made of
ears of corn, with hearts of chalchihuitl, and exterior ornamentation of
the plumage of the parrot and turkey. Bowls of sacred meal (_kunque_)
were on the floor; this sacred meal, to be found in niches in the house
of every Zuñi, or for that matter of almost every pueblo throughout New
Mexico and Arizona, is generally made of a mixture of blue corn-meal,
shells, and chalchihuitl; but for more solemn occasions, as the old
Indian Pedro Pino assured me, sea-sand is added. Around the room at
intervals were pictographs of birds,—ducks and others,—nine in number
on one side, and nine of clown-gods on the other. These pictures were
fairly well delineated in black and in red and yellow ochre. The god of
“The Winged Knife” was represented back of the altar. In this room were
also kept several of the painted oblong wooden drums seen in every sacred
dance.”—(Extract from personal notes of Captain Bourke, Nov. 17, 1881.)
“Have you ever, while in New Mexico, witnessed the dance of that cluster
or order called the “Ko-sha-re” among the Queres, “Ko-sa-re” among the
Tehuas, and “Shu-re” among the Tiguas? I have witnessed it several
times; and these gentlemen, many of whom belong to the circle of my
warm personal friends, display a peculiar appetite for what the human
body commonly not only rejects, but also ejects. I am sorry that I did
not know of your work any sooner, as else I could have given you very
full descriptions of these dances. The cluster in question have a very
peculiar task, inasmuch as the ripening of all kinds of fruits is at
their charge, even the fruit in the mother’s womb, and their rites are
therefore of sickening obscenity. The swallowing of excrements is but a
mild performance in comparison with what I have been obliged to see and
witness.”—(Letter from Professor Bandelier, dated at Santa Fé, N. M.,
April 25, 1888.)
Major Ferry, whom the author met in the office of General Robert McFeely,
Acting Secretary of War, Oct. 5, 1888, stated that he was the son of the
first Protestant missionary to build a church at Mackinaw, and that the
Indians of the Ojibway tribe who lived in the neighborhood of that post
indulged from time to time in orgies in which the drinking of urine was a
feature.
Mr. Daniel W. Lord, a gentleman who was for a time associated with Mr.
Frank H. Cushing in his investigations among the Zuñis of New Mexico,
makes the following statement:—
“In June, 1888, I was a spectator of an orgy at the Zuñi pueblo in New
Mexico. The ceremonial dance of that afternoon had been finished in
the small plaza generally used for dances in the northwestern part of
the pueblo when this supplementary rite took place. One of the Indians
brought into the plaza the excrement to be employed, and it was passed
from hand to hand and eaten. Those taking part in the ceremony were few
in number, certainly not more than eight or ten. They drank urine from
a large shallow bowl, and meanwhile kept up a running fire of comments
and exclamations among themselves, as if urging one another to drink
heartily, which indeed they did. At last one of those taking part was
made sick, and vomited after the ceremony was over. The inhabitants of
the pueblo upon the housetops overlooking the plaza were interested
spectators of the scene. Some of the sallies of the actors were received
with laughter, and others with signs of disgust and repugnance, but not
of disapprobation. The ceremony was not repeated, to my knowledge, during
my stay at the pueblo, which continued till July, 1889.”—(Personal letter
to Captain Bourke, dated Washington, D. C., May 26, 1890.)
III.
THE FEAST OF FOOLS IN EUROPE.
Closely corresponding to this urine dance of the Zuñis was the Feast
of Fools in Continental Europe, the description of which here given is
quoted from Dulaure:—
“La grand’messe commençait alors; tous les ecclésiastiques y assistaient,
le visage barbouillé de noir, ou couvert d’un masque hideux ou ridicule.
Pendant la célébration, les uns, vêtus en baladins ou en femmes,
dansaient au milieu du chœur et y chantaient des chansons bouffones
ou obscènes. Les autres venaient manger sur l’autel des saucisses et
des boudins, jouer aux cartes ou aux dez, devant le prêtre célébrant,
l’encensaient avec un encensoir, ou brûlaient de vieilles savates, et lui
en faisaient respirer la fumée.
“Après la messe, nouveaux actes d’extravagance et d’impiété. Les prêtres,
confondus avec les habitants des deux sexes, couraient, dansaient
dans l’église, s’excitaient à toutes les folies, à toutes les actions
licencieuses que leur inspirait une imagination effrénée. Plus de honte,
plus de pudeur; aucune digue n’arrêtait le débordement de la folie et des
passions....
“Au milieu du tumulte, des blasphêmes et des chants dissolus, on voyait
les uns se dépouiller entièrement de leurs habits, d’autres se livrer aux
actes du plus honteux libertinage.
“ ... Les acteurs, montés sur des tombereaux pleins d’ordures,
s’amusaient à en jeter à la populace qui les entouraient.... Ces
scènes étaient toujours accompagnées de chansons ordurières et
impies.”—(Dulaure, “Des Divinités Génératrices,” chap. xv. p. 315 _et
seq._, Paris, 1825.)
COMPARISON BETWEEN THE FEAST OF FOOLS AND THE URINE DANCE.
In the above description may be seen that the principal actors (taking
possession of the church during high mass) had their faces daubed and
painted, or masked in a harlequin manner; that they were dressed as
clowns or as women; that they ate upon the altar itself sausages and
blood-puddings. Now the word “blood-pudding” in French is _boudin_;
but _boudin_ also meant “excrement.”[5] Add to this the feature that
these clowns, after leaving the church, took their stand in dung-carts
(_tombereaux_), and threw _ordure_ upon the by-standers; and finally that
some of these actors appeared perfectly naked (“on voyait les uns se
dépouiller entièrement de leurs habits”), and it must be admitted that
there is certainly a wonderful concatenation of resemblances between
these filthy and inexplicable rites on different sides of a great ocean.
THE FEAST OF FOOLS TRACED BACK TO MOST ANCIENT TIMES.
Dulaure makes no attempt to trace the origin of these ceremonies in
France; he contents himself with saying, “Ces cérémonies ... ont subsisté
pendant douze ou quinze siècles,” or, in other words, that they were of
Pagan origin. In twelve or fifteen hundred years the rite might have been
well sublimed from the eating of pure excrement, as among the Zuñis,
to the consumption of the _boudin_, the excrement symbol.[6] Conceding
for the moment that this suspicion is correct, we have a proof of the
antiquity of the urine dance among the Zuñis. So great is the resemblance
between the Zuñi rite and that just described by Dulaure that we should
have reason for believing that the new country borrowed from the old
some of the features transmitted to the present day; and were there
not evidence of a wider distribution of this observance, it might be
assumed that the Catholic missionaries (who worked among the Zuñis from
1580, or thereabout, and excepting during intervals of revolt remained
on duty in Zuñi down to the period of American occupation) found the
obscene and disgusting orgy in full vigor, and realizing the danger, by
unwise precipitancy, of destroying all hopes of winning over this people,
shrewdly concluded to tacitly accept the religious abnormality and to
engraft upon it the plant flourishing so bravely in the vicinity of their
European homes.
DISAPPEARANCE OF THE FEAST OF FOOLS.
In France the Feast of Fools disappeared only with the French Revolution;
in other parts of Continental Europe it began to wane about the time of
the Reformation. In England, “the abbot of unreason,” whose pranks are
outlined by Sir Walter Scott in his novel “The Abbot,” the miracle plays
which had once served a good purpose in teaching Scriptural lessons to an
illiterate peasantry, and the “moralities” of the same general purport,
faded away under the stern antagonism of the Puritan iconoclast. The
Feast of Fools, as such, was abolished by Henry VIII. A.D. 1541.—(See
“The English Reformation,” Francis Charles Massingberd, London, 1857, p.
125.)[7]
Picart’s account of the Feast of Fools is similar to that given by
Dulaure. He says that it took place in the church, at Christmas tide,
and was borrowed from the Roman Saturnalia; was never approved of by the
Christian church as a body, but fought against from the earliest times:—
“Les uns étoient masqués ou avec des visages barbouillés qui faisoìent
peur ou qui faisoìent rire; les autres en habits de femmes ou de
pantomimes, tels que sont les ministres du théatre.
“Ils dansoient dans le chœur, en entrant, et chantoient des chansons
obscènes. Les Diacres et les sou-diacres prenoient plaisir à manger des
boudins et des saucisses sur l’autel, au nez du prêtre célébrant; ils
jouoient à des jeux aux cartes et aux dés; ils mettoient dans l’encensoir
quelques morceaux de vieilles savates pour lui faire respirer une
mauvaise odeur.
“Après la messe, chacun couroit, sautoit et dansoit par l’église avec
tant d’impudence, que quelques uns n’àvoient pas honte de se porter à
toutes sortes d’indécences et de se dépouillier entièremênt; ensuite, ils
se faisoìent trainer par les rues dans des tombereaux pleins d’ordures,
d’ou ils prenoient plaisir d’en jeter à la populace qui s’assembloit
autour d’eux.
“Ils s’arrétoient et faisoient de leurs corps des mouvements et des
postures lascives qu’ils accompagnoient de paroles impudiques.
“Les plus impudiques d’entre les séculiers se mêloient parmi le clergé,
pour faire aussi quelques personnages de Foux en habits ecclésiastiques
de Moines et de Religieuses.”—(Picart, “Coûtumes et Cérémonies
réligieuses de toutes les Nations du Monde,” Amsterdam, Holland, 1729,
vol. ix. pp. 5, 6).
Diderot and d’Alembert use almost the same terms; the officiating clergy
were clad “les uns comme des bouffons, les autres en habits de femmes ou
masqués d’une façon monstrueuse ... ils mangeaient et jouaient aux dés
sur l’autel à côté du prêtre qui célébroit la messe. Ils mettoient des
ordures dans les encensoirs.” They say that the details would not bear
repetition. This feast prevailed generally in Continental Europe from
Christmas to Epiphany, and in England, especially in York.—(Diderot and
D’Alembert, Encyclopædia, “Fête des Fous,” Geneva, Switzerland, 1779.)
Markham discovers a resemblance between the “Monk of Misrule” of
Christendom in the Middle Ages, and “Gylongs dressed in parti-colored
habits ... singing and dancing before the Teshu Lama in Thibet.”—(See
Markham’s “Thibet,” London, 1879, page 95, footnote. See also Bogle’s
description of the ceremonies in connection with the New Year, in
presence of the Teshu Lama, in Markham’s “Thibet,” p. 106.)
The Mandans had an annual festival one of the features of which was “the
expulsion of the devil.... He was chased from the village ... the women
pelting him with dirt.”—(“The Golden Bough,” Frazer, London, 1890, vol.
ii. p. 184, quoting Catlin’s “North American Indians,” page 166.)
The authors who have referred at greater or less length, and with more
or less preciseness, to the Feast of Fools, Feast of Asses, and others
of that kind, are legion; unfortunately, without an exception, they
have contented themselves with a description of the obscene absurdities
connected with these popular religious gatherings, without attempting an
analysis of the underlying motives which prompted them, or even making an
intelligent effort to trace their origin. Where the last has been alluded
to at all, it has almost invariably been with the assertion that the
Feast of Fools was a survival from the Roman Saturnalia.
This can scarcely have been the case; in the progress of this work it
is purposed to make evident that the use of human and animal egestæ
in religious ceremonial was common all over the world, antedating the
Roman Saturnalia, or at least totally unconnected with it. The correct
interpretation of the Feast of Fools would, therefore, seem to be that
which recognized it as a reversion to a pre-Christian type of thought
dating back to the earliest appearance of the Aryan race in Europe.
The introduction of the Christian religion was accompanied by many
compromises; wherever it was opposed by too great odds, in point of
numbers, it permitted the retention of practices repugnant to its own
teachings; or, if the term “permitted” be an objectionable one to some
ears, we may substitute the expression “acquiesced in” for “permitted,”
and then follow down the course of persistent antagonism, which, after
a while, modified permanent retention into a periodical, perhaps an
irregular, resumption, and this last into burlesque survival.
Ducange, in his “Glossarium,” introduces the Ritual of the Mass at the
Feast of the Ass, familiar to most readers,—but he adds nothing to what
has already been quoted in regard to the Feast of Fools itself.
This reference from Ducange will also be found in Schaff-Herzog,
“Religious Encyclopædia,” New York, 1882, article “Festival.” This Ritual
was written out in 1369 at Viviers in France.
Fosbroke gives no information on the subject of the Feast of Fools not
already incorporated in this volume. He simply says: “In the Feast of
Fools they put on masks, took the dress, etc., of women, danced and
sung in the choir, ate fat cakes upon the horn of the altar, where the
celebrating priest played at dice, put stinking stuff from the leather
of old shoes in the censer, jumped about the church, with the addition
of obscene jests, songs, and unseemly attitudes. Another part of this
indecorous buffoonery was shaving the precentor of fools upon a stage,
erected before the church, in the presence of the people; and during the
operation he amused them with lewd and vulgar discourses and gestures.
They also had carts full of ordure which they threw occasionally upon
the populace. This exhibition was always in Christmas time or near it,
but was not confined to a particular day.”—(Rev. Thomas Dudley Fosbroke,
“Cyclopædia of Antiquities,” London, 1843, vol. 2, article “Festivals.”
Most of his information seems to be derived from Ducange.)
“The Feast of Fools was celebrated as before in various masquerades of
Women, Lions, Players, etc. They danced and sung in the choir, ate fat
cakes upon the horn of the altar, where the celebrating priest played at
dice, put stinking stuff from the leather of old shoes into the censer,
ran, jumped, etc., through the church.”[8]
In Brand’s “Popular Antiquities,” London, 1873, vol. 3, pp. 497-505,
will be found a pretty full description of the Lords of Misrule, but the
only reference of value for our purposes is one from Polydorus Virgil,
who recognized the derivation of these Feasts from the Roman Saturnalia.
“There is nothing,” says the author of the essay to retrieve the Ancient
Celtic, “that will bear a clearer demonstration than that the primitive
Christians, by way of conciliating the Pagans to a better worship,
humored their prejudices by yielding to a conformity of names and even
of customs, where they did not interfere with the fundamentals of the
Christian doctrine.... Among these, in imitation of the Roman Saturnalia,
was the Festum Fatuorum, when part of the jollity of the season was
a burlesque election of a mock-pope, mock-cardinals, mock-bishops,
attended with a thousand ridiculous and indecent ceremonies, gambols, and
antics, such as singing and dancing in the churches, in lewd attitudes,
to ludicrous anthems, all allusively to the exploded pretensions of
the Druids whom these sports were calculated to expose to scorn and
derision. This Feast of Fools,” continues he, “had its designed effect,
and contributed perhaps more to the extermination of these heathens than
all the collateral aids of fire and sword, neither of which were spared
in the persecution of them.”—(Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” London, 1872,
vol. i. p. 36.)
Strutt’s “Sports and Pastimes,” edition of London, 1855, article
“Festival of Fools,” in lib. iv. cap. 3, contains nothing not already
learned.
Jacob Grimm, “Teutonic Mythology” (Stallybrass), London, 1882, vol. i. p.
92, has the following:—
“The collection of the Letters of Boniface has a passage lamenting the
confusion of Christian and heathen rites into which foolish or reckless
priests had suffered themselves to fall.”
Banier shows that on the First of January the people of France ran about
the streets of their towns, disguised as animals, masked and playing all
sorts of pranks. This custom was derived from the Druids and lasted in
full vigor “to the twelfth century of the Christian era.”—(“Mythology,”
Banier, vol. iii. p. 247.)
“The heathen gods even, though represented as feeble in comparison with
the true God, were not always pictured as powerless in themselves; they
were perverted into hostile, malignant powers, into demons, sorcerers,
and giants, who had to be put down, but were nevertheless credited with
a certain mischievous activity and influence. Here and there a heathen
tradition or a superstitious custom lived on by merely changing the
names and applying to Christ, Mary, and the saints what had formerly
been related and believed of idols.”—(“Teutonic Mythology,” Jacob Grimm
(Stallybrass), London, 1882, vol. i. Introduction, page 5.) ... “At the
time when Christianity began to press forward, many of the heathen seem
to have entertained the notion, which the missionaries did all in their
power to resist, of combining the new doctrine with the ancient faith
and even of fusing them into one.—(Idem, p. 7.) ... Of Norsemen, as well
as of Anglo-Saxons, we are told that some believed at the same time in
Christ and in heathen gods, or at least continued to invoke the latter in
particular cases in which they had formerly proved helpful to them. So
even by Christians much later the old deities seem to have been named and
their aid invoked in enchantments and spells.—(Idem, pp. 7 and 8.) ...
The Teutonic races forsook the faith of their fathers very gradually and
slowly from the fourth to the eleventh century.”—(Idem, p. 8.)
On the following pages, 9, 10, and 11, Grimm shows us how little
is really known of the religions of ancient Europe, whether of the
Latin or of the Teutonic or Celtic races; he alludes to “the gradual
transformation of the gods into devils, of the wise women into witches,
of the worship into superstitious customs.—(Idem, p. 11.) Heathen
festivals and customs were transformed into Christian.—(Idem, p. 12.) ...
Private sacrifices, intended for gods or spirits, could not be eradicated
among the people for a long time, because they were bound up with customs
and festivals, and might at last become an unmeaning practice.”—(Idem,
vol. iii. p. 1009.)
“It is a natural and well-known fact that the gods of one nation become
the devils of their conquerors or successors.”—(Folk-Medicine, William
George Black, London, 1883, p. 12.)
“Few things are so indestructible as a superstitious belief once
implanted in human credulity.... The sacred rites of the superseded
faith become the forbidden magic of its successors.”—(“History of the
Inquisition,” Henry Charles Lea, New York, 1888, vol. iii. p. 379.)
“Its gods become evil spirits.”—(Idem, p. 379.) ... The same views are
advanced in Madame Blavatsky’s “Isis Unveiled.”
THE “SZOMBATIAKS” OF TRANSYLVANIA.
In further explanation of the tenacity with which older cults survive
long after the newer religions seem to have gained predominance in
countries and nations, it is extremely appropriate to introduce a passage
from an article in the “St. James’ Gazette,” entitled “Crypto-Jews,”
reprinted in the Sunday edition of the “Sun,” New York, sometime in
October, 1888.
The writer, in speaking of the Szombatiaks of Transylvania, remarks: “The
crypto-Judaism of the Szombatiaks was suspected for centuries, but not
until twenty years ago was it positively known. Then, on the occasion
of a Jewish emancipation act for Hungary, the sturdy old peasants,
indistinguishable in dress, manners, and language from the native
Szeklers, sent a deputation to Pesth to ask that their names might be
erased from the church rolls. They explained that they were Jews whose
forefathers had settled in Hungary at the time of the expedition of Titus
to Dacia. Though baptized, married, and buried as Christians, maintaining
Christian pastors, and attending Christian churches, they had always in
secret observed their ancient religion.”
It is a matter of surprise to find so little on the subject of the Feast
of Fools in Forlong’s comprehensive work on Religion. All that he says
is that “the Yule-tide fêtes were noted for men disguising themselves as
women, and _vice versa_, showing their connection with the old Sigillaria
of the Saturnalia, which, formerly observed on the 14th of January, were
afterwards continued to three, four, five, and some say seven days, and
by the common people even until Candlemas Day. Both were prohibited when
their gross immoralities became apparent to better educated communities.
‘In Paris,’ says Trusler in his ‘Chronology,’ ‘the First of January was
observed as Mask Day for two hundred and forty years, when all sorts of
indecencies and obscene rites occurred.’”—(“Rivers of Life,” Forlong,
London, 1883, vol. i. p. 434.)
In addition to the above, there is evidence of its survival among the
rustic population of Germany. Brand enumerates many curious practices of
the carnival just before Ash Wednesday, and even on that day, after the
distribution of the ashes. Young maidens in Germany were carried “in a
cart or tumbrel” by the youths of the village to the nearest brook or
pond, and there thoroughly ducked, the drawers of the cart throwing dust
and ashes on all near them. In Oxfordshire it was the custom for bands
of boys to stroll from house to house singing and demanding largess of
eggs and bacon, not receiving which, “they commonly cut the latch of the
door or stop the key-hole with dirt” (“Popular Antiquities,” London,
1872, vol. i. pp. 94 _et seq._, article “Ash Wednesday”), “or leave some
more nasty token of displeasure” (idem). This may have been a survival
from the Feast of Fools. Brand refers to Hospinian, “De Origine Festorum
Christianorum,” “for several curious customs and ceremonies observed
abroad during the three first days of the Quinquagesima week” (p. 99).
Turning from the Teutonic race to the Slav, we find that the Feast of
Fools seems still to linger among the Russian peasantry. “At one time
a custom prevailed of going about from one friend’s house to another
masked, and committing every conceivable prank. Then the people feasted
on blinnies,—a pancake similar to the English crumpet” (“A Hoosier
in Russia,” Perry S. Heath, New York, 1888, p. 109); all this at
Christmas-tide.
Something very much like it, without any obscene features, was noted by
Blunt in the early years of the present century. See his “Vestiges,” p.
119.
Hone (“Ancient Mysteries Described,” London, 1823, pp. 148 _et seq._)
thinks that a Jewish imitation of the Greek drama of the close of the
second century, whose plot, characters, etc., were taken from the Exodus,
was the first miracle play. The author was one Ezekiel, who was believed
to have written it with a patriotic purpose after the destruction of
Jerusalem. The early Fathers—Cyril, Tertullian, Cyprian, Basil, Clemens
Alexandrinus, and Augustine—inveighed against sacred dramas; but the
outside pressure was too great, and the Church was forced to yield to
popular demand.
As late as the fifteenth century Pius II. said that the Italian priests
had probably never read the New Testament; and Robert Stephens made the
same charge against the doctors of the Sorbonne in the same age.
The necessity of dramatic representation would therefore soon outweigh
objections made on the score of historical anachronism or doctrinal
inaccuracy in these miracle plays.
Theophylact, Patriarch of Constantinople in the tenth century, is
credited by the Byzantine historian Cedranus with the introduction of the
Feast of Fools and Feast of the Ass, “thereby scandalizing God and the
memory of his saints, by admitting into the sacred service diabolical
dances, exclamations of ribaldry, and ballads borrowed from the streets
and brothels.”—(Hone, quoting Wharton, “Miscellaneous Writings upon the
Drama and Fiction,” vol. ii. p. 369.)
In 1590, at Paris, the mendicant orders, led by the Bishop of Senlis,
paraded the streets with tucked up robes, representing the Church
Militant. These processions were believed to be the legitimate offspring
of heathen pageants,—that is, that of Saint Peter in Vinculis was
believed to be the transformed spectacle in honor of Augustus’s victory
at Actium, etc.
Beletus describes the Feast of Fools as he saw it in the twelfth century.
His account, given by Hone (p. 159), agrees word for word with that of
Dulaure, excepting that, through an error of translation perhaps, he is
made to say that the participants “ate rich puddings on the corners of
the altar;” but as the word “pudding” meant even in the English language
a meat pudding or sausage, the error is an immaterial one.
Victor Hugo describes in brief the Feast of Fools as seen at Paris in
1482, on the 6th of January. He says that the “Fête des Rois and the Fête
des Fous were united in a double holiday since time immemorial.” His
description is very meagre, but from it may be extracted the information
that in these feasts of fools female actresses appeared masked; that
the noblest and greatest personages in the kingdom of France were among
the prominent spectators; but there is not much else. (See the opening
chapters of “Notre Dame.”)
The Festival of Moharren in Persia is a kind of miracle play, or Passion
play, commemorating the rise and progress of Islamism. “Among these
occurrences are the deaths of Hassein and Hossein, the birth of the
prophet, the martyrdom of the Imam Rezah, and the death of Fatimeh,
daughter of Mahomet.”—(Benjamin, “Persia,” London, 1887.)
This reference to the use of pudding or sausage on the altar itself is
the most persistent feature in the descriptions of the whole ceremony.
But little difficulty will be experienced in showing that it was
originally an excrement sausage, prepared and offered up, perhaps eaten,
for a definite purpose. This phase of the subject will be considered
further on; for the present only one citation need be introduced to show
that in carnival time human excrement itself, and not the symbol, made
its appearance:—
“The following extract from Barnaby Googe’s translation of ‘Naogeorgus’
will show the extent of these festivities (that is, those of the carnival
at Shrove Tuesday). After describing the wanton behavior of men dressed
as women and of women arrayed in the garb of men, of clowns dressed as
devils, as animals, or running about perfectly naked, the account goes on
to say:—
“‘But others bear a torde, that on a cushion soft they lay;
And one there is that with a flap doth keep the flies away:
I would there might another be, an officer of those,
Whose room might serve to take away the scent from every nose.’”—
(Quoted in Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” London, 1872, vol. i. p. 66,
article “Shrove Tuesday.”)
The Puritan’s horror of heathenish rites and superstitious vestiges had
for its basis something far above unreasoning fanaticism; he realized,
if not through learned study, by an intuition which had all the force
of genius, that every unmeaning practice, every rustic observance,
which could not prove its title clear to a noble genealogy was a pagan
survival, which conscience required him to tear up and destroy, root and
branch.
The Puritan may have made himself very much of a burden and a nuisance
to his neighbors before his self-imposed task was completed, yet it is
worthy of remark and of praise that his mission was a most effectual
one in wiping from the face of the earth innumerable vestiges of
pre-Christian idolatry.
This being understood, some importance attaches to the following
otherwise vague couplet from “Hudibras.”
“Butler mentions the black pudding in his ‘Hudibras,’ speaking of the
religious scruples of some of the fanatics of his time:—
“‘Some for abolishing black pudding,
And eating nothing with the blood in.’”—
(Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” London, 1872, vol. i. p. 400, article
“Martinmas.”)
These sausages, made in links, certainly suggest the _boudins_ of the
Feast of Fools. They were made from the flesh, blood, and entrails of
pork killed by several families in common on the 17th day of December,
known as “Sow Day.”
In the early days of the Reformation in Germany, in the May games, the
Pope was “portrayed in his pontificalibus riding on a great sow, and
holding before her taster a dirty pudding.”—(Harington, “Ajax,” p. 35.)
The most sensible explanation of the Feast of Fools that has as yet
appeared is to be found in Frazer’s “Golden Bough” (London, 1890, vol. i.
pp. 218 _et seq._, article “Temporary Kings”). He shows that the regal
power was not in ancient times a life tenure, but was either revoked
under the direction of the priestly body when the incumbent began to
show signs of increasing age and diminishing mental powers, or at the
expiration of a fixed period,—generally about twelve years. In the lapse
of time the king’s abdication became an empty form, and his renunciation
of powers purely farcical, his temporary successor a clown who amused the
fickle populace during his ephemeral assumption of honors. Examples are
drawn from Babylonia, Cambodia, Siam, Egypt, India, etc., the odd feature
being that these festivals occur at dates ranging from our February to
April. During the festival in Siam, in the month of April, “the dancing
Brahmans carry buffalo horns with which they draw water from a large
copper caldron and sprinkle it on the people; this is supposed to bring
good luck.”—(“The Golden Bough,” James G. Fraser, M.A., London, 1890,
vol. i. p. 230.)
In the preceding paragraph we have a distinct survival. The buffalo horns
may represent phalli, and the water may be a substitute for a liquid
which to the present generation might be more objectionable.
But upon another matter stress should be laid; in both the Feast of Fools
and in the Urine Dance of the Zuñis, it has been shown that some of the
actors were naked or disguised as women.
No attempt is made to prove anything in regard to the European orgy,
because research has thrown no light upon the reasons for which the
participants assumed the raiment of the opposite sex.
In the case of the Zuñis, the author has had, from the first, a
suspicion, which he took occasion to communicate to Professor F. W.
Putnam three years since, that these individuals were of the class called
by Father Lafitau “hommes habillés en femme,” and referred to with such
frequency by the earliest French and Spanish authorities. This suspicion
has been strengthened by correspondence lately received from Professor
Bandelier which is, however, suppressed at the request of the latter.
In this connection, the student should not fail to read the remarkable
contribution of A. B. Holder, M. D., of Memphis, Tennessee, in the New
York Medical Journal of Dec. 7, 1889, entitled “The Boté: description of
a peculiar sexual perversion found among the North American Indians.”
An explanation of the “hommes habillés en femme,” may be suggested in
the following from Boas, descriptive of certain religious dances of the
Eskimo: “Those who were born in abnormal presentations, wear women’s
dresses at this feast, and must make their round in a direction opposite
to the movement of the sun.”—(“The Central Eskimo,” Franz Boas, in Sixth
Annual Report, Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, D. C., 1888, p. 611.)
IV.
THE COMMEMORATIVE CHARACTER OF RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS.
The opinion expressed above concerning the commemorative character
of religious festivals echoes that which Godfrey Higgins enunciated
several generations ago. The learned author of “Anacalypsis” says that
festivals “accompanied with dancing and music” ... “were established to
keep in recollection victories or other important events.” (Higgins’
“Anacalypsis,” London, 1810, vol. ii. p. 424.) He argues the subject at
some length on pages 424-426, but the above is sufficient for the present
purpose.
“In the religious rites of a people I should expect to find the earliest
of their habits and customs.”—(Idem, vol. i. p. 15.)
Applying the above remark to the Zuñi dance, it may be interpreted as a
dramatic pictograph of some half-forgotten episode in tribal history. To
strengthen this view by example, let us recall the fact that the army
of Crusaders under Peter the Hermit was so closely beleaguered by the
Moslems in Nicomedia in Bithynia that they were compelled to drink their
own urine. We read the narrative set out in cold type. The Zuñis would
have transmitted a record of the event by a dramatic representation which
time would incrust with all the veneration that religion could impart.
The authority for the above statement in regard to the Crusaders is to
be found in Purchas, “Pilgrims,” lib. 8, cap. 1, p. 1191. Neither Gibbon
nor Michaud expresses this fact so clearly, but each speaks of the
terrible sufferings which decimated the undisciplined hordes of Walter
the Penniless and Peter, and reduced the survivors to cannibalism.
The urine of horses was drunk by the people of Crotta while besieged by
Metellus.—(See, in Montaigne’s Essays, “On Horses,” cap. xlviii.; see
also, in Harington, “Ajax”—“Ulysses upon Ajax,” p. 42.)
Shipwrecked English seamen drank human urine for want of water. (See in
Purchas, vol. iv. p. 1188.) In the year 1877 Captain Nicholas Nolan,
Tenth Cavalry, while scouting with his troop after hostile Indians on
the Staked Plains of Texas, was lost; and as supplies became exhausted,
the command was reduced to living for several days on the blood of
their horses and their own urine, water not being discovered in that
vicinity.—(See Hammersley’s Record of Living Officers of the United
States Army.)
History is replete with examples of the same general character; witness
the sieges of Jerusalem, Numantia, Ghent, the famine in France under
Louis XIV., and many others.
THE GENERALLY SACRED CHARACTER OF DANCING.
“Dancing was originally merely religious, intended to assist the memory
in retaining the sacred learning which originated previous to the
invention of letters. Indeed, I believe that there were no parts of
the rites and ceremonies of antiquity which were not adopted with a
view to keep in recollection the ancient learning before letters were
known.”—(Higgins’ “Anacalypsis,” vol. ii. p. 179.)
In one of the sieges of Samaria, it is recorded that “The fourth part of
a cab of dove’s dung sold for five pieces of silver.”—(2 Kings, vi. 25.)
There is another interpretation of the meaning of this expression, not so
literal, which it is well to insert at this point.
“When Samaria was besieged, the town was a prey to all the horrors of
famine; hunger was so extreme that five pieces of silver was the price
given for a small measure (fourth part of a cab) of dove’s dung. This
seems, at first sight, ridiculous. But Bochart maintains very plausibly
that this name was then and is now given by the Arabs to a species of
vetch (_pois chiches_).”—(“Philosophy of Magic,” Eusebe Salverte, New
York, 1862, vol. i. p. 70.)
“The pulse called garbansos is believed by certain authors to be the
dove’s dung mentioned at the siege of Samaria; ... they have likewise
been taken for the pigeons’ dung mentioned at the siege of Samaria. And,
indeed, as the cicer is pointed at one end and acquires an ash color
in parching, the first of which circumstances answers to the figure,
the other to the usual color of pigeons’ dung, the supposition is by no
means to be disregarded.”—(“Shaw’s Travels in Barbary,” in “Pinkerton’s
Voyages,” London, 1814, vol. xv. p. 600.)
FRAY DIEGO DURAN’S ACCOUNT OF THE MEXICAN FESTIVALS.
All that Higgins believed was believed and asserted by the Dominican
missionary Diego Duran. Duran complains bitterly that the unwise
destruction of the ancient Mexican pictographs and all that explained the
religion of the natives left the missionaries in ignorance as to what was
religion and what was not. The Indians, taking advantage of this, mocked
and ridiculed the dogmas and ceremonies of the new creed in the very face
of its expounders, who still lacked a complete mastery of the language
of the conquered. The Indians never could be induced to admit that they
still adhered to their old superstitions, or that they were boldly
indulging in their religious observances; many times, says the shrewd
old chronicler, it would appear that they were merely indulging in some
pleasant pastime, while they were really engaged in idolatry; or that
they were playing games, when truly they were casting lots for future
events before the priest’s eyes; or that they were subjecting themselves
to penitential discipline, when they were sacrificing to their gods. This
remark applied to all that they did. In dances, in baths, in markets, in
singing their songs, in their dramas (the word is “_comedia_,” a comedy,
but a note in the margin of the manuscript says that probably this ought
to be “_comida_,” food, or dinner, or feast), in sowing, in reaping,
in putting away the harvest in their granaries, even in tilling the
ground, in building their houses, in their funerals, in their burials,
in marriages, in the birth of children, into everything they did entered
idolatry and superstition.
“Parece muchas veces pensar que estan haciendo placer y estan
idolatrando; y pensar que estan jugando y estan echando suertes de los
sucesos delante de nuestros ojos y no los entendemos y pensamos que se
disciplinan y estanse sacrificando.
“Y asi erraron mucho los que con bueno celo (pero no con mucha
prudencia), quemaron y destruyeron al principio todas las pinturas de
antiguallas que tenian; pues, nos dejaron tan sin luz que delante de
nuestros ojos idolatran y no los entendemos.
“En los mitotes, en los baños, en los mercados, y en los cantares que
cantan lamentando sus Dioses y sus Señores Antiguos, en las comedias,
en los banquetes, y en el diferenciar en el de ellas, en todo se halla
supersticion é idolátria; en el sembrar, en el coger, en el encerrar en
los troges, hasta en el labrar la tierra y edificar las casas; pues en
los mortuorios y entierros, y en los casamientos y en los nacimientos de
los niños, especialmente si era hijo de algun Señor; eran estrañas las
ceremonias que se le hacian; y donde todo se perfeccionaba era en la
celebration de las fiestas; finalmente, en todo mezclaban supersticion é
idolatria; hasta en irse á bañarse al rio los viejos, puesto escrúpulo á
la republica sino fuese habiendo precedido tales y tales ceremonias; todo
lo cual nos es encubierto por el gran secreto que tienen.”—(Diego Duran,
lib. 2, concluding remarks.)
Fray Diego Duran, a Fray Predicador of the Dominican order, says, at the
end of his second volume, that it was finished in 1581.
The very same views were held by Father Geronimo Boscána, a Franciscan,
who ministered for seventeen years to the Indians of California. Every
act of an Indian’s life was guided by religion.—(See “Chinigchinich,”
included in A. A. Robinson’s “California,” New York, 1850.)
The Apaches have dances in which the prehistoric condition of the
tribe is thus represented; so have the Mojaves and the Zuñis; while in
the snake dance of the Moquis and the sun dance of the Sioux the same
faithful adherence to traditional costume and manners is apparent.
THE URINE DANCE OF THE ZUÑIS MAY CONSERVE A TRADITION OF THE TIME WHEN
VILE ALIMENT WAS IN USE.
The Zuñi dance may therefore not improperly be considered among other
points of view, under that which suggests a commemoration of the earliest
life of this people, when vile aliment of every kind may have been in use
through necessity.
An examination of evidence will show that foods now justly regarded as
noxious were once not unknown to nations of even greater development than
any as yet attained by the Rio Grande Pueblos.
Necessity was not always the inciting motive; frequently religious frenzy
was responsible for orgies of which only vague accounts and still vaguer
explanations have come down to us.
The religious examples will be adduced at a later moment, as will those
in which human or animal excreta have been employed in ordeals and
punishments, terrestrial and supernal.
So long as the lines of investigation are included within civilized
limits, the instances noticed very properly fall under the classification
of mania and of abnormal appetite; and the latter, in turn, may be
subdivided into the two classes of the innate and the acquired, the
second of which has presented a constant decrease since physicians have
rejected such disgusting remedial agents from the Materia Medica.
That both human ordure and urine have been, and that they may still
to a limited extent be, added by the rustic population of portions of
Europe to the contents of love-philters is a fact established beyond
peradventure; and that the followers of the Grand Lama of Thibet stand
accused, on what has the semblance of excellent authority, of obtaining
from their priests the egestæ of that potent hierarch and adopting them
as condiments, food, charms, amulets, and talismans, as well as internal
medicines, will be fully stated in the chapters devoted to that purpose.
Schurig gives numerous examples of the eating of human and animal
excrement by epileptics, by maniacs, by chlorotic young women, or by
women in pregnancy, by children who had defiled their beds and dreading
detection swallowed the evidences of their guilt, and finally by men and
women with abnormal appetites.—(See Schurig, “Chylologia,” Dresden, 1725,
pp. 45, 81, 84, 780-782.)
Burton relates the story of a young German girl, Catherine Gualter, in
1571, as told by Cornelius Gemma, who vomited, “among other things,
pigeons’ dung and goose-dung.” She was apparently a victim of hysteria,
and in her paroxysms had previously swallowed all manner of objectionable
matter.—(See “Anatomy of Melancholy,” edition of London, 1806, vol. i. p.
76.)
“On a vu, surtout dans les hôpitaux, des femmes se faire un jeu d’avaler
clandestinement leurs urines à mesure qu’elles les rendaient, et essayer
faire croire qu’elles n’en rendaient point du tout.”—(Personal letter to
Captain Bourke from Mr. Frank Rede Fowke, dated Department of Science and
Art, South Kensington Museum, London, S. W., June 18, 1888.)
V.
HUMAN EXCREMENT USED IN FOOD BY THE INSANE AND OTHERS.
The subject of excrement-eating among insane persons has engaged the
attention of medical experts. H. B. Obersteiner, in a communication
to the “Psychiatrisches Centralblatt,” Wien, 1871, vol. iii. p. 95,
informs that periodical that Dr. A. Erlenmeyer, Jr., induced by a lecture
delivered by Professor Lang in 1872, had prepared a tabulated series
of data embodying the results of his observations upon the existence
of coprophagy among insane persons. He found that one in a hundred
of persons suffering from mental diseases indulged in this abnormal
appetite; the majority of these were men. No particular relation could
be established between excrement-eating and Onanism; and no deleterious
effect upon the alimentary organs was detected.
“In pathological reversion of type, due to cerebral disease, there are
certain stages in some forms of mental disease in which some of the
actions to which you refer are not uncommon.”—(Personal letter to Captain
Bourke from Surgeon John S. Billings, U. S. Army, in charge of the Army
Medical Museum, dated Washington, D. C., April 23, 1888.)
“A boy of four years old had fouled in bed; but being much afraid of
whipping, he ate his own dung, yet he could not blot the sign out of the
sheets; wherefore, being asked by threatenings, he at length tells the
chance. But being asked of its savor, he said it was of a stinking and
somewhat sweet one.... A noble little virgin, being very desirous of her
salvation, eats her own dung, and was weak and sick. She was asked of
what savor it was, and she answered it was of a stinking and a waterishly
sweet one.” These examples Von Helmont says were personally known to him,
as was that of the painter of Brussels who, going mad, subsisted for
twenty-three days on his own excrements.—(See Von Helmont’s “Oritrika”
(English translation), London, 1662, pp. 211, 212. Von Helmont’s work is
a folio of 1161 pages.)
A French lady was in the habit of carrying about her pulverized human
excrements, which she ate, and would afterwards lick her fingers.
(Christian Franz Paullini, “Dreck Apothek,” Frankfort, 1696, p. 9.)
Paullini also gives the instance of the painter of Brussels already cited
on preceding page.
“Bouillon Lagrange, pharmacien à Paris, que ses confrères appellaient
Bouillon à Pointu, a publié un ouvrage, intitulé la Chimie du Goût,
sur la fabrication des liqueurs de table, et il donne la recette d’une
préparation qu’il appelle Eau de Mille Fleurs qui se compose de bouse de
vache, infusée dans l’eau de vie.”—(“Bibliotheca Scatalogica,” pp. 93-96.)
“As to the excrements of the cow, they are still used to form the
so-called ‘eau de mille fleurs,’ recommended by several pharmacopœias as
a remedy for cachexy.”—(“Zoological Mythology,” Angelo de Gubernatis,
London, 1874, vol. i. p. 275-277.)
“Scatophagi. Ces gourmets d’un genre particulier, ces ruminants de
nouvelle espèce, ces épicuriens blasés ou raffinés, s’appellaient
scatophages, ou scybalophages. (De scybales, scybala, σκύβαλα. Voyez dans
Dioscoride, lib. 5, c. 77, et Gorreus, Def. med. p. 579, les diverses
acceptions de ce mot.) L’empereur Commode était de ceux-là; ‘Dicitur sæpe
prætiosissimis cibis humana stercora miscuisse, nec abstinuisse gustu,’
dit Lampride (Vie de l’empereur Commode, p. 160). Riedlinus (Linear.
Medic., an. 1697, mens. nov. obs. 23, p. 800) rapporte le cas d’une femme
qui affirmait ‘nullum cibum in tota vita sua palato magis satisfecisse.’
Sauvage (Nosologie méthodique) dit qu’une fille lui a avoué qu’elle avait
mangé jadis avec un plaisir infini la croûte qui s’attache aux murailles
des latrines. Zacutus Lusitanus a connu une demoiselle qui, ayant par
hasard goûté ses excréments, en fit dans la suite sa nourriture favorite,
au point qu’elle ne pouvait en passer sans être malade.
“J. J. Wypffer, Dec. III? an. 2, obs. 135, schol., p. 199, rapporte un
fait du même genre. De même: Ehrenfreid; Pagendornius (Obs. et hist.
phys. med. cent. 3, hist. 95); Daniel Eremita (Descript. Helvet. oper. p.
402); P. Tollius (Epist. itinerar. 62, p. 247); Tob. Pfanner (Diatrib. de
Charismati, seu miracul. et antiq. eccles., c. 2); [Citations are also
made from Von Helmont, Frommann, Posinus Lentilius, and Paullini, which
have been quoted elsewhere direct from those authors.] P. Borellus (Obs.
phys. med. cent. 4, obs. 2); J. Johnstonus (Thaumagograph, admirand.
homin. c. 2, art. 2); George Hanneous (Dec. II., an. 8, obs. 115); P.
Romelius (Dec. III., an. 7 and 8, obs. 40); Mich. Bern. Valentin.
(Novell. med. log. as. II). Nous croyons nous rappeler qu’il existe des
exemples du même genre dans l’ouvrage de J. B. Cardan, intitulé: ‘De
Abstinentis ab usu ciborum fetidorum,’ libellus imprimé à la suite du
traité ‘De Utilitate ex adversis capienda’ de son père. On a connu à
Paris un riche bourgeois, nommé Paperal, qui, par une étrange dépravation
de goût, avalait des excréments de petits enfants. (Virey, Nouv. Dict.
d’hist. nat. Deterville, tom. X.) La traduction même rapporte qu’ils les
mangeait avec une cuiller d’or. Ce n’est pas le seul exemple d’un goût
aussi bizarre. Bouillon portait toujours une boîte d’or remplie non de
tabac, mais des excréments humains. (Voy. Dulaure, Hist. de Paris, edit.
de 1825, t. VII. p. 262.)”—(Bibliotheca Scatalogica, pages 93 to 96.)
“La fiente de bécasse, dont les fines gourmets, véritablement
scatophages, sont, comme on sait, très friands.”—(Bibliotheca
Scatalogica, p. 133.)
In this curious book, full of learning and research, there are citations
from more than three hundred authorities, some of them, of course, merely
obscene and not coming within the purview of these notes, but others, as
may be readily understood from reading the extracts taken from them, of
the highest value in a scientific sense. Schurig gives an instance of
voracity in which a certain glutton, after consuming all other food in
sight, was wont to satisfy himself with urine and excrement: “Et si panes
deerant, sua ipse excrementa comedebat et lotium bibebat.” (Schurig,
“Chylologia,” Dresden, 1725, p. 52.) A case is given of a patient who
having once experienced the beneficial effects of mouse-dung in some
complaint, became a confirmed mouse-dung eater, and was in the habit of
picking it up from the floor of his house before the servants could sweep
it away.—(See Schurig, “Chylologia,” Dresden, 1725, p. 823 _et seq._)
The enceinte wife of a farmer in the town of Hassfort, on the Main, ate
the excrements of her husband, warm and smoking.—(See Christian Franz
Paullini, “Dreck Apothek,” edition of Frankfort, 1696, page 8. See also
quotation from “Ephemeridum Physico-Medicorum,” Leipsig. 1694, on page
212 of this volume.)
“Chacun en fait, en voit, en sent, en touche, en parle, souvent en écrit,
quelquefois en lit, et si chacun n’en mange pas, c’est que nous ne sommes
pas encore au temps où les bécasses tomberont toutes rôties; mais de
celui-là en voudrait manger.”—(Bibliotheca Scatalogica, p. 21, “Oratio
pro Guano Humano.”)
An extract is here given from a letter sent to Charlotte Elizabeth of
Bavaria, Princess-Palatine, daughter of Charles Louis, Elector-Palatine
of the Rhine, born at Heidelberg, in 1652; she married the brother of
Louis XIV., the widower of Henrietta Maria of England.
The letter in question was sent her by her aunt, the wife of the Elector
of Hanover, and may serve to give an idea of the boldness of the opinions
entertained by the ladies of high rank in that era, and the coarseness
with which they expressed them:—
“HANOVRE, 31 Octobre, 1694.
“Si la viande fait la merde, il est vrai de dire que la
merde fait la viande.... Est-ce que dans les tables les plus
délicates, la merde n’y est pas servie en ragoûts?... Les
boudins, les andouilles, les saucisses, ne sont-ce pas des
ragoûts dans des sacs à merde?”
The letters here spoken of are to be found almost complete in the
Bibliotheca Scatalogica, pages 17-21.
The following appeared in an article headed “The Last Cholera Epidemic
in Paris,” in the “General Homœopathic Journal,” vol. cxiii., page 15,
1886: “The neighbors of an establishment famous for its excellent bread,
pastry, and similar products of luxury, complained again and again of
the disgusting smells which prevailed therein and which penetrated into
their dwellings. The appearance of cholera finally lent force to these
complaints, and the sanitary inspectors who were sent to investigate
the matter found that there was a connection between the water-closets
of these dwellings and the reservoir containing the water used in the
preparation of the bread. This connection was cut off at once, but the
immediate result thereof was a perceptible deterioration of the quality
of the bread. Chemists have evidently no difficulty in demonstrating
that water impregnated with ‘extract of water-closet,’ has the peculiar
property of causing dough to rise particularly fine, thereby imparting
to bread the nice appearance and pleasant flavor which is the principal
quality of luxurious bread.”—(Personal letter from Dr. Gustav Jaeger,
Stuttgart, Germany. See page 39.)
VI.
THE EMPLOYMENT OF EXCREMENT IN FOOD BY SAVAGE TRIBES.
The very earliest accounts of the Indians of Florida and Texas refer to
the use of such aliment. Cabeza de Vaca, one of the survivors of the
ill-fated expedition of Panfilo de Narvaez, was a prisoner among various
tribes for many years, and finally, accompanied by three comrades as
wretched as himself, succeeded in traversing the continent, coming out
at Culiacan, on the Pacific Coast, in 1536. His narrative says that the
“Floridians,” “for food, dug roots, and that they ate spiders, ants’
eggs, worms, lizards, salamanders, snakes, earth, wood, the dung of
deer, and many other things.”[9] The same account, given in Purchas’s
“Pilgrims” (vol. iv. lib. 8, cap. 1, sec. 2, p. 1512) expresses it that
“they also eat earth, wood, and whatever they can get; the dung of wild
beasts.” These remarks may be understood as applying to all tribes seen
by this early explorer east of the Rocky mountains.
Gómara identifies this loathsome diet with a particular tribe, the
“Yaguaces” of Florida. “They eat spiders, ants, worms, lizards of two
kinds, snakes, earth, wood, and ordure of all kinds of wild animals.”[10]
The California Indians were still viler. The German Jesuit, Father Jacob
Baegert, speaking of the Lower Californians (among whom he resided
continuously from 1748 to 1765), says:—
“They eat the seeds of the pitahaya (giant cactus) which have passed off
undigested from their own stomachs; they gather their own excrement,
separate the seeds from it, roast, grind, and eat them, making merry over
the loathsome meal.” And again: “In the mission of Saint Ignatius, ...
there are persons who will attach a piece of meat to a string and swallow
it and pull it out again a dozen times in succession, for the sake of
protracting the enjoyment of its taste.”—(Translation of Dr. Charles F.
Rau, in Annual Report, Smithsonian Institution, 1866, p. 363.)
A similar use of meat tied to a string is understood to have once been
practised by European sailors for the purpose of teasing green comrades
suffering from the agonies of sea-sickness.
(Fuegians.) “One of them immediately coughed up a piece of blubber which
he had been eating and gave it to another, who swallowed it with much
ceremony and with a peculiar guttural noise.”—(“Voyage of the Adventure
and Beagle,” London, 1839, vol. i. p. 315.)
The same information is to be found in Clavigero (“Historia de la Baja
California,” Mexico, 1852, p. 24), and in H. H. Bancroft’s “Native Races
of the Pacific Slope,” vol. i. p. 561; both of whom derive from Father
Baegert. Orozco y Berra also has the story; but he adds that oftentimes
numbers of the Californians would meet and pass the delicious tid-bit
from mouth to mouth.[11]
Castañeda alludes to the Californians as a race of naked savages, who ate
their own excrement.[12]
The Indians of North America, according to Harmon, “boil the buffalo
paunch with much of its dung adhering to it,”—a filthy mode of cooking
which in itself would mean little, since it can be paralleled in almost
all tribes. But in another paragraph the same author says: “Many consider
a broth made by means of the dung of the cariboo and the hare to be a
dainty dish” (Harmon’s “Journal,” etc., Andover, 1820, p. 324).[13]
The Abbé Domenech asserts the same of the bands near Lake Superior:
“In boiling their wild rice to eat, they mix it with the excrement of
rabbits,—a delicacy appreciated by the epicures among them” (Domenech,
“Deserts,” vol. ii. p. 311).
Of the negroes of Guinea an old authority relates that they “ate filthy,
stinking elephant’s and buffalo’s flesh, wherein there is a thousand
maggots, and many times stinks like carrion. They eat raw dogge guts,
and never seethe nor roast them” (De Bry, Ind. Orient. in Purchas’s
“Pilgrims,” vol. ii. p. 905). And another says that the Mosagueys make
themselves a “pottage with milk and fresh dung of kine, which, mixed
together and heat at the fire, they drinke, saying it makes them strong”
(Purchas, lib. 9, cap. 12, sec. 4, p. 1555).
The Peruvians ate their meat and fish raw; but nothing further is said
by Gómara. “Comen crudo la carne y el pescado” (Gómara, “Hist. de las
Indias,” p. 234.)
The savages of Australia “make a sweet and luscious beverage by mixing
taarp with water. Taarp is the excrement of a small green beetle, wherein
the larvæ thereof are deposited.”—(“The Aborigines of Victoria and
Riverina,” P. Beveridge, Melbourne, 1889, p. 126; received through the
kindness of the Royal Society of Sydney, New South Wales, T. B. Kyngdon,
Secretary.)
“One of them (Snakes), who had seized about nine feet of the entrails,
was chewing it at one end, while with his hand he was diligently
clearing his way by discharging the contents of the other. It was indeed
impossible to see these wretches ravenously feeding on the filth of
animals, and the blood streaming from their mouths, without deploring
how nearly the condition of savages approaches that of the brute
creation.”—(Lewis and Clark, quoted by Spencer, “Descriptive Sociology:
‘Snakes.’”)
“Some authors have said that all the Hottentots devour the entrails of
beasts, uncleansed of their filth and excrements, and that, whether sound
or rotten, they consider them as the greatest delicacies in the world;
but this is not true. I have always found that when they had entrails to
eat they turned and stripped them of their filth and washed them in clear
water.”—(“Peter Kolben’s Voyage to the Cape of Good Hope,” in Knox’s
“Voyages and Travels,” London, 1777, vol. ii. p. 385.)
Atkinson declined to dine with a party of Kirghis who had killed a sheep,
“having seen the entrails put into the pan after undergoing but a very
slight purification.”—(“Siberia,” T. W. Atkinson, New York, 1865, p. 219,
and again p. 433.)
“The entrails of animals and other refuse matter thrown overboard from
the English ships is eagerly collected and eaten by the Cochi-Chinese,
whom Mr. White even accuses of having a predilection for filth.”—(“Encyc.
of Geography,” Philadelphia, 1845, vol. ii. p. 397, article “Farther
India.”)
(Arabs of the Red Sea.) “The water of Dobelew and Irwee tasted strongly
of musk, from the dung of the goats and antelopes, and the smell before
you drink it is more nauseous than the taste.”—(“Travels to discover the
Source of the Nile,” James Bruce, Dublin, 1790, vol. i. p. 367.)
From thus enduring water polluted with the excrements of animals to
drinking beverages to which urine has been purposely added, as Sir Samuel
Baker and Colonel Chaille Long show to have been the custom of the
negroes near Gondokoro with their milk, is but a very small step.
Chaille Long relates that in Central Africa he and his men were
obliged to drink water which was a mixture of the excrements of the
rhinoceros and the elephant (see “Central Africa,” New York, 1877, p.
86). Livingston tells us that the Africans living along the banks of
the Zambesi are careful not to drink except from springs or wells which
they dig in the sand. “During nearly nine months in the year ordure
is deposited around countless villages along the thousands of miles
drained by the Zambesi. When the heavy rains come down and sweep the vast
fetid accumulation into the torrents the water is polluted with filth”
(“Zambesi,” London, 1865, p. 181).
Rev. J. Owen Dorsey reports that he has seen, while among the Ponkas,
“a woman and a child devour the entrails of a beef, with the contents”
(personal letter to Captain Bourke).
Réclus says that the Eastern Inuit eat excrement. “Ils ne reculent pas
devant les intestins de l’ours, pas même devant ses excréments, et se
jettent avec avidité sur la nourriture mal digérée qu’ils retirent du
ventre des rennes” (“Les Primitifs,” Paris, 1885, pp. 31, 32). “Les
Ygarrotes des Philippines, qui versent comme sauce à leur viande crue le
jus des fientes d’un buffle fraîchement abattu” (idem, p. 31).
The tribes of Angola, West Africa, cook the entrails of deer without
removing the contents; this is for the purpose of getting a flavor, as
the excrement itself is not eaten (“Muhongo,” interpretation by Rev. Mr.
Chatelain).
The Thibetan monk was not to eat entrails. “Ne pas manger des tripes”
(“Pratimoksha Sutra,” W. W. Rockhill, Soc. Asiatique, Paris, 1885.)
(Tunguses of Siberia.) “They eat up every part of the animal which
they kill, not throwing away even the impurities of the bowels, with
which they make a sort of black pudding by a mixture of blood and
fat.”—(Gavrila Sarytschew, in Phillips’s “Voyages,” London, 1807, vol. v.)
Natives of Eastern Siberia “ate with avidity the entrails of the
seal without cleaning in the least the partly digested food from the
intestines, the ordure of the seal being as offensive to civilized man as
the fæces of men or dogs.”—(Personal letter from Chief Engineer Melville,
U. S. Navy, to Captain Bourke.)
The Aleuts and Indians from the extreme northern coast of America with
Melville’s party displayed the same appetite for the half-digested
contents of the paunches of the seals killed by them. This appetite was
not due to lack of food, as Melville takes care to explain. At another
time he detected his “natives” in the act of eating “plentifully, though
covertly, of the droppings of the reindeer” (idem).
VII.
URINE IN HUMAN FOOD.
CHINOOK OLIVES.
The addition of urine to human food is mentioned by various writers.
Speaking of the Chinooks, Paul Kane describes a delicacy manufactured by
some of the Indians among whom he travelled, and called by him “Chinook
Olives.” They were nothing more nor less than acorns soaked for five
months in human urine (see Kane, “Artist’s Wanderings in North America,”
London, 1859, p. 187). Spencer copies Kane’s story in his “Descriptive
Sociology,” article “Chinooks.”
“In Queensland, near Darlington, there is a tract of country covered with
a peculiar species of pine, yielding an edible nut of which the natives
are extremely fond.... The men would form large clay pans in the soil,
into which they would urinate; they would then collect an abundance of
these seeds and steep them in the urine. A fermentation took place,
and all the seeds were devoured greedily, the effect being to cause a
temporary madness among the men,—in fact a perfect delirium tremens. On
these occasions it was dangerous for any one to approach them. The liquid
was not used in any way.”—(Personal letter from John F. Mann, Esq.,
Neutral Bay, Sydney, New South Wales.)
This account not only recalls the story told by the artist Kane in the
preceding paragraph, but establishes the fact that in Australia there is
something with a marvellous resemblance to the Ur-Orgie of the people of
Siberia.
Chief Engineer George W. Melville, U. S. Navy, author of “In the Lena
Delta,” has had much experience with the natives of Northern Siberia,
among whom it was his misfortune to be cast away. In a personal letter to
Captain Bourke he states that he observed several instances of Siberian
women drinking their own or their neighbor’s freshly voided urine. Once,
in Sutke Harbor, Saint Lawrence Bay, near East Cape, when he “frowned at
their unclean and unseemly act, they seemed very much amused, and after
a moment’s talk, one of them voided her urine and another drank it, both
being very much diverted by my disgust.” He further relates that when his
“natives” could not obtain from his limited supplies all the alcohol they
wanted, they made a mixture of alcohol and their own urine in equal parts
and drank it down.
“On the morning of the 8th of May, while struggling with an attack of
fever, I received a visit from Gilmoro, who brought me a gourd of milk
as an expression of gratitude for saving him at an opportune moment his
position. Burning with fever, I drained at one draught a goblet full
of the foaming liquid ere the sense of taste could detect the nauseous
mixture; my stomach, however, quickly rebelled, and rejected in violent
retching the unsavory potion, seven eighths of which were simply the
urine of the cow!—a practice, by the by, common to all Central Africans,
who never drink milk unless thus mixed.”
“This fetish and superstition thereby insures protection for the cow
here, as on the Bahr-el Abiad, mysteriously connected with the unknown,—a
shadow possibly of the old Egyptian worship.”—(“Central Africa,” Chaille
Long, New York, 1877, p. 70.)
URINE IN BREAD-MAKING.
A comparatively late writer says of the Moquis of Arizona: “They are
not as clean in their housekeeping as the Navajoes, and it is hinted
that they sometimes mix their meal with chamber-lye for these festive
occasions; but I did not know that until I talked with Mormons who
visited them” (J. H. Beadle, “Western Wilds,” Cincinnati, Ohio, 1878, p.
279).
Beadle lived and ate with the Moquis for a number of days. This story,
coming from the Mormons, may refer to some imperfectly understood
ceremonial.
There is some ground for suspecting that urine may have been employed by
bakers in Europe prior to the introduction of the “barm” or ale yeast as
a ferment. Ammonia is at the present time made use of by the Germans in
this industry (see page 32).
It is possible that the following account of the manner of eating blubber
among the Patagonians may mean that urine was poured over it: “He put the
same piece on the fire again, and after an addition to it too offensive
to mention, again sucked it” (“Voyage of the Adventure and Beagle,”
London, 1839, vol. i. p. 343).
As bearing upon the ingestion of human excreta, which would seem to
excite a natural feeling of revulsion, the following statement may have
some significance: Spencer Saint John, in his “Life in the Far East,”
London, 1842, after describing a head feast among the Dyaks, says that,
after certain preliminary rites and amusements, “they commence eating
and drinking ... an extraordinary accumulation,—fowls roasted with their
feathers on, eggs black with age, decayed fruit, rice of all colors and
kinds, strong-smelling fish almost approaching a state of rottenness, and
their drink having the appearance and thickness of curds, in which they
mix pepper and other ingredients. It has a sickening effect upon them,
and they swallow it more as a duty than because they relish it.”
Evidently nastiness is an object, since “before they have added any
extraneous matter” this drink “is not unpleasant, having something the
taste of spruce-beer” (p. 66).
If the ceremony in question partakes of the nature of a sacrifice,—which
is not at all certain from the text, in which it is described as an
“entertainment,” but which appears probable from its being connected with
the organization and representation of the tribe and from its relation to
head-hunting,—then it may be assumed that the spoiled food and nauseous
drink are perfectly natural features, which have their counterparts in
many places.
As a rule, the more painful, costly, unnatural, and disgusting a rite is,
the more essentially sacrificial is its character,—for obvious reasons.
Von Stralenburg says of the Koraks that they use the same tubs as urinals
and for the purpose of holding drinking water (see citation on page 152
of this volume).
HUMAN ORDURE EATEN BY EAST INDIAN FANATICS.
Speaking of the remnants of the Hindu sect of the Aghozis, an English
writer observes:—
“In proof of their indifference to worldly objects they eat and drink
whatever is given to them, even ordure and carrion. They smear their
bodies also with excrement, and carry it about with them in a wooden cup,
or skull, either to swallow it, if by so doing they can get a few pice,
or to throw it upon the persons or into the houses of those who refuse to
comply with their demands.”—(“Religious Sects of the Hindus,” in “Asiatic
Researches,” vol. xvii. p. 205, Calcutta, India, 1832.)
Another writer confirms the above. The Abbé Dubois says that the
Gurus, or Indian priests, sometimes, as a mark of favor, present to
their disciples “the water in which they had washed their feet, which
is preserved and sometimes drunk by those who receive it” (Dubois,
“People of India,” London, 1817, p. 64). This practice, he tells us,
is general among the sectaries of Siva, and is not uncommon with many
of the Vishnuites in regard to their vashtuma. “Neither is it the most
disgusting of the practices that prevail in that sect of fanatics, as
they are under the reproach of eating as a hallowed morsel the very
ordure that proceeds from their Gurus, and swallowing the water with
which they have rinsed their mouths or washed their faces, with many
other practices equally revolting to nature” (idem, p. 71).
Again, on page 331, Dubois alludes to the Gymnosophists “or naked
Samyasis of India ... eating human excrement, without showing the
slightest symptom of disgust.”
As bearing not unremotely upon this point, the author wishes to say that
in his personal notes and memoranda can be found references to one of the
medicine-men of the Sioux who assured his admirers that everything about
him was “medicine,” even his excrement, which could be transmuted into
copper cartridges.
“I was informed that vast numbers of Shordrus drank the water in which a
Brahmin has dipped his foot, and abstain from food in the morning till
this ceremony be over. Some persons do this every day.... Persons may be
seen carrying a small quantity of water in a cup and entreating the first
Brahmin they see to put his toe in it.... Some persons keep water thus
sanctified in their houses.”—(Ward, quoted by Southey in his “Commonplace
Book,” London, 1849, 2d series, p. 521.)
VIII.
THE ORDURE OF THE GRAND LAMA OF THIBET.
That the same disgusting veneration was accorded the person of the Grand
Lama of Thibet, was once generally believed. Maltebrun asserts it in
positive terms: “It is a certain fact that the refuse excreted from his
body is collected with sacred solicitude, to be employed as amulets and
infallible antidotes to disease.”
And, quoting from Pallas, book 1, p. 212, he adds: “Il est hors de
doute que le contenu de sa chaise percée est dévotement recueilli;
les parties solides sont distribuées comme des amulettes qu’on
porte au cou; le liquide est pris intérieurement comme une médécine
infaillible.”—(Maltebrun, Universal Geography, article “Thibet,” vol. ii.
lib. 45, American edition, Philadelphia, 1832.)
The Abbé Huc denies this assertion: “The Talé Lama is venerated by the
Thibetans and the Mongols like a divinity. The influence he exercises
over the Buddhist population is truly astonishing; but still it is going
too far to say that his excrements are carefully collected and made
into amulets, which devotees inclose in pouches and carry around their
necks.”—(Huc, “Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China,” London, 1849, vol.
ii. p. 198.)
HUC AND DUBOIS COMPARED.
Huc was a keen and observing traveller; he was well acquainted with
the languages and customs of the Mongolians; his tour into Thibet was
replete with incident, and his narrative never flags in interest. Still,
in Thibet he was only a traveller; the upper classes of the Buddhist
priesthood looked upon him with suspicion. The lower orders of priesthood
and people did seem to consider him as a Lama from the far East, but
he did not succeed in gaining the confidence of the Thibetans to the
extent possessed by Dubois among the Brahminical sects. The history of
the latter author is a peculiar one: A French priest, driven from his
native land by the excesses of the revolution, he took refuge in India,
devoting himself for nearly twenty years to missionary labor among the
people, with whom he became so thoroughly identified that when his notes
appeared they were published at the expense of the British East India
Company, and distributed among its officials as a text-book.
While it is possible to consult earlier authorities, the determination
of this matter should not be allowed to remain in controversy. The first
Europeans known to have penetrated to Thibet (or Barantola, as they
called it) were the Jesuits Grueber and Dorville, who, returning from
China to Europe, walked through Thibet, and down through India to the
sea-coast. This was in 1661; another member of the same order, Father
Andrade, claimed to have succeeded in the same perilous undertaking at an
earlier date (1621), but the names of the cities he visited proves that
he did not get beyond what is now known as Afghanistan, at the foot of
the mountains bordering on Thibet. While Grueber and Dorville were making
their journey, or not many years after, Father Gerbillon, also a Jesuit,
had taken up his abode among the nomadic Tartars, acquiring an influence
with them of which the Emperor of China was glad to avail himself in
emergencies. None of these travellers claimed to have seen the Grand Lama
in person.
“Grueber assures us that the grandees of the kingdom are very anxious
to procure the excrements of this divinity (i. e., the Grand Lama),
which they usually wear about their necks as relics. In another place
he says that the Lamas make a great advantage by the large presents
they receive for helping the grandees to some of his excrements, or
urine; for, by wearing the first about their necks, and mixing the
latter with their victuals, they imagine themselves to be secure against
all bodily infirmities. In confirmation of this, Gerbillon informs us
that the Mongols wear his excrements, pulverized, in little bags about
their necks, as precious relics, capable of preserving them from all
misfortunes, and curing them of all sorts of distempers. When this Jesuit
was on his second journey into Western Tartary, a deputy from one of the
principal lamas offered the emperor’s uncle a certain powder, contained
in a little packet of very white paper, neatly wrapped up in a scarf
of very white taffety; but that prince told him that as it was not the
custom of the Manchews to make use of such things, he durst not receive
it. The author took this powder to be either some of the Great Lama’s
excrements, or the ashes of something that had been used by him.”—(“A
Description of Thibet,” in Pinkerton’s “Voyages and Travels,” London,
1814, vol. vii. p. 559).
“Grueber, in his late account of his return from China, A.D. 1661, by
way of Lassa, or Barantola, as Kircher calls it (see Kircher, China
Illustrata, part ii. c. 1), but Grueber himself Barantaka (where, he
saith, no Christian hath never been) ... above all, he wondered at
their pope (the Grand Lama of Thibet), to whom they give divine honors,
and worship his very excrements, and put them up in golden boxes, as a
most excellent remedy against all mischiefs.”—(Stillingfleet, “Defence
of Discourse concerning Idolatry in Church of Rome,” London, 1676, pp.
116-120, quoted by H. T. Buckle, in his “Commonplace Book,” p. 79, vol.
ii. of his Works, London, 1872).
Turner, “Embassy to Thibet,” London, 1806, makes no reference to the use
of the excrements of the Grand Lama.
Friar Odoric, of Pordenone, visited L’hassa, Thibet, between A.D. 1316
and 1330 (see Markham’s edition of Bogle’s “Thibet,” London, 1879, p.
46). Markham believes that the Jesuit Antonio Andrada, “in 1624,” whom he
styles “an undaunted missionary,” “found his way over the lofty passes
to Rudok,” “climbed the terrific passes to the source of the Ganges, and
eventually, after fearful sufferings, reached the shores of the sacred
lake of Mansorewar, the source of the Sutlej.”—(Introduction to Bogle’s
“Thibet,” London, 1879).
Warren Hastings speaks of the Thibetan priests of high degree, the
“Ku-tchuck-tus,” who, he says, “admit a superiority in the Dalai Lama,
so that his excrements are sold as charms, at great price, among all the
Tartar tribes of this religion.”—(“Memorandum on Thibet,” accompanying
the instructions to Mr. Bogle, the first English embassador to that
country. See in Markham’s “Thibet,” London, 1879, p. 11.)
It is truly remarkable that neither in the report nor letters of Bogle,
nor in the notes of Manning, nor in the fragments of Grueber, Desideri,
nor Horace Della Penna, preserved in Markham’s “Thibet,” can any allusion
be found to the use of the excrements of the Grand Lama in religion or
medicine.
“Les grands du royaume” (i. e., of Barantola), “recherchent fort les
excréments de cette divinité” (i. e., Lamacongiu). “Ils les portent
ordinairement à leur col comme des reliques.”—(“Voyage de P. Grueber à
Chine,” taken from Conversations with P. Grueber. See, in Thévenot, vol.
ii., “Relations de Divers Voyages curieux,” Melchisédec Thevenot, Paris,
1696, vol. ii.)
Several authorities from whom much was expected are absolutely silent.
No mention is to be found in Rubruquis of any use of human ordure or
urine among the Tartars among whom he travelled; all that he says is that
they baked their bread on cow-dung. This monk, a Franciscan, was sent by
King Louis IX. (Saint Louis), of France, on a mission to the Grand Khan
of Tartary in 1253, in the execution of which office he travelled for
thousands of miles through their territory. In Pinkerton it is said: “The
travels of Rubruquis are equally astonishing in whatever light they are
considered. Take them with respect to length, and they extend upwards of
five thousand miles one way and nearly six thousand another.”—(Vol. vii.
p. 96.)
During such a long journey he should have been able to notice much, but
we are to bear in mind that the manners of the Tartars of the Grand
Khan were at that time somewhat modified by contact with European
civilization, having among them many prisoners, as Rubruquis points out,
who officiated as artificers, while, on the other hand, we know that the
monk was thoroughly ignorant of all their dialects. Marco Polo, who lived
among the Tartars about the same time, says: “But now the Tartars are
mixed and confounded, and so are their fashions.”—(Marco Polo, “Travels,”
in Pinkerton’s “Voyages,” London, 1814, vol. vii. p. 124.)
Du Halde, although he gives an account of Thibet in his fourth volume,
and seems to be familiar with all the works on that country, mentioning
Fathers Grueber and Dorville, yet makes no allusion to the use of the
excrements of the Grand Lama as amulets or internally. (See Du Halde’s
“History of China,” London, 1736.) The fault may lie with his translator
in his zeal to “expurgate.”
Du Halde, a Jesuit missionary, had the assistance of all the members of
his order on duty in China; no less than a score or more aided him; one
of the number, Father Constancin, had a tour of service in the Flowery
Kingdom, as a missionary, of over thirty-two consecutive years. During
the generation preceding the appearance of Du Halde’s work, the Jesuits
had traversed China, Tartary, and Thibet. Tavernier, whose opportunities
for observation were excellent, asserted the fact without ambiguity.
The excrement of the Grand Lama was carefully collected, dried, and in
various ways used as a condiment, as a snuff, and as a medicine.
“The Butan merchants assured Tavernier that they strew his ordure,
powdered, over their victuals.”—(Tavernier, “Travels,” vol. ii. p. 185.
Footnote to page 559, vol. vii. Pinkerton’s “Voyages and Travels,”
London, 1814.)
“Unde tantis venerationis indiciis ab omnibus colitur, ut beatum ille se
reputet, cui Lamarum (quod summis et pretiosis muneribus eum in finem,
non sine magno eorum lucro corrumpere solent) benignitate aliquid ex
naturalis secessus sordibus aut urina Magnæ Lamæ obtigerit. Ex ejusmodi
enim collo portatis, urina quoque cibis commixta.”—(Letter of Father Adam
Schall, S. J., “Aulæ Sino-Tartaricæ Supremi Concilii Mandarinus,” in
Thevenot, vol. ii.; Thevenot’s second volume contains three short letters
in Latin from Grueber to members of his order, but in none is there any
mention made of the ordure of the Grand Lama.)
“There is no king in the world more feared and respected by his
subjects than the king of Butan; being in a manner adored by them....
The merchants assured Tavernier that those about the king preserve his
ordure, dry it, and reduce it to powder like snuff; that then putting it
into boxes, they go every market-day and present it to the chief traders
and farmers, who, recompensing them for their great kindness, carry it
home as a great rarity, and when they feast their friends, strew it upon
their meat. The author adds that two of them showed him their boxes with
the powder in them.”—(“A Description of Thibet,” in Pinkerton, London,
1814, vol. vii. 567.)
The expression “king of Butan,” as used by Tavernier, means the Grand
Lama of Thibet. Tavernier’s statement has been accepted by the most
careful writers. “Indorum nonnullos, incolas scilicet regni Boutan
Homerda seu excrementis alvinis Regis sui siccatis et pulverisatis
cibos amicis et convivis suis appositos condire, refert Johannes
Baptista Tavernier, Itinerar. Indic. lib. 3, cap. 15, fol. m.” (Schurig,
“Chylologia,” Dresden, 1725, p. 775.) The same paragraph quoted in the
Bibliotheca Scatalogica, pages 29, 93, and 96, to which the anonymous
author adds, “et les Tartares et les Japonais tenaient en pareille
vénération la merde du grand lama et du Dairi.”
Rosinus Lentilius, in the Ephemeridum Physico-Medicorum, Leipsig, 1694,
speaks of the Grand Lama of Thibet as held in such high veneration by
the devotees of his faith that his excrements, carefully collected,
dried, powdered, and sold at high prices by the priests, were used as a
sternutatory powder, to induce sneezing, and as a condiment for their
food, and as a remedy for all the graver forms of disease. He quotes all
this from Tavernier, and from Erasmus Franciscus, p. 1662. There is also
another citation from Tavernier, lib. 4, cap. 7.
“Nec de rege in Bantam, et summo Tangathani Regni Pontifice, magno
Lama, quos tanto in honore subditi habent ut merda eorum magno studio
collectam, et in pulverem comminutam (quam Brachmines ære multo
simplicibus divendunt) illi quidem scil. Boutamenses, loco pulvere
nasalis utantur, eoque lautius, victuri cibos condiant hi vero scil.
Tangat hani pro remedio longe presentissimo ad varios desperatissimosque
morbos habeant, aliisque medicamentis admisceant, per sæpe memoratum”
Tavernier, Itin. lib. 3, cap. 15, et Franciscus, loc. cit. p. 1662.
References to “amulets” among the peoples of Tartary and Thibet are made
by nearly all travellers; but few seem to have considered it worth while
to determine of what these amulets were composed.
Fathers Grueber and Dorville say of the Kalmuck Tartar women, “each with
a charm about their necks to preserve them from dangers.” These may have
been ordure amulets of the Grand Lama.
In his condensation of the travels into Thibet of Fathers Grueber and
Dorville, Pinkerton omits what they had to say about these amulets,
although in another place, already cited, he refers to it.
(Burats of Siberia.) “I could observe no images among them except
some relics given them by their priests which they had from the
Delay-Lama; these are commonly hung up in a corner of their tents, and
sometimes about their necks, by way of an amulet to preserve them from
misfortunes.” (Bell, “Travels in Asia,” with the Russian Embassy to
China, in 1714, in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p. 347). Undoubtedly, these were
amulets of human ordure, etc., received from the Grand Lama.
(Kalmucks of Siberia.) “Des pilules bénites qui viennent du Tibet
méritent attention; on les appelle Schalir. Les prêtres ne les donnent
qu’aux Kalmouks riches ou de distinction; ils les portent toujours sur
eux, et ils n’en font usage que dans les maladies graves où la mort
leur paraît presqu’inévitable. Ils prétendent que ces pilules servent à
distraire l’ame des choses temporelles, et à la sanctifier: elles sont
noires et de la grosseur d’un pois. Je presumai qu’elles renfermaient de
l’opium ou autre narcotique; mais on m’assure au contraire que leur vertu
était purgatif.”—(Voyages de Pallas, Paris, 1793, vol. i. pp. 567, 568.)
(Mongolia.) “When famous lamas die and their bodies are burnt, little
white pills are reported as found among the ashes, and sold for large
sums to the devout, as being the concentrated virtue of the man and
possessing the power of insuring a happy future for him who swallows
one near death. This is quite common. I heard of one man who improved
on this by giving out that these little pills were in the habit of
coming out through the skin of various parts of the body. These pills,
called Sharil, met with a ready sale, and then the man himself reaped
the reward of his virtue and did not allow all the profit to go to his
heir.”—(“Among the Mongols,” Rev. James Gilmour, London, 1883, p. 231.)
This writer says that these sacred pills are white; another one, already
noted, describes them as black, while those obtained by the author from
Mr. W. W. Rockhill are red.
Vambéry instances one of the holy men of the Turkomans who, after
reciting a number of sacred verses, “used to place before him a cup of
water into which he spat at the end of each poem, and this composition
... was sold to the best bidder as a wonder-working medicine.”—(“Travels
in Central Asia,” New York, 1865, p. 272.)
Such use of the excrement of ecclesiastical dignitaries was indicated
in Oriental literature. In the “Arabian Nights” King Afrida says to the
Emirs, among other things, “‘And I purpose this night to sacre you all
with the Holy Incense.’ When the Emirs heard these words, they kissed
the ground before him. Now the incense which he designated was the
excrement of the Chief Patriarch, the denier, the defiler of the truth,
and they sought for it with such instance, and they so highly valued
it, that the high-priests of the Greeks used to send it to all the
countries of the Christians in silken wraps, after mixing it with musk
and ambergris; hearing of it, kings would pay a thousand gold pieces
for every dram, and they sent for and sought it to fumigate brides
withal; and the Chief Priests and the Great Kings were wont to use a
little of it as a Collyrium for the eyes, and as a remedy in sickness
and colic; and the Patriarchs used to mix their own skite (excrement)
with it, for that the skite of the Chief Patriarch would not suffice for
ten countries.”—(Burton’s edition, vol. ii. pp. 222, 223). In Burton’s
Index this is called “Holy Merde.” Burton also says, “The idea of the
Holy Merde might have been suggested by the Hindus; see Mandeville, of
the archiprotopapaton (prelate) carrying ox-dung and cow-urine to the
king, who therewith anoints his face and breast, etc. And, incredible
to relate, this is still practised by the Parsis, one of the most
progressive and sharpest-witted of the Asiatic races.”—(Idem.)
Rochefoucauld tells us that we ascribe to others the faults of which we
ourselves would be guilty, had we the opportunity. The Arabians no doubt
were fully acquainted with just such customs; possibly, the Greeks also.
The Kalmucks believe in spirits or genii called “Bourkans,” and in a
maleficent one known as “Erlik-khan.” They tell a story of three of
these “Bourkans,” one of them being Sakya-Muni: “Étant un jour assis
ensemble, firent leurs prières dans la plus grande ferveur, ayant les
yeux fermés, ainsi que cela se pratique chez les Kalmouks, le génie
infernal s’approche d’eux, et fit ses ordures dans la coupe sacrée
que les prêtres ont devant eux lorsqu’ils font la prière. Dès que les
dieux s’en aperçurent, ils tinrent conseil. Ils conclurent que s’ils
répandoient cette matière venimeuse dans les airs, ils féroient périr
tous les habitants de cet élément; et que s’ils la jétoient sur la
terre, ils féroient mourir tous les êtres vivans qui l’occupent. Ils
résolurent donc, pour le bien de l’humanité, de l’avaler. Sakya-Muni eut
pour sa part le fond de la coupe; le levain étoit si fort que son visage
devint tout bleu. C’est la raison pour laquelle on lui peint la figure
en bleu dans les images; ses idoles ont seulement le bonnet vernissé en
bleu.”—(Voyages de Pallas, Paris, 1793, vol. i. p. 548).
This is a lame explanation, invented by the Lamas after men had become
somewhat refined, and had begun to evince a repugnance to these
diabolical usages. Compare with the notes presented by Mr. W. W.
Rockhill, the Oriental scholar and Thibetan explorer, on p. 37.
The following is from a manuscript by Mr. W. W. Rockhill, entitled “The
Lamaist Ceremony called the Making of the Mani Pills:”—
“Certain indestructible particles of the bodies of the Buddhas and
saints, as well as certain other bodily remains, have ever been
considered by Buddhists to enjoy certain properties, such as that of
emitting light, and of having great curative properties. The travels of
Huein-Tsang and of Fa-hsien are filled with accounts of the discovery of
such treasures, and of the supernatural properties which they possessed.
Among Thibetans, the first class of these relics is known as ‘pedung’
(upel-gedung), the second as ‘dung-rus’ (gdung-rus). They say the pedung
are minute globules found in the bones of Buddhas and saints, that they
possess wonderful brilliancy, and that sometimes they may be seen on
the exterior of some saintly person, when they have the appearance of
brilliant drops of sweat. While these pedung have most potent curative
properties, they become also the palladium of the locality fortunate
enough to have them. By a natural extension of the idea of the power of
pedung, Thibetans have come to think that if one preserves and carries
about on one’s person even a little of the excretions, or of the hair
or nail-trimmings of a saint who is known to have pedung, such, for
instance, as the Tale-Lama, or the Panchan-Rimpoche, they will shield him
from gun or sword wounds, sickness, etc.; hence the extraordinary objects
one so often finds in Thibetan charm-boxes (Ka-Wo).
“The properties of pedung have also given rise to another belief, with
which this paper is more properly concerned,—that of manufacturing pills,
to which the god Shourizog, at the supplication of the officiating lamas,
imparts the properties of his own divine body, and then imparts to them
the curative and protective properties of real pedung. These pills are
known as mani-rilbu, or ‘precious pills,’ and are in constant use as
medicine among the people of Thibet and Mongolia. Large quantities of
them are also sent by each tribute-bearing minion to the Emperor of
China. In Chinese, they are called ‘Tsu-mu-yas,’ or ‘thih-ma-yao,’ and
must not be confounded with a liliaceous plant of same name (Hanbury’s
_Anemarhena asphodeloides_), the rhizome of which is used in medicine,
and which is also a product of Thibet.
“Perhaps the better name for ‘mani-rilbu’ is ‘tzu-sheng-wan,’ ‘dilated
pills,’ which I have heard used for them in Pekin, as will be better
seen after reading the following account of the manner in which they are
manufactured.
“The greater part of the account here given of the process of making the
pills is taken from a Thibetan work containing a minute account of the
ceremony, together with the prayers to be recited, etc., the title of
which is ‘Ceremony of Making Mani Pills’ (Mani Rilbu grub gi choga), in
seven leaves.
“Verbal explanations from the lamas who explained the text to me are
incorporated wherever necessary.
“Seven days prior to the commencement of the ceremony the lama who is to
conduct it and the priests who are to take part in it commence to abstain
from the use of meat, spirits, garlic, tobacco, and other articles of
food held impure, or which are bad-smelling, and during the progress
of the ceremony, which is twenty-one, forty-nine, or one hundred days
in length, none of the above articles are allowed in the temple, nor
are unclean persons or those who are partaking of the above prohibited
substances.
“The ceremony begins by making the pills, and the process is described,
in the work mentioned above, as follows: “The Lama, his head
clean-shaved, and his vestments being as they should be, grinds into
fine flour some roasted grain, then mixing it with pure and sweet-scented
water, he makes the necessary amount of paste; the pills are then
made and coated over with red. When all this has been done, a vase is
taken which is dry and without any flaw or blemish, and which is also
perfectly clean, and in it the pills are poured until it is two-thirds
full. The vase is then wrapped in a silk cover, which is tied on with
a silk thread, and sealed. The vase, after this, is put on a stand,
in a perfectly upright position, and around the latter are arranged
bowls of water and other offerings, two by two. The most revered image
of Tug-je-chon-po (i. e., Shouresig) which the lamasery possesses is
then clothed in its robes, and placed on top of the vase; then, without
shaking the vase, a dorje (a marginal note explains that this is the
Thunder-bolt or Sadjra of Indra: it is in constant use in all the Lamaist
ceremonies, and is generally held in the right hand, between the thumb
and index, while prayers are being read. In the left hand the lama
usually holds a bell), wrapped in a clean piece of cotton or woollen
stuff, is tied to the string around the neck of the vase. After an
interval of meditation and prayer, offerings are made of ‘water, flowers,
incense, lamps, perfumes, food, etc., ... while music plays.’ Then the
help of the god is invoked ‘to impart the necessary virtues to the pills,
... for this world is sunk in sin and iniquity, and Shouresig alone can
help it, and drag it out of the mire.’ As a means thereto he is now
besought, in his great mercifulness, to bless these pills, so that they
may free from the orb of transmigration those who shall have attained
maturity of mind, to impart to them by absorption the peculiar flavor of
his resplendent person, so that they may become indistinguishable from
it, like water poured into water, etc., etc.
“This ceremony, which is a most expensive one, and most trying on the
Lamas, is not at all common in the Lamaseries of China or Mongolia, and
is confined to the larger one in Thibet; the only one at Pekin, where
it is sometimes performed, is the Shih-fang-tang, to the west of the
Hsi-huang-tsu, outside of the north side of the city.”
The above ceremony describes a symbolical alvine dejection, and the
most plausible explanation is, that the lamas, finding trade good and
the Buddhist laity willing to accept more “amulets” than the Grand Lama
was able, unaided, to supply, hit upon this truly miraculous mode of
replenishing their stock.
Mr. Rockhill explains that the word “pedung,” used in the above
description, means “remains.” Taking into consideration the fact that
these people, although remotely, are related to the Aryan stock, which
is the ancestor of the English, German, Irish, Latin, and others, from
which we spring, the meaning, as here given, is certainly not without
significance. “Dung,” in our own tongue, means nothing more nor less than
remains, reliquiæ of a certain kind.
Webster traces the word “dung” to the Anglo-Saxon dung, dyncg,
dincg,—excrement; Dyngan, to dung; N. H. German, dung, dunger; O. H.
German, Tunga; Sw. Dynga; Danish, Dynge and Dyngd; Icelandic, Dyngia and
Dy. This shows it to be essentially Indo-Germanic in type, and fairly
to be compared with the words “pedung” and “dung-rus” of Mr. Rockhill’s
manuscript.
In the country of Ur of the Chaldees, which was the home of Abraham (Gen.
xi. 2), there reigned a king, “the father of Dungi.” The exact meaning of
the name “Dungi” has not been made known. The name of the king himself,
strangely enough, was “Urea,” or “Uri,”—it is read both ways. His date
has been fixed at 3,000 years B.C.
The information in preceding paragraph was furnished by Prof. Otis T.
Mason, of the National Museum, Washington, D.C.
Lenormant makes him out as of high antiquity,—“the most ancient of the
Babylonian kings,” “kings who can vie in antiquity with the builders of
the Egyptian pyramids,—Dungi, for instance.”—(“Chaldean Magic,” p. 333.)
Smith ascribes him to the date of at least 2,000 B.C.—(“Assyrian
Discoveries,” New York, 1876, p. 232.)
Mr. W. W. Rockhill, for six years secretary of the Legation of the United
States, in Pekin, is a member of the Oriental Society, and a scholar of
the highest attainments, more particularly in all that relates to the
languages, customs, and religions of China and Thibet, in which countries
he has travelled extensively.
The sacred pills presented by him to the author were enclosed in a silver
reliquary, elaborately chased and ornamented; in size they were about as
large as quail-shot; their color was almost orange, or between that and
an ochreous red.
Through the kindness of Surgeon-General John Moore, U. S. Army, they were
analyzed by Dr. Mew, U. S. Army, with the following results:—
“April 18, 1889.
“I have at length found time to examine the Grand Lama’s
ordure, and write to say that I find nothing at all remarkable
in it. He had been feeding on a farinaceous diet, for I found
by the microscope a large amount of undigested starch in the
field, the presence of which I verified by the usual iodine
test, which gave an abundant reaction.
“There was also present much cellulose, or what appeared to be
cellulose, from which I infer that the flour used (which was
that of wheat) was of a coarse quality, and probably not made
in Minnesota.
“A slight reaction for biliary matter seemed to show that there
was no obstruction of the bile ducts. These tests about used up
the four very small pills of the Lama’s ordure.
“Very respectfully and sincerely yours,
(Signed) “W. M. MEW.”
IX.
THE STERCORANISTES.
That Christian polemics have not been entirely free from such ideas may
be shown satisfactorily to any one having the leisure to examine the
various phases of the discussion upon the doctrine of the Eucharist.
The word “stercoranistes,” or “stercorarians,” is not to be found in
the last edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica; but in the edition
of 1841 the definition of the word is as follows: “Stercorarians, or
Stercoranistes, formed from _stercus_, ‘dung,’ a name which those of the
Romish church originally gave to such as held that the host was liable to
digestion and all its consequences, like other food.” This definition was
copied verbatim in Rees’s Cyclopædia of Arts, Sciences, and Literature,
Philadelphia.
The dispute upon “Stercoranisme” began in 831, upon the appearance of
a theological treatise by a monk named Paschasius Radbert.—(See the
“Institutes of Ecclesiastical History,” John Lawrence von Mosheim,
translated by John Murdock, D.D., New Haven, 1832, vol. ii. p. 104 _et
seq._)
The grossly sensual conception of the presence of the Lord’s body in
the sacrament, according to which that body is eaten, digested, and
evacuated like ordinary food, is of ancient standing, though not found
in Origen, nor perhaps in Rhabanus Maurus. It certainly originated with
a class of false teachers contemporary with or earlier than Rhabanus
Maurus, whom Paschasius Radbert condemns,—“Frivolum est ergo in hoc
mysterio cogitare in stercore ne commisceatur in digestione alterius
cibi” (De Corp. et Sanguin. Domin. cap. 20). He does not, however, apply
the term “Stercoranistes” to his opponents. Cardinal Humbert is the
first to so employ the word. This use was in a polemic against Nicetas
Pectoratus, written in support of Azymitism, etc. From this source the
word was adopted into common usage.—(Schrockli Kirchengesch. XXIII.? 429,
499; Herzog, Real Encyclop., s. v.; McClintock and Strong, Cyclop. of
Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, New York, 1880; see
also Schaff-Herzog, “Cyclopædia of Religious Knowledge,” New York, 1881,
article “Stercoranistes.”)
(Stercoranistes.) (Hist. Eccles.) “Nom que quelques écrivains ont donné
a ceux qui pensoient que les symboles eucharistiques êtoient sujets à
la digestion et à toutes ses suites de même que les autres nourritures
corporelles.... Ce mot est dérivé du Latin, ‘stercus,’ excrement.
On ne convient pas généralement de l’existence de cette erreur. Le
président Manguin l’attribue à Amalaire, auteur du neuvième siècle....
Et le cardinal Humbert dans sa réponse a Nicetas Pectoratus, l’appelle
nettement stercoraniste, parceque celui-ci prétendoit que la perception
de l’hostie rompoit le jeûne. Enfin, Alger attribue la même erreur
aux Grecs. Mais ces accusations ne paroissent pas fondées, car; ...
Amalaire propose à la vérité la question si les espèces eucharistiques
se consument comme les aliments ordinaires; mais, il ne la décide pas.
Nicetas prétend aussi que l’Eucharistique rompt le jeûne, soit qu’il
reste dans les espèces quelque vertu nutritive, soit parce qu’après avoir
récu l’Eucharistique, ou peut prendre autres aliments; mais, il ne paroit
pas avoir admis la consequence que lui impute le Cardinal Humbert. Il ne
paroit pas non plus que les autres Grecs soient tombés dans cette erreur.
S. Jean Damascene les en disculpe. Mais, soit que le Stercoranisme
ait existé ou non, les protestans n’en peuvent tirer aucun avantage
contre la présence réele, que cette erreur suppose plutôt qu’elle ne
l’ébranle.”—(Voyez M. Wuitass, traité de l’Eucharistie, première partie,
quest. 2, art. 1; p. 416 et suiv. Encyclop. ou Diction. Raisson. des
Sciences, des Arts, et des Metiers, tome quinzième, Neufchatel, 1765,
art. “Stercoranistes.”)
“Si qui fuerunt, fuere nonnulli nono sæculo, qui Corpus Christi quod in
Eucharistia continetur secessui, ac defectioni obnoxium esse putabat ita
ut corruptis speciebus et ipsum Corpus Christi corrumperatur.”—(“Dict. of
Sects and Heresies,” etc., T. H. Blunt, Oxford, 1874, where a number of
references are given.)
“Stercorantistarum, nomen non sectæ, sed convitii fuit.”—(Baronius,
“Annales,” Lucca, 1758.)
Stercoranisme. Stercoranistes. Stercus. “Membre d’une secte qui souténait
que les espèces de l’Eucharistie étaient digérées et transformées en
excrément comme les autres aliments” (Encyclop.).
“On a désigné dans le XIX. siècle sous le nom de Stercoranistes, les
théologiens qui niaient que la substance du pain et du vin fut changée
dans l’Eucharistie au corps et au sang de Jesus Christ.”
“Tout ce qui entre dans la bouche, descend le ventre et va au rétrait.”
“Prétendirent que si le corps et le sang de Jésus Christ, avaient pris la
place de la substance du pain et du vin, ils devraient subir les mêmes
accidents qui seraient arrivés à cette substance si elle avait été reçue
par le communiant.”—(P. Larousse, “Grand Dictionnaire Universel,” Paris,
1875.)
Brand, in his “Encyclopædia of Science, Literature, and Art,” article
“Stercoranism,” says: “A nickname which seems to have been applied in
the Western churches in the fifth and sixth centuries to those who held
the opinion that a change took place in the consecrated elements, so as
to render the divine body subject to the act of digestion.” He refers to
Mosheim’s “Ecclesiastical History” for a fuller account.
The same ideas obtained among the illiterate as a matter of course.
The First Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus Christ seems to have been
received by the Gnostics of the second century as canonical, and accepted
in the same sense by Eusebius, Athanasius, Chrysostom, and others of the
Fathers and writers of the Church. Sozomen was told by travellers in
Egypt that they had heard in that country of the miracles performed by
the water in which the infant Jesus had been washed. According to Ahmed
ben Idris, this gospel was used in parts of the East in common with the
other gospels; while Ocobius de Castro asserts that in many churches of
Asia and Africa it was recited exclusively. (See Introduction to the
“Apocryphal New Testament,” William Hone, London, 1820.) But, on the
other hand, all the apocrypha were condemned by Pope Gelasius in the
fifth century; and this interdict was not repealed until the time of Paul
IV. in the sixteenth century.—(See Bunsen, “Analecta,” Hamburg, 1703.)
In the following extracts it will be noted that the miracles recorded
were wrought either by the swaddling-clothes themselves or by the water
in which they had been cleansed; and the inference is that the excreta of
Christ were believed, as in many other instances, to have the character
of a panacea, as well as generally miraculous properties.
The Madonna gave one of the swaddling clothes of Christ to the Wise Men
of the East who visited him; they took it home, “and having, according
to the custom of their country, made a fire, they worshipped it.... And
casting the swaddling cloth into the fire, the fire took it and kept it”
(1 Inf. iii. 6, 7).
We read of the Finnish deity Wainemoinen that “the sweat which dropped
from his body was a balm for all diseases.” The very same virtues
were possessed by the sweat of the Egyptian god Ra (“Chaldean Magic,”
Lenormant, p. 247, quoting the Kalewala, part 2, r. 14).
On arrival in Egypt after the Flight—“When the Lady Saint Mary had washed
the swaddling clothes of the Lord Christ and hanged them out to dry upon
a post ... a certain boy ... possessed with the devil, took down one of
them and put it upon his head. And presently the devils began to come out
of his mouth and fly away in the shape of crows and serpents. And from
this time the boy was healed by the power of the Lord Christ.”—(1 Inf.
iv. 15, 16, 17.)
“On the return journey from Egypt, Christ had healed by a kiss a lady
whom cursed Satan ... had leaped upon ... in the form of a serpent. On
the morrow, the same woman brought perfumed water to wash the Lord Jesus;
when she had washed him, she preserved the water. And there was a girl
whose body was white with leprosy, who being sprinkled with this water
was instantly cleansed from her leprosy.”—(1 Inf. vi. 16, 17).
There is another example of exactly the same kind in 1 Inf. vi. 34. See,
again, 1 Inf. ix. 1, 4, 5, 9; x. 2, 3; xii. 4, 5, 6. “And in Matarea the
Lord Jesus caused a well to spring forth, in which Saint Mary washed his
coat. And a balsam is produced or grown in that country from the sweat
which ran down there from the Lord Jesus.”—(Gospel of the Infancy, viii.:
“The Apocryphal New Testament,” William Hone, London, 1820, p. 47.)
“In Ireland, weakly children are taken to drink the ablution, that is,
the water and wine with which the chalice is rinsed after the priest has
taken the communion,—the efficacy arising from the cup having just before
contained the body of our Lord.” (See “Folk-Medicine,” Black, London,
1883, p. 88.) The same cure was also in vogue in England, and in each
case for the whooping-cough.
This has all the appearance of a commingling of two separate streams
of thought; compare with it the notes on the expression from Juvenal,
“Priapo ille bibit vitreo,” page 428, as well as those in regard to the
canons of Beauvais on page 429.
“An offshoot of the Khlysti, known as the “Shakouni,” or Jumpers, openly
professed debauchery and libertinism to excess.... Others of their rites
are abject and disgusting; their chief is the living Christ, and their
communion consists in embracing his body,—ordinary disciples may kiss
his hand or his foot; to those of a more fervent piety, he offers his
tongue.”—(“The Russian Church and Russian Dissent,” Albert F. Heard, New
York and London, 1887, pp. 261-262.)
The subjoined extract is from “Mélusine” (Gaidoz), Paris, May 5, 1888.
UN DALAI-LAMA IRLANDAIS.
“A l’occasion des reliques journalières du Dalai-Lama dont on fait des
pilules pour les dévots, histoire que les imprimeurs de cette Revue
n’avaient pas voulu ‘avaler’ (voir plus haut, col. 24) Mr. Wh. Stokes
nous a signalé un curieux passage des annales irlandaises. Nous croyons
intéressant de le traduire ici. Cet ‘acte de foi’ se passait en l’an 605,
et le héros en est le roi Aedh, surnommé Uairidhnach.[14]
“Un jour il passa, n’étant encore que prince royal, par le territoire
d’Othain-Muira; il lava ses mains à la rivière qui traversa le territoire
de la ville. Othain est le nom de la rivière, et c’est de là que la ville
a son nom. Il prit de l’eau pour s’en laver la figure. Un de ses gens
l’arrêta. ‘Roi, dit-il, ne mets pas cette eau sur ton visage.’ ‘Quoi
donc?’ dit le roi. ‘J’ai honte de le dire,’ dit-il. ‘Quelle honte as-tu
à dire la vérité? dit le roi. ‘Voici ce que c’est,’ dit-il; ‘c’est sur
cette eau que se trouve le _water-closet_ des clercs.’ ‘Est-ce ici, que
vient le clerc lui-même’ (c’est à dire le chef des clercs) ‘pour se
soulager?’
“‘C’est ici même,’ dit le page. ‘Non seulement,’ dit le roi, ‘je mettrai
cette eau sur ma figure, mais j’en mettrai dans ma bouche, et j’en
boirai’ (et il en but trois gorgées); ‘car l’eau où il se soulage vaut
pour moi l’eucharistie.’
“Cela fut raconté à Muira (le chef des clercs), et il rendit grâces à
Dieu de ce que Aedh avait une semblable foi; et il appela auprès de lui
Aedh et il lui dit: ‘Cher fils, en récompense de ce respect que tu as
montré à l’Église, je te promets, en présence de Dieu, que tu obtiendras
bientôt la royauté d’Irlande, que tu auras victoire et triomphe sur tes
ennemis, que tu ne mourras pas de mort subite,[15] que tu recevras le
corps de Christ de ma main, et je prierai le Seigneur pour toi, pour que
ce soit la vieillesse qui t’enlève de cette vie.’
“Ce fut peu de temps après cela qu’Aedh obtint la royauté d’Irlande et il
donna des terres fertiles à Muira d’Othain.[16]
“Comme le lecteur ne manquera pas de le remarquer, c’est par édification
que l’annaliste, clerc lui-même, raconte cette histoire. En effet, elle
fait honneur à la piété du roi et elle prouve que ‘le respect montré à
l’Église ... a obtenu sa récompense.’ Ce qui vient des hommes de Dieu
participe en effet au caractère sacré de Dieu qu’ils représentent.
“Si l’on cherchait à étendre cette enquête de scatologie hiératique on
trouverait sans doute bien des croyances et des pratiques répugnantes à
notre goût de civilisés, mais raisonnables en un sens quand on accepte le
point de départ, quand on ne condamne pas la logique, et surtout quand
on se rappelle que le dégoût pour les résidus de la digestion n’est
devenu instinctif que pour la vie civilisée et les habitudes sociales.
Les peuples qui ne se lavent pas doivent certainement sentir autrement
que nous, et même ne pas sentir du tout; et nos ancêtres de l’âge des
cavernes n’avaient certainement l’odorat plus difficile. On assure que
chez les Namas, tribu hottentote, le shaman qui célèbre un mariage
asperge les conjoints de son urine. Cela remplace notre eau bénite. Le
shaman est en effet ’un homme de Dieu,’ par excellence; car, lorsqu’il se
livre à ces danses désordonnées qui sont une partie du culte, on croit
que le dieu descend en lui, non en esprit, mais en réalité.
“C’est aussi le cas de rappeler un usage linguistique des habitants de
Samoa dans la Polynésie. Lorsqu’une femme est sur le point d’accoucher,
on adresse des prières au dieu ou génie de la famille du père et à celui
de la famille de la mère. Quand l’enfant est né, la mère demande quel
dieu on était en train de prier à ce moment. On en prend soigneusement
note et ce dieu sera en quelque sorte le “patron” de l’enfant pendant le
reste de sa vie.
“Par respect pour ce dieu, l’enfant est appelé son excrément et pendant
son enfance on l’appelle réellement, comme ‘petit-nom,’ ‘m⸺ de Tongo,’
ou de Satia, ou de tout autre dieu, suivant le cas. La formule est
grossière, mais l’intention, sous une apparence tout matérielle, part
d’un sentiment de respect et de piété à l’égard de la divinité.”
The last two paragraphs of the above are taken from the work of the
missionary Turner, who lived for seventeen years in the islands of
Polynesia; they appear in his “Samoa,” London, 1884, p. 79. But in the
same book, issued under the title “Polynesia,” London, 1861, it has been
expunged.
The mother of the King of Uganda invited Speke to visit her and drink
pombé, the native plantain wine; when she happened to spill some of
this the servants “instantly fought over it, dabbing their noses on the
ground, or grabbing it with their hands, that not one atom of the queen’s
favor might be lost; for everything must be adored that comes from
royalty, whether by design or accident.” (Speke, “Nile,” London, 1863,
vol. ii. p. 313.) This is the Grand Lama business over again and nothing
else.
The people of Madagascar have an annual feast of the greatest solemnity,
during which no cattle are allowed to be slaughtered; “which means
that none can be eaten, as meat will not keep twenty-four hours in
Madagascar.” This festival is called “The Queen’s Bath,” and is arranged
with much parade. “When the water was warm the queen stepped down and
entered the curtained space. In a few moments salvos of artillery
announced to the people that the queen was taking her bath. In a few
minutes more she reappeared, sumptuously clothed with jewels. She
carried a horn filled with the bath-water, with which she sprinkled the
company.”—(“Evening Star,” Washington, D. C., quoting from “Transcript,”
Boston, Massachusetts.)
That the ruler of a tribe or nation is in some manner connected with and
representative of the deities adored by the tribe or nation, is a form of
man-worship presenting its most perfect manifestation in the reverence
accorded the Grand Lama; but no part of the world has been free from
it, and among our own forefathers it obstinately held its ground in the
opinion so long prevalent all over Europe that the touch of the king’s
hand would cure the scrofula. This remedial potency was also ascribed to
women in a certain condition.
“Scrofulous sores were believed by some to be cured by the touch of a
menstruating woman.”—(Pliny, Bohn’s edition, lib. 28, cap. 24.)
“The Hindu wife is in Paradise compared to the Hindu widow. The condition
of the wife is bad enough. As the slave of her husband, she eats after
he is through, and she eats what is left. She has no education to speak
of, and her only hope of salvation is in him. She stands while he sits
in the household; and she cannot, if she lives in the interior, go to
the Ganges and bathe herself in the sacred water. I am told that in many
cases she considers it a privilege to bathe her husband’s feet after he
returns, and thinks that she gets some absolution from sin by drinking
the water.”—(Frank G. Carpenter, in “World,” New York, June 30, 1889.)
“Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, possessed the power of curing individuals
attacked by enlarged spleen by simply pressing his right foot upon that
viscera.”—(“The Physicians of the Middle Ages,” T. C. Minor, M.D.,
Cincinnati, Ohio, 1889, p. 5. A translation of “Le Moyen Age Médical,” of
Dr. Edmond Dupouy.)
X.
THE BACCHIC ORGIES OF THE GREEKS.
The Bacchic orgies of the Greeks, while not strictly assimilated to the
ur-orgies, can scarcely be overlooked in this connection.
Montfaucon describes the Omophagi of the Greeks: “Les Omophagies
étoient une fête des Grecs qui passoient la fureur Bacchique; ils
s’entortilloient, dit Arnobe, de serpens et mangeoient des entrailles
de Cabri crues, dont ils avaient la bouche toute ensanglantée; cela est
exprimée par le nom Omophage. Nous avons vu quelquefois des hommes tous
entortillez de serpens et particulièrement dans Mithras.”—(Montfaucon,
“L’Antiquité expliquée,” tome 2, book 4, p. 22.)
The references to serpent-worship are curious, in view of the fact that
such ophic rites still are celebrated among the Mokis, the next-door
neighbors of the Zuñis, and once existed among the Zuñis themselves. The
allusion to _Mithras_ would seem to imply that these orgies must have
been known to the Persians as well as the Greeks.
Bryant, speaking of the Greek orgies, uses this language: “Both in the
orgies of Bacchus and in the rites of Ceres, as well as of other deities,
one part of the mysteries consisted in a ceremony (_omophagia_), at which
time they ate the flesh quite crude with the blood. In Crete, at the
Dionisiaca, they used to tear the flesh with their teeth from the animal
when alive.”—(Bryant, “Mythology,” London, 1775, vol. ii. p. 12.)
And again, on p. 13: “The Mænules and Bacchæ used to devour the raw
limbs of animals which they had cut or torn asunder.... In the island of
Chios it was a religious custom to tear a man limb from limb, by way of
sacrifice to Dionysius. From all which we may learn one sad truth, that
there is scarce anything so impious and unnatural as not, at times, to
have prevailed.”—(Idem.)
Faber tells us that: “The Cretans had an annual festival ... in their
frenzy they tore a living bull with their teeth, and brandished serpents
in their hands.”—(Faber, “Pagan Idolatry,” London, 1816, vol ii. p. 265.)
BACCHIC ORGIES IN NORTH AMERICA.
These orgies were duplicated among many of the tribes of North America.
Paul Kane describes the inauguration of Clea-clach, a Clallum chief
(northwest coast of British America): “He seized a small dog and began
devouring it alive.” He also bit pieces from the shoulders of the male
by-standers.—(See “Artist’s Wanderings in North America,” London, 1859,
p. 212; also, the same thing quoted by Herbert Spencer in “Descriptive
Sociology.”)
Speaking of these ceremonies, Dr. Franz Boas says: “Members of tribes
practising the Hamatsa ceremonies show remarkable scars produced by
biting. At certain festivals it is the duty of the Hamatsa to bite a
piece of flesh out of the arms, leg, or breast of a man.” (“Report on
the North-Western Indians of Canada,” in “Proceedings of the British
Association for the Advancement of Science,” Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Meeting, 1889, p. 12.) Doctor Boas demonstrates that the actions of the
Hamatsa are an example of Ritualistic Cannibalism. (See idem, p. 55.)
And, speaking of the secret societies observed among the Indians of the
British northwest coast, he remarks that each has its own ceremonies.
“The Nutlematl must be as filthy as possible.”—(Idem, p. 54.)
“Bernardin de Saint Pierre, in his ‘Études de la Nature’ gives it as his
opinion that to eat dog’s-flesh is the first step towards cannibalism,
and certainly, when I enumerate to myself the peoples whom I visited who
actually, more or less, devoured human flesh, and find that among them
dogs were invariably considered a delicacy, I cannot but believe that
there is some truth in the hypothesis.” (Schweinfurth, “Heart of Africa,”
London, 1872, vol. i. p. 191.) The Clallums, no doubt, in their frenzies,
tore dogs to pieces as a substitute for the human victim of an earlier
period in their culture.
Bancroft describes like orgies among the Chimsyans, of British North
America. (See in “Native Races of the Pacific Slope,” vol. i. p. 171.)
While the Nootkas medicine men are said to have an orgy in which “live
dogs and dead human bodies are seized and torn by their teeth; but, at
least in later times, they seem not to attack the living, and their
performances are somewhat less horrible and bloody than the wild orgies
of the Northern tribes.”—(Idem, vol. i. p. 202.)
The Haidahs, of the same coast, indulge in an orgy in which the performer
“snatches up the first dog he can find, kills him, and tearing pieces of
his flesh, eats them.”—(Dall, quoting Dawson, in “Masks and Labrets,”
Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, D. C., 1886.)
In describing the six secret soldier societies or bands of the Mandans,
Maximilian, of Wied, calls attention to the three leaders of one band,
who were called dogs, who are “obliged, if any one throws a piece of meat
into the ashes or on the ground, saying, ‘There, dog, eat,’ to fall upon
it and devour it raw, like dogs or beasts of prey.”—(Maximilian, Prince
of Wied, “Travels,” &c., London, 1843, pp. 356, 446.)
A further multiplication of references is unnecessary. The above would
appear to be enough to establish the existence of almost identical
orgies in Europe, America, and Asia—orgies in which were perpetuated the
ritualistic use of foods no longer employed by the populace, and possibly
commemorating a former condition of cannibalism.
THE SACRIFICE OF THE DOG A SUBSTITUTION FOR HUMAN SACRIFICE.
It would add much to the bulk of this chapter to show that the dog has
almost invariably been employed as a substitute for man in sacrifice.
Other animals have performed the same vicarious office, but none to the
same extent, especially among the more savage races. To the American
Indians and other peoples of a corresponding stage of development, the
substitution presents no logical incongruity. Their religious conceptions
are so strongly tinged with _zoolatry_ that the assignment of animals
to the _rôle_ of deities or of victims is the most natural thing in the
world; but their belief is not limited to the idea that the animal is
sacred; it comprehends, additionally, a settled appreciation of the fact
that _lycanthropy_ is possible, and that the medicine-men possess the
power of transforming men into animals or animals into men. Such a belief
was expressed to the writer in the most forcible way, in the village of
Zuñi, in 1881. The Indians were engaged in some one of their countless
dances and ceremonies (and possibly not very far from the time of the
urine dance), when the dancers seized a small dog and tore it limb from
limb, venting upon it every torture that savage spite and malignity could
devise. The explanation given was that the hapless cur was a “Navajo,” a
tribe to which the Zuñis have been spasmodically hostile for generations,
and from whose ranks the fortunes of war must have enabled them to drag
an occasional captive to be put to the torture and sacrificed.
Mrs. Eastman describes the “Dog Dance” of the Sioux, in which the dogs
represented Chippewas, and had their hearts eaten raw by the Sioux.
XI.
POISONOUS MUSHROOMS USED IN UR-ORGIES.
The Indians in and around Cape Flattery, on the Pacific coast of British
North America, retain the urine dance in an unusually repulsive form.
As was learned from Mr. Kennard, U.S. Coast Survey, whom the writer had
the pleasure of meeting in Washington, D.C., in 1886, the medicine men
distil, from potatoes and other ingredients, a vile liquor, which has an
irritating and exciting effect upon the kidneys and bladder. Each one
who has partaken of this dish immediately urinates and passes the result
to his next neighbor, who drinks. The effect is as above, and likewise a
temporary insanity or delirium, during which all sorts of mad capers are
carried on. The last man who quaffs the poison, distilled through the
persons of five or six comrades, is so completely overcome that he falls
in a dead stupor.
Precisely the same use of a poisonous fungus has been described among the
natives of the Pacific coast of Siberia, according to the learned Dr. J.
W. Kingsley (of Brome Hall, Scole, England). Such a rite is outlined by
Schultze. “The Shamans of Siberia drink a decoction of toad-stools or
the urine of those who have become narcotized by that plant.”—(Schultze,
“Fetichism,” New York, 1885, p. 52.)
The Ur-Orgy of the natives of Siberia should be found fully described
by explorers in the employ of the Russian Government. Application was
accordingly made by the author to the Hon. Lambert Tree, the American
Minister at the Court of St. Petersburgh, who evinced a warm interest in
the work of unearthing from the Imperial archives all that bore upon the
use of the mushroom as a urino-intoxicant. Unfortunately, the official
term of Mr. Tree having expired, no information was obtained from him in
time for incorporation in these pages.
Acknowledgment is due in this connection to Mr. Wurtz, the American
Chargé d’Affaires at St. Petersburgh, as well as to his Excellency
the Russian Minister of Public Instruction, for courteous interest
manifested in the investigations made necessary by the amplification of
the original pamphlet.
Conferences were also had with his Excellency the Chinese Minister and
with Dr. H. T. Allen, Secretary of the Corean Legation, in Washington,
but beyond developing the fact that in the minor medicine of those
countries resort was still had to excrementitious curatives, the
information deduced was meagre and unimportant.
Dependence was therefore necessarily placed upon the accounts of American
or English explorers of undisputed authority.
George Kennan describes a wedding which he saw in one of the villages
of Kamtchatka: “After the conclusion of the ceremony we removed to an
adjacent tent, and were surprised as we came out into the open air to
see three or four Koraks shouting and reeling in an advanced stage of
intoxication,—celebrating, I suppose, the happy wedding which had just
transpired. I knew that there was not a drop of alcoholic liquor in all
Northern Kamtchatka, nor, so far as I knew, anything from which it could
be made, and it was a mystery to me how they had succeeded in becoming so
suddenly, thoroughly, hopelessly, undeniably drunk. Even Ross Browne’s
beloved Washoe, with its ‘howling wilderness’ saloons, could not have
turned out more creditable specimens of intoxicated humanity than those
before us.
“The exciting agent, whatever it might be, was certainly as quick in its
operation and as effective in its results as any ‘tanglefoot’ or ‘bottled
lightning’ known to modern civilization.
“Upon inquiry, we learned to our astonishment that they had been eating a
species of the plant vulgarly known as ‘toadstool.’ There is a peculiar
fungus of this class in Siberia, known to the natives as ‘muk-a-moor,’
and as it possesses active intoxicating properties, it is used as a
stimulant by nearly all the Siberian tribes.
“Taken in large doses, it is a violent narcotic poison, but in small
doses it produces all the effects of alcoholic liquor.
“Its habitual use, however, completely shatters the nervous system, and
its sale by Russian traders to the natives has consequently been made a
penal offence by the Russian law. In spite of all prohibitions the trade
is still secretly carried on, and I have seen twenty dollars’ worth of
furs bought with a single fungus.
“The Koraks would gather it for themselves, but it requires the shelter
of timber for its growth, and is not to be found on the barren steppes
over which they wander; so that they are obliged for the most part to buy
it at enormous prices from the Russian traders. It may sound strangely
to American ears, but the invitation which a convivial Korak extends to
his passing friend is not ‘Come in and have a drink,’ but ‘Won’t you
come in and take a toadstool?’—not a very alluring proposal perhaps to
a civilized toper, but one which has a magical effect upon a dissipated
Korak. As the supply of these toadstools is by no means equal to the
demand, Korak ingenuity has been greatly exercised in the endeavor to
economize the precious stimulant and make it go as far as possible.
“Sometimes in the course of human events it becomes imperatively
necessary that a whole band should get drunk together, and they have only
one toadstool to do it with. For a description of the manner in which
this band gets drunk collectively and individually upon one fungus, and
keeps drunk for a week, the curious reader is referred to Goldsmith’s ‘A
Citizen of the World,’ Letter 32.
“It is but just to say, however, that this horrible practice is almost
entirely confined to the settled Koraks of Penzshink Gulf,—the lowest,
most degraded portion of the whole tribe. It may prevail to a limited
extent among the wandering natives, but I never heard of more than one
such instance outside the Penzshink Gulf settlements.”—(“Tent Life in
Siberia,” George Kennan, New York and London, 1887, pp. 202-204.)
Oliver Goldsmith speaks of “a curious custom” among “the Tartars of
Koraki.... The Russians who trade with them carry thither a kind of
mushroom.... These mushrooms the rich Tartars lay up in large quantities
for the winter; and when a nobleman makes a mushroom feast all the
neighbors around are invited. The mushrooms are prepared by boiling,
by which the water acquires an intoxicating quality, and is a sort
of drink which the Tartars prize beyond all other. When the nobility
and ladies are assembled, and the ceremonies usual between people of
distinction over, the mushroom broth goes freely round, and they laugh,
talk _double-entendres_, grow fuddled, and become excellent company. The
poorer sort, who love mushroom broth to distraction as well as the rich,
but cannot afford it at first hand, post themselves on these occasions
round the huts of the rich, and watch the opportunity of the ladies and
gentlemen as they come down to pass their liquor, and holding a wooden
bowl, catch the delicious fluid, very little altered by filtration, being
still strongly tinctured with the intoxicating quality. Of this they
drink with the utmost satisfaction, and thus they get as drunk and as
jovial as their betters.
“‘Happy nobility!’ cried my companion, ‘who can fear no diminution of
respect unless seized with strangury, and who when drunk are most useful!
Though we have not this custom among us, I foresee that if it were
introduced, we might have many a toad-eater in England ready to drink
from the wooden bowl on these occasions, and to praise the flavor of his
lordship’s liquor. As we have different classes of gentry, who knows but
we may see a lord holding the bowl to the minister, a knight holding it
to his lordship, and a simple squire drinking it double-distilled from
the loins of knighthood?’”—(Oliver Goldsmith, “Letters from a Citizen
of the World,” No. 32. This is based upon Philip Van Stralenburgh’s
“Histori-Geographical Description of the North and Eastern Part of Europe
and Asia,” London, 1736, p. 397.)
“The _Amanita muscaria_ possesses an intoxicating property, and is
employed by Northern nations as an inebriant. The following is the
account of Langsdorf, as given by Greville:—
“This variety of _Amanita muscaria_ is used by the inhabitants of the
northeastern parts of Asia in the same manner as wine, brandy, arrack,
opium, etc., is by other nations. Such fungi are found most plentifully
about Wischna, Kamtchatka, and Willowa Derecona, and are very abundant
in some seasons, and scarce in others. They are collected in the hottest
months, and hung up by a string to dry in the air; some dry themselves on
the ground, and are said to be far more narcotic than those artificially
preserved. Small, deep-colored specimens, deeply covered with warts, are
also said to be more powerful than those of a larger size and paler color.
“The usual mode of taking the fungus is to roll it up like a bolus and
swallow it without chewing, which the Kamtchkadales say would disorder
the stomach.
“It is sometimes eaten fresh in soups and sauces, and then loses much
of its intoxicating property. When steeped in the juice of the berries
of the _Vaccinum uliginosum_, its effects are those of a strong wine.
One large and two small fungi are a common dose to produce a pleasant
intoxication for a whole day, particularly if water be drunk after it,
which augments the narcotic principle.
“The desired effect comes in from one to two hours after taking the
fungus. Giddiness and drunkenness result in the same manner as from
wine or spirits; cheerful emotions of the mind are first produced, the
countenance becomes flushed, involuntary words and actions follow, and
sometimes at last an entire loss of consciousness. It renders some
remarkably active, and proves highly stimulating to muscular exertion. By
too large a dose violent spasmodic effects are produced. So very exciting
to the nervous system in some individuals is this fungus that the effects
are often very ludicrous. If a person under its influence wishes to step
over a straw or a small stick, he takes a stride or a jump sufficient
to clear the trunk of a tree. A talkative person cannot keep silence or
secrets, and one fond of music is perpetually singing.
“The most singular effect of the _Amanita_ is the influence it possesses
over the urine. It is said that from time immemorial the inhabitants have
known that the fungus imparts an intoxicating quality to that secretion,
which continues for a considerable time after taking it. For instance,
a man moderately intoxicated to-day will by the next morning have slept
himself sober; but (as is the custom) by taking a cup of his urine he
will be more powerfully intoxicated than he was the preceding day. It is
therefore not uncommon for confirmed drunkards to preserve their urine as
a precious liquor against a scarcity of the fungus.
“The intoxicating property of the urine is capable of being propagated,
for every one who partakes of it has his urine similarly affected. Thus
with a very few _Amanitæ_ a party of drunkards may keep up their debauch
for a week. Dr. Langsdorf mentions that by means of the second person
taking the urine of the first, the third of the second, and so on, the
intoxication may be propagated through five individuals.”—(English
Cyclop., London, 1854, vol ii., “Natural History,” article “Fungi.”
London: Bradbury and Evans.)
“They make feasts when one village entertains another, either upon
account of a wedding, or having had a plentiful fishing or hunting. The
landlords entertain their guests with great bowls of oponga, till they
are all set a-vomiting; sometimes they use a liquor made of a large
mushroom, with which the Russians kill flies. This they prepare with
the juice of epilobium or French willow. The first symptom of a man
being affected with this liquor is a trembling in all his joints, and in
half an hour he begins to rave as if in a fever; and is either merry or
melancholy mad according to his peculiar constitution. Some jump, dance,
and sing; others weep and are in terrible agonies, a small hole appearing
to them as a great pit, and a spoonful of water as a lake; but this is
to be understood of those who take it to excess; for, taken in small
quantity, it raises their spirits, and makes them brisk, courageous, and
cheerful.
“It is observed whenever they have eaten of this plant, they maintain
that whatever foolish things they did, they only obeyed the commands of
the mushroom; however, the use of it is so dangerous that unless they
were well looked after, it would be the destruction of numbers of them.
The Kamtchadales do not much care to relate these drunken frolics, and
perhaps the continual use of it renders it less dangerous to them. One of
our Cossacks resolved to eat of this mushroom in order to surprise his
comrades, and this he actually did; but it was with great difficulty they
preserved his life. Another of the inhabitants of Kamtchatka, by the use
of this mushroom, imagined that he was upon the brink of hell ready to
be thrown in, and that the mushroom ordered him to fall on his knees and
make a full confession of all the sins he could remember, which he did
before a great number of his comrades, to their no small diversion. It
is related that a soldier of the garrison, having eaten a little of this
mushroom, walked a great way without any fatigue; but at last, having
taken too great a quantity, he died.
“My interpreter drank some of this juice without knowing of it, and
became so mad that it was with difficulty we kept him from ripping open
his belly, being, as he said, ordered to do so by the mushroom.
“The Kamtchadales and the Koreki eat of it when they resolve to murder
anybody; and it is in such esteem among the Koreki that they do not allow
any one that is drunk with it to make water upon the ground, but they
give him a vessel to save his urine in, which they drink; and it has the
same effect as the mushroom itself.
“None of this mushroom grows in their country, so that they are obliged
to purchase it of the Kamtchadales. Three or four of them are a moderate
dose, but when they want to get drunk they take ten. The women never
use it, so that all their merriment consists in jesting, dancing, and
singing.”—(“The History of Kamtchatka and the Kurile Islands,” by James
Grieve, M.D., Gloucester, England, 1764, pp. 207-209.)
“I do not think that the urine would keep very long, and decomposition
would destroy the Amanitine, which I believe to be the intoxicating
principle. If I remember aright, it has been obtained as an
alkaloid.”—(Personal letter from Dr. J. W. Kingsley, Cambridge, England,
dated Aug. 18, 1888.)
“If the Yakut was a good and loving spouse, he would go directly home
and eject the contents of his stomach into a vessel of water, which then
he placed out of doors to cool and collect; and from the rich, floating
vomit his wife and children would afterwards enjoy a hearty meal. The
lucky possessor of a stomach full of Vodki may, in a benevolent mood,
similarly dispose of a part of his repletion, minus the water, and away
to the Eastward, among the Tchuchees, families are often regaled even to
inebriation with the natural fluid discharge from the bodies of fortunate
tipplers.... Saving the natives themselves it is their most disgusting
institution, and if any Christian missionary be earnestly seeking a fresh
field to labor in, I can assure him that no soil is more desperately in
need of cultivation than the Tchuchee Country.”—(“In the Lena Delta,”
George W. Melville, Chief Engineer, U. S. Navy, Boston, Massachusetts,
1885, page 318.)
“_Amanita muscaria_ has been employed as fly-poison, whence its vulgar
name. M. Poquet states that climate does not modify its poisonous
qualities. The Czar Alexis died from eating it, yet the Kamtchatkans eat
it, or are said to do so, as also the Russians. In Siberia, it is used
as an intoxicating agent. Cook says it is taken as a bolus, and that its
effects combine those produced by alcohol and haschish. The property is
imparted to the fluid secretion (urine) of rendering it intoxicating,
which property it retains for a considerable time. A man, having been
intoxicated on one day and slept himself sober the next, will, by
drinking this liquor to the extent of about a cupful, become as much
intoxicated as he was before.... Urine is preserved in Siberia to this
end.... The intoxicating property may be communicated to any person who
partakes ... to the third, fourth, and even fifth distillation.”—(M. C.
Cook, “British Fungi,” London, 1882, pp. 21, 22.)
Henry Lamsdell (“Through Siberia,” London, 1882, vol. ii. p. 645)
describes the “fly agaric.” He says that it is used by the Koraks to
produce intoxication. “So powerful is the fungus that the native who eats
it remains drunk for several days; and by a process too disgusting to
be described, half a dozen individuals may be successively intoxicated
by the effects of a single mushroom, each in a less degree than his
predecessor.”
“The Koraks prepare the ‘muk-a-moor’ by steeping it. In a few minutes
the fortunate ones get thoroughly intoxicated, and imbibe to such an
extent that they are forced to relieve themselves of the superfluity,
on which occasions the poorer people stand prepared with bowls to catch
the liquid, which they quaff, and, in turn, become intoxicated. In this
manner, a whole settlement will sometimes get drunk from liquor consumed
by one individual.”—(Richard J. Bush, “Reindeer, Dogs and Snow-Shoes,”
London, no date, p. 357.)
Salverte gives two pages to a description of the effects of the “fly
agaric” or “mucha-more” of the Russians; he shows how it leads men to the
commission of murder, suicide, and other excesses, but makes no allusion
to the drinking of urine, although he quotes from Gmelin, Krachenninikof
and Beniowski, all of whom must have had some acquaintance with its
peculiar properties. According to Salverte the use of this fungus might
well be referred to the category of Sacred Intoxicants.—(See “Philosophy
of Magic,” Eusèbe Salverte, New York, 1862, vol. ii. pp. 19, 20.)
“Before the conquest, they seldom used anything for drink but water, but
when they made merry they drank water which had stood for some time upon
mushrooms; but of this more hereafter.”—(“History of Kamtchatka and the
Kurile Islands,” James Grieve, M. D., Gloucester, England, 1764, p. 195.)
See previous citation from the same author.
A mere reference to the trade carried on by the Russians and Kamtchadales
with the Koraks in _Agaricus muscarius_ is to be found in “Langsdorf’s
Voyages,” London, 1814, vol. ii. p. 318. “It is said that the sort of
mushroom which they procure from Kamtchadales is preferred by them as
a means of exhilaration or intoxication to brandy.” (Idem, p. 320.) He
adds: “Some remarks of mine upon this subject will be found in the Annals
of the Society for promoting the Knowledge of Natural History.”—(Idem, p.
321.)
“The use of the intoxicating fungus in Siberia, and that of the urine
flavored by it, is mentioned in Steller’s ‘History of Kamtchatka,’
which is, I believe, the earliest and best authority in reference to
it.”—(Personal letter from Hon. John S. Hittell, San Francisco, April 24,
1888.)
Although Grieve’s account is, in the main, derived from Steller, every
effort was made to find the latter author and examine his own language.
The copy belonging to the Library of Congress had been mislaid, and it
was not possible to find it; but the extensive Arctic Library of General
A. W. Greely, U. S. Army, the polar explorer, was most kindly placed at
the author’s disposal, and there the long-coveted volume was, translated
by Mr. Bunnemeyer, to whom the warmest acknowledgments are due.
George William Steller was born March 10, 1709, at Winsheim. In 1734, he
went to Russia, where he became an adjunct and member of The Imperial
Academy of Sciences. In 1758, he was delegated to explore Kamtchatka,
especially its natural history. After completing the task and making
voyages to various other regions, he attempted twice to return to St.
Petersburgh, but each time received orders to return to Irkutsk to
answer charges there brought against him. He did not reach Irkutsk the
second time, but was frozen to death while his guard entered a way-side
inn, and was buried at Tumen, in November, 1746. The following are his
remarks about poisonous mushrooms: “Among the Champignons, the poisonous
toadstool, called mucha-moor in Russian, is held in greatest esteem. At
the Russian ostrag it has long ago fallen into disfavor, but is used
so much the more in the vicinity of the Tzil and towards the Korakian
boundary. This mushroom is dried and swallowed in large pieces without
mastication, followed by large draughts of cold water. In the course of
half an hour, raging drunkenness and strange hallucinations result. The
Korakians and Jukagiri are still more addicted to this vice, and buy
the fungus from the Russians whenever they can. Those too poor to do so
collect the urine of those under the influence of the drug and drink it,
which makes them equally as drunk and raging.
“The urine is equally effective to the fourth and fifth man. Reindeer
frequently devour these mushrooms with great avidity, becoming drunk and
wild, and finally fall into a deep sleep. When found in this state, it is
not killed until the effects of the drug have passed away, as otherwise
its meat when eaten will cause the same frenzied intoxication as the
mushroom itself.”
“The dance and custom you describe as existing among the Siberians I know
nothing of. I neither saw nor heard of it. I do not think there is any
of the mushroom species in the Tchuktchi country. The land is absolutely
barren. I lived in the tents of that people for seven or eight months,
and they never paid any attention to me as a stranger, in the way of
hiding their customs from me. They would have their drumming and medicine
performances before me, just as though I was one of them. The custom you
allude to may prevail among the Yakouts and Tchuktchi, nevertheless, but
I think it more probable that it exists with the Northwest tribes, such
as the Samoyeds or Osjaks.”—(Personal letter from the Arctic explorer, W.
H. Gilder, author of “Schwatka’s Search,” etc., dated New York, Oct. 15,
1889.)
“Captain Healey, of the revenue cutter ‘Bear,’ brought to this place,
last autumn, a shipwrecked seaman, who had been rescued by the Siberian
Tchuktchis, with whom he remained some two years. He described their
mode of making an intoxicating liquor thus: in the summer, mushrooms or
fungi were collected in large quantity, and eaten by a man who, like
our Indians, prepared himself by fasting for the feast. After eating
enormous quantities of the fungi, he vomited into a receptacle, and again
loaded up, time and again, and disgorged the stuff in a semi-fermented or
half-digested condition. It was swallowed by those who were waiting for
the drink; and his urine was also imbibed, to aid in producing a debauch,
resulting in frenzied intoxication.”—(Personal letter from Surgeon B. J.
D. Irwin, U. S. army, dated San Francisco, Cal., April 28, 1888.)
“The seaman, J. B. Vincent, whom I found with the Tchuktchi last summer,
says that they collect in their tents a species of fungi, and during
their carnival season, corresponding to about our Christmas holidays, one
man is selected, who masticates a quantity of it, and drinks an enormous
supply of water; he then gets into his deer’s team, and is driven from
camp to camp, repeating the mastication and drinking at each camp, where
his urine is drunk by the people with an effect of intoxication. The
arrival of this man is hailed with much pomp and ceremony by the people.
The seaman, Vincent, witnessed several of these ceremonies, and was
pressed to join in the orgies, being called ‘a boy,’ when he declined to
sustain his part.”—(Personal letter from Capt. M. A. Healey, U. S. R. M.
Steamer “Bear,” dated San Francisco, Cal., May 19, 1888.)
Kamtchadales.—“These people formerly had no other drink than water, and
to make themselves a little lively they used to drink an infusion of
mushrooms.”—(“From Paris to Pekin,” Meignan, London, 1885, p. 281.)
D’Auteroche, who made a journey from St. Petersburgh to Tobolsk in
Siberia, in compliance with an invitation from the Empress Catherine, in
the middle of the last century, to observe the transit of Venus, makes no
mention of the mushroom-orgies of the natives. His work was not of much
value, in an ethnological sense, being largely restricted to descriptions
of the mineral resources of the regions traversed, and only to a slight
degree attending to the ethnology of the country.
It is strange that Maltebrun, although familiar with Steller, does not
refer to the mushroom orgy. He does say of the Kamtchadales: “In summer,
the women go into the woods to gather vegetables, and during this
occupation they give way to a libertine frenzy like that of the ancient
Bacchantes.”—(“Universal Geography,” American edition, Boston, Mass.,
1847, vol. i. p. 347, article “Siberia.”)
Stanley’s “Congo,” New York, 1885, was examined carefully, but no
reference to any use of urine or ordure was found in it.
An identical experience was had with the “Voyages” of John Struys,
translated out of the Dutch, by John Morrison, London, 1683, and with
Nordjenskold’s Voyages, translated by Horgaard, London, 1882.
As the two latter travellers had entered Siberia, it seemed probable that
they might have come upon traces of the Ur-orgies of some of the wild
tribes like the Koraks, Tchuktchi, and others.
Salverte’s opinion that this use of the mushroom may be included in the
category of Sacred Intoxicants, is shown to be accurate by a comparison
with the statement made by the shipwrecked sailor, Vincent, who
undoubtedly may be accepted as the most competent witness who has ever
presented himself.
According to him, there was a man “selected,” who “prepared himself
by fasting;” the “feast” took place “during their carnival season,”
“corresponding to about our Christmas holidays” (i. e., the winter
solstice), and there was much attendant “pomp and ceremony.” Add to this
the statement made by Grieve, “they maintain that whatever foolish things
they did, they only obeyed the commands of the mushroom,” and we have
the needed Personification to prove that the fungus was reverenced as a
deity, much as on another page will be shown that certain African tribes
apotheosized a member of the same vegetable family.
If not for Sacred Intoxication, then the question may be asked, For what
reason did the Siberians and others use the poisonous fungus? The only
answer possible is, that, in the absence of the cereals and under the
pressure of a desire for stimulants, the aborigines resorted to all kinds
of vegetable substances, as can be shown to have been the case from the
history of many nations. Mythology is replete with examples of the occult
virtues of plants, such as the mandrake and many others.
Certainly, the religious veneration with which they were regarded was not
more fully deserved than by this wonderful toxic,—the _Amanita muscaria_.
The thirst for stimulants has been very generally diffused all over the
world; there is no reason to believe that any tribe has existed without
an occasional use of something of the kind.
According to the Chinese, an alcoholic liquor called “Tsew” was invented
by Etoih, in the reign of To-ke, 2197 before the Christian era. See
“Chinese Repository,” Canton, 1841, vol. x. p. 126.
Mr. John McElhone, the stenographer of the House of Representatives and a
scholar of no mean attainments, stated to the author that he remembered
having read in an old volume, the name of which he could not recall, of
a feast given some centuries ago at the coronation of one of the kings
of Hungary, at which the nobles were regaled with the rarest wines, but
the plebeians were content to drink the resulting urine. There may be in
Hungary, whether we regard it as peopled by the Hun-oi, or, later, by the
Turkish element, an infusion of the same race-traits as are to be found
at this day in Kamtchatka and other portions of Siberia.
Salverte speaks of the intoxicating effects of the “muk-a-moor,” but
enters into no particulars. (See “Philosophy of Magic,” Eusebe Salverte,
New York, 1882, vol. ii. p. 19.)
The people of Kamtchatka make intoxicants out of certain herbs. (Steller,
“Kamtchatka,” translated by Mr. Bunnemeyer.) And we are further told
that, while the people are gathering these herbs, much prostitution
prevails, and everywhere there are willing girls in the grass.
“The settled Koraks” of Kamtchatka, “eat the intoxicating Siberian
toadstool in inordinate quantities; and this habit alone will in time
debase and brutalize any body of men to the last degree.”—(“Tent Life in
Siberia,” George Kennan, twelfth edition, New York, 1887, p. 233.)
No allusion to the use of mushrooms as an intoxicant can be found in
Sauer, “Expedition to the North Parts of Russia,” London, 1862. Henry
Seebohm (“Siberia in Asia,” London, 1882) makes no mention of the
urine-orgies of the inhabitants.
THE MUSHROOM DRINK OF THE BORGIE WELL.
The following paragraph deserves more than a passing mention:—
“The Borgie well, at Cambuslang, near Glasgow, is credited with making
mad those who drink from it; according to the local rhyme,
‘A drink of the Borgie, a bite of the weed,
Sets a’ the Cam’slang folk wrang in the head.’
The weed is the weedy fungi.”—(“Folk-Medicine,” Black, London, 1883, p.
104.)
Camden says that the Irish “delight in herbs, ... especially cresses,
mushrooms, and roots.”—(“Britannia,” edition of London, 1753, vol. ii. p.
1422.)
Other references to the Siberian fungus are inserted to afford students
the fullest possible opportunity to understand all that was available to
the author himself on this point.
“_Agaricus muscarius_ is one of the most injurious, yet it is used
as a means of intoxication by the Kamtchadales. One or two of them
are sufficient to produce a slight intoxication, which is peculiar in
its character. It stimulates the muscular powers and greatly excites
the nervous system, leading the partakers into the most ridiculous
extravagances.”—(American Cyclopædia, New York, 1881, article “Fungi.”)
_Agaricus muscarius._ “This is the ‘mouche-more’ of the Russians,
Kamtchadales, and Koriars, who use it for intoxication. They sometimes
eat it dry, and sometimes immerse it in a liquor made with the epilobium,
and when they drink this liquor they are seized with convulsions in all
their limbs, followed by that kind of raving which attends a burning
fever. They personify this mushroom, and if they are urged by its effects
to suicide or any dreadful crime, they pretend to obey its commands. To
fit themselves for premeditated assassination they recur to the use of
the ‘mouche-more.’ A powder of the root, or of that part of the stem
which is covered by the earth, is recommended in epileptic cases, and
externally applied for dissipating hard, globular swellings and for
healing ulcers.”—(Cyclopædia, Philadelphia, no date, Samuel Bradford,
vol. i. article “Agaric.”)
“One of the most poisonous species of the genus is the ‘fly agaric,’ so
named because the fungus is often steeped and the solution used for the
destruction of the house-fly.... It is as attractive and as poisonous as
it is beautiful. In Kamtchatka, it is highly prized for its poisonous
properties, producing, as it does, in the eater a peculiar intoxication.
The fungus is gathered and dried; and when a native wishes to engage in a
debauch, he has but to swallow a piece, when in a few hours he will be in
his glory.”—(Johnson’s New Universal Cyclopædia, New York, 1878, article
“Mushroom.”)
Poisonous fungi. “Several of this natural order are poisonous, especially
those belonging to the genera _Amanita_ and _Agaricus_.... The sufferers
are often relieved by vomiting.”—(Encyclopædia Britannica, edition of
1841, article “Medical Jurisprudence,” vol. xiv. pp. 506, 507.) Speaking
of the poisonous fungi, the same authority says: “The effects are
singularly various, ... among them being giddiness, confusion, delirium,
stupor, coma, and convulsions.”—(Idem, vol. xviii. p. 178, article
“Poison.”)
“The boletus mentioned by Juvenal on account of the death of the Emperor
Claudius.”—(Cyclopædia, Philadelphia, no date, vol. xxv. article
“Mushroom.”)
There are several allusions to the custom of poisoning with mushrooms to
be found in Juvenal,—for example, in the first and fifth satires.
Tacitus says that when Claudius was poisoned the poison “was poured into
a dish of mushrooms.”—(“Annals,” Oxford translation, Bohn, London, 1871,
lib. 12.)
After the Emperor Claudius had been poisoned by mushrooms given by his
wife Messalina, the Emperor Nero, his successor, was wont to call the
boletus “the food of the gods.” (See footnote to Rev. Lewis Evans’s
translation of the sixth satire of Juvenal, p. 64, edition of New York,
1860, citing Suetonius’s “Nero,” Tacitus’s “Annals,” and Martial’s
“Epigrams,” I. epistle XXI.)
Plutarch says that it was a common opinion that “thunder engenders
mushrooms.”—(“Morals,” Goodwin’s English edition, Boston, 1870, vol. iii.
p. 298.)
Gilder, who crossed over Siberia from Behring’s Straits to St.
Petersburgh, stopping _en route_ with many of the wild tribes, makes
no allusion to the use of the “muck-a-moor” or to any Ur-orgy. (See
“Ice-pack and Tundra,” New York, 1883.)
“The _Agaricus muscarius_ is used by the natives of Kamtchatka and Korea
to produce intoxication.”—(Ure’s “Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and
Mines,” London, 1878, vol. ii. article “Fungi.”)
“Their reputation as aphrodisiacs is thought to be unfounded, having
its origin in the old doctrine of resemblances.” (American Cyclopædia,
New York, 1881, article “Fungi.”) Probably from the appearance of the
“phallus” fungus.
There seems to have been some superstition attaching to the elder dating
from very remote times. It is said in Gerrard’s “Herbal,” Johnson’s
edition, page 1428, “that the _arbor Judæ_ is thought to be that whereon
Judas hanged himself, and not upon the elder-tree, as is vulgarly said.”
I am clear that the mushrooms or excrescences of the elder-tree, called
_auriculæ Judæ_ in Latin, and commonly rendered “Jew’s-ears,” ought to be
translated “Judas’s-ears,” from the popular superstition above mentioned.
Coles, in his “Adam in Eden,” speaking of “Jew’s-ears,” says: “It is
called in Latin _Fungus Sambucinum_ and _Auriculæ Judæ_, some having
supposed the elder-tree to be that whereon Judas hanged himself, and
that ever since these mushrooms like unto ears have grown thereon, which
I will not persuade you to believe.” In “Paradoxical Assertions,” is a
silly question,—“why Jews are said to stink naturally. Is it because the
‘Jew’s ears’ grow on stinking elder, which tree the fox-headed Judas
was supposed to have hanged himself on, so that natural stink hath been
entailed on them and their posterity as it were _ex traduce_? The elder
seems to have been given in the time of Queen Elizabeth as a token of
disgrace. It was credited with the power to cure epilepsy, to strengthen
the loins of men, especially in riding, as it prevented all gall and
chafing, etc., and had additionally the property of making horses
stale.”—(Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” London, 1872, vol. iii. p. 283,
article “Physical Charms.”)
_Sambucus_ (elder) is mentioned by Frommann as a remedy for
epilepsy.—(“Tractatus de Fascinatione,” Nuremberg, 1675, p. 270.)
Have we not a right to inquire why in primitive pharmacy certain
remedies were employed? The principle of _similia similibus_ is very old
and deeply rooted. Perhaps the fungus of the elder may have once been
employed in inducing intoxication and frenzy.
“The Ostiaks, the Kamtchadales, and other inhabitants of Asiatic Russia,
find in one of the gild-bearing family—the _Amanita muscaria_—the
exhilaration and madness that more civilized nations demand and receive
of alcohol, and enjoy a narcotism from its extracts as seductive as that
of opium. The Fiji Islanders are indebted to toadstools strung on a
string for girdles which alone prevent them from being classed among the
‘poor and naked,’ and their sole æsthetic occupation lies in ornamenting
their limited wardrobe. The Fiji fishermen especially value them highly
because they are water-proof. Cerdier tells us that the negroes on the
west coast of Africa exalt a certain kind of boletus to the sacredness of
a god, and bow down in worship before it; for this reason Afzeltus has
named this variety _boletus sacer_. A French chemist has extracted wax
from the milk-giving kind, but has not stated the price of candles made
from it. Others of the delving fraternity have shown that toadstools may
be used in the manufacture of Prussian blue instead of blood, for, like
certain animal matter, they furnish prussic acid. As fungi, after the
manner of all animal life, breathe oxygen and throw off carbonic acid
gas, their flesh partakes of animal rather than of vegetable nature.
“In their decomposition they are capital fertilizers of surrounding
plants, and in seasons when they are plentiful it will repay the
agriculturist to make use of them as manure.
“According to Linnæus, the Lapps delighted in the perfume of some
species, and carried them upon their persons so that they might be the
more attractive. Linnæus exclaims, ‘O Venus! thou that scarcely sufficest
thyself in other countries with jewels, diamonds, precious stones, gold,
purple, music, and spectacle, art here satisfied with a simple toadstool!’
“A variety of boletus—a tube-bearing species—is powdered, and used
as a protector of clothing against insects. The _Agaricus muscarius_
constitutes a well-known poison to the common house-fly. It intoxicates
them to such a degree that they can be swept up and destroyed.
“Certain polypori—those large, dry, corky growths found upon logs
and trees—when properly seasoned, sliced, and beaten, engage large
manufactories in producing from them the punk of commerce, used by the
surgeon for the arrest of hemorrhage, the artist for his shading stump,
and the Fourth of July urchin for his pyrotechnic purposes. A species
of polyporus is used in Italy as scrubbing brushes. In countries where
fire-producing is unknown or laborious, and the luxury of lucifers
denied, the dried fungus enables the transportation of fire from one
place to another over great distances.
“The inhabitants of Franconia use the hammered slices instead of
chamois-skin for underclothing.
“Another polyporus takes its place among manufacturers as the highly
necessary razor-strop. Northern nations make bottle-stoppers of them, as
their corky nature suggests. The polyporus of the birch-tree (_Polyporus
betulinus_) increases the delight of smokers by its delicious flavor when
mixed with tobacco.”—(Lippincott’s Magazine, Philadelphia, Penn., 1888.)
Before going further we are confronted with the statement that the
African negroes bow down in worship before a certain kind of boletus. It
is much to be regretted that Cerdier did not discover for what toxic or
other property it was thus apotheosized.
Similarly, scholars cannot remain satisfied with the assurance that the
Fiji Islanders use toadstools for girdles only, or that the Lapps carried
other varieties upon their persons to enhance their personal attractions.
Some aphrodisiac potency is more likely to have been ascribed to them
in each case, which would account for the care displayed in their
preservation, and justify the suspicion that they were kept ready to hand
as provocatives to lust.
Dr. J. H. Porter is authority for the statement that in one of the Sagas
mention is made of a man bewitched by a Lapland witch, who gave him an
infusion of poisonous mushroom, which set him crazy.
“Lichens,” says De Candolle, “present two classes of properties, which
are developed by different agents, and especially by maceration in
urine.”—(Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. v. edition of 1841.)
There is an example of the employment of mushrooms in medicine for the
stoppage of hemorrhages of various kinds, which can be traced back to the
writings of Hippocrates.—(See “Saxon Leechdoms,” vol. iii. p. 143.)
“Some species of mushrooms, notably the _Agaricus volvaceus_ contain
sugar, which can be extracted in crystals, and is capable of undergoing
the vinous fermentation.”—(Encyclopædia Britannica, edition of 1841, vol.
vi. pp. 473, 474, article “Chemistry.”)
No instance of anything resembling the Ur-Orgy of the Siberians has been
described among the Australians, but there is no knowing what further
investigation may discover of the life and mode of thought of the wild
tribes inhabiting that great continent, or island, as the reader pleases.
“The Australians will not eat ‘the common mushroom,’ although they
eat almost all other kinds of fungus.”—(“The Native Tribes of South
Australia,” Adelaide, 1879, received through the kindness of the Royal
Society, Sydney, New South Wales, T. B. Kyngdon, Esq., Secretary.)
“Fungi, however, were used for food. The native truffle,—‘_Mylitta
Australis_,’—a subterranean fungus,—was much sought after by the natives.
When cut, it is in appearance somewhat like unbaked brown bread. I have
seen large pieces, weighing several pounds, and, in some localities,
occasionally a fungus weighing fifty pounds is found.”—(“Aborigines of
Victoria,” A. Brough Smyth, London, 1878, vol. i. p. 209.)
“Mushrooms, called by the Chinese ‘stones’ ears,’ are gathered by
some for the table, and form a part of the vegetable diet of the
priests.”—(Chinese Repository, Canton, 1835, vol. iii. p. 462.)
But why the diet of priests particularly? May there not be some mythical
precept involved?
(Monbottoes of Africa.) “Mushrooms are also in common use for the
preparation of their sauces.”—(Schweinfurth’s “Heart of Africa,” London,
1878, vol. ii. p. 42.)
“There is a great variety of mushrooms, most of which are eat. Some,
indeed, are poisonous, and unlucky accidents happen frequently.”—(Kemper,
“History of Japan,” in “Pinkerton’s Voyages,” London, 1814, vol. vii. p.
698.)
A. Brough Smyth, “Aborigines of Australia,” p. 132, speaks of the use by
the Australians of “a dry, white species of fungus, to kindle fire with
rapidly.”
Agaric. “It groweth in Fraunce, principally upon trees that bear mast, in
manner of a white mushroom; of a sweet savour; very effectual in Physicke
and used in many Antidotes and sovereigne confections. It groweth upon
the head and top of trees, it shineth in the night, and by the light that
it giveth in the dark men know when and how to gather it.”—(Pliny, lib.
xvi. cap. 8, Holland’s translation.)
“On mange généralement en Russie toutes les espèces de champignons;”
but the “champignon de mouche,” and two other kinds, are excepted.—(See
“Voyages,”—Pallas, Paris, 1793, vol. i. p. 65.)
“The Ostiaks of Siberia make a ‘moxa’ of ’un morceau d’agaric du
bouleau.’”—(Idem, vol. iv. p. 68.)
Bogle enumerates mushrooms among the articles of diet of the Lamas.—(See
Markham’s “Thibet,” London, 1879, p. 105.)
“Mushrooms and fungi of all kinds are eaten by the Bongo of the Upper
Nile region.”—(See “Heart of Africa,” Schweinfurth, London, 1878, vol. i.
pp. 117-122.)
“The Niam-Niams of Central Africa use fungi for foods.”—(Idem, p. 281.)
In a synopsis of the lecture delivered by the explorer Stanley before the
Royal Geographical Society in London, he is represented as referring to
the skill of the Niam-Niam in woodcraft, and the ability with which they
detected the edible fungi from the poisonous.—(See “Tribune,” Chicago,
Ill., June 28, 1890.)
Agaric. Avicenna believed that the white, or “feminine,” was good, the
black, or “masculine,” noxious; it was prescribed for epilepsy, fevers,
sciatica, asthma, pulmonary troubles, etc. (Avicenna, vol. i. p. 278,
improperly numbered in the book as p. 287, a 10, _et seq._) It also
entered into a number of panaceas, such as “Theriaca,” “Theodoricon
Magnum,” “Mithradatum,” and others.
It was a provocative of the menses, according to Avicenna, vol. i. p.
287, a 54.
Thurnberg mentions a plant—“Bupleorum giganteum”—found in Cape Colony,
of which clothing was made, and which was also used for tinder.—(See
Pinkerton’s Voyages, London, 1814, vol. xvi. pp. 21, 22, quoting
Thurnberg’s “Account of the Cape of Good Hope.”)
“Toadstool, or rotten fish and willow bark, which are delicacies among
the Kamtchadals,”—(“Russian Discoveries between Asia and America,”
William Coxe, London, 1803, p. 60, quoting Steller’s account of the
Behring Voyage.)
There are some varieties of agaric, notably that of the olive-tree, which
at times emit by night a phosphorescent light. This peculiarity may well
have caused them to be regarded with reverential awe by the ancients.
On the subject of this effulgence, see “Philosophy of Magic,” Eusèbe
Salverte, New York, 1862, vol. i. p. 63.
Pope Clement VII. died of eating too many mushrooms. See Schurig’s
“Chylologia,” Dresden, 1725, vol. i. p. 60.
(Tierra del Fuego.) “There is one vegetable production in this country
which is worthy of mention, as it affords a staple article of food to the
natives. It is a globular fungus, of a bright yellow color, and of about
the size of a small apple, which adheres in vast numbers to the bark of
the beech-trees.... It is eaten by the Fuegians in large quantities,
uncooked, and when well chewed has a mucilaginous and slightly sweet
taste, together with a faint odor like that of a mushroom. Excepting a
few berries of a dwarf arbutus, which need hardly be taken into account,
these poor savages never eat any other vegetable food besides this
fungus.”—(Darwin, in “Voyage of Adventure and Beagle,” London, 1839, vol.
iii. pp. 298, 299.)
“These Fuegians appeared to think the excrescences which grow on the
birch-trees, like the gall-nuts on an oak, an estimable dainty.”—(Idem,
vol. i. p. 440; again, vol. ii. p. 185.)
Agaric, or toadstool, employed in medicine “to provoke to vomit” (see
“Most Excellent and Approved Medicines,” London, 1654, pp. 3 and 10);
also given “for provoking the courses” (idem, p. 23); also “to loosen the
body” (idem, p. 36).
To insure conception, the belief was that both man and woman should take
a potion of hare’s rennet in wine,—“then quickly she will be pregnant,
and for meat she shall for some while eat mushrooms.”—(“Saxon Leechdoms,”
vol. i. p. 347.)
The Bannocks and Shoshonees of the Rocky Mountains eat mushrooms,—“the
kind that grows on a cottonwood stump; they know that some kinds
are bad.”—(Interview with the Bannocks and Shoshonees, through the
interpreters, Joe and Charlie Rainey, at Fort Hall, Idaho, 1881.)
The Indians above mentioned had no knowledge of any dance in connection
with the mushroom or fungus.
XII.
THE MUSHROOM IN CONNECTION WITH THE FAIRIES.
In the opinion of the folk of Great Britain and Ireland, possibly of
the Continent as well, the mushroom was intimately connected with the
dwellers in the realm of sprites and fairies, as can be shown in a
moment, and by simple reference.
The lore of the peasantry of those countries is replete with the
uncanniness of the “Fairy Circles,” which modern investigation has shown
to be due to a species of fungus.
“Various theories were current among the peasantry to account for their
existence. Some of them ascribed them to lightning; others to moles or
other animals; and others again to the growth of a species of fungus.
This is the more educated class. But the lower orders implicitly believed
that they were the work of the fairies, and used by them for their
nocturnal dancing. Woe to the poor mortal who ventured near at such
moments. He was seized, forced to dance, soon lost all consciousness,
and was truly in luck if he ever again succeeded in rejoining his
mortal relatives.” A very exhaustive account of these Circles, and the
superstitions in reference to them, is to be found in the third volume of
Brand’s Popular Antiquities, London, 1854, article “Fairy Mythology,” p.
476 _et seq._
“The most clear and satisfactory remarks on the origin of fairy rings
are probably those of Dr. Wollaston, Sec. R. S., printed in the second
part of the “Philosophical Transactions” for 1807.... The cause of their
appearance he ascribes to the growth of certain species of agaric, which
so entirely absorbs all nutriment from the soil beneath that the herbage
is for a while destroyed.”—(Idem, p. 483.)
“In Northumberland, the common people call a certain fungous excrescence,
sometimes found about the roots of old trees, Fairy Butter. After great
rains, and in a certain degree of putrefaction, it is reduced to a
consistency which, together with its color, makes it not unlike butter,
and hence the name.”—(Idem, p. 493.)
Lady Wilde’s work, already quoted, makes no reference to the employment
of either mushrooms or mistletoe by the Irish peasantry.
The mixing, in the popular imagination, of Fairies and Druids, of Fairy
Circles and the Druid Circles, is noticed on p. 505, Brand, art. “Fairy
Mythology.”
Perhaps in all this there may be a vague reminiscence of a former use
of the agaric in potions not very dissimilar to those still to be found
among the Koraks and Tchuktchi. We read that this Witches’ Butter
was associated with sorcery. It was believed in Sweden to have been
“spewed up” by the cat which went with the witch.—(See Brand, “Popular
Antiquities,” London, 1872, vol. iii. p. 7, article “Sorcery.”)
“No subject could be more interesting than an inquiry into the origin
of the superstitions of uncivilized tribes.” (“Philosophy of Magic,”
Salverte, vol. i. p. 138.) Salverte remarks that the Fairies “were
supposed to be diminutive, aerial beings, beautiful, lively, and
beneficent in their intercourse with mortals, inhabiting a region called
Fairy Land,—Alf-Heiner,—commonly appearing on earth at intervals,
when they left traces of their visits in beautiful green rings, where
the dewy sward had been trodden in their moon-light dances.... The
investigations of science have traced these rings to a species of
fungus,—_Agaricus oreades_,—but imagination still leads us willingly back
to the traditional appearance of these diminutive beings in the train of
their queen; ... and we also behold her tiny followers dancing away the
midnight hours to the sound of the most enchanting music.”—(Idem, vol. i.
p. 138, footnote.)
There is the following memorandum in Hazlitt’s “Fairy Tales” (London,
1875, p. 35): “Mem., that pigeon’s-dung and nitre steeped in water will
make the fayry circles; it draws to it the nitre of the air, and it will
never weare out.”
“The mushroom has always been associated with fairy-lore. It is mentioned
as the fairy dining-table (p. 502); while in the list of foods partaken
of by Oberon, we read:—
“ ... with a wine,
Ne’er ravished with a clustered vine,
But gently strained from the side
Of a sweet and dainty bride;
Brought in a daizy chalice, which
He fully quaffed up to bewitch
His blood to height.”
While Robin Goodfellow is represented as singing,—
“When lads and lasses merry be,
With possets and with juncates fine,
Unseene of all the company,
I eat their cakes and sip their wine;
And to make sport,
I fart and snort,
And out the candles I do blow.”
—(Brand, Pop. Ant., London, 1872, pp. 476 _et seq._, articles “Fairy
Mythology,” and “Robin Goodfellow.”)
Herrick describes the food of fairies:—
“ ... with a wine
Ne’er ravished from the flattering vine,
But gentle prest from the soft side
Of the most sweet and dainty bride.”
—(Herrick, “Hesperides;” also quoted in Hazlitt’s “Fairy Tales,” London,
1875, p. 300.)
The “wine” just described would seem to belong, in all fairness, to the
classification of Ur-Orgies.
A careful search of Shakspeare shows that while perhaps he knew little
directly to our purpose, he still had a knowledge that we may utilize;
for example, he speaks of the “midnight mushroom,” showing that it was an
element of midnight revels of the fairies; he alludes to customs which
certainly suggest that slaves and criminals were in early days buried
beneath dung-heaps as a punishment; and he can be adduced to prove that
the epithet “dunghill” applied to a man, was a most deadly insult; but
let the bard speak for himself,—
“_Prospero._ Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves;
And ye that on the sands with printless feet,
Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him,
When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green, sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe bites not; and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms.”—(Tempest, act v. scene 1.)
“_Ajax._ Thou stool for a witch.”—(Troilus and Cressida, act ii.
scene 1.)
The concordance consulted was that of the Clarkes.
The association of “toadstools” with witchcraft may have been due to
the belief that toads were the constant companions and servants of the
witches and fairies.
Gesner says that witches made use of toads as a charm, “ut vim coeundi,
ni fallor, in viris tollerunt.”—(Brand, Pop. Ant. London, 1872, vol. ii.
page 170, art. “Divination at Weddings.”)
“Un crapaud noir de venin” was to be employed by those seeking favor of
the witches of “Les Bourbonnais,” “La Fascination.”—(J. Tuchmann, in
“Mélusine,” Paris, July, August, 1890.)
May dew was considered a most beneficial application for the skin, but
young maidens while gathering it were careful not “to put foot within the
rings, lest they should be liable to the fairies’ power.”—(“Illustrations
of Shakspeare,” Francis Douce, London, 1807, vol. i. p. 180.)
It would seem that the Saxons in England, at the time of the Norman
Conquest, were fully aware of the deadly effects producible by the
mushroom: “The old woman came back to her, ere she went to bed. ‘I have
found it all out and more. I know where to get scarlet toadstools and
I put the juice in his men’s ale. They are laughing and roaring now,
merry-mad every one of them.’”
The effects of the potion are thus described: “His men were grouped
outside of the gate, chattering like monkeys; the porter and the monks
from the inside entreating them, vainly, to come in and go to bed quietly.
“But they would not. They vowed and swore that a great gulf had
opened all down the road, and that one step more would tumble them in
headlong.... In vain Hereward stormed; assured them that the supposed
abyss was nothing but the gutter; proved the fact by kicking Martin over
it. The men determined to believe their own eyes, and after a while
fell asleep in heaps in the roadside, and lay there till morning, when
they woke, declaring, as did the monks, that they had been bewitched.
They knew not—and happily, the lower orders, both in England and on the
Continent, do not yet know—the potent virtues of that strange fungus
with which Lapps and Samoieds have, it is said, practised wonders for
centuries past.”—(“Hereward, the last of the English,” Charles Kingsley,
New York, 1866, p. 111.)
See also under “Ordeals and Punishments,” and “Insults.”
XIII.
A USE OF POISONOUS FUNGI QUITE PROBABLY EXISTED AMONG THE MEXICANS.
That some such use of poisonous fungi as has been shown exists among the
tribes of Siberia was made by other nations, would be difficult to prove
in the absence of direct testimony, but many incidental references are
encountered which the reflective mind must consider with care before
rejecting them as absolutely irrelevant in this connection. The Mexicans,
as we learn from Sahagun, were not ignorant of the mushroom, which is
described as the basis of one of their festivals. He says that they ate
the nanacatl, a poisonous fungus which intoxicated as much as wine; after
eating it, they assembled in a plain, where they danced and sang by night
and by day to their fullest desire. This was on the first day, because on
the following day they all wept bitterly, and they said that they were
cleaning themselves and washing their eyes and faces with their tears.[17]
It is true that Sahagun does not describe any specially revolting feature
in this orgy, but it is equally patent that he is describing from
hearsay, and, probably, he was not allowed to know too much. In a second
reference to this fungus, which he now calls teo-nanacatl, he alludes to
the toxic properties, which coincide closely with those of the mushrooms
noted in Siberia and on the northwest coast of America.
“There are some mushrooms in this country which are called teo-nanacatl.
They grow under the grass in the fields and plains; ... they are hurtful
to the throat and intoxicate; ... those who eat them see visions and
feel flutterings in the heart; those who eat many of them are excited to
lust, and even so if they eat but few.”[18]
The proof is not at all conclusive that this intoxication was produced as
among the Siberian and Cape Flattery tribes; but it is very odd that the
Aztecs should eat mushrooms for the same purpose; that they should hold
their dance out in a plain and by night (that is, in a place as remote as
possible from Father Sahagun’s inspection). On the second day, to trust
Sahagun’s explanation, they would appear to have bewailed their behavior
on the first; although it should be remarked here that ceremonial weeping
has not been unknown to the American aborigines, and may, in this case,
have been induced by causes not revealed to the stranger. Lastly, it is
important to note that this poisonous fungus was a violent excitant, a
nervous irritant, and an aphrodisiac.
Another early Spanish observer, also cited by Kingsborough, describes
them in these terms:—
“They had another kind of drunkenness, ... which was with small fungi or
mushrooms, ... which are eaten raw, and, on account of being bitter, they
drink after them or eat with them a little honey of bees, and shortly
after that they see a thousand visions, especially snakes.
“They went raving mad, running about the streets in a wild state
(‘bestial embriaguez’). They called these fungi ‘teo-na-m-catl,’ a word
meaning ‘bread of the gods.’”
This author does not allude to any effect upon the kidneys.[19]
This account can be compared, word for word, with those previously quoted
from the Moqui Indian and from the descriptions of the Ur-Orgies of the
Siberians.
The list of quotations is not yet complete. Tezozomoc, also an author of
repute, relates that at the coronation of Montezuma the Mexicans gave
wild mushrooms to the strangers to eat; that the strangers became drunk,
and thereupon began to dance.[20] All of which is a terse description
of a drunken orgy induced by poisonous mushrooms, but not represented
with the disgusting sequences which would have served to establish a
connection with urine dances.
Diego Duran also gives the particulars of the coronation of this
Montezuma (the second of the name and the one on the throne at the date
of the arrival of Cortés). He says that, after the usual human sacrifices
had been offered up in the temples, all went to eat raw mushrooms, which
caused them to lose their senses and affected them more than if they
had drunk much wine. So utterly beside themselves were they that many
of them killed themselves with their own hands, and by the potency of
those mushrooms they saw visions and had revelations of the future, the
devil speaking to them in their drunkenness.[21] Duran, of course, is not
describing what he _saw_. Doubtless, in that case, his narrative would
have been more animated and, possibly, more to our purpose.
MUSHROOMS AND TOADSTOOLS WORSHIPPED BY AMERICAN INDIANS.
Dorman is authority for the statement that mushrooms were worshipped by
the Indians of the Antilles, and toadstools by those in Virginia,[22] but
for what toxic or therapeutic qualities, real or supposed, he does not
say. The toxic properties of fungi would seem to have been known to the
Algonkins:—
“Paused to rest beneath a pine tree,
From whose branches trail the mosses,
And whose trunk was coated over
With the Dead Man’s Moccasin Leather,
With the fungus white and yellow.”
“Hiawatha,” Henry W. Longfellow, canto ix.
A FORMER USE OF FUNGUS INDICATED IN THE MYTHS OF CEYLON, AND IN THE LAWS
OF THE BRAHMINS.
On the west shore of the Pacific Ocean, aside from the orgies of the
Siberian Shamans, no instance is on record of the use of the mushroom, or
other fungus in religious rites in the present day.
A former use of it is indicated in the Cingalese myths, which teach that
“Chance produced a species of mushroom called mattika[23] or jessathon,
on which they lived for sixty-five thousand years; but being determined
to make an equal division of this, also, they lost it. Luckily for them,
another creeping plant [mistletoe?] called badrilata grew up, on which
they (the Brahmins) fed for thirty-five thousand years, but which they
lost for the same reason as the former ones.”—(“Asiatic Researches,”
Calcutta, 1807, vol. vii. p. 441.)
Among the Brahmins of the main land no such myth is related; but an
English writer says:
“The ancient Hindus held the fungus in such detestation that Yama, a
legislator, supposed now to be the judge of departed spirits, declares:
‘Those who eat mushrooms, whether springing from the ground or growing
on a tree, fully equal in guilt to the slayers of Brahmins and the most
despicable of all deadly sinners.’”—(“Asiatic Researches,” Calcutta,
1795, vol. iv. p. 311.)
Dubois refers to the same subject. “The Brahmins,” he says, “have also
retrenched from their vegetable food, which is the great fund of their
subsistence, all roots which form a head or bulb in the ground, such as
onions,[24] and those also which assume the same shape above ground, like
mushrooms and some others.... Are we to suppose that they had discovered
something unwholesome in the one species and proscribed the other on
account of its fetid smell? This I cannot decide; all the information I
have ever obtained from those among those whom I have consulted on the
reasons of their abstinence from them being that it is customary to avoid
such articles.”—(Abbé Dubois, “People of India,” London, 1817, p. 117.)
This inhibition, under such dire penalties, can have but one meaning.
In primitive times the people of India must have been so addicted to
the debauchery induced by potions into the composition of which entered
poisonous fungi and mistletoe (the mushroom “growing on a tree”), and
the effects of such debauchery must have been found so debasing and
pernicious, that the priest-rulers were compelled to employ the same
maledictions which Moses proved of efficacy in withdrawing the children
of Israel from the worship of idols.[25]
XIV.
THE ONION ADORED BY THE EGYPTIANS.
There are examples of the ideas surrounding onions, leeks, garlic, and
bulbous vegetables of different kinds, in many countries.
“The Egyptians likened the whole firmament to an onion with its varied
shells and radiations; and this, together with the aphrodisiacal and
fertilizing properties which this vegetable is almost universally held to
possess, rendered it sacred.”—(“Rivers of Life,” Forlong, London, 1883,
vol. i. p. 474.)
“The species of onion which the Egyptians abhorred was the squill or
red squill, because consecrated to Typhon; the other kinds they ate
indiscriminately.”—(Fosbroke, “Cyclopædia of Antiquities,” London, 1843,
vol. ii. p. 109, article “Onion.”)
“At Babylon, beside Memphis, they made an onion their god.”—(Reginald
Scot, “Discovery of Witchcraft,” London, 1651, p. 376.)
“Beans the Egyptians do not sow at all in their country; neither do
they eat those that happen to grow there, nor taste them when dressed.
The priests indeed abhor the sight of that pulse, accounting it
impure.”—(Herodotus, “Euterpe,” p. 36.)
Among the Romans, “the Flamen Dialis might not ride, or even touch, beans
or ivy.”—(“The Golden Bough,” James G. Frazer, M.A., London, 1890, vol.
i. p. 117.)
Pliny mentions the medicinal use of certain bulbs, difficult of
identification in our day. “The bulb of Mægara acts as a strong
aphrodisiac;” others “aid delivery;” others were used “for the cure of
the sting of serpents.” The ancients used to give bulb-seeds “to persons
afflicted with madness, in drink.”—(Pliny, Nat. Hist. lib. 20, cap. 40.)
Martial has the following: “XXXIV. Bulbs. If your wife is old and your
members languid, bulbs can do no more for you than fill your belly”
(edition of London, 1871). A footnote to the above says: “To what
particular bulb provocative effects were attributed is unknown.”
Acosta says of the Peruvians that before any of their great ceremonies,
“to prepare themselves, all the people fasted two days, during which
they did neyther company with their wives nor eate any meate with salt
or garlicke, nor drink any chica.”—(Acosta, “Historie of the Indies,”
edition of London, 1604, quoted by Lang, “Myth, Ritual, and Religion,”
London, 1887, vol. ii. p. 283.)
According to Avicenna, garlic was a provocative of the menses (vol. i. p.
276 a 52).
When a priest of the state religion of China is about to offer a
sacrifice he must abstain from cohabitation with his wives and “from
eating onions, leeks, or garlic.”—(“Chinese Repository,” Canton, 1835,
vol. iii. p. 52.)
Juvenal says of the Egyptians: “It is an impious act to break with the
teeth a leek or an onion.”—(Satire XV., Rev. Lewis Evans’s translation.)
By the Irish peasantry “garlic is planted in the thatch” to drive away
fairies and witches.—(“Medical Mythology of Ireland,” James Mooney,
American Philosophical Society, 1887.)
The Danes placed garlic in the cradle of the new-born child to avert the
maleficence of witches.—(See Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” vol. ii. p.
73, article “Groaning Cakes and Cheese.”)
In rustic England many good folk still believe that the house upon which
grows the leek will never be struck by lightning.—(See Brand, “Popular
Antiquities,” vol. iii. p. 317, article “Rural Charms.”)
Speaking of the Russian dissenters, known as the Raskol, Heard says:
“They carried their resistance into all the details of daily life; as
matters of conscience, they eschewed the use of tobacco, for ‘the things
which come out of him, those are they that defile the man’ (Mark vii.
15); of the potato, as being the fruit with which the serpent tempted
Eve.”—(“The Russian Church and Russian Dissent,” Albert F. Heard, New
York and London, 1887, p. 194.)
The quotation from the New Testament seems applicable to the subject of
urine dances, and the interdiction of the use of the potato may mean more
than appears on the surface.
Possibly, the intention in Russia was to wean the sectaries away from the
use of bulbs or fungi not to the liking of the more thoughtful leaders of
the new movement.
“From the earliest times garlic has been an article of
diet.”—(Encyclopædia Britannica, mentioning Israelites, Egyptians,
Greeks, and Romans.)
In the time of Shakspeare, “to smell of garlic was accounted a sign of
vulgarity.”—(Idem, referring to “Coriolanus,” iv. 6, and “Measure for
Measure,” iii. 2.)
“Garlic was placed by the ancient Greeks on the piles of stones at
cross-roads as a supper for Hecate.”—(Idem.)
“According to Pliny, garlic and onions were invoked as deities by the
Egyptians at the taking of oaths. The inhabitants of Pelusium, in Lower
Egypt, who worshipped the onion, are said to have held both it and garlic
in aversion as food.”—(Encyc. Brit., article “Garlic.”)
Garlic is “fastened to the caps of children, suspended from the
sterns of vessels and from new houses, in the Levant, as, centuries
ago, it was hung over the door in the more civilized parts of
Europe.”—(“Superstitions of Scotland,” John Graham Dalyell, Edinburgh,
1834, p. 219.)
“The onion was among the earliest cultivated vegetables, and in Egypt
was a sort of divinity.”—(American Encyclopædia, New York, 1881, article
“Onion.”)
“A phallic importance seems to have attached to the onion. Burton,
in his ‘Anatomy of Melancholy,’ edition of 1660, p. 538, speaks of
‘cromnysmantia,’—a kind of divination with onions laid on the altar at
Christmas Eve, practised by girls to know when they shall be married
and how many husbands they shall have. This appears also to have been a
German custom.”—(Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” vol. iii. pp. 356, 357.)
Sir Thomas More wrote the following (the original is in Latin; the
translation is by Harington):—
“If leeks you leek, but do their smell disleek,
Eat onions, and you shall not smell the leek;
If you of onions would the scent expel,
Eat garlic, that shall drown the onion’s smell;
But against garlic’s savour, at one word,
I know but one receipt. What’s that? Go look.”
The last line is left untranslated; in the original it reads,—
“Aut nihil, aut tantum, tollere merda potest.”
(Harington, “Ajax,” quoting Sir Thomas More.)
XV.
SACRED INTOXICATION AND PHALLISM.
Two fundamental principles underlie the structure of primordial
religion,—Intoxication and Phallism. All perversion of the cerebral
functions, whether temporary estrangement or permanent alienation, is
classified as Obsession; and the pranks and gibberish of the maniac or
the idiot are solemnly treasured as outbursts of inspiration.
Where such temporary exaltation can be produced by an herb, bulb, liquid,
or food, the knowledge of such excitant is kept as long as possible from
the laity; and even after the general diffusion of a more enlightened
intelligence has broadened the mental horizon of the devotee, these
narcotics and irritants are “sacred,” and the frenzies they induce are
“sacred” also.
If the drug in question, whatever it be, possess the additional
recommendation of acting upon the genito-urinary organs, and by arousing
the sexual energies appeals to the phallic element in the religious
nature, the apotheosis of the drug follows as a matter of course, no
matter under what expression or symbolism it may be veiled; and as human
nature feels the necessity of restraint upon the passions as well as
a stimulus thereof, it follows that there are to be noted many cases
in which a veneration is paid to plants and drugs which have just the
opposite effect,—that is to say that where an aphrodisiac is held among
the sacred essences or agents its counter or antagonist is held in almost
equal esteem.
Mushroom, mistletoe, rue, ivy, mandrake, hemp, opium, the stramonium
of the medicine-man of the Hualpai Indians of Arizona,—all may well
be examined in the light of this proposition. Frazer says: “According
to primitive notions, all abnormal states—such as intoxication or
madness—are caused by the entrance of a spirit into the person; such
mental states, in other words, are regarded as forms of possession or
inspiration.”—(“The Golden Bough,” vol. i. p. 184.)
“Women who were addicted to Bacchanalian sports presently ran to the ivy
and plucked it off, tearing it to pieces with their hands and gnawing it
with their mouths.... It was reported ... it hath a spirit that stirreth
and moveth to madness, transporting and bereaving of the senses, and that
alone by itself it introduceth drunkenness without wine to those that
have an easy inclination to enthusiasm.”—(Plutarch, “Morals,” Goodwin’s
English translation, Boston, 1870, vol. ii. p. 264.)
An eternal drunkenness was the reward held out to the savage warrior in
many regions of the world; the Scandinavians, as well as the Indians of
the Pampas, had this belief.—(See “Les Primitifs,” Elie Réclus, Paris,
1885, p. 123.)
Speaking of the Ur-Orgy of the Siberians, Dr. J. W. Kingsley comments in
the following terms: “I remember being shown this fungus by an Englishman
who was returning via the Central Pacific Railway from Siberia. He fully
confirmed all that I had heard on the subject, having seen the orgy
himself.... Nothing religious in this, you may say; but look at the
question a little closer and you will see that these ‘intoxicants,’ which
nowadays are used to produce mere excitement or brutal drunkenness, were
at first looked upon as media able to raise the mere man up to a level
with his gods, and enable him to communicate with them, as was certainly
the case with the ‘soma’ of the Hindu ecstatics and the hashich I have
seen used by some tribes of Arabs. It would be well worth while trying
to ascertain whether the actors in the Ur-Orgy had eaten any particular
kind of herb before its commencement, or whether they had any tradition
of their ancestors having done so.”—(Personal letter to Captain Bourke,
dated Cambridge, England, May, 1888.)
For sacred intoxication among the Finns, see also “Chaldean Magic,”
Lenormant, p. 255, where there is a reference to “intoxicating drugs.”
XVI.
AN INQUIRY INTO THE DRUIDICAL USE OF THE MISTLETOE.
But the question at once presents itself, For what reason did the Celtic
Druids employ the much venerated mistletoe? This question becomes of deep
significance in the light of the learning shed by Godfrey Higgins and
General Vallencey upon the derivation of the Druids from Buddhistic or
Brahminical origin.
“Ajasson enumerates the following superstitions of ancient Britain, as
bearing probable marks of an Oriental origin: ... the ceremonials used
in cutting the plants.”—(“Mistletoe,” Pliny, Bohn, lib. 30, cap. 6,
footnote.)
That the mistletoe was regarded as a medicine, and a very potent one,
is easy enough to show. All the encyclopædias admit that much; but the
accounts that have been preserved of the ideas associated with this
worship are not complete or satisfactory.
“The mistletoe, which they (the Druids) called ‘all-heal,’ used to cure
disease.”—(McClintock and Strong’s Encyclopædia, quoting Stukeley.)
“The British bards and Druids had an extraordinary veneration for the
number three. ‘The mistletoe,’ says Vallencey, in his ‘Grammar of the
Irish Language,’ ‘was sacred to the Druids, because not only its berries,
but its leaves also, grow in clusters of three united to one stock. The
Christian Irish held the Seamroy sacred in like manner, because of three
leaves united to one stock.’”—(Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” London,
1872, vol. i, p. 109, article “St. Patrick’s Day.”)
“Within recent times the mistletoe has been regarded as a valuable remedy
in epilepsy (query, on the principle of _similia similibus_?) and other
diseases, but at present is not employed.... The leaves have been fed to
sheep in time of scarcity of other forage (which shows at least that it
is edible).”—(Appleton’s American Encyclopædia.)
“Seems to possess no decided medical properties.”—(International
Encyclopædia.)
“It is now perhaps impossible to account for the veneration in which
it was held and the wonderful qualities which it was supposed to
possess.”—(“The Druids,” Rev. Richard Smiddy, Dublin, 1871, p. 90.)
Pliny mentions three varieties. Of these “the hyphar is useful for
fattening cattle, if they are hardy enough to withstand the purgative
effect it produces at first; the viscum is medicinally of value as an
emollient, and in cases of tumors, ulcers, and the like.”
Pliny is also quoted as saying that it was considered of benefit to
women in childbirth,—“in conceptum feminarum adjuvare si omnino secum
habeant.”[26] Pliny is also authority for the reverence in which the
mistletoe growing on the robur (Spanish _roble_, or evergreen oak)
was held by the Druids. The robur, he says, is their sacred tree, and
whatever is found growing upon it, they regard as sent from heaven and as
the mark of a tree chosen by God.—(Encyclopædia Britannica.)
Brand (“Popular Antiquities,” London, 1849, vol. i. article “Mistletoe”)
cites the opinion of various old authors that mistletoe was regarded “as
a medicine very likely to subdue not only the epilepsy, but all other
convulsive disorders.... The high veneration in which the Druids were
held by the people of all ranks proceeded in a great measure from the
wonderful cures they wrought by means of the mistletoe of the oak.... The
mistletoe of the oak, which is very rare, is vulgarly said to be a cure
for wind-ruptures in children; the kind which is found upon the apple is
said to be good for fits.”
“The Persians and Masagetæ thought the mistletoe something divine, as
well as the Druids.”—(“Antiquities of Cornwall,” 1796, p. 63.)
After telling of the use of this plant among the Druids and their mode
of gathering it, Fosbroke adds: “Mistletoe was not unknown in the
religious ceremonies of the ancients, and was supposed to have magical
and medicinal properties.”—(Fosbroke, Cyclopædia of Antiquities, vol. ii.
p. 1047, article “Mistletoe,” London, 1843.)
Mr. W. Winwood Reade mentions, in his “Veil of Isis” (London, 1861), at
page 69, that the missolding or mistletoe of the oak, still called in
Wales “all-iach,” or “all-heal,” was the sovereign remedy of the Druids;
and at page 71 he adds that a powder from its berries was considered a
cure for sterility. He describes the effect of mistletoe as that of a
strong purgative.—(Personal letter from Frank Rede Fowke, Esq., South
Kensington Museum, London, England, June 18, 1888.)
“The Druids named it Uil-loc or All-Heal, because they said it promoted
increase of species or prevented sterility.”—(“Rivers of Life,” Forlong,
vol. ii. p. 331.)
“We shall probably never hear the whole truth in regard to this ancient
religion (Druidism); for, as Mr. Davies says, ‘most of the offensive
ceremonies must have been either retrenched or concealed,’ as the Roman
laws and edicts had for ages (before the Bardic writings) restrained the
more cruel and bloody sacrifices, and at the time of the Bards nothing
remained but symbolic rites.”—(“Rivers of Life,” Forlong, vol. ii. p.
331.)
The plant (mistletoe) is one of world-wide fame. Masagetæ, Skythians, and
the most ancient Persians called it the “Healer,” and Virgil calls it a
“branch of gold;” while Charon was dumb in presence of such an augur of
coming bliss; it was “the expectancy of all nations, longe post tempore
visum, as betokening Sol’s return to earth.”—(“Rivers of Life,” Forlong,
vol. i. p. 81.)
Borlase sees much similarity between the Magi and our Druids, and Strabo
did the same. “Both carried in their hands, during the celebration of
their rites, a bunch of plants; that of the Magi was of course the Hom,
called Barsom,—Assyrian and Persepolis sculptures substantiate this. The
Hom looks very much like the Mistletoe, and the learned Dr. Stukeley
thinks that this parasite is meant as being on the tree mentioned by
Isaiah, vi. 13.”—(“Rivers of Life,” Forlong, vol. i. p. 43.)
“But yet it shall be a tenth, and it shall return and shall be eaten; as
a teil tree and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast
their leaves; so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.”—(Isaiah,
vi. 13.)
“The mistletoe wreath marks in one sense Venus’s temple, for any girl
may be kissed if caught under its sprays,—a practice, though modified,
which recalls to us that horrid one mentioned by Herodotus, where all
women were for once at least the property of the man who sought them in
Mylitta’s temple.”—(“Rivers of Life,” Forlong, London, 1883, vol. i. p.
91.)
The following are Frazer’s views on this subject: “The mistletoe was
viewed as the seat of life of the oak. The conception of the mistletoe
as the seat of life of the oak would naturally be suggested to primitive
people by the observation that while the oak is deciduous, the mistletoe
which grows on it is evergreen. In winter, the sight of its fresh foliage
among the bare branches must have been hailed by the worshippers of the
tree as a sign that the divine life which had ceased to animate the
branches yet survived in the mistletoe, as the heart of the sleeper still
beats when his body is motionless. Hence, when the god had to be killed,
when the sacred tree had to be burnt, it was necessary to begin by
breaking off the mistletoe, for so long as the mistletoe remained intact,
the oak (so people thought) was invulnerable,—all the blows of their
knives and axes would glance harmless from its surface. But once tear
from the oak its sacred heart, the mistletoe, and the tree nodded to its
fall.”—(“The Golden Bough,” James G. Frazer, M. A., London, 1890, vol.
ii. pp. 295, 296.)
This train of reasoning would be irrefutable, as it is most logical, were
we in a position to be able to say that the excision of the fungus was
followed by the felling of the tree; but, unfortunately, that is just
what we are not able to determine. As a surmise, there is no impropriety
in believing that such excision may have marked the oak for destruction
at some future day; but there is no authority that we can produce at this
time to justify anything more than a surmise in the premises. That the
sacred character of the oak was due to the properties discovered in the
mistletoe is quite likely in view of all the facts already presented.
O’Curry, who appears to have known all that was to be learned on the
subject of Druidism, admits that the world is in possession of very
little that is reliable; he inclines to the view that Druidism was of
Eastern origin. (See “Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish,” Eugene
O’Curry, London, Edinburgh, Dublin, and New York, 1873.) He contends that
“the Sacred Wand” of the Druids was made of the yew, and not of the oak
or mistletoe.—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 194.)
Vallencey did not believe that the Persians were acquainted with the
mistletoe; at least, he could not find any name for it in Persian.—(See
Major Charles Vallencey, “Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis,” Dublin, 1774,
vol. ii. p. 433.)
“In Cambodia, when a man perceives a certain parasitic plant growing
on a tamarind-tree, he dresses in white and taking a new earthen pot
climbs the tree at mid-day. He puts the plant in the pot and lets the
whole fall to the ground. Then in the pot he makes a decoction which
renders him invulnerable.”—(Aymonier, “Notes sur les Coûtumes, etc., des
Cambodgiens,” quoted in “The Golden Bough,” vol. ii. p. 286, footnote.)
“It was that only which is found upon the oak which the Druids
employed; and being a parasitic plant, the seeds of which are not
sown by the hand of man, it was well adapted for the purposes of
superstition.”—(“Philosophy of Magic,” Salverte, vol. i. p. 229.)
Much testimony may be adduced to show that the mistletoe was valued as
an aphrodisiac, as conducive to fertility, as sacred to love, and, in
general terms, an excitant of the genito-urinary organs, which is the
very purpose for which the Siberian and North American medicine-men
employed the fungus, and perhaps the very reason for which both fungus
and mistletoe were excluded from the Brahminical dietary.
Brand shows that mistletoe “was not unknown in the religious ceremonies
of the ancients, particularly the Greeks,” and that the use of it,
savoring strongly of Druidism, prevailed at the Christmas service of York
Cathedral down to our own day.—(See in Brand, “Popular Antiquities,”
London, 1849, vol. i. p. 524.)
The merry pastime of kissing pretty girls under the Christmas mistletoe
seems to have a phallic derivation. “This very old custom has descended
from feudal times, but its real origin and significance are lost.”
(“Appleton’s American Encyclopædia.”) Brand shows that the young men
observed the custom of “plucking off a berry at each kiss.” (Vol. i. p.
524.) Perhaps, in former times, they were required to swallow the berry.
The deductions of a recent writer merit attention:—
“The mistletoe was dedicated to Mylitta, in whose worship every woman
must once in her life submit to the sexual embrace of a stranger. When
she concluded to perform this religious duty in honor of her acknowledged
deity, she repaired to the temple and placed herself under the mistletoe,
thus offering herself to the first stranger who solicited her favors.
The modern modification of the ceremony is found in the practice among
some people of hanging the mistletoe, at certain seasons of the year, in
the parlor or over the door, when the woman entering that door, or found
standing under the wreath, must kiss the first man who approaches her and
solicits the privilege.” (“Phallic Worship,” Robert Allen Campbell, C.
E., St. Louis, Mo., 1888, p. 202.)
A writer in “Notes and Queries” (Jan. 3, 1852, vol. v. p. 13) quotes
Nares to the effect that “the maid who was not kissed under it at
Christmas would not be married in that year.” But another writer (Feb.
28, 1852, same volume) points out that “we should refer the custom to the
Scandinavian mythology, wherein the mistletoe is dedicated to Friga, the
Venus of the Scandinavians.”[27]
Grimm speaks of Paltar (Balder) being killed by the stroke of a piece of
mistletine, but ventures upon no explanation.—(“Teutonic Mythology,” vol.
i. p. 220, article “Paltar.”)
“Within the sanctuary at Nemi grew a certain tree of which no branch
might be broken. Only a runaway slave was allowed to break off, if he
could, one of its boughs. Success in the attempt entitled him to fight
the priest in single combat, and if he slew him he reigned in his stead
with the title of King of the Wood (Rex Nemorensis.) Tradition averred
that the fatal branch was that ‘golden bough’ which at the Sibyl’s
bidding, Æneas plucked before he essayed the perilous journey to the
world of the dead.”—(“The Golden Bough,” Frazer, vol. i. p. 4, article
“The Arician Grove.”)
“A plant associated with the death of one of their greatest and
best-beloved gods must have been supremely sacred to all of Teutonic
blood; and yet this opinion of its sacredness was shared by the Celtic
nations.” (Grimm, “Teutonic Mythology,” vol. iii. p. 1205.) “Our herbals
divide mistletoe into those of the oak, hazel, and pear tree; and none of
them must be let touch the ground.”—(Idem, p. 1207.)
Another writer (“Notes and Queries,” 2d series, vol. iv. p. 506) says:
“As it was supposed to possess the mystic power of giving fertility and a
power to preserve from poison, the pleasant ceremony of kissing under the
mistletoe may have some reference to this belief.”
In vol. iii. p. 343, it is stated: “A Worcestershire farmer was
accustomed to take down his bough of mistletoe and give it to the cow
that calved first after New Year’s Day. This was supposed to insure good
luck to the whole dairy. Cows, it may be remarked, as well as sheep, will
devour mistletoe with avidity.”
And still another (in 2d series, vol. vi. p. 523) recognizes that “the
mistletoe was sacred to the heathen Goddess of Beauty,” and “it is
certain that the mistletoe, though it formerly had a place among the
evergreens employed in the Christian decorations, was subsequently
excluded.” This exclusion he accounts for thus: “It is also certain that,
in the earlier ages of the church, many festivities not at all tending
to edification (the practice of mutual kissing among the rest) had
gradually crept in and established themselves, so that, at a certain part
of the service, ‘statim clerus, ipseque populus per basia blande sese
invicim oscularetur.’”
This author cites Hone, Hook, Moroni, Bescherelle, Ducange, and others.
Finally (in the 3d series, vol. vii. p. 76), an inquirer asks, “How came
it in Shakspeare’s time to be considered ‘baleful,’ and, in our days,
the most mirth-provoking of plants?” And still another correspondent, in
the same series (vol. vii. p. 237), claims that “mistletoe will produce
abortion in the female of the deer or dog.”
“Sir John Ollbach, in his dissertation concerning mistletoe, which
he strongly recommends as a medicine very likely to subdue not only
the epilepsy, but all other convulsive disorders, observes that this
beautiful plant must have been designed by the Almighty for other
and more noble purposes than barely to feed thrushes or to be hung
up superstitiously in houses to drive away evil spirits. He tells
(p. 12) that ‘the high veneration in which the Druids were anciently
held by the people of all ranks proceeded in a great measure from the
wonderful cures they wrought by means of the mistletoe of the oak;
this tree being sacred to them, but none so that had not the mistletoe
upon them.’ Mr. F. Williams, dating from Pembroke, Jan. 28, 1791,
tells us, in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ for February that year, that
‘“Guidhel,” mistletoe, a magical shrub, appeared to be the forbidden
tree in the middle of the trees of Eden; for, in the Edda, the mistletoe
is said to be Balder’s death, who yet perished through blindness and a
woman.’”—(Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” London, 1872, vol. i. p. 519,
article “Evergreen-decking at Christmas.”)
FORMER EMPLOYMENT OF AN INFUSION OR DECOCTION OF MISTLETOE.
That an infusion or decoction of the plant was once in use may be
gathered from the fact narrated by John Eliot Howard: “Water, in which
the sacred mistletoe had been immersed, was given to or sprinkled upon
the people.”—(“The Druids and their Religion,” John Eliot Howard, in
“Transactions of Victoria Institute,” vol. xiv. p. 118, quoting “Le gui
de chêne et les Druides,” E. Magdaleine, Paris, 1877.)
Montfaucon says of the Druids: “Ils croient que les animaux stériles
deviennent féconds en buvant de l’eau de gui.”—(“L’antiquité Expliquée,
Paris, 1722, tome 2, part 2, p. 436, quoting and translating Pliny.)
“The misselto, or ‘Uil-ice,’ was required to be taken, if possible, from
the Jovine tree when in its prime; but it was rare to find it on any
oak. If obtained from one about thirty-five years old, and taken in a
potion, it conferred fertility on men, women, and children.”—(“Rivers of
Life,” Forlong, vol. ii. p. 355.)
Eugene O’Curry speaks of the Irish Druids having a “drink of oblivion,”
the composition of which has not, however, come down to us. (See
“Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish,” vol. ii. p. 198.) O’Curry
calls this drink of oblivion a “Druidical charm,” and a “Druidical
incantation.”—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 226.)[28]
See notes in this monograph on the Hindu Lingam.
THE MISTLETOE ALLEGED TO HAVE BEEN HELD SACRED BY THE MOUND-BUILDERS.
An American writer says that among the Mound-builders the mistletoe was
“the holiest and most rare of evergreens,” and that when human sacrifices
were offered to sun and moon the victim was covered with mistletoe, which
was burnt as an incense. (Pidgeon, “Dee-coo-dah,” New York, 1853, p. 91
_et seq._) Pidgeon claimed to receive his knowledge from Indians versed
in the traditions and lore of their tribes.[29]
Mrs. Eastman presents a drawing of what may be taken as the altar of
Haokah, the anti-natural god of the Sioux, in which is a representation
of a “large fungus that grows on trees” (query, mistletoe?), which, if
eaten by an animal, will cause its death.[30]
THE MISTLETOE FESTIVAL OF THE MEXICANS.
That the Mexicans had a reverence for the mistletoe would seem to be
assured. They had a mistletoe festival. In October they celebrated the
festival of the Neypachtly, or bad eye, which was a plant growing on
trees and hanging from them, gray with the dampness of rain; especially
did it grow on the different kinds of oak.[31] The informant says he can
give no explanation of this festival.
VESTIGES OF DRUIDICAL RITES AT THE PRESENT DAY.
It may be interesting to detect vestiges of Druidical rites tenaciously
adhering to the altered life of modern civilization.
In the department of Seine-et-Oise, twelve leagues from Paris (says a
recent writer), when a child had a rupture (hernia) he was brought under
a certain oak, and some women, who no doubt earned a living in that
trade, danced around the oak, muttering spell-words till the child was
cured,—that is, dead.—(“Notes and Queries,” 5th series, vol. vii. p. 163.)
It has already been shown that the Druids ascribed this very medical
quality to the mistletoe of the oak.
“In Brittany a festival for the mistletoe is still kept.... The people
there call it ‘touzon ar gros,’—‘the herb of the cross.’”—(“Commonplace
Book,” Buckle, vol. ii. of his Works, p. 440, London, 1872.)
Mistletoe has been burned in England in love divinations.—(See Brand,
“Popular Antiquities,” London, 1872, vol. iii. p. 358, article
“Divination by Flowers.”)
Frommann enumerates mistletoe among “Recentiorum ad fascinum remedia....
Viscum corylinum et tiliaceum” (hazel or filbert and linden trees). The
genitalia of the bewitched person were anointed with an ointment prepared
from the hazel mistletoe to untie “ligatures.” (See Frommann, “Tractatus
de Fascinatione,” Nuremberg, 1675, pp. 938, 957, 958, 965.)
“We find that persons in Sweden who are afflicted with the falling
sickness carry with them a knife having a handle of oak mistletoe, to
ward off attacks. A piece of mistletoe hung round the neck would ward
off other sicknesses. We have Culpepper’s authority for saying ‘it is
excellent good for the grief of the sinew, itch, sores, and tooth-ache,
the biting of mad dogs, and venemous beasts, and that it purgeth choler
very gently.’ Grimm notes that it was with a branch of mistletoe that
Balder was killed.... The Kadeir Taliasin says that the mistletoe was
one of the ingredients in the _awen a gwybodeu_, or water of inspiration,
science, and immortality, which the goddess Kod prepared in her cauldron.
Witches were thought to have no power to hurt those who bore mistletoe
round their neck. Sir Thomas Browne speaks of the virtues of mistletoe in
cases of epilepsy.”—(“Folk-Medicine,” Black, London, 1883, p. 196.)
The same belief in Waters of Life, science, immortality, etc., seems to
obtain among the Slav nations, who also speak in their myths of “the
crazy weed,” which may, perhaps, be classified with the weed of the
Borgie well, which, as we have seen, “set a’ the Camerslang fo’k wrang i’
th’ head.”—(See “Myths and Folk-Tales of the Russians, Western Slavs, and
Magyars,” Jeremiah Curtin, Boston, Mass., 1890.)
The mistletoe, especially that from the linden and the oak, was
enumerated by Etmuller among the cures for epilepsy (“tiliaceum et
quercinum”); others recommended that from the elder or willow. For the
same disease, on the same page, “zibethum” was prescribed. (See Etmuller,
“Opera Omnia,” Lyons, 1690, vol. i. p. 198: “Comment. Ludovic.”)
The mistletoe of the juniper, gathered in the month of May, was
good for eye-water. “Maio mense instar musci adnascitur inservit
aquæ ophthalmicæ.”—(Etmuller, vol. i. p. 84, “Schroderi Dilucidati
Phytologia.”)
Fungi of different kinds dried were used as styptics.—(Idem, p. 70.)
The fungus of the oak was especially good for this purpose.—(Idem, p.
127.)
The mistletoe of the oak was regarded as of special value in all uterine
troubles, hemorrhages, suppression of the menses, etc.—(Idem, p. 127.)
In the Myth of Kale-wala a young maiden is represented as becoming
pregnant by eating a berry. (See “Myth, Ritual, and Religion,” Andrew
Lang, London, 1887, vol. ii. p. 179.)
We may ask the question, what kind of a berry this was. Reference may
also be had to what Lang has to say on the mythical conceptions alleged
to have been induced by juniper and other berries.—(Idem, p. 180.)
The “mistletoe of the oake” was administered internally against
“epilepsie.”—(“Most Excellent and Most Approved Remedies,” London, 1654,
p. 14.)
“A ring made of mistletoe is esteemed in Sweden as an
amulet.”—(“Folk-Medicine,” Black, p. 173.)
In Murrayshire, Scotland, “at the full moon in March, the inhabitants cut
withies of the mistletoe or ivy, make circles of them, keep them all the
year, and pretend to cure hectics and other troubles with them.”—(Brand,
“Popular Antiquities,” vol. iii. p. 151, article “Moon.”)
“In North Germany, where the old Teutonic cult still lingers, the
villagers run about on Christmas, striking the doors and windows with
hammers, and shouting, ‘Guthyl! Guthyl!’—plainly the Druidical name for
mistletoe used by Pliny. In Holstein, the people call the mistletoe ‘the
branch of spectres;’ ... they think it cures fresh wounds and ensures
success in hunting.” Stukeley is quoted to show that the veneration for
the plant prevailed at the Cathedral of York down to the most recent
times.—(Encyclopædia Metropolitana.)
“Misseltoe of the oake drunk cureth certainly this disease”
(epilepsy).—(“The Poor Man’s Physician,” John Moncrief, Edinburgh, 1716,
p. 71.)
Still another writer reckons it a specific in epilepsy; also in apoplexy,
vertigo, to prevent convulsions, and to assist children in teething,
being worn round their necks. “We have accounts of strange superstitious
customs used in gathering it, and that if they are not complied with it
loses its virtue. This is by some conjectured to be the golden bough
which Æneas made use of to introduce him to the Elysian regions, as
is beautifully described in Virgil’s sixth Æneid.”—(“Complete English
Dispensatory,” John Quincy, M.D., London, 1730, p. 134.)
Culpepper wrote that the mistletoe, especially that growing upon the oak,
was beneficial in the falling sickness, in apoplexy, and in palsy; also
as a preventive of witchcraft; in the last-named case it should be worn
about the neck. He did not seem to know anything of the origin of these
ideas and practices.—(See Richard Culpepper, “The English Physician,”
London, 1765, p. 217.)
Pomet, in his “History of Drugs,” London, 1737, describes agaric as
an excrescence “found on the larch, oak, etc.... The best agaric is
that from the Levant;” only that “which the antients used to call the
female should be used in medicine.” It was prescribed in “all distempers
proceeding from gross humors and obstructions,”—such as epilepsy,
vertigo, mania, etc.; and this partly on the sympathetic or _similia
similibus_ principle.
In one of the preparations for epilepsy, said by Beckherius to have been
recommended by Galen, occurs “Agaricus Viscus Querci.”—(See Danielus
Beckherius, “Medicus Microcosmus,” London, 1660, p. 208.)
“When found growing on the oak, the mistletoe represented man.”—(Opinion
of the French writer Reynaud, in his article “Druidism,” quoted in the
Encyclopædia Britannica.)
Notwithstanding this abundant proof, which might, if necessary, be
swollen in volume, of the survival in domestic medicine, as well as in
medical practice of a more pretentious character, of the use of the
mistletoe, more particularly in cases of epilepsy, there is no instance
of its employment noticed in “Saxon Leechdoms.”
The explanation may be found in the fact that that compilation was rather
exponential of the knowledge still possessed by the monks of classical
therapeutics than of the skill attained by the Saxons themselves; there
are pages of quotations from Sextus Placitus and other authorities, but
scarcely anything to show that the ideas of the Saxons themselves were
represented.
THE LINGUISTICS OF THE MISTLETOE.
Other curious instances of survival present themselves in the linguistics
of the subject. The French word “gui,” meaning mistletoe, is not of
Latin, but of Druidical derivation, and so the Spanish “aguinaldo,”
meaning Christmas or New Year’s present, conserves the cry, slightly
altered, of the Druid priest to the “gui” at the opening of the new year.
“Aguillanneuf, et plus clairement, ‘au gui, l’an neuf,’ ou bien encore,
‘l’anguil l’an neuf.’”—(Le Roux de Lincy, Livre des Proverbes Français,
1848, Paris, tome 1, p. 2, quoted in Buckle’s “Commonplace Book,” vol.
ii. p. 440.)
“The next business was to arrange for the collection of the sacred
plant, and bards were sent forth in all directions to summon the people
to the great religious ceremony. The words of the proclamation are
believed to survive in the custom which prevails, especially at Chartres,
the old metropolis of the Druids, of soliciting presents on the New
Year, with the words ‘au gui l’an neuf.’”—(“Le Gui de Chêne et les
Druides,” Magdaleine, quoted by John Elliot Howard, in “Victoria Society
Transactions,” vol. xiv.)
“The Celtic name for the oak was ‘gue,’ or ‘guy.’”—(Brand, Pop. Ant.,
vol. i. p. 458.)
A writer in “Notes and Queries” shows (vol. ii. p. 163) that the word
mistletoe is “le gui” in French; the continental Druid was called Gui,
or a Guy, from “cuidare,” whence “Guide.” At the present day, while the
mistletoe itself is a charm, the name is a term of opprobrium,—guy, in
English.
M. C. H. Gaidoz takes exception to this interpretation. In his opinion,
the words “aguinaldo” and “à gui l’an neuf” are to be derived from the
Latin “ad calendas.”—(Personal letter, dated Paris, France, March 11,
1889.)
XVII.
COW DUNG AND COW URINE IN RELIGION.
The sacrificial value of cow dung and cow urine throughout India and
Thibet is much greater than the reader might be led to infer from the
brief citation already noted from Max Müller.
“Hindu merchants in Bokhara now lament loudly at the sight of a piece
of cow’s flesh, and at the same time mix with their food, that it may
do them good, the urine of a sacred cow, kept in that place.”—(Erman,
“Siberia,” London, 1848, vol. i. p. 384.)
Picart narrates that the Brahmins fed grain to a sacred cow, and
afterward searched in the ordure for the sacred grains, which they picked
out whole, drying and administering them to the sick, not merely as a
medicine, but as a sacred thing.[32]
Not only among the people of the lowlands, but among those of the
foot-hills of the Himalayas as well, do these rites find place; “the very
dung of the cow is eaten as an atonement for sin, and its urine is used
in worship.”—(Notes on the Hill Tribes of the Neilgherries, Short, Trans.
Ethnol. Society, London, 1868, p. 268.)
“The greatest, or, at any rate, the most convenient of all purifiers
is the urine of a cow; ... Images are sprinkled with it. No man of any
pretensions to piety or cleanliness would pass a cow in the act of
staling without receiving the holy stream in his hand and sipping a few
drops.... If the animal be retentive, a pious expectant will impatiently
apply his finger, and by judicious tickling excite the grateful
flow.”—(Moor’s “Hindu Pantheon,” London, 1810, p. 143.)
See, also, note from Forlong, under “Initiation,” p. 164.
“It may be noted that, according to Lajarde, ‘cow’s-water’ originally
meant rain-water, the clouds being spoken of as cows. I give this for
what it is worth. Your collection of facts goes strongly against the
explanation.”—(Personal letter from Prof. W. Robertson Smith, dated
Christ College, Cambridge, England, August 11, 1888.)
Speaking of the sacrifice called Poojah, Maurice says: “The Brahman
prepares a place, which is purified with dried cow-dung, with which the
pavement is spread, and the room is sprinkled with the urine of the same
animal.”—(Maurice, “Indian Antiquities,” London, 1800, vol. i. p. 77.)
“As in India, so in Persia, the urine of the cow is used in ceremonies of
purification, during which it is drunk.”—(“Zoölogical Mythology,” Angelo
de Gubernatis, London, 1872, vol. i. p. 95, quoting from Anquétil du
Pérron, “Zendavesta,” ii. p. 245.)
Dubois, in his chapter “Restoration to the Caste,” says that a Hindu
penitent “must drink the _panchakaryam_,—a word which literally signifies
the five things, namely, milk, butter, curd, dung, and urine, all mixed
together.” And he adds:—
“The urine of the cow is held to be the most efficacious of any for
purifying all imaginable uncleanness. I have often seen the superstitious
Hindu accompanying these animals when in the pasture, and watching the
moment for receiving the urine as it fell, in vessels which he had
brought for the purpose, to carry it home in a fresh state; or, catching
it in the hollow of his hand, to bedew his face and all his body. When so
used it removes all external impurity, and when taken internally, which
is very common, it cleanses all within.”—(Abbé Dubois, “People of India,”
London, 1817, p. 29.)
Very frequently the excrement is first reduced to ashes. The monks of
Chivem, called Pandarones, smear their faces, breasts, and arms with the
ashes of cow dung; they run through the streets demanding alms, very much
as the Zuñi actors demanded a feast, and chant the praises of Chivem,
while they carry a bundle of peacock feathers in the hand, and wear the
_lingam_ at the neck.[33]
COW DUNG ALSO USED BY THE ISRAELITES.
“The tribes had not many feelings in common when they came to be writers
and told us what they thought of each other. As a rule, they bitterly
reviled each other’s gods and temples.... Judeans called the Samaritan
temple, where calves and bulls were holy, in a word of Greek derivation,
‘Pelethos Naos,’ ‘the dung-hill temple.’ ... The Samaritans, in return,
called the temple of Jerusalem ‘the house of dung.’”—(“Rivers of Life,”
Forlong, vol. i. p. 162.)
Commentators would be justified in believing that these terms preserve
the fact of there having been in these places of worship the same
veneration for dung that is to be found to this day among the peoples of
the East Indies.
In another place Dulaure calls attention to the similar use among the
Hebrews of the ashes of the dung of the red heifer as an expiatory
sacrifice.[34]
In one of the Hindu fasts the devotee adopts these disgusting excreta as
his food. On the fourth day, “his disgusting beverage is the urine of
the cow; the fifth, the excrement of that holy animal is his allotted
food.”—(Maurice, “Indian Antiquities,” London, 1800, vol. v. p. 222.)
“I do not think that you can lay weight on the fact that in Israel, when
a victim was entirely burned, the dung was not exempted from the fire.
I think this only means that the victim was not cleared of offal, as in
sacrifices that were eaten.”—(Personal letter from Prof. W. Robertson
Smith, Christ College, Cambridge, England.)
“Refert etiam Waltherus Schulzius (“Oest-Indianische Reise,” lib. 3,
cap. 10, 1, m. 188, seq.) certam Indorum sectam Gioghi dictam nullum
assumere cibum, nisi fimo vaccino coctum; capillos et faciem Croco et
Stercore vaccino inungunt; nemo etiam in hanc societatem admittitur
nisi antea per longum temporis spatium Corpus suum hoc stercore
nutriverit, etc.”—(Schurig, “Chylologia,” p. 783, quoted in “Bibliotheca
Scatalogica,” pp. 93-96.)
Etmuller, “Opera Omnia,” Commentar. Ludovic., Lyons, 1690, vol. ii.
pp. 171, 172, says that the Benjani, an Oriental sect, believers in the
Transmigration of Souls, save the dung of their cows, gathering it up in
their hands.
Rosinus Lentilius, in the “Ephemeridum Physico-Medicorum,” Leipsig, 1694,
quotes from the Itinerary of Tavernier, lib. 1, cap. 18, in regard to
the Scybolophagi Indorum, who, in pursuance of vows to eat flesh only,
scrape up the droppings of horses, bulls, cows, and sheep. “Scybolophagi
Indorum, de qua Tavernier, quod Benjanæ aliæque mulieres voto semet
obstringant soli manducationi quisquiliarum, quas in pecorum, equorum,
boum, vaccarum, stercoribus ruspatione sedula conquirunt.... Nec proprie
de Homerda seu humanis excrementis, quibus Indorum nonnulli cibos
condire, iisque ptarmici pulvere vice uti, quin et medicamentis, ceu
panaceam, commiscere, non aversuntur.”
No mention is made by Marco Polo of the use by the people of India of
cow-dung or urine in any of their religious ceremonies, excepting one
example cited under the head of “Industries.” But the antiquity of the
rite is demonstrated by the fact that it is frequently alluded to in the
oldest of the canonical books of the people of India.
“Regarding the installation of Yudhisthira (the oldest son of Pandu and
eldest brother of the Pandavas), who became Maharajah after the defeat
and death of the Kauravas on the field of Kuruk-shetra, the Brahminical
authors of the Maha-Bharata, in its present form, describe among the
ceremonies used on the occasion the following one:” (Condensed from the
text of J. Talboys Wheeler, “History of India,” “The Vedic Period and the
Maha-Bharata,” vol. i. p. 371.) “After this, the five purifying articles
which are produced from the sacred cow—namely, milk, the curds, ghee,
the urine, and the ordure—were brought up by Krishna and the Maharaja
and by the brothers of Yudhisthira, and poured by them over the heads of
Yudhisthira and Draupadi.”
“The appearance of Krishna here stamps the narrative with the
characteristic cultus of a period far later than that in which the
Vedic Aryans had used the cow as a religious symbol. The animal was
now sacred to Vishnu, who held no place in the Vedic Pantheon, and his
worship had been sufficiently developed to admit of his incarnation as
Krishna.”—(Personal letter from Dr. J. Hampden Porter, dated Washington,
D. C., Sept. 29, 1888.)
De Gubernatis speaks of “the superstitious Hindoo custom of purifying
one’s self by means of the excrement of a cow. The same custom passed
into Persia; and the Kharda Avesta has preserved the formula to be
recited by the devotee while he holds in his hand the urine of an ox or
cow, preparatory to washing his face with it: ‘Destroyed, destroyed, be
the Demon Ahriman, whose actions and works are cursed.’”—(“Zoölogical
Mythology,” De Gubernatis, pp. 99-100, vol. i.)
“We must complete the explanation of another myth, that of the excrement
of the cow considered as purifying. The moon, as aurora, yields ambrosia.
It is considered to be a cow; the urine of this cow is ambrosia or holy
water; he who drinks this water purifies himself, as the ambrosia which
rains from the lunar ray and the aurora purifies and makes clear the path
of the sky, which the shadows of night darken and contaminate.
“The same virtue is attributed, moreover, to cow’s dung, a conception
also derived from the cow, and given to the moon as well as to the
morning aurora. These two cows are considered as making the earth
fruitful by means of their ambrosial excrements; these excrements being
also luminous, both those of the moon and those of the aurora are
considered as purifiers. The ashes of these cows which their friend the
heroine preserves are not ashes, but golden powder or golden flour (the
golden cake again occurs in that flour or powder of gold which the witch
demands from the hero in Russian stories) which, mixed with excrement,
brings good fortune to the cunning robber-hero.
“The ashes of the sacrificed, pregnant cow (i. e., the cow which dies
after having given birth to a calf) were religiously preserved by the
Romans in the Temple of Vesta with bean-stalks, which are used to fatten
the earth sown with corn, as a means of expiation. Ovid mentions this
rite. (Fasti, iv. 721.) The ashes of a cow are preserved both as a symbol
of resurrection and as a means of purification.”—(“Zoöl. Mythol.,” De
Gubernatis, vol. i. pp. 275-277.)
The learned author overlooks in his argument that cows were sacrificed
and worshipped in India before they were transferred to the Zodiac and to
the symbolism of the elements.[35]
“Religion, at its base, is the product of imagination working on early
man’s wants and fears, and is in no sense supernatural or the result of
any preconceived and deliberate thought or desire to work out a system
of morals. It arose in each case from what appeared to be the pressing
needs of the day or season on the man or his tribe. The codification
and expansion of faiths would then be merely the slow outcome of the
cogitations and teachings of reflective minds, working usually with a
refining tendency on the aforesaid primitive Nature-worship, and in
elucidation of its ideas, symbolism, and legends. Early rude worshippers
could not grasp abstractions, nor follow sermons even if they had
been preached, and certainly not recondite theories on what the West
designates ‘Solar,’ and other theories.”—(“Rivers of Life,” Forlong, vol.
i. p. 36.)
“In the Shapast la Shayast (Sacred Books of the East, vol. v. part I.)
much stress is laid on bull’s urine as a purifier.”—(Personal letter from
Professor R. A. Oakes, Watertown, New York, April 20, 1888.)
“During the last few years we have been treated to a great deal of
foolish gush about the beauty and nobility of Eastern religions. I don’t
deny that there are many commendable features about them, and that they
often get near to the heart of true religion, as we understand it. But in
their practical results they cannot be compared with Christianity. Take a
concrete instance:—
“The Rev. T. W. Jex-Blake has this to say about Benares, with its three
thousand Hindu temples: ‘Step into the city,’ he says; ‘one temple
swarms with fœtid apes; another is stercorous with cows. The stench in
the passages leading to the temples is frightful; the filth beneath your
feet is such that the keenest traveller would hardly care to face it
twice. Everywhere, in the temples, in the little shrines in the street,
the emblem of the Creator is phallic. Round one most picturesque temple,
built apparently long since British occupation began, probably since the
battle of Waterloo, runs an external frieze, about ten feet from the
ground, too gross for the pen to describe,—scenes of vice, natural and
unnatural, visible to all the world all day long, worse than anything in
the Lupanar in Pompeii. Nothing that I saw in India roused me more to a
sense of the need of religious renovation by the Gospel of Christ than
what met the eye openly, right and left, at Benares.” (“Tribune,” New
York, Nov. 11, 1888.)
“Forty years ago, during a stay of three months in Bombay, I saw
frequently cows wandering in the streets, and Hindu devotees bowing, and
lifting up the tails of the cows, rubbing the wombs of the aforesaid
with the right hand, and afterwards rubbing their own faces with
it.”—(Personal letter from Captain Henri Jouan, French Navy, dated
Cherbourg, France, July 29, 1888.)
Almost identical information was communicated by General J. J. Dana, U.
S. Army, who, in the neighborhood of Calcutta, over forty years ago, had
seen Hindu devotees besmeared from head to foot with human excrement.
Among the superstitious practices of the Greeks, Plutarch mentions
“rolling themselves in dung-hills.” (“Morals,” Goodwin’s trans., Boston,
1870, vol. i. p. 171, art. “Superstitions.”) Plutarch also mentions “foul
expiations,” “vile methods of purgation,” “bemirings at the temple,” and
speaks of “penitents wrapped up in foul and nasty rags,” or “rolling
naked in the mire,” “vile and abject adorations,”—(pp. 171-180.)
This veneration for the excrement of the cow is to be found among
other races. The Hottentots “besmear their bodies with fat and other
greasy substances over which they rub cow-dung, fat and similar
substances.”—(Thurnberg’s “Account of the Cape of Good Hope,” in
Pinkerton, vol. xvi. pp. 25, 73, 139.)
“Every idea and thought of the Dinka is how to acquire and maintain
cattle; a certain kind of reverence would seem to be paid them; even
their offal is considered of high importance. The dung, which is burnt
to ashes for sleeping in and for smearing their persons, and the urine,
which is used for washing and as a substitute for salt, are their daily
requisites.”—(Schweinfurth, “Heart of Africa,” vol. i. p. 58.)
In the religious ceremonies of the Calmuck Lamas, “Les pauvres jettent
au commencement de l’office, qui dure toute la journée, un peu d’encens
sur de la bouse de vache allumée et portée par un petit trépied de
fer.”—(“Voy. de Pallas,” vol. i. p. 563.)
XVIII.
ORDURE ALLEGED TO HAVE BEEN USED IN FOOD BY THE ISRAELITES.
Among the Banians of India, proselytes are obliged by the Brahmans to eat
cow-dung for six months. They begin with one pound daily, and diminish
from day to day. A subtle commentator, says Picart, might institute a
comparison between the nourishment of these fanatics and the dung of cows
which the Lord ordered the prophet Ezekiel to mingle with his food.[36]
This was the opinion held by Voltaire on this subject. Speaking of the
prophet Ezekiel, he said: “He is to eat bread of barley, wheat, beans,
lentils, and millet, and to cover it with human excrement.”[37] It is
thus, he says, that the “children of Israel shall eat their bread defiled
among the nations among which they shall be banished.” But “after having
eaten this bread of affliction, God permits him to cover it with the
excrement of cattle simply.”
The view entertained by some biblical commentators is that the excrement
was used for baking the bread; but if this be true, why should human
fæces be used for such a purpose? (Consult Lange’s Commentaries, article
“Ezekiel,” and McClintock and Strong’s Cyclopædia, article “Dung.”)
“For mere filth, what can be fouler than 2 Kings xviii. 27, Isaiah xxxvi.
12, and Ezekiel iv. 12-15 (where the Lord changes human ordure into ‘cow
chips’)? ‘Ce qui excuse Dieu,’ said Henri Bayle, ‘ce qu’il n’existe pas.’
I add, as man has made him.”—(Richard F. Burton, “Terminal Essay” to his
edition of the “Arabian Nights,” vol. x. p. 181, foot-note, London, 1886.)
Bayle does not allude to the baking of bread with ordure in his brief
article upon the prophet Ezekiel; neither does Prof. J. Stuart Blaikie
in his more comprehensive dissertation in the Encyclopædia Britannica,
article “Ezekiel.”
“The use of dung by the ancient Israelites is collected incidentally from
the passage in which the prophet Ezekiel, being commanded, as a symbolic
action, to bake his bread with dung, excuses himself from the use of an
unclean thing, and is permitted to employ cow’s dung instead.”—(Strong
and McClintock’s “Cyclopædia of Biblical and Classical Literature,” New
York, 1868, vol. ii. article “Dung.”)
“I fear that Voltaire cannot be taken as an authority on Hebrew matters.
I believe that the passage from Ezekiel is correctly rendered in
the revised edition, where at verse 15 ‘thereon’ is substituted for
‘therewith’ of the old version. The use of dried cow’s-dung as fuel is
common among the poorer classes in the East; and in a siege, fuel, always
scarce, would be so scarce that a man’s dung might have to be used. I do
not think that one need look further for the explanation of verses 15-17;
the words of verse 15 are not ambiguous, and that used for dung is the
same as the Arabs still apply to the dried cakes of cow’s dung used for
fuel. Voltaire and Picart both seem to have used the Vulgate, in which
verse 12 is wrongly rendered.”—(Personal letter from Prof. W. Robertson
Smith, Cambridge, England.)
“Les nombreux exemples qui précèdent rendent moins intéressante la
question de savoir an Ezéchias stercus comederit; ce ne serait qu’un
mangeur de plus. Pourtant on peut voir dans la Bible le verset 12 du
chap. iv. de ce prophète: ‘et quasi sub cinericium hordaceum comedes
illud et stercore quod egreditur de homine operies illud in oculis
eorum;’ et les diverses interprétations données par les différents
traducteurs et commentateurs.”—(Bibliotheca Scatalogica, pp. 93-96.)
Schurig consacre un paragraphe à discuter an Ezechias stercus
comederit.—(Idem, p. 39.)
Just exactly what Schurig thought on this subject may be stated in his
own words. Although not positive, he inclines to the opinion that Ezekiel
did eat excrement:—
“Denique, mandato divino, Propheta Ezechiel, cap. iv. ver. 12, placentam
hordeaceam cum stercore humano parasse atque comedisse primo intuitu
videtur, juxta versionem Lutheri.... Juxta Junium et Tremellium allegata
verba sic sonant: Comedes cibum ut placentam hordeaceam, et ad orbes
excrementi humani parabis placentam istam in oculis illorum. Juxta
Sebastianum Schmidium: Sicut placentam hordeorum comedes eum; quod ad
ipsum tamen, cum stercore fimi hominis facies in oculis eorum. Bene etiam
hunc locum explicat Textus Gallicus meæ editionis: Tu mangeras de fouaces
d’orge, et les cuiras avec la fiente qui sort hors de l’homme eux le
voyans.”—(“Chylologia,” Dresden, 1725, pp. 782, 783.)
“Ezekiel says that his God told him to lie for three hundred and ninety
days on his left side, and then forty days on his right side, when ‘he
would lay hands on him and turn him from one side to another;’ also that
during all this period he was only to eat barley bread baked in too
disgusting a manner to be described.”—(“Rivers of Life,” Forlong, vol.
ii. p. 597.)
“This last command was, however, so strongly resented that his Deity
somewhat relaxed it.”—(Idem.)
The most rational explanation of this much-disputed and ambiguous passage
must necessarily be such as can be deduced from a consideration of
Ezekiel’s environment.
Giving due weight to every doubt, there remains this feature: the prophet
unquestionably was influenced and actuated by the ideas of his day and
generation, which looked upon the humiliations to which he subjected
himself as the outward manifestations of an inward spirituality.
Psychologically speaking, there is no great difference between the
consumption of human excrement and the act of lying on one’s side for
three hundred and ninety days; both are indications of the same perverted
cerebration, mistaken with such frequency for piety and holiness.
“Isaiah had periods of indecent maniacal outbursts; for we are told that
he once went about stark naked for three years, because so commanded by
the Lord.”—(“Rivers of Life,” vol. ii. p. 537, quoting Isaiah xx. 2, 3.)
THE SACRED COW’S EXCRETA A SUBSTITUTE FOR HUMAN SACRIFICE.
The foregoing testimony, which could readily be swelled in volume,
proves the sacred character of these excreta, which may be looked upon
as substitutes for a more perfect sacrifice. In the early life of the
Hindus it is more than likely that the cow or the heifer was slaughtered
by the knife or burnt; as population increased in density, domestic
cattle became too costly to be offered as a frequent oblation, and on the
principle that the part represents the whole, hair, milk, butter, urine,
and ordure superseded the slain carcass, while the incinerated excrement
was made to do duty as a burnt sacrifice.[38]
It was hardly probable that such practices, or an explanation of the
causes which led to their adoption and perpetuation, should have escaped
the keen criticism of E. B. Tylor.
“For the means of some of his multifarious lustrations, the Hindu has
recourse to the sacred cow.... The Parsi religion prescribes a system of
lustration which well shows its common origin with that of Hinduism by
its similar use of cow’s urine and water.... Applications of _nirang_,
washed off with water, form part of the daily religious rites, as well
as of such special ceremonies as the naming of the new-born child, the
putting on of the sacred cord, the purification of the mother after
childbirth, and the purification of him who has touched a corpse.”—(E. B.
Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” London, 1871, vol. ii. pp. 396, 397.)
“It will help us to realize how the sacrifice of an animal may atone
for a human life, if we notice in South Africa how a Zulu will redeem a
lost child from the finder by a bullock, or a Kimbunda will expiate the
blood of a slave by the offering of an ox, whose blood will wash away
the other. For instances of the animal substituted for man in sacrifice,
the following may serve: Among the Khonds of Orissa, where Colonel
MacPherson was engaged in putting down the sacrifice of human victims by
the sect of the Earth-goddess, they at once began to discuss the plan
of sacrificing cattle by way of substitutes. Now, there is some reason
to think that this same course of ceremonial change may account for the
following sacrificial practice in the other Khond sect. It appears that
those who worship the Light-god hold a festival in his honor, when they
slaughter a buffalo in commemoration of the time when, as they say,
the Earth-goddess was prevailing on men to offer human sacrifices to
her, but the Light-god sent a tribe-deity who crushed the bloody-minded
Earth-goddess under a mountain and dragged a buffalo out of the jungle,
saying, ‘Liberate the man, and sacrifice the buffalo.’ It looks as though
this legend, divested of its mythic garb, may really record a historical
substitution of animal for human sacrifice. In Ceylon, the exorcist will
demand the name of the demon possessing a demoniac, and the patient in
frenzy answers, giving the demon’s name, ‘I am So-and-so; I demand a
human sacrifice, and I will not go without.’ The victim is promised,
the patient comes to from the fit, and a few weeks later the sacrifice
is made; but instead of a man they offer a fowl. Classic examples of a
substitution of this sort may be found in the sacrifice of a doe for a
virgin to Artemis in Laodicæa, a goat for a boy to Dionysos at Potniæ.
“There appears to be a Semitic connection here, as there clearly is in
the story of the Æolians of Tenedos sacrificing to Melikertes (Melkarth)
instead of a new-born child a new-born calf, shoeing it with buskins and
tending the mother cow as if a human mother.”—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 366; or
in New York edition, 1879, vol. ii. pp. 403, 404.)
“O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! which is the urine
wherewith the corpse-bearers shall wash their hair and their bodies? Is
it of sheep or of oxen? Is it of man or of woman?
“Ahura Mazda answered: It is of sheep or of oxen, not of man nor of
woman, except these two, the nearest kinsman (of the dead) or his
nearest kinswoman. The worshippers of Mazda shall therefore procure
the urine wherewith the corpse-bearers shall wash their hair and their
bodies.”—(Fargard vii., Avendidad, Zendavesta, Oxford, 1890, p. 96.)
“A prince may sacrifice his enemy, having first invoked the axe with holy
texts, by substituting a buffalo or goat, calling the victim by the name
of the enemy throughout the whole ceremony.”—(“The Sanguinary Chapter,”
translated from the “Calica Purana,” in vol. 5, “Transactions Asiatic
Society,” 4th edition, London, 1807, p. 386.)
“An interesting chapter of the Aitareya-brahmanam, on the sacrifice of
animals, shows us how, next to man, the horse was the supreme sacrifice
offered to the gods; how the cow afterwards took the place of the horse,
the sheep of the cow, the goat of the sheep; and at last vegetable
products were substituted for animals,—a substitution or cheating of
the gods in the sacrifice, which perhaps explains even more the fraud
of which, in popular stories, the simpleton is always the victim; the
simpleton hero being the god himself, and the cheater man, who changes,
under a sacred pretext, the noblest and most valued animals for common
and less valued ones, and finally for vegetables apparently of no value
whatever. In Hindu codes of law we have the same fraudulent substitution
of animals under a legal pretext. ‘The killer of a cow,’ says the code
attributed to Yagnavalkyas, ‘must stay a month in penitence, drinking
the panchakaryam’ (that is, the five good productions of the cow, which,
according to Manus, are milk, curds, butter, urine, and dung), sleeping
in a stable, and following the cows.’”—(“Zoöl. Mythol.,” De Gubernatis,
vol. i. pp. 44, 45.)
“The sacred books of the Hindus contain the most formal and detailed
instructions about human sacrifices, and on what occasions and with what
ceremonies they are to be offered; sometimes on an enormous scale,—as
many as one hundred and fifty human victims at one sacrifice.”—(Ragozin,
“Assyria,” New York, 1887, pp. 127-128.)
Continuing, Ragozin says: “When bloody sacrifices, even of animals, were
in great part abolished, and offerings of cakes of rice and wheat were
substituted, the humane change was authorized by a parable which told how
the sacrificial virtue had left the highest and most valuable victim,
man, and descended into the horse, from the horse into the steer, from
the steer into the goat, from the goat into the sheep, and from that at
last passed into the earth, where it was found abiding in the grains of
rice and wheat laid in it for seed.
“This was an ingenious way of intimating that henceforth harmless
offerings of rice and wheat cakes would be as acceptable to the deity as
the living victims, human and animal, formerly were.”—(Idem, p. 128.)
As the animal victim became more and more valuable, we have seen that its
excreta were offered in its place.
The Celtic stock, it is now generally admitted, represents a very early
migration from India. Exactly when this migration began and was completed
we have no means of determining; but we may safely say, judging from the
prominence in Celtic folk-lore of the chicken-dung, that it did not occur
until the cultus of India was beginning to cast about for some suitable
substitute for human sacrifice.[39]
Inman takes the ground that the very same substitution occurred among
the Hebrews. Commenting upon 1 Kings xix. 18, he says: “In the Vulgate
the passage is thus rendered: ‘They say to these, Sacrifice the men who
adore the calves;’ while the Septuagint renders the words, ‘Sacrifice
men, for the calves have come to an end,’ indicating a reversion to human
sacrifice.”—(Inman, “Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names,” London,
1878, article “Hosea.”)
“He that killeth an ox as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb as
if he cut off a dog’s neck; he that offereth an oblation as if he offered
swine’s blood; he that burneth incense as if he blessed an idol.”—(Isaiah
lxvi. 3. Reference given to the above by Prof. W. Robertson Smith.)
“In the earliest period the horse seems to have been the favorite animal
for sacrifice.”—(“Teutonic Mythology,” Jacob Grimm, vol. i. p. 47.)
“The Brahmans show how, in Hindostan, the lower animals became vicarious
substitutes for man in sacrifice.”—(“Myth, Ritual, and Religion,” Andrew
Lang, vol. ii. p. 40, footnote.)
If the cow have displaced a human victim, may it not be within the
limits of probability that the ordure and urine of the sacred bovine
are substitutes, not only for the complete carcass, but that they
symbolize a former use of human excreta?[40] The existence of ur-orgies
has been indicated in Siberia, where the religion partakes of many of
the characteristics of Buddhism.[41] The minatory phraseology of the
Brahminical inhibition of the use of the fungi which enter into these
orgies has been given _verbatim_; so that, even did no better evidence
exist, enough has been presented to open up a wide range of discussion
as to the former area of distribution of loathsome and disgusting
ceremonials, which are now happily restricted to small and constantly
diminishing zones.
HUMAN ORDURE AND URINE STILL USED IN INDIA.
It is well to remember, however, that in India the more generally
recognized efficacy of cow urine and cow dung has not blinded the
fanatical devotee to the necessity of occasionally having recourse to the
human product.
“At about ten leagues to the southward of Seringapatam there is a village
called Nan-ja-na-gud, in which there is a temple famous all over the
Mysore. Amongst the number of votaries of every caste who resort to it,
a great proportion consists of barren women, who bring offerings to the
god of the place, and pray for the gift of fruitfulness in return. But
the object is not to be accomplished by the offerings and prayers alone,
the disgusting part of the ceremony being still to follow. On retiring
from the temple, the woman and her husband repair to the common sewer to
which all the pilgrims resort in obedience to the calls of nature. There
the husband and wife collect, with their hands, a quantity of the ordure,
which they set apart, with a mark upon it, that it may not be touched by
any one else; and with their fingers in this condition, they take the
water of the sewer in the hollow of their hands and drink it. Then they
perform ablution and retire. In two or three days they return to the
place of filth to visit the mass of ordure which they left. They turn it
over with their hands, break it, and examine it in every possible way;
and, if they find that any insects or vermin are engendered in it, they
consider it a favorable prognostic for the woman.”—(Abbé Dubois, “People
of India,” London, 1817, p. 411.)[42]
XIX.
EXCREMENT GODS OF ROMANS AND EGYPTIANS.
The Romans and Egyptians went farther than this; they had gods of
excrement, whose special function was the care of latrines and those who
frequented them. Torquemada, a Spanish author of high repute, expresses
this in very plain language:—
“I assert that they used _to adore_ (as St. Clement writes to St. James
the Less) stinking and filthy privies and water-closets; and, what is
viler and yet more abominable, and an occasion for our tears and not to
be borne with or so much as mentioned by name, they adored the noise and
wind of the stomach when it expels from itself any cold or flatulence;
and other things of the same kind, which, according to the same saint, it
would be a shame to name or describe.”[43]
In the preceding lines Torquemada refers to the Egyptians only, but, as
will be seen by examining the Spanish notes below, his language is almost
the same when speaking of the Romans.[44] The Roman goddess was called
Cloacina. She was one of the first of the Roman deities, and is believed
to have been named by Romulus himself. Under her charge were the various
cloacæ, sewers, privies, etc., of the Eternal City.[45]
“Les anciens avaient fait plusieurs divinités du Stercus; 1. Stercus
ou Sterces, père de Picus, inventeur de la méthode de fumer les terres
(S. August. De Civ. Dei, lib. xviii. cap. 15). 2. Sterculius (Macrob.,
Saturn., lib. i. cap. 7); 3. Stercutius (Lactant. de fal. reb.),
Stercutus, Sterquilinus, Sterquiline, divinités qui présidaient aux
engrais. Quelques personnes croient que c’était un surnom de Saturne
comme inventeur de l’agriculture; d’autres y reconnaissent la terre
elle-même. Pline dit que ce dieu était fils du dieu Faune et petit-fils
de Picus, roi des Latins.—(Pline, lib. xvii. cap. 9, num. 40; Persius,
sat. i. ver. 3.)
“On honore aussi Faunus avec les deux derniers surnoms.”—(Pline, loc.
cit. Bib. Scat.)
“Consultez sur cette déesse en l’honneur de laquelle on a frappé des
médailles, Lactant. Instit. lib. i. cap. 20, p. 11; St. Cyp. Van. d. id.
cap. 2, par. 6; Minutius Felix, Oct. cap. 25; Pline, Hist. Nat. lib.
xiv. cap. 29; Tite Live, 3, 48; Banier, Myth. tome i. 348; iv. 329,
338.”—(Bib. Scat. p. 43, footnote.)
As far as possible, the above citations were verified; the edition of St.
Augustine consulted was that of the Reverend Maurice Dods, Edinburgh,
1871.
“Tatius both discovered and worshipped Cloacina.”—(Minutius Felix,
“Octavius,” cap. xxv., edition of Edinburgh, 1869.)
“Colatina, alias Clocina, was goddess of the stools, the jakes, and the
privy, to whom, as to every of the rest, there was a peculiar temple
edified.”—(Reginald Scot, “Discovery of Witchcraft,”? lib. 16, cap. 22,
giving a list of the Roman gods.)
The following epigram is taken from Harington’s “Ajax,” p. xviii.:
“The Romans, ever counted superstitious,
Adored with high titles of divinity,
Dame Cloacina and the Lord Stercutius,—
Two persons, in their state, of great affinity.”
For further references to Cloacina, see p. 264.
“Stercus, Dieu particulier qui présidait à la garde-robe. Ce dernier nous
rappelle qu’à l’art. Scopetarius, num. 111, nous avons dit quelques mots
de Cloacine, déesse des égouts.
“On trouve encore dans Arnobe un dieu Latrinus duquel il dit: ‘Quis
Latrinus præsidem latrinis?’”—(Adv. Gent. lib. 4.)
“Horace et tous les poëtes du temps d’Auguste, parlent de Stercus et
ses circonstances et dépendances en cent endroits de leurs ouvrages.
Martial, Catulle, Pétrone, Macrobe, Lucrèce, en saupoudrent leurs
poésies; Homère, Pline, Lampride en parlent à ciel et à cœurs couverts;
Saint Jérome et Saint Augustin ne dédaignent pas d’en entretenir leurs
lecteurs.”—(Bibliotheca Scatalogica, pp. 1, 2.)
“Dans Plautus, Aristophane fait dire par Carion que le dieu Esculape
aime et mange la merde: il est merdivore, comme écrit le traducteur
latin; Prave dieu, comme Sganarelle, qui a dit ce mot sacramentel et
profond,—‘La matière est-elle louable?’ Il trouve dans les excréments
le secret des souffrances humaines. Son trépied prophétique et médical,
c’est une chaise percée.—(Idem, p. 66.)
“Sterculius. (Myth.) surnom donné à Saturne, parcequ’il fut le
premier qui apprit aux hommes à fumer les terres pour les rendre
fertiles.”—(“Encyc. Raisonnée des Sciences,” etc., Neufchatel, 1765, tome
quinzième, art. “Sterculius.”)
The Romans “had a god of ordure named Stercutius; one for
other conveniences, Crepitus; a goddess for the common sewers,
Cloacina.”—(Banier, “Mythology,” vol. i. p. 199.)
“Sterculius was one of the surnames given to Saturn because he was the
first that had laid dung upon lands to make them fertile.”—(Idem, vol.
ii. p. 540.)
THE ASSYRIAN VENUS HAD OFFERINGS OF DUNG PLACED UPON HER ALTARS.
Another authority states that “the zealous adorers of Siva rub the
forehead, breast, and shoulders with ashes of cow-dung,” and, further,
he adds: “It is very remarkable that the Assyrian Venus, according to
Lucian, had also offerings of dung placed upon her altars.”—(Maurice,
“Indian Antiquities,” London, 1800, vol. i. pp. 172, 173.)[46]
THE MEXICAN GODDESS SUCHIQUECAL EATS ORDURE.
The Mexicans had a goddess, of whom we read the following:—Father
Fabreya says, in his commentary on the Codex Borgianus, that the mother
of the human race is there represented in a state of humiliation,
eating _cuitlatl_ (_kopros_, Greek). The vessel in the left hand of
Suchiquecal contains “_mierda_,” according to the interpreter of these
paintings.—(See note to p. 120, Kingsborough’s “Mexican Antiquities,”
vol. iv.)
The Spanish _mierda_, like the Greek _kopros_, means _ordure_.
Besides Suchiquecal, the mother of the gods, who has been represented
as eating excrement in token of humiliation, the Mexicans had other
deities whose functions were more or less clearly complicated with
alvine dejections. The most prominent of these was Ixcuina called, also,
Tlaçolteotl, of whom Brasseur de Bourbourg speaks in these terms: The
goddess of ordure, or Tlaçolquani, the _eater of ordure_, because she
presided over loves and carnal pleasures.[47]
Mendieta mentions her as masculine, and in these terms: The god of vices
and dirtinesses, whom they called Tlazulteotl.[48]
Bancroft speaks of “the Mexican goddess of carnal love, called
Tlazoltecotl, Ixcuina, Tlacloquani,” etc., and says that she “had in
her service a crowd of dwarfs, buffoons, and hunchbacks, who diverted
her with their songs and dances and acted as messengers to such gods
as she took a fancy to. The last name of this goddess means “eater of
filthy things,” referring, it is said, to her function of hearing and
pardoning the confessions of men and women guilty of unclean and carnal
crimes.—(Bancroft, H. H. “Native Races of the Pacific Slope,” vol. iii.
p. 380.)
In the manuscript explaining the Codex Telleriano, given in
Kingsborough’s “Mexican Antiquities,” vol. v. p. 131, occurs the name
of the goddess Ochpaniztli, whose feast fell on the 12th of September
of our calendar. She was described as “the one who sinned by eating the
fruit of the tree.” The Spanish monks styled her, as well as another
goddess, Tlaçolteotl,—“La diosa de basura ó pecado.” But “basura” is
not the alternative of sin (pecado); it means “dung, manure, ordure,
excrement.”[49] It is possible that, in their zeal to discover analogies
between the Aztec and Christian religions, the early missionaries passed
over a number of points now left to conjecture.
In the same volume of Kingsborough, p. 136, there is an allusion to the
offerings or sacrifices made Tepeololtec, “que, en romance, quiere decir
sacrificios de mierda,” which, “in plain language, signifies sacrifices
of excrement.” Nothing further can be adduced upon the subject, although
a note at the foot of this page, in Kingsborough, says that here several
pages of the Codex Talleriano had been obliterated or mutilated, probably
by some over-zealous expurgator.
Deities, created in the ignorance or superstitious fears of devotees,
are essentially man-like in their attributes; where they are depicted
as cruel and sanguinary toward their enemies, the nation adoring them,
no matter how pacific to-day, was once cruel and sanguinary likewise.
Anthropophagous gods are worshipped only by the descendants of
cannibals, and excrement-eaters only by the progeny of those who were not
unacquainted with human ordure as an article of food.
ISRAELITISH DUNG GODS.
Dulaure quotes from a number of authorities to show that the Israelites
and Moabites had the same ridiculous and disgusting ceremonial in their
worship of Bel-phegor. The devotee presented his naked posterior before
the altar and relieved his entrails, making an offering to the idol of
the foul emanations.[50] Dung gods are also mentioned as having been
known to the chosen people during the time of their idolatry.[51]
Mr. John Frazer, LL.D., describing the ceremony of initiation, known
to the Australians as the “Bora,” and which he defines to be “certain
ceremonies of initiation through which a youth passes when he reaches
the age of puberty to qualify him for a place among the men of the
tribe and for the privileges of manhood. By these ceremonies he is made
acquainted with his father’s gods, the mythical lore of the tribe
and the duties required of him as a man.... The whole is under the
tutelage of a high spirit called ‘Dharamoolun.’ ... But, present at
these ceremonies, although having no share in them, is an evil spirit
called ‘Gunungdhukhya,’ ‘eater of excrement,’ whom the blacks greatly
dread.” Compare this word “Gunungdhukhya,” with the Sanskrit root-word
“Gu,” “excrement;” “Dhuk” is the Australian “to eat.”—(Personal letter
from John Frazer, Esq., LL.D., dated Sydney, New South Wales, Dec.
24, 1889. Continuing his remarks upon the subject of the evil spirit
“Gunungdhukhya,” he says: “This being is certainly supposed to eat
ordure; and such is the meaning of his name.”)
King James gravely informs us that “Witches ofttimes confesse that in
their worship of the Devil.... Their form of adoration to be the kissing
of his hinder parts.”—(“Dæmonologie,” London, 1616, p. 113.) This book
appeared with a commendatory preface from Hinton, one of the bishops of
the English Church.
“Witches paid homage to the devil who was present, usually in the form of
a goat, dog, or ape. To him they offered themselves, body and soul, and
kissed him under the tail, holding a lighted candle.”—(“History of the
Inquisition,” Henry C. Lea, New York, 1888, vol. iii., p. 500.)
Knowing of the existence of “dung gods” among Romans, Egyptians, Hebrews,
and Moabites, it is not unreasonable to insist, in the present case, upon
a rigid adherence to the text, and to assert that, where it speaks of a
sacrifice as a sacrifice of excrement and designates a deity as an eater
of excrement, it means what it says, and should not be distorted, under
the plea of symbolism, into a perversion of facts and ideas.
Some writers made out the name of the god “Belzebul” to be identical
with “Beelzebub,” and to mean “Lord of Dung,” but this interpretation is
disputed by Schaff-Herzog.—(“Encyclopædia of Religious Knowledge,” New
York, article “Beelzebub.”)
XX.
LATRINES.
The mention of the Roman goddess Cloacina suggests an inquiry into the
general history of latrines and urinals. Their introduction cannot
be ascribed to purely hygienic considerations, since many nations of
comparatively high development have managed to get along without them;
while, on the other hand, tribes in low stages of culture have resorted
to them.
In the chapter treating upon witchcraft and incantation enough testimony
has been accumulated to convince the most sceptical that the belief was
once widely diffused of the power possessed by sorcerers, _et id omne
genus_, over the unfortunate wretches whose excreta, solid or liquid,
fell into their hands; terror may, therefore, have been the impelling
motive for scattering, secreting, or preserving in suitable receptacles
the alvine dejections of a community. Afterwards, as experience taught
men that in these egestæ were valuable fertilizers for the fields and
vineyards, or fluids for bleaching and tanning, the political authorities
made their preservation a matter of legal obligation.
The Trojans defecated in the full light of day, if we can credit the
statement made to that effect in the “Bibliotheca Scatalogica,” p. 8, in
which it is shown that a French author (name not given) wrote a facetious
but erudite treatise upon this subject.
Captain Cook tells us that the New Zealanders had privies to every three
or four of their houses; he also takes occasion to say that there were
no privies in Madrid until 1760; that the determination of the king
to introduce them and sewers, and to prohibit the throwing of human
ordure out of windows after nightfall, as had been the custom, nearly
precipitated a revolution.—(See in Hawkesworth’s “Voyages,” London, 1773,
vol. ii. p. 314.)
“These were more cleanly than most savages about excrements. Every house
had a concealed (if possible) privy near, and in large ‘Pas’ a pole was
run out over the cliff to sit on sailor-fashion.”—(“The Maoris of New
Zealand,” E. Tregear, in “Journal of the Anthropological Institute,”
London, November, 1889.)
Marquesas Islands. “They are peculiarly cleanly in regard to the egestæ.
At the Society Islands the wanderer’s eyes and nose are offended every
morning in the midst of a path with the natural effects of a sound
digestion; but the natives of the Marquesas are accustomed, after
the manner of our cats, to bury the offensive objects in the earth.
At Taheite, indeed, they depend on the friendly assistance of rats,
who greedily devour these odoriferous dainties; nay, they seem to be
convinced that their custom is the most proper in the world; for their
witty countryman, Tupaya, found fault with our want of delicacy when he
saw a small building appropriated to the rites of Cloacina, in every
house at Batavia.”—(Forster, “Voyage round the World,” London, 1777, vol.
ii. p. 28.)
Forster speaks of the traffic between the English sailors and the women
of Tahiti, in which the latter parted with their personal favors in
return for red feathers and fresh pork; in consequence of a too free
indulgence in this heavy food, the ladies suffered from indigestion.
“The goodness of their appetites and digestion, exposed them, however,
to inconveniences of restlessness, and often disturbed those who wished
to sleep after the fatigues of the day. On certain urgent occasions
they always required the attendance of their lovers; but, as they were
frequently refused, the decks were made to resemble the paths in the
islands.”—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 83.)
In ancient Rome there were public latrines, but no privies attached to
houses. There were basins and tubs, which were emptied daily by servants
detailed for the purpose. No closet-paper was in use, as may be imagined,
none having yet been invented or introduced in Europe, but in each public
latrine, there was a bucket filled with salt water, and a stick having a
sponge tied to one end, with which the passer-by cleansed his person, and
then replaced the stick in the tub.[52] Seneca, in his Epistle No. 70,
describes the suicide of a German slave who rammed one of these sticks
down his throat.
The warning “Commit no nuisance,” or in French “Il est défendu de faire
ici des ordures,” is traceable back to the time of the Romans, who
devoted to the wrath of the twelve great gods, “and of Jupiter and Diana
as well, all who did any indecency in the neighborhood of the temples or
monuments.” “On nous saura gré de rapporter ici une inscription qui se
lisait autrefois sur les thermes de Titus; ‘Duodecim Dios et Dianam et
Jovem Optimum Maximum habeat iratos quisquis hic minxerit aut cacarit.’”
In Genoa, excommunication was threatened against all who infringed upon
this same prohibition.
Privies were ordered for each house in Paris in 1513, whence we may
infer that some house-builders had previously of their own impulse added
such conveniences; as early as 1372, and again in 1395, there were royal
ordinances forbidding the throwing of ordures out of the windows in
Paris, which gives us the right to conclude that the custom must have
been general and offensive; the same dispositions were taken for the city
of Bordeaux in 1585.
Obscene poetry was known in latrines in Rome as in our own day, and some
of the compositions have come down to us.—(See “Bibliotheca Scatalogica,”
pp. 13-17.)
The Romans protected their walls “against such as commit nuisances ...
by consecrating the walls so exposed with the picture of a deity or some
other hallowed emblem, and by denouncing the wrath of heaven against
those who should be impious enough to pollute what it was their duty to
reverence. The figure of a snake, it appears, was sometimes employed for
this purpose.... The snake, it is well known, was reckoned among the gods
of the heathens.”—(“Vestiges of Ancient Manners and Customs,” Rev. John
James Blunt, London, 1823, p. 43.)
Herodotus informs his readers that the Egyptians “ease themselves in
their houses, but eat out of doors, alleging that whatever is indecent,
though necessary, ought to be done in private, but what is not indecent
openly.”—(“Euterpe,” p. 35.)
Herodotus also speaks of the Egyptian king Amasis having made an idol
out of a gold foot-pan, “in which the Egyptians formerly vomited,
made water, and washed their feet” (“Euterpe”). Minutius Felix, in his
“Octavius,” refers to this, and takes umbrage that heathen idols made of
such foul materials should be adored (see his chapter xxv.).
Tournefort mentions latrines in Marseilles. “They make advantage of the
very excrements of the Gally-Slaves by placing at one end of the Gallies
proper vessels for receiving a manure so necessary to the country.”—(“A
Voyage to the Levant,” edition of London, 1718, vol. i. pp. 13-14.)
There must have been latrines in Scotland, because James I. of that
kingdom was killed in one in the Monastery of the Black Friars, in Perth,
in A.D. 1437; yet for many years later pedestrians in the streets of
Edinburgh, after night-fall, took their own risks of the filthy deluge
which house-maids were wont to pour down from the windows of the lofty
houses.
“As in modern Edinburgh so in ancient Rome, night was the time observed
by the careful housekeeper for throwing her slops from the upper windows
into the open drain that ran through the street beneath.”—(Footnote to
page 146 of Edward Walford’s (M.A. of Baliol, Oxford) ed. of Juvenal, in
“Ancient Classics for English Readers,” Philadelphia, 1872, quoting from
Juvenal the line, “Clattering the storm descends from heights unknown,”
Satire III., line 274.)
“’Tis want of sense to sup abroad too late
Unless thou first hast settled thy estate;
As many fates attend thy steps to meet
As there are waking windows in the street:
Bless the good gods and think thy chance is rare
To have a piss-pot only for thy share.”
(Dryden’s translation of the Third Satire of Juvenal.)
“And behold, there is nurra goaks in the whole kingdom (Scotland), nor
anything for pore servants, but a barrel with a pair of tongs thrown
across, and all the chairs of the family are emptied into this here
barrel once a day; and at ten o’clock at night the whole cargo is
flung out of a back windere that looks into some street or lane, and
the maid calls, ‘Gardy loo!’ to the passengers, which signifies, ‘Lord
have mercy upon you!’ and this is done every night in every house in
Hadinborough.”—(“Humphrey Clinker,” Tobias Smollett, edition of London,
1872, p. 542.)
The above seems to have been a French expression,—“Gare de l’eau.”
“The cry of all the South was that the public offices, the army,
the navy, were filled with high-cheeked Drummonds and Erskines and
McGillvrays.... All the old jokes on hills without trees, girls without
stockings, men eating the food of horses, pails emptied from the
fourteenth story, were pointed against these lucky adventurers.”—(T. B.
Macaulay, “The Earl of Chatham,” American edition, Appleton and Co., New
York, 1874, p. 720.)
The addition of privies to the homes of the gentry would appear to have
been an innovation in the time of Queen Elizabeth, else there would not
have been so much comment made upon the action of Sir John Harington,
her distant cousin, who erected one as a fitting convenience to his
new house, near Bath, and published a very Rabelaisian volume upon the
subject in London in 1596. The title of the book, being quite long,—“A
Discourse on a Stale Subject, called the Metamorphosis of Ajax,”—will
in subsequent citations be given simply as Harington’s “Ajax.” From the
description of the latrine in question there is no doubt that Harington
anticipated nearly all the mechanism of modern days.
Richard III. is represented as having been seated in a latrine, “sitting
on a draught,” when he was “devising with Terril how to have his nephews
privily murdered.”—(Harington, “Ajax,” p. 46.)
There is little reason to doubt that all houses in England, and all
Continental Europe as well, were provided with receptacles for urine
in the bed-chambers, even if no regular latrines existed outside of
the monasteries and other community-houses. Dr. Robert Fletcher, U. S.
Army, who has contributed the following, is of the opinion that these
conveniences were provided for ladies only, and submits the following
passages in support of his conclusions:—
“Hamjo, in the ‘Wanderer,’ part 2, by Sir Thomas Killigrew, describing to
Senilia the probable manners of a rude husband, says that, on retiring
to bed, ‘the gyant stretches himself, yawns, and sighs a belch or two,
stales in your pot, farts as loud as a musket for a jest,’” etc.
In Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakspeare” is a curious print of a bishop
blessing a newly married pair in the bridal bed; on the lady’s side a
chamber-pot is ostentatiously displayed.
Douce quotes the following from a rare “Morality,” entitled, “Le
Condemnation des Banquets:” “Pause pour pisser le fol. Il prengt un
coffinet en lieu de orinal et pisse dedans et tout coule par bas.”
Hobbs, the Tanner of Tamworth, introduced by Heywood in his play of
“King Edward the Fourth,” the hero of the old ballad, furnished his
rooms with urinals suited to his trade. He says to his guests, the King
and Sellinger: “Come, take away, and let’s to bed. Ye shall have clean
sheets, Ned; but they be coarse, good strong hemp, of my daughter’s own
spinning. And I tell thee your chamber-pot must be a fair horn, a badge
of our occupation; for we buy no bending pewter nor breaking earth.”—(“1
King Edward the Fourth,” iii. 2, Heywood, 1600.)
Additional references of the same tenor are to be found in the
“Pilgrims,” Beaumont and Fletcher, ii. 1: “The Scourge of Villanie,”
Marston, 1599, satire 2; and in the following, which does not accord with
Dr. Fletcher’s opinion that such utensils were provided solely for the
female members of the household.
“_Host._ Hostlers, you knaves and commanders, take the horses of
the knights and competitors; your honorable hulks have put into
harbor; they’ll take in fresh water here, and I have provided clean
chamber-pots.”—(“The Merry Devil of Edmonton,” 1608.)
Such vessels were in use in Ireland, where they were called “omar-fuail,”
from _omar_, a vessel, and _fuail_, urine. They must have been employed
from the earliest centuries. “And they (the Sybarites) were the
first people who introduced the custom of bringing chamber-pots into
entertainments” (Athenaus, book xii. cap. 17).
It is not easy to detect any essential difference between the manners of
the people of Iceland, as described by Bleekmans on another page, and
those of the more polished Romans.
Bed-pans were used in France in the earliest days of the fifteenth
century. They are noted in “The Farce of Master Pathelin” (A.D.
1480).—(See “Le Moyen Age Médical,” Dupouy, Paris, 1888, p. 280 _et
seq._, and the translation of the same by Minor, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1890,
p. 82.)
“Maids need no more their silver pisse-pots scour,
...
Presumptuous pisse-pot, how did’st thou offend?
Compelling females on their hams to bend?
To kings and queens we humbly bend the knee,
But queens themselves are forced to stoop to thee.”
(“On Melting down the Plate, or the Piss-Pot’s Farewell,”
State Poems, vol. i. part 2, p. 215, A.D. 1697.)
“What need hath Nature of silver dishes or gold chamber-pots?”
(“The Staple of News,” Ben Jonson, iii. 2; London, 1628.)
“In the ‘Chronicle of London,’ written in the fifteenth century, a
curious anecdote is related, to the effect that in A.D. 1258-60, a Jew,
on Saturday, fell into a ‘privy’ at Tewksbury, but out of reverence for
his Sabbath, would not allow himself to be drawn out. The next day being
Sunday, the Earl of Gloucester would not let any one draw him out;”
and so, says the Chronicle, “the Jew died in the privy.”—(“A Chronicle
of London from 1089 to 1483,” London, 1827, p. 20, quoted by Buckle in
“Commonplace Book,” p. 507, in vol. ii. of his Works, London, 1872.)
“Heliogabalus’ body was thrown into a jakes, as writeth
Suetonius.”—(Harington’s “Ajax,” p. 46.)
Heliogabalus was killed in one (latrine); Arius, the great heresiarch,
and Pope Leo, his antagonist, had the same fate. Charles the Fifth,
Emperor of Germany and Spain, was born in one in the palace of Ghent, of
Jeanne of Aragon, in 1500; hence, they must have been introduced in the
localities named.—(See Biblioth. Scatal. p. 17.)
“Urinary reservoirs were erected in the streets of Rome, either for the
purpose of public cleanliness, or for the use of the fullers, who were
accustomed to purchase their contents of the Roman government during
the reign of Vespasian, and perhaps other emperors, at a certain annual
impost, and which, prior to the invention or general use of soap, was the
substance employed principally in their mills for cleansing cloths and
stuffs previous to their being dyed.”—(John Mason Good, translation of
Lucretius’ “De Natura Rerum,” London, 1805, vol. ii. p. 154, footnote.)
“Vases, called Gastra, for the relief of passengers, were placed by the
Romans upon the edges of roads and streets.”—(Fosbroke, “Encyc. of Ant.,”
London, vol. i. p. 526, article “Urine.”)
“Les Chinois semblent manquer d’engrais, car on trouve de tous côtés des
lieux d’aisance pour les besoins des voyageurs.”—(“Voyage à Pékin,” De
Guignes, Paris, 1808, vol. i. p. 284; and again, vol. iii. p. 322.)
“Large vases of stone-ware are sunk in the ground at convenient places
for the use of passing travellers.”—(“Chinese Repository,” Canton, 1835,
vol. iii. p. 134.)
“A traveller who lately returned from Pekin asserts that there is plenty
to smell in that city, but very little to see.... The houses are all very
low and mean, the streets are wholly unpaved, and are always very muddy
and very dusty, and as there are no sewers or cess-pools, the filthiness
of the town is indescribable.”—(“Chicago News,” copied in the “Press,”
Philadelphia, Penn., May 14, 1889.)
“By the Mahometan law, the body becomes unclean after each evacuation
... both greater and smaller ... requires an ablution, according to
circumstances.... If a drop of urine touches the clothes, they must
be washed.” For fear that their garments have been so defiled, “the
Bokhariots frequently repeat their prayers stark naked.” ... The matter
of cleaning the body after an evacuation of any kind is defined by
religious ritual. “The law commands ‘Istindjah’ (removal), ‘istinkah’
(ablution), and ‘istibra’ (drying,)”—i. e., a small clod of earth is
first used for the local cleansing, then water at least twice, and
finally a piece of linen a yard in length.... In Turkey, Arabia, and
Persia all are necessary, and pious men carry several clods of earth
for the purpose in their turbans. “These acts of purification are also
carried on quite publicly in the bazaars, from a desire to make a parade
of their consistent piety.” Vambéry saw “a teacher give to his pupils,
boys and girls, instruction in the handling of the clod of earth, and
so forth, by way of experiment.”—(“Sketches of Central Asia,” Arminius
Vambéry, London, 1868, pp. 190, 191.)
Moslems urinate sitting down on their heels; “for a spray of urine would
make hair and clothes ceremonially impure.... After urining, the Moslem
wipes the os penis with one to three bits of stone, clay, or a handful of
earth, and he must perform Wuzu before he can pray.” Tournefort (“Voyage
au Levant,” vol. iii. p. 355) tells a pleasant story about certain
Christians at Constantinople who powdered with poivre d’Inde the stones
in a wall where the Moslems were in the habit of rubbing the os penis
by way of wiping.—(Burton, “Arabian Nights,” vol. ii. p. 326. Again,
in footnote to p. 229, vol. iii., he says, “Scrupulous Moslems scratch
the ground in front of their feet with a stick, to prevent spraying and
consequent defilement.”)
Marco Polo, in speaking of the Brahmins, says, “They ease themselves in
the sands, and then disperse it, hither and thither, lest it should breed
worms, which might die for want of food.”—(“Travels,” in Pinkerton, vol.
vii. pp. 164, 165.)
Speaking of the Mahometans, Tournefort says, “When they make water,
they squat down like women, for fear some drops of urine should fall
into their breeches. To prevent this evil, they squeeze the part very
carefully, and rub the head of it against the wall; and one may see the
stones worn in several places by this custom. To make themselves sport,
the Christians smear the stones sometimes with Indian pepper and the root
called ‘Calf’s-Foot,’ or some other hot plants, which frequently causes
an inflammation in such as happen to use the Stone. As the pain is very
smart, the poor Turks commonly run for a cure to those very Christian
surgeons who were the authors of all the mischief. They never fail to
tell them it is a very dangerous case, and that they should be obliged,
perhaps, to make an amputation. The Turks, on the contrary, protest and
swear that they have had no communication with any sort of woman that
could be suspected. In short, they wrap up the suffering part in a Linen
dipped in Oxicrat tinctured with a little Bole-Armenic; and this they
sell them as a great specifick for this kind of Mischief.”—(Tournefort,
“A Voyage to the Levant,” London, 1718, vol. ii. p. 49.)
“Some of their doctors believe Circumcision was not taken from the Jews,
but only for the better observing the Precept of Cleanness, by which they
are forbidden to let any Urine fall upon their flesh. And it is certain
that some drops are always apt to hang upon the Præputium, especially
among the Arabians, with whom that skin is naturally much longer than in
other men.”—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 46.)
The Mahometans have “Two ablutions, the great and small.... The first
is of the whole body, but this is enjoined only to” those “who have let
some urine drop upon their flesh when they have made water.” This he
enumerates among “The Three great Defilements of the Mussulmans.”—(Idem,
vol. ii. p. 48.)
John Leo says of those “Arabians which inhabit in Barborie, or upon the
Coast of the Mediterranean Sea.... Their churches they frequent very
diligently, to the end they may repeat certain prescript and formall
Praiers, most sperstitiously perswading themselves that the same day
wherein they make their praiers, it is not lawfull for them to wash
certaine of their members, when, as at other times, they will wash their
whole bodies.”—(“Observations of Africa,” in Purchas’s “Pilgrims,” vol.
ii. p. 766.)
“Les lieux destinés à la décharge de la nature ... sont toujours
propres.... Les Turcs ne sont point assis comme nous quand ils sont en
ces lieux-là, mais ils s’accroupissent sur le trou qui n’est relevé de
terre que d’un demy-pied ou d’un peu plus.... Les Turcs et tous les
Mahométans en général ne se servent point de papier à de vils usages, et
quand ils vont à ces sortes de lieux ils portent un pot plein d’eau pour
se laver.”—(J. B. Tavernier, “Relation de l’intérieur du Sérail du Grand
Seigneur,” Paris, 1675, p. 194.)
“Nunquam Turcas seu papyro pro anistergio uti, sed pro magno ipsis
delicti habere, et quidem ideo, quia fortasse Nomen Dei ipsi inscriptum
sit vel inscribi possit, refert Thevenot, Itinerar. Orient. lib. 1,
cap. 33, p. m. 60. Et juxta A. Bubeqv., Ep. 3, p. m. 184, Turcæ alvum
excrementis non exonerant quin aquam secum portant, qua partes obscenas
lavent.”—(Schurig, “Chylologia,” Dresden, 1725, p. 796.)
Rabelais has written a characteristic chapter on the expedients to
which men resorted before the general introduction of paper for use in
latrines; see his chapter xiii., “Anisterges.”
“Nothing could be more filthy than the state of the palace and all the
lanes leading up to it. It was well, perhaps, that we were never expected
to go there; for without stilts and respirators it would have been
impracticable, such is the filthy nature of the people. The king’s cows
even are kept in his palace enclosure, the calves actually entering the
hut, where, like a farmer, Kamresi walks among them, up to his ankles in
filth, and inspecting them, issues his orders concerning them.”—(Speke,
“Nile,” London, 1863, vol. ii. p. 526, describing the palace of King
Kamresi, at the head of the Nile.)
“Shortly afterwards, a disturbance arose between some of my people
and the natives, owing to one of my men who retired into a patch of
cultivated ground having been discovered there by the owner. He demanded
compensation for his land having been defiled, and had to be appeased
by a present of cloth. If they were only half as particular about their
dwellings as their fields, it would be a good thing, for their villages
are filthy in the extreme, and would be even worse but for the presence
of large numbers of pigs which act as scavengers.”—(“Across Africa,”
Cameron, London, 1877, vol. ii. p. 200.)
“I was disgusted with the custom which prevailed in the houses like that
in which I was lodged, of using the terrace as a sort of closet; and I
had great difficulty in preventing my guide, Amer el Walati, who still
stayed with me and made the terrace his usual residence, from indulging
in the filthy practice.”—(Dr. Henry Barth, “Travels in North and Central
Africa,” Philadelphia, 1859, p. 429, description of Timbuctoo.)
“They (the Tartars) hold it not good to abide long in one place, for
they will say when they will curse any of their children, ‘I would
thou mightest tarry so long in one place that thou mightest smell
thine own dung as the Christians do;’ and this is the greatest curse
they have.”—(“Notes of Richard Johnson, servant to Master Richard
Chancellor,” in Pinkerton, vol. i. p. 62. “Voyages of Sir Hugh Willoughby
and others to the Northern parts of Siberia and Russia.”)
The Tungouses of Siberia told Sauer that “they knew no greater curse than
to live in one place like a Russian or Yakut, where filth accumulates and
fills the inhabitants with stench and disease.”—(Sauer, “Expedition to
the North parts of Russia,” London, 1802, p. 49.)
“It is a common obloquy that the Turks (who still keep the order of
Deuteronomy for their ordure) do object to Christians that they are
poisoned with their own dung.”—(Harington, “Ajax,” p. 115.)
“The aspect of the village itself is very neat, the ground being often
swept before the chief houses; but very bad odors abound, owing to
there being under each house a stinking mud-hole, formed by all waste
liquids and refuse matter poured down through the floor above. In most
other things, Malays are tolerably clean—in some scrupulously so—and
this peculiar and nasty custom, which is almost universal, arises, I
have little doubt, from their having been originally a water-loving and
maritime people, who built their houses on posts in the water, and only
migrated gradually inland, first up the rivers and streams, and then into
the dry interior.
“Habits which were once so convenient and cleanly, and which had been so
long practised as to become a part of the domestic life of the nation,
were of course continued when the first settlers built their houses
inland; and, without a regular system of drainage, the arrangement of the
villages is such that any other system would be very inconvenient.”—(“The
Malay Archipelago,” Alfred Russell Wallace, London, 1869, vol. i. p. 126.)
Forster speaks of “an intolerable stench which arises from the many tanks
dispersed in the different quarters of the town, whose waters and borders
are appropriated to the common use of the inhabitants” (“Sketch of the
Mythology of the Hindoos,” George Forster, London, 1785, p. 7); but, he
adds, “The filth alone which is indiscriminately thrown into the street.”
“There are some Guai, which ... dawbe ouer their houses with Oxe-dung....
They touch not their meat with the left hand, but use that hand only to
wipe and other unclean offices.”—(Marco Polo, in Purchas, vol. i. p. 105.)
“Having list at any time to ease themselves, the filthy lousels had not
the manners to withdraw themselves further from us than a Beane can be
cast. Yea, like vile slouens, they would lay their tails in our presence,
while they were yet talking with us.”—(Friar William de Rubruquis,
the Franciscan, sent by Saint Louis, of France (King Louis IX.), as
ambassador to the Grand Khan of Tartary in A.D. 1235,—in Purchas, vol. i.
p. 11.)
“A great magnifico of Venice, being ambassador in France, and hearing a
noble person was come to speak with him, made him stay till he had untied
his points; and when he was new set upon his stool, sent for the nobleman
to come to him at that time, as a very special favor.”—(Harington,
“Ajax,” p. 30.)
“The French courtesy I spake of before came from the Romans; since in
Martial’s time, they shunned not one another’s company at Monsieur Ajax.”
(“Ajax” as used by Harington, is a play upon the words “a Jakes.”)—(See
Harington, “Ajax,” p. 38.)
Carl Lumholtz stated to the author that the Australians urinate in the
presence of strangers, and while talking to them.
“Il n’est fonction physiologique ou besoin naturel qu’ils aient gêne à
satisfaire en public. ‘Une coutume n’a rien d’indécent quand elle est
universelle,’ remarque philosophiquement un de nos voyageurs.”—(“Les
Primitifs,” Elie Réclus, Paris, 1885, p. 71,—“Les Inoits Occidentaux,”
quoting Dall.)
Padre Gumilla says that the Indians on the Orinoco have the same custom
as the Jews and Turks have of digging holes with a hoe and covering
up their evacuations. (See “Orinoco,” Madrid, 1741, p. 109.) No such
cleanliness can be attributed to the Indians of the Plains of North
America or the nomadic tribes of the Southwest.
“And thou shalt have a paddle upon thy weapon; and it shall be, when thou
wilt ease thyself abroad, thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn back
and cover that which cometh from thee.
“For the Lord, thy God, walketh in the midst of thy camp, to deliver
thee and to give up thine enemies before thee; therefore shall thy
camp be holy; that he see no unclean thing in thee, and turn away from
thee.”—(Deuteronomy xxiii.)
Speaking of the Essenes, Josephus informs us: “On the seventh day ...
they will not even remove any vessel out of its place, nor perform the
most pressing necessities of nature. Nay, on other days they dig a small
pit, a foot deep, with a paddle (which kind of hatchet is given them when
they first are admitted among them), and, covering themselves round with
their garment, that they may not affront the divine rays of light, they
ease themselves into that pit. After which they put the earth that was
dug out again into that pit.
“And even this they do only in the most lonesome places, which they
choose for this purpose. And it is a rule with them to wash themselves
afterwards, as if it were a defilement.”—(“Wars of the Jews,” edition of
New York, 1821, p. 241.)
“The Rabbinical Jews believed that every privy was the abode of an
unclean spirit of this kind” (i. e., an excrement-eating god), “which
could be inhaled with the breath, and descending into the lower parts of
the body, lodge there, and thus like the Bhutas of India, bring suffering
and disease.” (Personal letter from John Frazer, Esq., LL.D., Sydney, New
South Wales, Dec. 24, 1889.)
In descriptions of Jerusalem, we read of the “Dung Gate,” by or through
which, all the fecal matter of the city had to be carried.—(See
Harington, “Ajax,” p. 87.)
“When an aborigine obeys a call of nature, he always carries a pointed
instrument with which to turn up the ground, so that his fecal excreta
may be hidden from the keen vision of the vagabond Bangals.” (“Bangals”
are the native witches or their parallels.)—(“Aborigines of Victoria and
Riverina,” A. Brough-Smith, vol. i. p. 165.)
The same custom has been ascribed to the Dyaks of Borneo. It is by no
means certain that this custom had its origin in any suggestion of
cleanliness; on the contrary, it is fully as probable that the idea was
to avert the maleficence of witchcraft by putting out of sight material
the possession of which would give witches so much power over the former
owner.
Mr. John F. Mann confirms from personal observation that the natives of
Australia observed the injunction given to the Hebrews in Deuteronomy.
“From personal observation, I can state that the natives, all over the
country, as a rule, are particular in this matter, but it was many years
before I ascertained the reasons for this care. Sorcery and witchcraft
exist in every tribe; each tribe has its ‘Kooradgee’ or medicine-man; the
natives imagine that any death, accident, or pain, is caused by the evil
influence of some enemy. These ‘Kooradgees’ have the power not only of
inflicting pain, but of causing all kinds of trouble. They are particular
to always carry about with them, in a net bag, a ‘charm’ which is most
ordinarily made of rock crystal, human excrement, and kidney fat. If one
of these medicine-men can obtain possession of some of the excrement of
his intended victim, or some of his hair, in fact anything belonging
to his person, it is the most easy thing in the world to bewitch
him.”—(Personal letter from John F. Mann, Esq., Neutral Bay, New South
Wales.)
“The disposal of excreta is not so much for the sake of cleanliness
as to prevent any human substance from falling into the hands of an
enemy.”—(Idem.)
Schurig devotes a long paragraph to an exposition of the views
entertained by learned physicians in regard to the effects to be expected
from the deposition of the fecal matter upon plants that were either
noxious or beneficial to the human organism; in the former case, the
worst results were to be dreaded from sympathy; in the latter, only
the most salutary. Rustics, in his opinion, enjoyed better health than
the inhabitants of cities for the very peculiar reason that the latter
evacuated in latrines and in the act were compelled to inhale the
deleterious gases emanating from the foul deposits already accumulated;
whereas the countryman could go out to a comfortable place in the fields
and evacuate without the danger and inconvenience to which the urban
population were subject.
But he takes occasion to warn his readers that they must be careful not
to defecate upon certain malignant herbs which might be the cause of
virulent dysentery. “Præterea cavendum est ne feces supra herbas malignas
exulcerantes sive violenter purgantes deponamus hinc enim causa latente
dysenteria periculosa inducitur quæ vix nisi herbis prorsus putrefactis
ullis medicamentis cedit.”—(“Chylologia,” p. 792, paragraph 66.)
Colonel Garrick Mallery, United States Army, reports having met with
people of respectability and intelligence in the mountainous parts of
Virginia who hold the same views upon the subject of latrines.
“Ye great ones, why will ye disdain
To pay your tribute on the plain?
Why will you place in lazy pride?
When from the homeliest earthenware
Are sent up offerings more sincere
Than where the haughty Duchess locks
Her silver vase in cedar box.”
(Dean Swift.)
“Si une bhikshuni jette des excréments sur l’herbe croissante, c’est un
pacittiya, etc.”—(“Pratimoksha Sutra,” translated by W. W. Rockhill,
Paris, 1884. Soc. Asiatique.) These bhikshuni are the nuns of Thibet, and
the word “pacittiya” means a sin.
The following beastly practices are related of the Capuchins:
“Tunica replicata, absque impedimento cacat et mingit, anum fune
abstergit.”—(Fosbroke, “British Monachism,” quoting “Specimen
Monchologiæ.”)
There are no latrines of any kind in Angola, West Africa; the negroes
believe that it is very vile to frequent the same place for such
purposes. They do not cover up their excrements, but deposit them out
in the bushes. Sometimes it happens that a man will defecate inside the
house, in which case he will be laughed at all the rest of his life, and
be called “D’Kombe,” which is a kind of leopard.—(“Muhongo,” an African
boy, translation by Rev. Mr. Chatelain.)
The following is the epigram of Martial “ad Furium”:—
“A te sudor abest, abest saliva,
Mucusque et pituita mala nasi,
Hunc ad munditiem adde mundiorem,
Quod culus tibi purior salillo est,
Nec toto decies cacas in anno;
Atque id durius est faba et lapillis,
Quod tu si manibus teras fricesque,
Non unquam digitum inquinare possis.”
The Hon. John F. Finerty called public attention to the fact that in the
city of Mexico, ten years ago, beggars of the vilest caste invariably
made a practice of defecating upon the marble steps of the main entrance
to the grand cathedral.
Dr. J. H. Porter states that in some parts of the Mexican republic the
women come out in front of their doors to urinate; the author has seen
them doing this, and also defecating in the streets of Tucson, at that
time the capital of Arizona; he has seen the same practice in several
of the smaller hamlets of that territory and Sonora and New Mexico, but
always at night.
The Mexicans living on our side of the border never constructed privies
for their dwellings, a custom perhaps derived from Spain, where we have
seen that even in Madrid the construction of such conveniences was
unknown until after the middle of the last century.
POSTURE IN URINATION.
The Apache men in micturating always squat down, while the women,
on the contrary, always stand up. Giraldus Cambrensis says of the
Irish: “Præterea, viri in hac gente sedendo, mulieres stando, urinas
emittunt.”—(“Opera,” edited by James Dimock, and published under the
direction of the Master of the Rolls, London, 1867, vol. v. p. 172.)
The author has seen an Italian woman of the lower class urinating in
this manner in the street near San Pietro in Vinculis, Rome, in open
daylight, in 1883.
French women were to be seen in the streets of Paris urinating while
standing over gutters.—(Mr. W. W. Rockhill.)
“Among the Turks, it is an heresy, to p—s standing.”—(Harington, “Ajax,”
in the chapter “Ulysses upon Ajax,” p. 43.)
The Egyptian “women stand up when they make water, but the men sit
down.”—(Herodotus, “Euterpe,” p. 35.)
Mr. Carl Lumholtz (author of “Among Cannibals,” New York, 1889) also
stated that the Australian men squatted while urinating; the women
generally stood erect, but upon this point he was not quite sure.
“Mantegazza, in his ‘Gli amori degli uomini,’ describing the operation of
splitting the male urethra, practised among Australian tribes, remarks:
‘To urinate, they squat down like our women, lifting the penis slightly.
It appears that, on the contrary, Australian women urinate standing.’
(He is apparently quoting from Michluchs-Maclay.) Among the Kaffirs,
etc., at the Cape, the usual practice, I understand, does not differ
from ours.”—(Personal letter from Havelock Ellis, Esq., editor of the
Contemporary Science series, dated Red Hill, Surrey, Oct. 8, 1889. From
this gentleman there was also received much matter of a most valuable
character, from the early English dramatists, travellers, and others,
which has been already quoted from these sources direct.)
“Behold the strutting Amazonian whore!
She stands in guard, with her right foot before:
Her coat tucked up, and all her motions just,
She stamps, and then cries, ‘Hah!’ at every thrust.
But laugh to see her, tired from many a bout,
Call for the pot, and like a man piss out.”
(Juvenal, Satire VI., Dryden’s translation.)
The Thibetan nuns are forbidden to adopt certain postures, as are the
monks.
“110, 111. Ne pas se soulager debout, n’étant pas malade, est une
règle qu’on doit apprendre.”—(“Pratimoksha Sutra,” translated by W. W.
Rockhill, Paris, 1884, Soc. Asiatique.)
“Æsop, that great man, saw his master make water as he walked. ‘What!’
said he; ‘must we, then, dung as we walk?’”—(Planudus, quoted by
Montaigne, “Essays,” Hazlitt’s translation, New York, 1859, vol. iii. p.
467.)
The lazzaroni of Naples are more filthy in all these respects than the
wildest Maori, Bedouin, or Apache Indian, as the author can assert from
disagreeable personal observation.
“It can be justly said that the inhabitants of Cadiack, if we except the
women during their monthly periods and their lying-in, have not the least
sense of cleanliness. They will not go a step out of the way for the most
necessary purposes of nature; and vessels are placed at their very doors
for the reception of the urinous fluid, which are resorted to alike by
both sexes.”—(Lisiansky, “Voyages,” p. 214, quoted also in Bancroft’s
“Native Races of the Pacific Slope,” vol. i. p. 81.)
“Par suite des ordures et du manque d’air, l’intérieur des huttes répand
une puanteur presque insupportable.”—(“Les Primitifs,” Elie Réclus,
Paris, 1885, “Les Inoits Orientaux.”)
Old women in Switzerland urinate standing, especially in cold
weather.—(Rev. Mr. Chatelain, himself a native of Switzerland, and now a
Protestant missionary in Angola, Western Africa.)
The men of Angola, Africa, urinate standing; the women of the same tribes
urinate standing, as a general thing, although there are some exceptions.
It should be remembered that the Jesuits have had missions in that region
for two hundred years, and some effect upon the ideas of the people, due
to these ministrations as well as to the occupancy of the country by the
Portuguese, should be perceptible.
Gómara says of the Indians of Nicaragua: “Mean todos do les toma la
gana—ellos en cuclillas y ellas en pie.”—(“Historia de las Indias,” p.
283.)
The Mojaves of the Rio Colorado follow the same rule as the Apaches.
In Ounalashka, the houses are divided by partitions. “Each partition
has a particular wooden reservoir for the urine, which is used both for
dyeing the grass and for washing the hands, but after cleansing the
latter in this manner, they rince them in pure water.”—(Sarytschew, in
“Phillip’s Voyages,” London, 1807, vol. vi. p. 72.)
Dr. Porter communicates the information that he has often heard the
Arctic explorer Dr. Hayes speak of the propensity of the Eskimo of the
east coast of Greenland to use the trench to the hut as a latrine. He
tried in vain to prevent this practice among his Eskimo attendants, but
believed that they had a pride among themselves in leaving conspicuous
traces of their presence.
For urinals among the Eskimo, see also notes from Egede, Egede Saabye,
and Richardson, under “Industries,” in this volume.
“Neither is it lawfull for any one to rise from the table to make
water; but for this purpose the daughter of the house, or another maid
or woman, attendeth always at the table, watchfull if any one beckon to
them; to him that beckoneth shee gives the chamber-pott under the table
with her owne hands; the rest in the meanwhile grunt like swine least
any noise bee heard. The water being poured out, hee washeth the bason,
and offereth his services to him that is willing; and he is accounteth
uncivill who abhorreth this fashion.”—(Dittmar Bleecken’s “Voyage to
Iceland and Greenland,” A.D. 1565, in Purchas, vol. i. pp. 636-647.)
Steller’s account shows that in his time the people of Kamtchatka had no
regular water-closets.
“The dogs steal food whenever they can, and even eat their straps. In
their presence no one is able to ease nature without the protection of a
club for the purpose of keeping them at a distance. As soon as he leaves,
the dogs rush to the spot, and under much snarling and snapping each
seeks to grasp the deposit.”—(Steller, translated by Bunnemeyer.)
In the Eskimo myths there is the story of the Eskimo boy, an orphan, who
was abused by being made to carry out of the hut the large urine vessel.
This would indicate a certain antiquity for the employment of these
vessels.—(See “The Central Eskimo,” Franz Boas, in “Sixth Annual Report,”
Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, D. C., 1888, p. 631.)
In the city of Bogota, Colombia, South America, the lower classes urinate
openly in the streets; in the city of Mexico, the same practice prevailed
until recently.
In “The Snake Dance of the Moquis of Arizona,” the author had something
to say touching the practice of the Moquis, Zuñis, and others of the
Pueblo tribes, of collecting urine in vessels of earthenware; this was
for the purpose of saving the fluid for use in dyeing the wool of which
their blankets and other garments were to be made. It was noticed,
however, that a particular place was assigned for such emergencies as
might arise when the ordinary receptacles might not be within reach.
Thus, in the town of Hualpi (on the eastern mesa in the northeast corner
of the Territory of Arizona), one of the corners had been in such
constant use, and for so long a time that the stream percolating down
from the wall had eroded a channel for itself in the friable sandstone
flooring, which would serve to demonstrate that the place had been so
dedicated for a very extended number of years.
Latrines of some sort would seem to have been in use among the natives
of Australia, if we are to interpret literally the expression employed
by A. Brough Smyth, which see under “Myths” in this volume. The Tonga
Islanders, in the mortuary ceremonies of their great chiefs, are stated
to have had them (see under “Mortuary Ceremonies” in this volume).
Carl Lumholtz did not observe latrines of any kind among such of the
Australians as he visited.
Among the Chinese “it is usual for the princes, and even the people,
to make water standing. Persons of dignity, as well as the vice-kings,
and the principal officers, have gilded canes, a cubit long, which are
bored through, and these they use as often as they make water, standing
upright all the time; and by this means the tube carries the water to a
good distance from them.[53] They are of opinion that all pains in the
kidneys, the strangury, and even the stone, are caused by making water in
a sitting posture; and that the reins cannot free themselves absolutely
of these humors but by standing to evacuate; and that thus this posture
contributes exceedingly to the preservation of health.”—(“The Travels of
Two Mahometans through India and China,” in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p. 215.)
The Persian “must not pray before an overhanging wall, or in a room where
there is a pot de chambre.”—(Benjamin, “Persia,” London, 1887, p. 444,
quoting from the Shahr.)
In the Hawaiian Islands, if a man’s shadow fall on a chief, the man is
put to death.—(See “The Golden Bough,” Frazer, vol. i. p. 190.)
“These natives (East Siberia) always preserve for use in their
domesticity the urine of the whole family; it is preserved in a large tub
or half-barrel, procured from the whale-ships or found in the drift that
comes upon their shores. They use the warm water from their bodies for
cleansing their bodies; the rim that gathers round the high-water mark of
their cess-pool is used for smearing their bodies to kill the vermin....
The habits of these people are beastly in the extreme.... They seemed
to have no aversion whatever to close contact with the feces of men or
animals.”—(Personal letter of Chief Engineer Melville, U. S. Navy, to
Captain Bourke.)
Van Stralenberg says of the “Koræiki” (Koraks): “For their necessary
occasions they make use of a tub, which they have with them in the hut,
and when full they carry it out, and make use of the same tub to bring
in water for other occasions.”—(“Histori-Geographical Description of the
North and East Parts of Europe and Asia,” p. 397.)
By referring to page 390 of this volume, it will be seen that the Lapps,
upon breaking camp, made it a point to burn the dung of their reindeer
in cases where any of these animals had died of disease; while it is
also related that immigrants to California from the States of Missouri
and Arkansas, for some reason not understood, had the singular custom of
burning their own excrement in the camp-fire.
“When they ease themselves, they commonly go in the morning unto the
Towne’s end, where there is a place purposely made for them, that they
may not bee seene, so also because men passing by should not be molested
with the smell thereof. They also esteeme it a bad thing that men should
ease themselves upon the ground, and therefore they make houses which are
borne up above the ground, wherein they ease themselves upon the ground,
and every time they do it they wipe; or else they goe to the water’s side
to ease themselves in the sand; and when the Priuie houses are full, they
set fire to them, and let them burn to ashes; they pisse by jobs as dogs
doe, and not all at one time.”—(Master Richard Jobson, A.D. 1620, “Gold
Coast of Africa,” in Purchas, vol. ii. p. 932.)
XXI.
AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE OF THE RITES CONNECTED WITH THE WORSHIP OF
BEL-PHEGOR.
Precisely what ceremonial observances the ritual of Bel-Phegor demanded
of the suppliant at his shrine is not likely ever to be known. It would
be worse than useless to attempt in a treatise of this kind to affirm or
deny the existence of the obscene usages alleged to have formed part of
his worship; sufficient, at this moment, to lay before reflecting minds
testimony on both sides of the question, with reasons for the belief that
flatulence could be presented as an oblation, with examples of quaint
customs which may partake of the nature of “survivals” from religious
ceremonies of a nature not far removed from those supposed to have been
associated with the rites of Bel-Phegor.
Well has an old author remarked: “Men have lost their reason in nothing
so much as their religion, wherein stones and clouts make martyrs; and
since the religion of one seems madness to another, to afford an account
or rational of old rites requires no rigid reader.”—(Sir Thomas Browne,
“Religio Medici,” edition of Boston, 1868, p. 329, article “Urn-Burial.”)
“Le Pet était une divinité des anciens Égyptiens; elle était la
personnification d’une fonction naturelle. On la figurait par un enfant
accroupi qui semble faire effort, et on peut en voir la représentation
dans les ouvrages d’antiquité. Le poême Calotin, intitulé le Conseil de
Momus (voyez aux Polygraphes) donne, contre la page 19, deux figures de
ce dieu. L’une était en cornaline de trois couleurs; l’autre en terre
cuite, se trouvait dans le cabinet du Marquis de Cospy, et la figure
en a été donnée dans le Museum Cospianum. L’auteur de la Dissertation
sur un ancien Usage (voyez le numéro 18) conteste que ces figurines se
rapportent au Crepitus, et croit qu’elles ont été inventées dans un but
plus solide.
“C’est de Minutius Felix que nous vient la reconnaissance du Crepitus,
qui, lors même qu’il aurait été célébré réellement en Égypte, n’était
peut-être qu’une caricature imaginée par les plaisants du jour. Ménage
cependant affirme que les Pélusiens adoraient le Pet; il dit que Baudelot
en a donné la preuve dans les éditions de son premier vol., et qu’il en
possédait une figure. (Voy. Menagiana, 1693, no. 397. St. Jerome dit la
même chose sur Isaie, xiii. 46. Voy. encore Klotz, act. littér. t. v.,
première partie, 1, Elmenhorst sur l’Octavius de Minutius Felix; Mythol.
de Banier, t. 1; Montfaucon, ‘l’Antiquité expliquée,’ t. iii. part 2, p.
336.)
“Quelques antiquaires ont cru pouvoir identifier le dieu Crepitus des
Romains avec Bel-Phegor, Baal-Phegor ou Baal-Peor, dieu Syrien,—Phegor,
assure-t-on, ayant ce sens en Hebreu. (Origen contra Celsus; Minutius
Felix.) Mais, sur cette dernière divinité les savants sont fort peu
d’accord.
“Origène, St. Jerome, Salomon Ben Jarchi, lui donnent une signification
qui la rendrait tout à fait indigne de figurer dans notre catalogue;
mais Maimonide (Moge Nevoch, cap. 46) et Salom. Ben Jarchi (Comment. 3,
sur Nomb. ch. 25) prétendent que son culte était plus sale que obscène,
et les traducteurs de ces rabbins pour exprimer le principal détail des
cérémonies célébrées en l’honneur du dieu de Syrie, disent: ‘Distendere
coram eo foramen podicis et stercus offere.’
“Ajoutez que les pets étaient de bon augure chez les Grecs, de mauvais
augure chez les Romains.”—(Voy. Scaliger, Auson.)
“No one now supposes that the Rabbins had anything but their imaginations
to go on in what they say about Baal-Peor; they invented the story as
a fanciful etymology of the name.”[54]—(Personal letter from Prof. W.
Robertson Smith to Captain Bourke.)
Citations have already been made from the Bibliotheca Scatalogica, a
curious collection of learning, no name and no place of publication of
which can be found, but which seems to have been printed by Giraudet et
Jouaust, 315 Rue Saint Honoré, Paris, granting that this title be not
fictitious. In that work are to be seen the titles of no less than one
hundred and thirty-three treatises upon Flatulence, some grotesque, some
coarse, one or two of quaint erudition.
No. 88, entitled “Éloge du Pet, dissertation historique, anatomique et
philosophique sur son origine, son antiquité, ses vertus, sa figure, les
honneurs qu’on lui a rendus chez les peuples anciens, etc.; avec une
figure représentant le dieu Pet, et cette inscription: Crepitui ventris
conservatori deo propitio (p. 38),” the stupendous work of Sclopetarius,
No. 111, of the Bibliotheca (Frankfort, 1628) seems to have been a
monumental labor upon a subject not generally dissected. The same remark
may be applied to “Physiologia crepitus ventris” of Rod. Goclenius,
Frankfort and Leipsic, 1607, No. 123 of the Bibliotheca.
The earliest known work upon this curious topic is “Le plaisant deuis du
Pet,” Paris, 1540.
“Origen saith the name Baal-Peor signifieth filthiness, but what
filthiness he knew not; Salomon Ben Jarchi writeth they offered to him
ordure, placing before his mouth the likeness of that place which Nature
hath made for egestion.”—(Purchas, vol. v. p. 85.)
A reference to the work of Bel-Phegor is to be found in the following
couplet from a book entitled “Conseil de Momus:”—
“La deuxième moitié du premier chant est consacrée
‘A certains vents coulis
Jadis adorés à Memphis.’”—(Bib. Scat., p. 7.)
“The antient Pelusiéns, a people of lower Egypt, did (amongst other
whimsical, chimerical objects of veneration and worship) venerate a Fart,
which they worshipped under the symbol of a swelled paunch.”—(“A View of
the Levant,” Charles Perry, M. D., sm. fol., London, 1743, p. 419.)
“Time has preserved to us a figure of this ridiculous Divinity, which
represents a very young child in the posture of that indecent action
whence this god has his name.”—(Abbé Banier, “Mythology,” English
translation, 1740, vol. ii. pp. 52 _et seq._)[55]
“Their Beetle-gods out of their privies; yea, their Privies and Farts
had their unsavorie canonization and went for Egyptian deities.... So,
Hierome derideth their dreadfull deitie, the Onion, and a stinking Fart,
Crepitus ventris inflati que Pelusiaco religio est, which they worshipped
at Pelusium.”—(Purchas, vol. v. p. 641.)
It may be well to bear in mind that the heathen idea of the power of a
god was entirely different from our own. The deities of the heathen were
restricted in their powers and functions; they were assigned to the care
of certain countries, districts, valleys, rivers, fountains, etc. Not
only that, they were capable of aiding only certain trades, professions,
etc. They were not able to cure all diseases, only particular kinds, each
god being a specialist; consequently, each was supposed to take charge of
a section of the human body. This was the case with the Greeks, Romans,
Egyptians, and others. In mediæval times the same rule obtained, only
in place of gods, we find saints assigned to these functions. Brand,
Pop. Antiq. vol. i. p. 356, _et seq._, gives a list of the saints, and
the functions ascribed to each. On page 366 of the work just cited,
it will be seen that Saint Erasmus was in charge of “the belly, with
the entrayles.” Keeping this in view, we can better understand the
peculiar ceremonies connected with the worship of Bel-Phegor; he was,
no doubt, the deity to whom the devotee resorted for the alleviation
of ailments connected with the rectum and belly, much as he would, at
a later date in the history of religion, have invoked Saint Phiacre to
relieve him “of the phy or emeroids, of those especially which grow in
the fundament.” (See in Brand, loc. cit. p. 362.) On the same principle
that the worshipper was wont to hang up in the temples of Esculapius wax
and earthen representations of the sore arms, legs, and other members
which gave him pain, the worshipper of Bel-Phegor would offer him the
sacrifice of the flatulence and excrement, testimonies of the good health
for which gratitude was due to the older deity.
“The Egyptians divided the human body into thirty-six parts, each of
which they believed to be under the particular government of one of
the decans or aerial demons who presided over the triple divisions of
the twelve signs; and we have the authority of Origen for saying that
when any part of the body was diseased, a cure was effected by invoking
the demon to whose province it belonged.”—(“Medical Superstitions,”
Pettigrew, Philadelphia, 1844, p. 47.)
The ascription of particular signs of the Zodiac to the care of different
members of the human anatomy is in line with the same religious idea;
because the signs of the Zodiac, especially the Animal signs, were once
Animal Gods.
Hone, in his “Every-Day Book,” has a therapeutical hagiology, too long to
be here repeated.
“Melton says, ‘The saints of the Romanists have usurped the place
of the Zodiacal constellations in their governance of the parts of
man’s body,’ and that ‘for every limb they have a saint.’” Thus Saint
“Erasmus rules the belly with the entrayles in the place of Libra and
Scorpius.”—(“Medical Superstitions,” Pettigrew, Philadelphia, 1844, p.
54.) Next follows a long list of saints, with the particular functions
assigned to each, beginning first with the list to be found in Hone,
which Pettigrew extends.—(“Saint Giles and Saint Hyacinth against
Sterility,” idem, pp. 55, 56.)
“In later times, according to Herodotus, a particular and minute division
of labor characterized the Egyptians; the science of medicine was
distributed into different parts; every physician was for one disease,
not more; so that every place was full of physicians, for some were
doctors for the eyes, others for the head; some for the teeth, others for
the belly; and some for occult disorders. There were also physicians for
female disorders. The sons followed the professions of their fathers, so
that their numbers must necessarily have been very great.”—(Idem, p. 44.)
As the Egyptian priests were the doctors of that country, it is perfectly
in accord with the eternal fitness of things that we should find them,
even after they had been differentiated into different professions,
restricted to the treatment of special diseases, much as the gods whom
the priests once represented had been restricted.[56]
“The art of medicine is thus divided among them (Egyptians). Each
physician applies himself to one disease only and not more. All places
abound in physicians; some physicians are for the eyes, others for the
teeth, others for the parts about the belly, and others for internal
disorders.”—(Herodotus, “Euterpe,” p. 82.)
Hone shows that every joint of the fingers was dedicated to some
saint.—(See his “Every-Day Book,” vol. ii. p. 48.)
“But, under the venerated name of Hermes, were issued books of
astronomical forecasts of diseases, setting forth the evil influence of
malignant stars upon the unborn; telling how the right eye is under the
sun, the left under the moon, the hearing under Saturn, the brain under
Jupiter, the tongue and throat under Mercury, smelling and tasting under
Venus, the parts that have blood under Mars.... The early centuries next
after the Christian era produced a rank crop of literary forgeries.”—(See
“Saxon Leechdoms,” vol. iii. pp. 11, 12.)
“The New Zealanders gave a separate deity to each part of the
body.”—(“Folk-Medicine,” Black, p. 11.)
The interview between Moses and Jehovah, where the latter refused to
allow the prophet to see the glory of his face, but made him content
himself with a view of his posterior, indicates that the sacred
writers of the earlier periods were living in an atmosphere of thought
which accepted all such ideas as those surrounding the Bel-Phegorian
ceremonials.
The Hebrews believed that Jehovah should be propitiated with sweet
savors:[57] “Offer up a sweet savor unto the Lord.” Bel-Phegor and other
deities of the gentiles, who were the gods of particular parts of the
human body, would, in all probability, be pleased with oblations coming
especially from that particular part; thus, the god of Hunting had
offerings of game; the gods of the Seas had sacrifices of fish; babies
were offered to the deities of Childbirth; therefore the gods of the
fundament should, naturally, be regaled with excrement and flatulence.
Harington calls attention to David’s prophecy in the 77th Psalm:
“Percussit inimicos suos in posteriores, opprobrium sempiternum dedit
illis.” “He smote his enemies in the hinder parts and put them to a
perpetual shame.”—(“Ajax,” p. 25.)
The absence of unity is the characteristic of all primitive forms of
religious thought; hence, the various differentiations mentioned above
occur as a matter of religious necessity.
Among the practices prohibited by the Taoist religion: “A man must not
sing and dance on the last day of the moon.... Must not weep, spit, or
be guilty of other indecency towards the North.”—(Legge, “Religions of
China,” p. 187.)
The Parsis have a curious idea suggestive of the Hebrew antagonism to the
worship of Bel-Phegor: “14. The rule is that when one retains a prayer
inwardly and wind shall come from below, or wind shall come from the
mouth, it is all one.” (Shayast la Shayast, Max Müller’s edition, Oxford,
1880, cp. x. verse 14, p. 221. A footnote explains: “Literally, ‘both are
one,’ that is, in either case the spell of the vag or prayer is broken.”)
“The Bedawi, who eructates as a matter of civility, has a mortal hatred
to a crepitus ventris; and were a by-stander to laugh at its accidental
occurrence, he would be at once cut down as a ‘pundonor.’ The same is the
custom among the Highlanders of Afghanistan. And its artificial nature
suggests direct derivation; for the two regions are separated by a host
of tribes, Persians and Beloch, who utterly ignore the pundoner and
behave like Europeans. The raids of the pre-Ishmaelitish Arabs over the
lands lying to the northeast of them are almost forgotten; still, there
are traces, and this may be one of them.”—(Burton, “Arabian Nights,” vol.
v. p. 137.)
According to Niebuhr, the voiding of wind is considered to be the
gravest indecency among the Arabs; some tribes make a perpetual butt
of the offender once guilty of such an infraction of decorum; the
Belludjages, upon the frontiers of Persia, expel the culprit from the
tribe. Yet Niebuhr himself relates that a sheik of the tribe “Montesids”
once had a contest of this kind among his henchmen, “avoit autorisé un
défi dans ce genre entre ses domestiques et couronné le vainqueur.”
(Niebuhr, “Description de l’Arabie,” Amsterdam, 1774, p. 27.) Snoring and
Flatulence would seem to have been considered equally offensive by the
Tartars. See Marco Polo’s reference to the mode of selecting wives for
the Grand Khan (in Purchas, vol. i. p. 82). He says that the Grand Khan
puts those deemed to be eligible under the care of “his Barons’ wives,”
“to see if they snore not in their sleepe, if in smell or behaviour they
bee not offensive.”
“Yet it is holden a shame with them to let a fart, at which they wondered
in the Hollanders, esteeming it a contempt.”—(“Negroes of Guinea,”
Purchas, vol. v. p. 718.)
On the Gold Coast of Africa, the negroes “are very careful not to let a
fart, if anybody be by them; they wonder at our Netherlanders that use it
so commonly, for they cannot abide that a man should fart before them,
esteeming it to be a great shame and contempt done unto them.”—(Master
Richard Jobson, A.D. 1620, in Purchas, vol. ii. p. 936.) In the Russian
sect of dissenters called the “Bezpopovtsi,” “during the service of Holy
Thursday, certain of them, known as ‘gapers’ or ‘yawners,’ sit for hours
with their mouths wide open, waiting for ministering angels to quench
their spiritual thirst from invisible chalices.”—(Heard, “Russian Church
and Russian Dissent,” pp. 200, 201.)
Bastian, in “Allerlei aus Volks- und Menschenkunde” (vol. i. p. 9),
quotes from Kubary, “Religion of the Pelew Islands,” to the effect that
in cases of death, the vagina, urethra, rectum, nostrils, and all other
orifices of the body are tightly closed with the fibres of certain roots
or sponge, to prevent the escape of any of the liquids of the body, which
seem to be of some use to the spirit of the deceased.—(Contributed in a
Personal letter from Dr. Gatchett of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington,
D. C.)
In Wallachia, “No mode of execution is more disgraceful than the gallows.
The reason alleged is that the soul of a man with a rope round his neck,
cannot escape from his mouth.”—(Maltebrun, “Universal Geography,” Boston,
1847, vol. ii. p. 458, article “Hungary.”)
“The soul is commonly supposed to escape by the natural openings of the
body, especially the mouth and nostrils.”—(Frazer, “The Golden Bough,”
vol. i. p. 125.)
“Caton appliquait à l’objet d’un de nos chapitres; ‘Nullum mihi vitium
facit.’ ... C’est ce que disait Caton lorsqu’un de ses esclaves pétoit en
sa presence.”—(Bib. Scat., “Oratio pro Guano Humano,” p. 21.)
In Angola, West Coast of Africa, flatulence is freely permitted among the
natives, but any license of this kind, taken while strangers are in the
vicinity, is regarded as a most deadly insult.—(“Muhongo,” an African
boy from Angola; interpretation by Rev. Mr. Chatelain.)
The poet Horace “a consacré plusieurs vers au sujet qui nous occupe.
On peut voir particulièrement la Satire VIII. qui contient le passage
suivant:—
“‘Mentior, at si quid merdis caput inquiner albis
Corvorum, atque in me veniat mictum atque cacatum
Julius, et fragilis pedacia, furque Voranus.’”—(Bib. Scat. p. 76.)
The celebrated English orator, Charles James Fox, is credited with the
authorship of “An Essay upon Wind,” published anonymously in London, and
numbered 91 in the Bib. Scat. (p. 39).
Martin Luther had many struggles and disputes with his Satanic Majesty,
in all of which the latter came off second best. Melanchthon is cited
as describing one of these, in which there were results worthy of
incorporation in this work: “Hoc dicto victus Dæmon, indignabundus
secumque murmurans abiit, eliso crepitu, non exiguo, cujus fussimen tetri
odoris dies aliquot redolebat hypocaustum.” Vid. Joh. Wier, de Præstig.
Dæmon. cap. 7, p. m. 54, in Schurig, “Chylologia,” p. 795, article “De
Crepitu Diaboli.”
“Luther relates a story of a lady who ‘Sathanum crepitu ventris
fugavit.’”—(“Les Propos de Table de Luther,” par G. Brunet, Paris, 1846,
p. 22, quoted in Buckle’s “Commonplace Book,” p. 472, vol. ii. of his
“Works.” All the English editions of Luther’s “Table Talk,” so far as
known to the author, are “expurgated.”)
“Ciceron, considérant le Peditus comme une victime innocente, opprimée
par la civilisation de son temps, poussait en sa faveur le cri de liberté
et formulait ses droits.” As a footnote to the foregoing we read the
following extract from Cicero: “Crepitus æque liberos ac ructus esse
opportere.”—(Lib. 9, Epist. 22.)
“Memento quia ventus est vita mea.”—(Job. vii. 9.)
“Pedere te mallem, namque hoc nec inutile, dicit Symmachus, et risum res
movet ista simul.”—(Martial, vii. 17, 9.)
“‘Le Tonnerre, ce n’est qu’un Pet;’ c’est Aristophane qui le dit.” Βροντὴ
καὶ πορδή, ὁμοίω—(“Nućes.”)
All the preceding from Bib. Scat., article, “Oratio pro Guano Humano.”
Consult Aristophanes, “The Clouds,” act v. scene 2.
“Dissertation sur le dieu Pet,” par M. Claude Terrin.—This author is
stated to have cited from Clemens Romanus and Saint Cæsar.—(See Bib.
Scat., p. 37.)
Suetonius has the following remarks upon the Roman Emperor Claudius: “It
is said too that he intended to publish an edict ... allowing to all
people the liberty of giving vent at table to any distension occasioned
by flatulence.” This was upon “hearing of a person whose modesty, under
such circumstances, had nearly cost him his life.”—(“Claudius,” xxxii.)
Plutarch asks the question: “Question 95. Why was it ordained that they
that were to live chaste should abstain from pulse?... Or rather was it
because they should bring empty and slender bodies to their purifications
and expiations? For pulse are windy and cause a great deal of excrements
that require purging off. Or is it because they excite lechery by reason
of their flatulent and windy nature?” (“Morals,” Goodwin’s English
translation, Boston, 1870, vol. ii. p. 254.)
“The fact that in honor of the arrival of friends, the house is swept and
strewn with sand, and that the people bathe at such occasions, shows that
cleanliness is appreciated. The current expression is that the house is
so cleaned that no bad smell remains to offend the guest. For the same
reason the Indian takes repeated baths before praying, ‘that he may be
agreeable to the Deity.’”—(“Report on the Northwestern Tribes of Canada,”
Dr. Franz Boas, British Association for the Advancement of Science,
Newcastle-upon-Tyne Meeting, 1889, p. 19.)
“Saul went into a cave ‘ut purgaret ventrem.’”—(Harington, “Ajax,” p.
25.)
XXII.
OBSCENE TENURES.
In close connection with this worship of Bel-Phegor, if there ever was
such a worship, may be examined the obscene tenures by which certain
estates in England were held in “sergeantcy.” No less an authority than
Buckle, the historian, deemed an investigation of these not beneath
the dignity of his intellect, as may be ascertained by a glance at his
article “Contributions to the History of the Pet,” in his “Commonplace
Book,” p. 472. He refers to “Miscellanea Antica Anglicana,” Blount’s
“Ancient Tenures,” Luther’s “Table Talk” (as above), Dulaure’s “Des
Divinités Génératrices,” Niebuhr’s “Description of Arabia,” Gifford’s
edition of Ben Jonson, “The Staple of News,” by Ben Jonson, Wright’s
“Political Ballads,” in vols. iii. and vii. of the Percy Society’s
publications. With the exception of the first named, all the above have
been examined, and a transcription made of the notes, which will be found
inserted in their proper place.
“The Lord of the Manor of Essington holds tenure from the lord of the
Manor of Hilton in this way. He, the first named, must bring a goose
each New Year to the hall of the Manor of Hilton, and drive it at least
three times around the fire, ‘while Jack of Hilton is blowing the fire.’
This Jack of Hilton is an image of brass, of about twelve inches high,
kneeling on his left knee, and holding his right hand upon his head,
and his left upon pego, or his viretrum, erected, having a little hole
at the mouth, at which, being filled with water, and set to a strong
fire, which makes it evaporate like an aelopile, it vents itself in
constant blast, so strongly that it is very audible, and blows the fire
fiercely.”—(Blount, “Tenures of Land and Customs of Manors,” Hazlitt’s
edition, London, 1874, p. 118.)
This recalls the “mannikin” of Brussels, which may have superseded some
long since forgotten local deity; it still serves political purposes
occasionally.
Blount’s work was first issued under the title of “Jocular Tenures.”
The prevalence of phallic worship all over Flanders should be adverted to
in mentioning the “mannikin” of Brussels.
Dulaure (“Des différens Cultes,” Paris, 1825, vol. ii. p. 272 _et seq._)
describes the phallic shrines of Saints Foutin, Guerlichon _et al._ “Anne
d’Autriche, épouse de Louis XIII., y alla en pélerinage,”—that is, to the
shrine of Saint Foutin.
He also shows that the use of the “raclure” of these phallic saints
prevailed in France until the opening years of the present century.
“Rowland, le Sarcere, holds one hundred and ten acres of land in
Hemington, County of Suffolk, by serjeantcy, for which on Christmas Day,
every year, before our sovereign lord the King of England, he should
perform altogether and at once a leap, a puff, and a fart.”—(Idem, p.
154.)
“One Baldwin also formerly held these lands by the same service,
and was called by the nickname of Baldwin le Peteur, or Baldwin the
Farter.”—(Idem, p. 154.)
Dr. Fletcher, president of the Anthropological Society of Washington, D.
C., called attention to the fact that reference to the above tenure of
Baldwin, “per saltum, sufflatum, et pettum,” is given in the Ingoldsby
Legends, “The Spectre of Tappington,” based upon Blount. Ducange, in
his “Glossarium,” proves the antiquity of these tenures, which go back,
so far as known, to the earliest years of the fourteenth century.—(See
Ducange, article “Bombus.”)
Ducange also describes the peculiar custom governing the admission of
“filia communis” into the “villa Montis Lucii,” of which more anon.
“Barrington, in his ‘Observations on the Statutes,’ speaking of the
people, says: ‘They were also, by the customs prevailing in particular
districts, subject to services not only of the most servile, but
the most ludicrous nature.’ ‘Utpote Die Nativitatis Domini coram eo
saltare, buccas cum sonitu inflare, et ventrum crepitum edere.’ (Struvii
Jurispr. Feud. p. 541.) Sir Richard Cox, in his ‘History of Ireland,’
likewise mentions some very ridiculous customs which continued in the
year 1565.”—(Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” vol. i. p. 515, article
“Fool-Plough and Sword-Dance.”)
“Monstrelet, en décrivant une fête que donna en 1453 le duc de Bourgogne,
dit qu’on y voyait: une pucelle qui, de sa mamelle, versait hypocras en
grande largesse; à côté de la pucelle était un jeune enfant qui, de sa
broquette, rendait eau rose.”—(Chroniq. vol. iii. fol. 55 v.; Dulaure,
“Traité des Différens Cultes,” vol. i. p. 324, footnote.)
That these customs, absurd, obscene, irrational, as they appear in the
light of to-day, had their origin in the mists of antiquity is not at all
improbable; neither is it a violent assumption to attribute a religious
origin to them. It is conceded that they had all the force of legalized
customs; and law was anciently part and parcel of religion’s dower.
The remarks of Ducange are inserted because they may not be readily
accessible to every reader. He quotes from Camden and Spellman.
Baldwin “Qui tenuit terras in Comitatu Suffolciensi, per serjenciam pro
qua debuit facere, singulis annis (die Natali Domini), coram Domino Rege,
unum saltum, unum sufflatum, et unum bombulum.”
“Hemingston, wherein Baldwin le Petteur (observe the name) held land by
serjeantcy (thus an ancient book expresses it), for which he was obliged
every Christmas Day to perform before our lord the King of England one
saltus, one sufflatus, and one bumbulus; or as it is read in another
place, he held it by a saltus, a sufflus, and a pettus,—that is (if I
apprehend it aright), he was to dance, make a noise with his cheeks, and
let a fart. Such was the plain, jolly mirth of those days.”—(Camden,
“Brittania,” edition of London, 1753, vol. i. p. 444.)
Grimm was impressed with the undeniable intermixture of the old religious
doctrine with the system of law; for the latter, “even after the adoption
of the new faith, would not part with certain old forms and usages.”
(“Teutonic Mythol.,” introduc. p. 12.) In another paragraph he says: “I
shall try elsewhere to show in detail how a good deal in the gestures and
attitudes prescribed for certain legal transactions savors of priestly
ceremony at sacrifice and prayer.”—(Idem, vol. i. p. 92.)
XXIII.
TOLLS OF FLATULENCE EXACTED OF PROSTITUTES IN FRANCE.
Another odd usage of which no explanation has been transmitted is thus
described by Ducange, Dulaure, and others:—
“En outre, chaque fille publique qui se livre à quelque homme que ce
soit, lorsqu’elle entre pour la première fois dans la ville de Montlucon,
doit payer sur le pont de cette ville quatre deniers, ou y faire un
pet.”—(Dulaure, “des Divin. Générat.” p. 279, quoting from Ducange,
“Glossarium,” article “Bombus.”)
In a work by the Abbé Roubaud, entitled “La Pétérade, poême en quatre
chants,” we are informed, “Il renvoie à Ducange pour prouver qu’en France
on admettait les pets comme monnaie de cours en paiement des péages....
Bombi pro scudis valebant.”—(“Bib. Scatalogica,” p. 48.)
If we may believe Victor Hugo, the custom of the “péage” at the bridge
of Montluc was generally known to the people of France in the fifteenth
century. Thus, in the first chapter of “Notre Dame,” the populace of
Paris, at the Feast of Fools, are represented as indulging in much
badinage,—
“Dr. Claude Choart, are you seeking Marie la Giffards?”
“She’s in the Rue de Glatigny.”
“She’s paying her four deniers,—quatuor denarios.”
“Aut unum bumbum.”
Dulaure again quotes Ducange in regard to the tolls demanded of public
women first crossing the bridge at Montluc. He finds description of
this peculiar toll in registers dating back to 1398; he also sees
the resemblance between this toll and the tenure of the Manor of
Essington.—(See “Traité des Dif. Cultes,” vol. ii. p. 315, footnote.)
Surgeon Robert M. O’Reilly, U. S. Army, states that among the Irish
settlers who came to the United States in the closing hours of the last
century the expression was common, in speaking of Flatulence, to term it
“Sir-Reverence.”
“Sir-Reverence. In old writers, a common corruption of ‘save reverence,’
or ‘saving your reverence,’—an apologetic phrase used when mentioning
anything deemed improper or unseemly, and especially a euphemism for
_stercus humanum_.” “‘Cagada,’ a surreverence.”—(Stevens’s “Sp. Dict.,”
1706.)
“Siege, stool, sir-reverence, excrement.”—(Bishop Wilkins’s “Essay
towards a Philosophical Language,” 1688, p. 241.)
“Thoo grins like a dog eating sir-reverence.” (Holderness, “Glossary,
English Dialect Society.”) Compare Spanish _salvanor_, anus.
(Stevens.)—(“Folk-Etymology,” Rev. A. Smith Palmer, London, 1882.)
THE SACRED CHARACTER OF BRIDGE-BUILDING.
It is quite within the bounds of argument and proof to show that the
Romans looked upon the building of a bridge as a sacred work. Upon no
other hypothesis can we make clear why their chief priest was designated
“the Greatest Bridge-Builder” (the Pontifex Maximus). That this idea was
transmitted to the barbarians who occupied Continental and insular Europe
would be a most plausible presumption, even were historical evidence
lacking.
Concerning the tolls exacted from the prostitutes who crossed certain
bridges in France, and the tenures by which certain estates were held
in England, we have to bear in mind that during the Middle Ages bridges
were erected by bodies or associations of bridge-builders, which seem to
have been secret societies. “It seems not improbable that societies or
lodges of bridge-builders existed at an early period, and that they were
relics of the policy of Roman times; but the history of such societies
is involved in obscurity. The Church appears to have taken them up and
encouraged them in the twelfth century, and then they were endowed
with a certain religious character.... The order of bridge-builders
at Avignon, with the peculiar love of punning which characterized the
Middle Ages, were called ‘fratres pontificales,’ and sometimes ‘fratres
pontis’ and ‘factores pontium.’ ... According to Ducange (Gloss. v.
fratres pontis), their dress was a white vest with a sign of a bridge
and cross of cloth on the breast.” (“Essays on Archæological Subjects,”
Thomas Wright, London, 1861, vol. ii. p. 137 _et seq._, article “Mediæval
Bridge-Builders.”) In this connection it may be just as well to remember
that the Pope of Rome is still the Pontifex Maximus.
Knowing that bridges were constructed by secret societies, we have
fought out half our battle; for these secret societies were undoubtedly
under the patronage and protection of some god in heathen times, or of
some saint in later days, reserving for the honor of the latter the
same ritual which had been consecrated to the devotion of the heathen
predecessor.
The following from Fosbroke is pertinent: “Plutarch derives the word
‘Pontifex’ from sacrifices made upon bridges,—a ceremony of the highest
antiquity. These priests are said to have been commissioned to keep
the bridges in repair, as an indispensable part of their office. This
custom no doubt gave birth to the chapel on London bridge, and the
offerings were of course for repairs.” In another place he mentions “the
annexation of chapels to almost all our bridges of note.”—(“Cyclopædia of
Antiquities,” London, 1843, vol. i. pp. 62, 146, article “Bridges.”)
“Gottling (Gesch. d. Rom. Staatsv. p. 173) thinks that ‘Pontifex’ is only
another form for ‘pompifex,’ which would characterize the pontiffs only
as the managers and conductors of public processions and solemnities.
But it seems far more probable that the word is formed from _pons_
and _facere_, ... and that consequently it signifies the priest who
offered sacrifices upon the bridge.”—(“Dictionary of Greek and Roman
Antiquities,” William Smith, LL. D., Boston, 1849, article “Pontifex.”)
“Les Romains avaient réuni en collége sacerdotal leurs constructeurs de
ponts.”—(“Les Primitifs,” Elie Réclus, Paris, 1885, p. 116.)
Among the Romans—who were the great architects of the European world, and
whose aqueducts, baths, roads, and bridges have never been approached in
strength or beauty by those of any other nation about them—it was to be
expected that the title of the great priest should be Pontifex Maximus,
on the same principle that among the Todas of the Nilgherris, who are
pre-eminently a pastoral race, the chief medicine man or priest is
called Palal, “meaning the Great Milker.”—(See for these statements “Les
Primitifs,” Réclus, p. 260, article “Les Monticules des Nilgherris.”)
The legends of the Middle Ages, all over Europe, from South Germany to
Scandinavia, are filled with references to bridges, mills, and churches,
but especially bridges, built by the Devil exclusively or by his
assistance; and in every case there is the suggestion of human sacrifice
having been offered.
“As a rule, the victims were captive enemies, purchased slaves or great
criminals.... Hence, in our own folk-tales, the first to cross the
bridge, the first to enter the new building or the country, pays with
his life, which meant falls a sacrifice.... In folk-tales we find traces
of the immolation of children; they are killed as a cure for leprosy,
they are walled up in basements.... Extraordinary events might demand the
death of kings’ sons and daughters, nay, of kings themselves.”—(“Teutonic
Mythology,” Grimm, vol. i. p. 46.)
“When the Devil builds the bridge, he is either under compulsion from
men or is hunting for a soul; but he has to put up with the cock or
chamois, which is purposely made to run first across the new bridge,”
or “they make a wolf scamper through the door” of the new church, or a
goat.—(Idem, vol. iii. p. 102.)
“When the new bridge at Halle, finished in 1843, was building the
common people fancied a child was wanted to be walled into the
foundations.”—(Idem, vol. iii. p. 1142.)
“In modern Greece, when the foundation of a new building is being laid,
it is the custom to kill a cock, a ram, or a lamb, and to let its blood
flow on the foundation-stone, under which the animal is afterwards
buried. The object of the sacrifice is to give strength and stability to
the building. But sometimes, instead of killing an animal, the builder
entices a man to the foundation-stone, secretly measures his body or a
part of it, or his shadow, and buries them under the foundation-stone, or
he lays the foundation-stone on the man’s shadow. It is believed that the
man will die within a year.”—(“The Golden Bough,” Frazer, vol. i. p. 144.)
It is not our purpose to carry this part of the discussion farther. The
curious may consult Grimm, who shows the frequency with which human
victims were walled up alive in new castles, ramparts, bridges, and
other structures. As time passed on and man grew wiser, there was a
substitution of a coffin as a symbol of the human victim; in stables a
calf or a lamb was buried alive under the main door, sometimes a cock or
a goat; under altars, a live lamb; in newly opened graveyards, a live
horse. All this testimony points conclusively to the fact that every such
structure was begun at least under auspices from which all traces and
suggestions of heathenism had not yet been eliminated; consequently we
shall not be very much in error in deciding that there was some survival
of a religious rite in the peculiar ceremony insisted upon at crossing
the bridge of Montluc, or that it, as all others, was built by architects
who still adhered to the old cultus, and had influence enough with the
rustic population to secure the incorporation of certain features of a
sacred character belonging to the superseded ritual, and which have come
down to us, or almost to us, in a more or less mutilated and distorted
condition.
A very interesting article is to be found in “Mélusine,” Paris, May 5,
1888, which may be read with great profit at this moment; it is entitled
“Les Rites de la Construction,” and relates the popular tradition of the
failure to maintain a bridge at a place called Resporden, in Cornwall, as
each was swept away by flood almost as soon as completed. The good people
of the vicinity suspected sorcery and witchcraft, and consulted a witch,
whose directions were couched in these terms: “Si les gens de Resporden
veulent avoir un pont qui ne fasse plus la culbute, ils devront enterrer
vivant dans les fondations un petit garçon de quatre ans.... On placera
l’enfant dans une futaille défoncée, tout nu, et il tiendra d’une main
une chandelle bénite, de l’autre un morceau de pain.”
An unnatural mother was found who gave her infant son for the sacrifice,
receiving some compensation, and the poor victim was walled up alive
as directed; the bridge was completed, and has since withstood all the
ravages of storm and freshet; but the tale still repeats the last words
of the hapless babe,—
“Ma chandelle est morte, ma mère,
Et de pain, il ne me reste miette.”
The unnatural mother very properly went insane in a few days after the
sacrifice; and the wail of the abandoned babe is still to be heard in the
moaning of the winds and the sobs of the rains that fall upon Resporden.
XXIV.
OBSCENE SURVIVALS IN THE GAMES OF THE ENGLISH RUSTICS.
The rough games of the English rustics are not altogether free from
vestiges of the same nature as have been recorded of the Arabian sheik
in preceding pages. For example, in Northumberland, England, there was a
curious diversion called “F⸺g for the pig.” Brand gives no explanation
of the custom, which may be allied to the jocular tenures mentioned by
Blount, and with them to the worship of Bel-Phegor. Brand says: “The
ancient grossièreté of our manners would almost exceed belief. In the
stage directions to old Moralites we often find, ‘Here Satan letteth a
f⸺.’”—(“Popular Antiquities,” vol. ii. p. 9, article “Country Wakes.”)
In London itself such “survivals” lingered down to very recent periods.
“In former times the porters that plyed at Billingsgate used civilly to
entreat and desire every man that passed that way to salute a post that
stood there in a vacant place. If he refused to do this, they forthwith
laid hold of him, and by main force bouped his ⸺ against the post; but
if he quietly submitted to kiss the same, and paid down sixpence, then
they gave him a name, and chose some one of the gang for his godfather.
I believe this was done in memory of some old image that formerly stood
there, perhaps of Belius or Belin.”—(Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” vol.
ii. p. 433, article “Kissing the Post.”)
All these customs, absurd as they seem to us, may have been parts of
the ritual of deities of the same class as Bel-Phegor, who looked after
the excreta perhaps, and the organs connected therewith; some kind of
a tribute was demanded, and none could be more appropriate than the
offering of the parts or the submission to some pain inflicted upon them
by those in charge of the shrine.
Crossing the Atlantic, a custom suspiciously like the preceding, was
still to be heard of, as a rough boyish prank, in Philadelphia, Penn.,
thirty or more years ago. Whenever it happened that any boy was guilty
of flatulence, all the party of school-boys would cry, “Touch wood!” and
run to touch the nearest tree-box; those who were slow in doing this were
pounded by the more rapid ones.
“Then, lads and lasses, merry be,
...
And, to make sport,
I f⸺t and snort.”
(“The Pranks of Robin Goodfellow,” supposed to be by
Ben Jonson, quoted in Hazlitt’s “Fairy Tales,”
London, 1875, p. 420.)
The following memoranda from Buckle, “Commonplace Book,” seem to have no
value beyond merely filthy stories:—
“Ludlow’s f⸺ was a prophetique trump;
There never was anything so jump;
’Twas a very type of a vote of this rump,
Which nobody can deny.”
Ludlow is a stanch Republican. The incident alluded to was a subject
of much merriment, and exercised the pen of some of the choicest poets
of the latter half of the seventeenth century.—(“Ballad: A New Year’s
Gift for the Rump,” Jan. 5, 1659, and footnote in Percy Society’s “Early
English Poetry,” London, 1841, vol. iii. p. 176.)
“And then my poets,
The same that writ so subtly of the fart.”
(“The Alchemist,” Ben Jonson, act ii. scene 1.)
“Who the author alluded to should be I cannot say. In the collection of
poems called ‘Musarum Deliciæ; or, The Muse’s Recreation,’ by Sir John
Ennis and Dr. Smith, there is a poem called ‘The Fart censured in the
Parliament House.’ It was occasioned by an escape of that kind in the
House of Commons. I have seen part of this poem ascribed to an author
in the time of Elizabeth, and possibly it may be the thing referred
to by Jonson.” (Whalley.) But Gifford, from whose later editions I
have drawn my material, comments to the effect that “this escape, as
Whalley calls it, took place in 1607, long after the time of Elizabeth.
The ballad is among the Harleian Manuscripts, and is also printed in
the State Poems; it contains about forty stanzas of the most wretched
doggerel.”—(Gifford’s edition of Jonson, London, 1816.)
“The Fool of Cornwalle.” “I was told of a humorous knight dwelling in
the same countrey (that is, Cornwall), who upon a time, having gathered
together in one open market-place a great assemblie of knights, squires,
gentlemen, and yeomen, and whilst they stood expecting to heare some
discourse or speech to proceed from him, he, in a foolish manner (not
without laughter), began to use a thousand jestures, turning his eyes
this way and then that way, seeming always as though presently he
would have begun to speake, and at last, fetching a deepe sigh, with
a grunt like a hogge, he let a beastly loud fart, and tould them that
the occasion of this calling them together was to no other end but that
so noble a fart might be honoured with so noble a company as there
was.”—(“Jack of Dover’s Quest of Inquiry,” in Percy Society, vol. vii. p.
30, London, 1852. “Jack of Dover,” A.D. 1604.)
“The Foole of Lincoln.” “There dwelleth of late a certaine poore
labouring man in Lincoln, who, upon a time, after his wife had so reviled
him with tongue nettle as the whole streete rung again for weariness
thereof, at last he went out of the house, and sate him downe quietly
upon a blocke before his owne doore; his wife, being more out of patience
by his quietness and gentle sufferaunce, went up into the chamber, and
out at the window powred downe a pisse-pot upon his head; which when the
poor man sawe, in a merry moode he spake these words: ‘Now, surely,’
quoth he, ‘I thought at last that after so great a thunder we should have
some raine.’”—(Idem, vol. vii. p. 15.)
The preceding filthy pleasantry comes down from a very distinguished
origin. Harington recalls the adventure of the “good Socrates, who, when
Xantippe had crowned him with a chamber-pot, he bore it off single with
his head and shoulders, and said to such as laughed at it,—
“It never yet was deemed a wonder
To see that rain should follow thunder.”
(“Ajax,” p. 94.)
“_Nathaniel._ They write from Libtzig (reverence to your ears)
The art of drawing farts from out of dead bodies
Is by the brotherhood of the Rosie Cross
Produced unto perfection, in so sweet
And rich a tincture.”
(“The Staple of News,” Ben Jonson, Gifford’s edition,
London, 1816, act iii. scene 1, p. 240.)
XXV.
URINE AND ORDURE AS SIGNS OF MOURNING.
Care should be taken to distinguish between the religious use of ordure
and urine, and that in which they figure as outward signs of mourning,
induced by a frenzy of grief, or where they have been utilized in the
arts.
Lord Kingsborough (Mexican Antiquities, vol. viii. p. 237) briefly
outlines such ritualistic defilement in the Mortuary Ceremonies of
Hebrews and Aztecs, giving as references for the latter Diego Duran, and
for the former the prophet Zechariah, chap. iii.: “Now Joshua was clothed
with filthy garments, and stood before the angel,” etc.
“The nearest relations cut their hair and blacken their faces, and the
old women put human excrement on their heads,—the sign of the deepest
mourning.”—(“The Native Tribes of South Australia,” Adelaide, 1879, pp.
200, received through the kindness of the Royal Society, New South Wales,
T. B. Kyngdon, Secretary.)
XXVI.
URINE AND ORDURE IN INDUSTRIES.
The economical value of human and animal excreta would seem to have
obtained recognition among all races from the earliest ages. It is not
venturing beyond limits to assert that a book could be written upon this
phase of the subject alone. It is not essential to incorporate here all
that could be compiled, but enough is submitted to substantiate the
statement just made, and to cover every line of inquiry.
It might perhaps be well to consider whether or not the constant
use of and familiarity with human urine and ordure in houses, arts,
and industries of various kinds would have a tendency to blunt the
sensibilities of rude races, so that in their rites we could look for the
introduction of these loathsome materials; just as we find that all those
races whose women are allowed to go naked place a very slight value upon
chastity.
“It certainly is not possible to separate the religious uses of urine
from its industrial and medical uses.... Probably nearly everywhere it
has been the first soap known. Does not this aspect of the matter need to
be insisted on, even from the religious point of view?... In England and
France, and probably elsewhere, the custom of washing the hands in urine,
with an idea of its softening and beautifying influence, still subsists
among ladies, and I have known those who constantly made water on their
hands with this idea.”—(Havelock Ellis, “Contemporary Science Series,”
London, Personal letter.)
TANNING.
The inhabitants of Kodiak employ urine in preparing the skins of birds,
according to Lisiansky.—(“Voyage round the World,” London, 1814, p. 214.)
“Les gants, articles de grand luxe, et de haute élégance, faits pour
recouvrir de blanches mains et des bras dodus, sont imbibés d’un jaune
d’œuf largement additionné dudit liquide ambré.”—(“Les Primitifs,”
Réclus, p. 72.)
By the Eskimo urine is preserved for use in tanning skins,[58] while its
employment in the preparation of leather, in both Europe and America, is
too well understood to require any reference to authorities.
The Kioways of the Great Plains soaked their buffalo hides in urine to
make them soft and flexible.[59]
Urine is employed by the Tchuktchi of Siberia “in curing or tanning
skins.”—(“In the Lena Delta,” Melville, Boston, Mass., 1885, p. 318.)
Sauer says that the Yakuts tan deer and elk skins with
cow-dung.—(“Expedition to the North parts of Russia,” London, 1802, p.
131.)
Dung is used in tanning by the Bongo of the upper Nile region.—(See
Schweinfurth, “Heart of Africa,” London, 1878, vol. i. p. 134.)
Bernal Diaz, in his enumeration of the articles for sale in the
“tianguez” or market-places of Tenochtitlan, uses this expression: “I
must also mention human excrements, which were exposed for sale in canoes
lying in the canals near this square, which is used for the tanning
of leather; for, according to the assurances of the Mexicans, it is
impossible to tan well without it.”—(Bernal Diaz, “Conquest of Mexico,”
London, 1844, vol. i. p. 236.)
The same use of ordure in tanning bear-skins can be found among the
nomadic Apaches of Arizona, although, preferentially, they use the ordure
of the animal itself.
Gómara, who also tabulated the articles sold in the Mexican markets, does
not mention ordure in direct terms; his words are more vague: “All these
things which I speak of, with many that I do not know, and others about
which I keep silent, are sold in this market of the Mexicans.”[60]
Urine figures as the mordant for fixing the colors of blankets and other
woollen fabrics woven by the Navajoes of New Mexico, by the Moquis
of Arizona, by the Zuñis and other Pueblos of the Southwest, by the
Araucanians of Chili, by Mexicans, Peruvians, by some of the tribes of
Afghanistan, and other nations, by all of whom it is carefully preserved.
BLEACHING.
“Roman fullers used human urine in their business, and Pliny says it was
noticed that they never suffered from gout.”—(Pliny, “Natural History,”
lib. xxviii. cap. 3: Bohn).
Urine has also been employed as a detergent in cleaning
wool.—(Encyclopædia Britannica, article “Bleaching.”)
DYEING.
Urine is used in dyeing by the people of Ounalashka, according to
Langsdorff, “Voyages” (vol. ii. p. 47); also, according to Sarytschew, in
“Philip’s Voyages” (vol. vi. p. 72).
The same use of it has been attributed to the Irish by Camden, in
“Brittania,” edition of London, 1753, vol. ii. p. 1419. His statement is
quoted by Buckle: “In 1562, O’Neal, with some of his companions, came
to London and astonished the citizens by their hair flowing in locks on
their shoulders, on which were yellow surplices, dyed with saffron or
stained with urine.”—(“Commonplace Book,” vol. ii. p. 236.)
“As a substitute for alum, urine was employed.”—(“Folk-Lore of the
Pennsylvania Germans,” W. J. Hoffman, M. D., in “Journal of American
Folk-Lore,” 1889.)
“The preparation of blue, violet, and bluish-red coloring matters from
lichens by the action of the ammonia of stale urine, seems to have
been known at a very early period to the Mediterranean peoples, and
the existence, down almost to the present day, of such a knowledge in
the more remote parts of Ireland, Scotland, and Scandinavia, renders
it not improbable that the art of making such dyes was not unknown to
the northern nations of Europe also.”—(“The Manners and Customs of the
Ancient Irish,” Eugene O’Curry, introduction by W. K. Sullivan, London,
Dublin, Edinburgh, and New York, 1873, p. 450.)
PLASTER.
As a plaster for the interior of dwellings, cow-dung has been used with
frequency; that the employment of the ordure of an animal held sacred by
so many peoples has a religious basis, is perhaps too much to say, but it
will be shown, further on, that different ordures were kept about houses
to ensure good luck or to avert the maleficence of witchcraft.
Marco Polo has the following: (In Malabar) “there are some called Gaui,
who eat such oxen as die of themselves, but may not kill them, and daub
over their houses with cow-dung.”—(Marco Polo, in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p.
162.)
The huts in Senegal were plastered “with cow-dung, which stunk
abominably.”—(Adamson, “Voyage to Senegal,” in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p.
611.)
“The cow-dung basements around the tents” of the Mongols are spoken of by
Rev. James Gilmour.—(“Among the Mongols,” London, 1883, p. 176.)
“A floor is next made of soft tufa and cow-dung.”—(Livingston, “Zambesi,”
London, 1865, p. 293.)
Animal dung is used as a mortar by the inhabitants of Turkey in Asia
living in the valley of the Tigris.—(See “Assyrian Discoveries,” George
Smith, New York, 1876, p. 82.)
The natives of the White Nile, the tribes of the Bari, make “a cement
of ashes, cow-dung, and sand,” with which “they plaster the floors and
enclosures about their houses.”—(“The Albert Nyanza,” Sir Samuel Baker,
Philadelphia, 1869, p. 58. See the same author for the Latookas, idem, p.
135; and for the statement that the Obbos plaster enclosures, walls, and
floors alike, see pp. 203, 262.)
Pliny tells us that the threshing-floors of the Roman farmers were paved
with cow-dung; in a footnote it is stated that the same rule obtains in
France to this day.—(Pliny, lib. lxxviii. cap. 71: Bohn).
Horse-dung was considered very valuable as a luting for chemical stills
and furnaces.—(See Schurig, “Chylologia,” p. 815; also, as a “Digesting
medium,” idem.)
Of the Yakuts of Siberia it is related: “In dirtiness they yield to
none; for a grave author assures us that the mortars which they use
for bruising their dried fish are made of cow-dung hardened by the
frost.”—(Maltebrun, “Universal Geography,” vol. i. p. 347.)
“The people of Jungeion ... collected the dung of cows and sheep
... dried it, roasted it on the fire, and afterwards used it for a
bed.”—(Mungo Park, “Travels in Africa,” in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 834.)
“The vessels in which they (the Yakuts) stamp their dried fish, Roots and
Berries, are made of dried Oxen and Cow’s dung.”—(Van Stralenberg, p.
382.)
The Index to the first volume of Purchas has “Dung bought by sound of
tabor, p. 270, 1. 40;” and “Dung of Birds, a strange report of it;” but
neither of these could be found in the main portion of the volume.
AS A CURE FOR TOBACCO.
The best varieties of Tobacco coming from America were arranged in
bunches, tied to stakes, and suspended in privies, in order that the
fumes arising from the human ordure and urine might correct the corrupt
and noxious principles in the plant in the crude state.—(See Schurig,
“Chylologia,” p. 776. “Ex paxillo aliquandiu suspendere in Cloacis
Tabacum,” etc.)
“I heard lately from good authority that, in Havana, the female urine is
used in cigar-manufacturing as a good maceration.”—(Personal letter from
Dr. Gustav Jaeger, Stuttgart, August 29, 1888.)
TO RESTORE THE ODOR OF MUSK AND THE COLOR OF CORAL.
The odor of musk and the color of coral could be restored by suspending
them in a privy for a time.—(See Danielus Beckherius, “Medicus
Microcosmus,” London, 1600, p. 113.)
“Paracelsus scil. mediante digestione stercus humanum ad odorem Moschi
redigere voluit.”—(Etmuller, “Opera Omnia,” Comment. Ludovic. Lyons,
1690, vol. ii. pp. 171, 172.)
“Moschi odorem deperditum restitui posse, si in loco aliquo, ubi
urina et excrementa alvina putrescunt, detineatur, apud autores
legimus.”—(Schurig, “Chylologia,” p. 768.)
“Fit, ut Moschus longo tempore æmittat odorem, quem tamen recuperat
si irroretur cum pueri urina, vel si suspendatur in latrina
humana.”—(Etmuller, vol. ii. p. 276.)
CHEESE MANUFACTURE.
“A storekeeper in Berlin was punished some years ago for having used
the urine of young girls with a view to make his cheese richer and more
piquant. Notwithstanding, people went, bought and ate his cheese with
delight. What may be the cause of all these foolish and mysterious
things? In human urine is the Anthropin.”—(Personal letter from Dr.
Gustav Jaeger, Stuttgart, August 29, 1888.)
“En certaines fermes de Suisse on se sert, m-a-t’on-dit, de l’urine pour
activer la férmentation de certaines fromages qu’on y plonge.”—(Personal
letter from Dr. Bernard to Captain Bourke, dated Cannes, France, July 7,
1888.)
Whether or not the use of human urine to ripen cheese originated in the
ancient practice of employing excrementitious matter to preserve the
products of the dairy from the maleficence of witches; or, on the other
hand, whether or not such an employment as an agent to defeat the efforts
of the witches be traceable to the fact that stale urine was originally
the active ferment to hasten the coagulation of the milk would scarcely
be worth discussion.
OPIUM ADULTERATION.
The smoker of opium little imagines that, in using his deadly drug, he is
often smoking an adulterated article, the adulterant being hen manure;
he is thus placed on a par with the American Indian smoking the dried
dung of the buffalo, and the African smoking that of the antelope or the
rhinoceros.
EGG-HATCHING.
In the description of the province of Quang-tong, it is stated that the
Chinese hatch eggs “in the Oven, or in Dung.”—(Du Halde, “History of
China,” London, 1741, vol. i. p. 238.) See the same statement made in
Purchas, vol. i. 270.
In China “their fish is chiefly nourished with the dung of Oxen that
greatly fatteth it.”—(Perera, in Purchas, vol. i. p. 205.)
TAXES ON URINE.
The Roman emperors imposed a tax and tolls upon urine because of its
usefulness in many things.—(“Dreck Apotheke,” Paullini, p. 8. See
previous statements in this volume and consult Suetonius “Vespasian.”)
CHRYSOCOLLON.
There was a cement for fixing the precious metals, which cement was known
as “Chrysocollon,” and was made with much ceremony from the urine “of an
innocent boy.” There are various descriptions, but the following, while
brief, contain all the material points.
Galen describes this Chrysocollon, or Gold-Glue, as prepared by some
physicians from the urine of a boy, who had to void it into a mortar of
red copper while a pestle of the same material was in motion, which urine
carefully exposed to the sun until it had acquired the thickness of
honey, was considered capable of soldering gold and of curing obstinate
diseases: “Attamen medicamentum quod ex urina pueri conficetur quod
quidam vocant chrysocollon, quia eo ad auri glutinationem utuntur, ad
ulcera difficilia sanatu optimum esse assero fit autem id figura phiali
confecto mortario ex ære rubro habentem pistillum ejusdem materiæ in quod
mejente puero pistillum circumages, identidem, ut non tantum a mortario
deradedet, etc.” (“Opera Omnia,” Kuhn’s edition, vol. xii. pp. 286, 287.)
Dioscorides describes the manufacture thus: “Quinetiam ex ea (i. e.
‘pueri innocentis urina’) et ære cyprio idoneum ferruminando glutea
paratur.”—(“Materia Medica,” Kuhn’s edition, vol. i. p. 227 _et seq._)
If a boy’s urine be rubbed up in a copper mortar with a copper pestle,
it makes a sort of mucilage which can be used to fasten articles of gold
together, as Sextus Placitus tells us: “Si pueri lotium cuprino mortario
et cuprino pistello contritum fuerit, aurum solidat.”—(“De Medicamentis
ex Animalibus,” edition of Lyons, 1537, pages not numbered, article, “De
Puello et Puella Virgine.”)
The definition given by Avicenna, the Arabian authority, is: “Quæ fit ex
urina infantium mota in mortario æro cum aceto in sole.”—(Vol. i. p. 336,
a 34 _et seq._)
We also read of an “Alchymical Water,” called “Diana,” for transmuting
metals into gold and silver; it was believed that this preparation was
efficacious “ad mutandum Mercurium in Solem vel Lunam.” (“Sol” was gold,
“Luna” was silver; see notes from Paracelsus below.) This “Diana” was
employed in the preparation of “Crocus Martis,” as well as in that of
“Oleum Martis,” for giving metals the color of gold, for polishing gold
plate, for giving a fine temper to the best iron or steel implements,
and for making the “Chrysocolla” just described.—(“Medicus Microcosmus,”
Beckherius, pp. 103-108.)
Paracelsus, speaking of the metals says: “Sol, that is Gold; Luna, that
is silver; Venus, that is Copper; Mercury, that is Quicksilver; Saturnus,
that is Lead; Jupiter, that is Tinne; Mars, that is Iron.”—(“The Secrets
of Physicke,” English translation, London, 1633, p. 117.)
FOR REMOVING INK STAINS.
Human urine was considered efficacious in the removal of ink-spots.—(See
Pliny, Bohn, lib. v. and lib. xxviii.)
AS AN ARTICLE OF JEWELRY.
Fossilized excrement is used in the manufacture of jewelry, under the
name of “Coprolite.”
Lapland women carry a little case made from the bark of the birch tree,
“which they usually carry under the girdle” in which is to be found
reindeer dung, not as an amulet but to aid in weaning the young reindeer
by smearing the udders of the dams.—(See Leems’ “Account of Danish
Lapland,” in Pinkerton, vol. i. p. 405.)
But, from other sources, we have learned that the Laps attached the most
potent influences to ordure and urine believing that their reindeer could
be bewitched, that vessels could be hastened or retarded in their course,
etc., by the use of such materials. Several examples of this belief are
given in this volume; see under “Witchcraft.”
TATTOOING.
Langsdorff noticed that urine entered into the domestic economy of the
natives of Ounalashka. He tells us that the tattooing was performed
with “a sort of coal dust mixed with urine, rubbed in” the punctures
made in the skin (“Voyages,” vol. ii. p. 40). That the tattooing with
which savages decorate their bodies has a significance beyond a simple
personal ornamentation cannot be gainsaid, although the degree of its
degeneration from a primitive religious symbolism may now be impossible
to determine. Even if regarded in no other light than as a means of
clan-distinction, there is the suggestion of obsolete ceremonial, because
the separation into castes and gentes is in every case described by the
savages concerned as having been performed at the behest of some one of
their innumerable deities, who assigned to each clan its appropriate
“totem.” Clan marks may be represented in the tattooing, the conventional
signs of primitive races not having yet been sufficiently investigated;
for example, among the Apaches three marks radiating out from a single
stem represent a turkey, that being the form of the bird’s foot. At
the dances of the Indians of the pueblo of Santo Domingo, on the Rio
Grande, New Mexico, the bodily decorations were, in nearly every case,
associated with the clan “totem;” but this fact never would have been
suspected unless explained by one of the initiated. In one of the dances
of the Moquis the members of the Tejon or Badger clan appeared with white
stripes down their faces; that is one of the marks of the badger, as they
explained.
The author does not wish to say much on this topic, since his attention
was not called to it until a comparatively late period in his
investigations; but he was surprised to learn that the Apaches, among
whom he then was, although marking themselves very slightly, almost
invariably made use of an emblemism of a sacred character; moreover, it
was very generally the work of some one of the “medicine men.”
The tattooing of the people of Otaheite seen by Cook was surmised by
him to have a religious significance, as it presented in many instances
“squares, circles, crescents, and ill-designed representations of men
and dogs.” (In Hawkesworth’s “Voyages,” London, 1773, vol. ii. p. 190.)
Every one of these people was tattooed upon reaching majority. (Idem, p.
191.) It is stated that certain chiefs in New Zealand, unable to write
their names to a document presented to them for signature drew lines like
those tattooed upon their faces and noses.—(See “Voyage of Adventure and
Beagle,” London, 1839, vol. ii. p. 586.)
Among the Dyaks of Borneo “all the married women are tattooed on the
hands and feet, and sometimes on the thighs. The decoration is one
of the privileges of matrimony, and is not permitted to unmarried
girls.”—(“Head-Hunters of Borneo,” Carl Bock, London, 1881, p. 67.)
A recent writer has the following to say on this subject: “The tattoo
marks make it possible to discover the remote connection between clans;
and this token has such a powerful influence upon the mind that there
is no feud between tribes which are tattooed in the same way. The type
of the marks must be referred to the animal kingdom; yet we cannot
discover any tradition or myth which relates to the custom. There is no
reason for asserting that there is any connection between the tattoo
marks and Totemism, although I am personally disposed to think that this
is sometimes the case. The tattooing, which usually consists in the
imitation of some animal forms, may lead to the worship of such animals
as religious objects.” (“The Primitive Family,” C. N. Starcke, Ph. D.,
New York, 1889, p. 42.) Here is an example of putting the cart before the
horse; in all cases investigation will show that the animal was a god,
and for that reason was imprinted on the person of the worshipper as a
vow of supplication or prayer.
In another place the same writer says that tattooing had “to be performed
by a priest.”—(Idem, p. 241.)
The religious element in Totemism has been plainly revealed by W.
Robertson Smith in Encyclopædia Britannica, article “Sacrifice,” and by
James G. Frazer, M.A., in his “Totemism,” Edinburgh, 1887.
Andrew Lang devotes several chapters to the subject (“Myth, Ritual, and
Religion,” London, 1887, vol. i. cap. 3). He says of the Australian
tribes: “There is some evidence that in certain tribes the wingong or
totem of each man is indicated by a tattooed representation of it upon
his flesh” (p. 65). On another page, quoting from Long’s “Voyages,” 1791,
he says: “The ceremony of adoption was painful, beginning with a feast
of dog’s flesh, followed by a Turkish bath, and a prolonged process of
tattooing.”—(Idem, p. 71.)
A traveller of considerable intelligence comments in these terms upon the
bodily ornamentation of the Burmese:—
“Burmah is the land of the tattooed man.... In my visit to the great
prison here, which contains more than three thousand men, I saw six
thousand tattooed legs.... The origin of the custom I have not been
able to find out. It is here the Burmese sign of manhood, and there is
as much ceremony about it as there is about the ear-piercing of girls
which chronicles their entrance upon womanhood. There are professional
tattooers, who go about with books of designs.... The people are
superstitious about it; and certain kinds of tattooing are supposed to
ward off disease. One kind wards off the snake-bite, and another prevents
a man from drowning.”—(Frank G. Carpenter, in the “Bee,” Omaha, Nebraska,
May 19, 1889.)
Surgeon Corbusier, U. S. Army, says of the Apache-Yumas of Arizona
Territory, that “the married women are distinguished by seven narrow
blue lines running from the lower lip down to the chin.... Tattooing is
practised by the women, rarely by the men.... A young woman, when anxious
to become a mother, tattooes the figure of a child on her forehead.”—(In
the “American Antiquarian,” November, 1886.)
The “sectarial marks” of the Hindus are possibly vestiges of a former
practice of tattooing. Coleman (“Mythology of the Hindus,” London, 1832,
p. 165) has a reference to them.
Squier, in his monograph upon “Manobosho,” in “American Historical
Review,” 1848, says that the Mandans have a myth in which occurs the name
of a god, “Tattooed Face.”
Alice Oatman stated distinctly that “she was tattooed by two of their
(Mojaves) physicians,” and “marked, not as they marked their women, but
as they marked their captives.” Be that as it may, the four lines on
her chin, as well as can be discerned from the indifferent woodcut, are
the same as can be seen upon the chins of Mojave women to-day.—(See
Stratton’s “Captivity of the Oatman Girls,” San Francisco, 1857, pp. 151,
152.)
Maltebrun says of the inhabitants of the Island of Formosa: “Their
skin is covered with indelible marks, representing trees, animals, and
flowers of grotesque forms.”—(“Universal Geography,” American edition,
Philadelphia, 1832, vol. ii. lib. 43, p. 79, article “China.”)
“The practice of marking the skin with the figures of animals, flowers,
or stars, which was in existence before the time of Mahomet, has still
left traces among the Bedouin women.”—(Idem, vol. i. lib. 30, p. 395.)
Speaking of the Persian ladies, the same authority says: “They stain
their bodies with the figures of trees, birds, and beasts, sun, moon, and
stars.”—(Idem, vol. i. lib. 33, p. 428, article “Persia.”)
In the “Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London,” vol. vi., it
is stated that the “Oraon boys (India) are marked when children on the
arms by a rather severe process of puncturation, which they consider it
manly to endure.”
“Mojave girls, after they marry, tattoo the chin with vertical blue
lines.”—(Palmer, quoted by H. H. Bancroft in “Native Races,” vol. i. p.
480.)
In the cannibal feast of the Tupis of the Amazon, Southey says, “The
chief of the clan scarified the arms of the Matador above the elbow, so
as to leave a permanent mark there; and this was the Star and Garter
of their ambition, the highest badge of honor. There were some who cut
gashes in their breast, arms, and thighs on these occasions, and rubbed
a black powder in, which left an indelible stain.”—(Quoted by Herbert
Spencer in “Descriptive Sociology.”)
“A savage man meets a savage maid. She does not speak his language, nor
he hers. How are they to know whether, according to the marriage laws of
their race, they are lawful mates for each other? This important question
is settled by an inspection of their tattoo marks. If a Thlinkeet man, of
the Swan stock, meets an Iroquois maid, of the Swan stock, they cannot
speak to each other, and the ‘gesture language’ is cumbrous. But if both
are tattooed with the Swan, then the man knows that this daughter of the
Swan is not for him.... The case of the Thlinkeet man and the Iroquois
maid is extremely unlikely to occur, but I give it as an example of the
practical use among savages of representative art.”—(“Custom and Myth,”
Andrew Lang, New York, 1885, p. 292.)
“Tattooing is fetichistic in origin. Among all the tribes, almost
every Indian has the image of an animal tattooed on his breast or arm,
which can charm away an evil spirit or prevent harm to them.”—(Dorman,
“Primitive Superstition,” New York, 1881, p. 156.)
“The Eskimo wife has her face tattooed with lamp-black, and is regarded
as a matron in society.”—(“Schwatka’s Search,” William H. Gilder, New
York, 1881, p. 250.) “I never saw any attempt at figure or animal drawing
for personal ornamentation. The forms are generally geometrical in design
and symmetrical in arrangement.... None of the men are tattooed.”—(Idem,
p. 251.)
“The Mojaves of the Rio Colorado tattoo, but the explanation of the marks
was exceedingly vague and unsatisfactory. The women, upon attaining
puberty, are tattooed upon the chin, and there seem to be four different
patterns followed, probably representing as many different phratric or
clan systems in former times.”—(See the author’s article in the “Journal
of American Folk-Lore,” Cambridge, Mass., July-September, 1888, entitled
“Notes on the Cosmogony and Theogony of the Mojaves.”)
Swan, in his notes upon the Indians of Cape Flattery, contents himself
with observing that their tattooing is performed with coal and human
urine.
“In order that the ghost may travel the ghost road in safety, it is
necessary for each Lakota during his life to be tattooed either in the
middle of the forehead or on the wrists. In that event, his spirit will
go directly to the ‘Many Lodges.’ ... An old woman sits in the road, and
she examines each ghost that passes. If she cannot find the tattoo-marks
on the forehead, wrists, or chin, the unhappy ghost is pushed from a
cloud or cliff, and falls to this world.”—(Dr. J. Owen Dorsey, in the
“Journal of American Folk-Lore,” April, 1889.)
Of the islands of the South Pacific, Kotzebue says, “I believe that
tattooing in these islands is a religious custom; at least, they refused
it to several of our gentlemen at Otdia, assuring them that it could only
be done in Egerup.”—(“Voyages,” vol. ii. pp. 113, 135, London, 1821.)
“Tattooing is by no means confined to the Polynesians, but this ‘dermal
art’ is certainly carried by them to an extent which is unequalled by any
other people.... It is practised by all classes.... By the vast number of
them it is adopted simply as a personal ornament, though there are some
grounds for believing that the tattoo may, in a few cases and to a small
extent, be looked upon as a badge of mourning or a memento of a departed
friend. Like everything else in Polynesia, its origin is related in a
legend which credits its invention to the gods, and says it was first
practised by the children of Tharoa, their principal deity. The sons of
Tharoa and Apouvarou were the gods of tattooing, and their images were
kept in the temples of those who practised the art as a profession, and
to them petitions are offered that the figures might be handsome, attract
attention, and otherwise accomplish the purpose for which they submitted
themselves to this painful operation.... To show any signs of suffering
under the operation is looked upon as disgraceful.”—(“World,” New York,
May 10, 1890, quoting from “The Peoples of the World.”)
“In the Tonga and Samoan Islands, the young men were all tattooed upon
reaching manhood; before this, they could not think of marriage....
Tattooing is still kept up to some extent, and is a regular
profession.... There are two gods, patrons of tattooing,—Taema and
Tilfanga.”—(See Turner’s “Samoa.”)
“One of the features of the Initiation among the Port Lincoln tribe was
the tattooing of the young man and the conferring of a new name upon
him.”—(“The Native Tribes of South Australia,” Adelaide, 1879, received
through the kindness of the Royal Society, New South Wales, T. B.
Kyngdon, Secretary.)
It is well to observe that each tribe in a given section has not only its
own pattern of tattooing, but its own ideas of the parts of the person
to which the tattooing should be applied. Thus, among the Indians of
the northwest coast of British Columbia, “Tattooings are found on arms,
breast, back, legs, and feet among the Haidas; on arms and feet among the
Tshimshian, Kwakiutl, and Bilqula; on breast and arms among the Nootka;
on the jaw among the coast Salish women.”—(“Report on the Northwestern
Tribes of Canada,” Franz Boas, in “Trans. Brit. Assoc. Advancement of
Science,” Newcastle-upon-Tyne meeting, 1889, p. 12.)
Sullivan states that the custom of tattooing continued in England
and Ireland down to the seventh century; this was the tattooing with
woad.—(See his Introduction to O’Curry’s “Manners and Customs of the
Ancient Irish,” p. 455.)
The Inuits believe that “les femmes bien tatouées” are sure of felicity
in the world to come.—(See “Les Primitifs,” Réclus, Paris, 1885, p. 120.)
“Although the practice of the art is so ancient that we have evidence of
its existence in prehistoric times, and that the earliest chronicles of
our race contain references to it, yet the term itself is comparatively
modern.... The universality as well as the great antiquity of the custom
has been shown by a French author, Ernest Berchon, ‘Histoire Médicale
du Tatouage,’ Paris, 1869, which begins with a quotation from Leviticus
xiv., which in the English version reads thus: ‘Ye shall not make any
cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you.’ Don
Calmet, in commenting upon this passage, says that the Hebrew literally
means ‘a writing of spots.’ Many Italians have been tattooed at Loretto.
Around this famous shrine are seen professional tattooers, ‘Marcatori,’
who charge from half to three quarters of a lire for producing a design
commemorative of the pilgrim’s visit to the shrine of Our Lady of
Loretto. A like profitable industry is pursued at Jerusalem.... Religion
has some influence (in the matter of tattooing) from its tendency to
preserve ancient customs. At Loretto and Jerusalem tattooing is almost
a sacred observance.”—(“Tattooing among Civilized People,” Dr. Robert
Fletcher, Anthropological Society, Washington, D. C., 1883, pp. 4, 12,
and 26.)
“Father Mathias G. says that in Oceania every royal or princely family
has a family of tattooers especially devoted to their service, and that
none other can be permitted to produce the necessary adornment.”—(Idem,
p. 24.)
“Tatowiren, Narbenzeichnen und Korperbemalen” (Tattooing, Cicatricial
Marking and Body Painting), by Wilhelm Joest, Berlin, 1887, a superbly
illustrated volume, has been reviewed by Surgeon Washington Matthews,
U. S. Army, in the “American Anthropologist,” Washington, D. C., ending
in these words, “The author’s opinion, however, that ‘tattooing has
nothing to do with the religion of savages, but is only a sport or means
of adornment, which, at most, has connection with the attainment of
maturity,’ is one which will not be generally concurred in by those who
have studied this practice as it exists among our American savages.”
AGRICULTURE.
In the interior of China, travellers relate that copper receptacles
along the roadsides rescue from loss a fertilizer whose value is fully
recognized.
These copper receptacles recall the “Gastra,” of the Romans, already
referred to under the heading of “Latrines.”
“Les Chinois fument leurs terres autant que cela est en leur pouvoir;
ils emploient à cet usage toutes sortes d’engrais, mais principalement
les excréments humains, qu’ils recueillent à cet effet avec grand soin.
On trouve dans les villes, dans les villages, et sur les routes, des
endroits faits exprès pour la commodité des passans, et dans les lieux où
il n’y a pas de semblables facilités, des hommes vont ramasser soir et
matin les ordures et les mettent dans des panniers à l’aide d’un croc de
fer à trois pointes.
“On traffique dans ce pays de ce qu’on rejette ailleurs avec horreur et
celui qui reçoit d’argent en France pour nettoyer une fosse, en donne
au contraire en Chine pour avoir la liberté d’en faire autant. Les
excréments sont portés dans de grands trous bien mastiqués, faits en
pleine campagne, dans lesquels on les délaye avec de l’eau et de l’urine
et on les répand dans les champs à mesure qu’on a besoin. On rencontre
souvent sur la rivière à Quanton des bateaux d’une forme particulière
destinés au transport de ces ordures et ce n’est pas sans surprise qu’on
en voit les conducteurs être aussi peu affectés qu’ils le paroissent
de l’odeur agréable d’une pareille marchandise.”—(“Voyage à Pekin,” De
Guignes, Paris, 1808, vol. iii. p. 322.)
“The dung of all animals is esteemed above any other kind of manure.
It often becomes an article of commerce in the shape of small cakes,
which are made by mixing it with a portion of loam and earth, and then
thoroughly drying them. These cakes are even brought from Siam, and
they also form an article of commerce between the provinces. They are
never applied dry, but are diluted with as much animal water as can be
procured.”—(“Chinese Repository,” Canton, 1835, vol. iii. p. 124.)
“They even make sale of that which is sent privately to some distance in
Europe at midnight.” (Du Halde, “History of China,” London, 1736, vol.
ii. p. 126.) This statement of Father Du Halde can be compared with what
Bernal Diaz says of the markets of the city of Mexico at the time of
Cortés: “There are in every province a great number of people who carry
pails for this purpose; in some places they go with their barks into the
canals which run on the back side of the houses, and fill them at almost
every hour of the day.”—(Du Halde, idem, p. 126.)
Rosinus Lentilius, in “Ephemeridum Physico-Medicorum,” Leipsig, 1694,
states that the people of China and Java buy human ordure in exchange for
tobacco and nuts. This was probably on account of its value in manuring
their fields, which, he tells us (p. 170), was done three times a year
with human ordure. This leads him to make the reflection that man runs
back to excrement,—“Unde stercus in alimentum et hoc rursum in stercus.”
“The Japanese manure their fields with human ordure.”—(See Kemper’s
“History of Japan,” in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p. 698.)
“Yea, the dung of men is there sold, and not the worse merchandise, that
stink yielding sweet wealth to some who goe tabouring up and down the
streetes to signifie what they woulde buy. Two or three hundred sayle are
sometimes freighted with this lading in some Port of the Sea; whence the
fatted soyle yields three Haruests in a yeare.”—(Mendex Pinto, “Account
of China,” in Purchas, vol. i. p. 270.)
“Heaps of manure in every field, at proper distances, ready to be
scattered over the corn.”—(Turner, “Embassy to Tibet,” London, 1806, p.
62.)
The Persians used pigeon’s dung “to smoak their melons.”—(John Matthews
Eaton, “Treatise on Breeding Pigeons,” London, no date, pp. 39, 40,
quoting from Tavernier’s first volume of “Persian Travels.”)
The finest variety of melon, “the sugar melon,” “cultivated with the
greatest care with the dung of pigeons kept for the purpose.”—(“Persia,”
Benjamin, London, 1877, p. 428.)
Fosbroke cites Tavernier as saying that the King of Persia draws a
greater revenue from “the dung than from the pigeons” belonging to him
in Ispahan. The Persians are said to live on melons during the summer
months, and “to use pigeons’ dung in raising them.”—(“Cyclopædia of
Antiquities,” vol. ii.)
Human manure was best for fields, according to Pliny (Nat. Hist. lib.
17, cap. 9). Homer relates that King Laertes laid dung upon his fields.
Augeas was the first king among the Greeks so to use it, and “Hercules
divulged the practice thereof among the Italians.”—(Pliny, idem,
Holland’s translation.)
Urine was considered one of the best manures for vines. “Wounds and
incisions of trees are treated also with pigeon’s dung and swine
manure.... If pomegranates are acid, the roots of the tree are cleared,
and swine’s dung is applied to them; the result is that in the first year
the fruit will have a vinous flavor, but in the succeeding one it will
be sweet.... The pomegranates should be watered four times a year with
a mixture of human urine and water.... For the purpose of preventing
animals from doing mischief by browsing upon the leaves, they should be
sprinkled with cow-dung each time after rain.”—(Pliny, lib. 17, cap. 47.)
Schurig calls attention to the great value attached by farmers and
viticulturists to human ordure, either alone or mixed with that of
animals, in feeding hogs, in fertilizing fields, and in adding richness
to the soil in which vines grow. See “Chylologia,” p. 795.
In Germany and France, during the past century, farmers and gardeners
were generally careful of this fertilizer.
“In the valley of Cuzco, Peru, and, indeed, in almost all parts of the
Sierra, they used human manure for the maize crops, because they said it
was the best.”—(Garcillasso de la Vega, “Comentarios Reales,” Clement C.
Markham’s translation, in Hakluyt Society, vol. xlv. p. 11.)
“Conocian tambien el uso de estercolar las tierras que ellos llamaban
Vunaltu.”—(“Historia Civil del Reyno de Chile,” Don Juan Ignacio Molina,
edition of Madrid, 1788, p. 15.)
Amelie Rives, in her story “Virginia of Virginia,” relates that a certain
family of Virginia was taken down with the typhoid fever on account of
“making fertilizer in the cellar.” We may infer that this “fertilizer”
was largely composed of manure. This is the interview between Mr. Scott
and Miss Virginia Herrick: “‘The tarryfied fever’s a-ragin’ up ter
Annesville,’ he announced presently. Virginia faced about for the first
time. ‘Is it?’ she asked; ‘who’s down?’ ‘Nigh all of them Davises. The
doctor says as how it’s ’count o’ their makin’ fertilizer in their
cellar.’”—(In “Harper’s Magazine,” New York, January, 1888, p. 223.)
Animal manure was known as a fertilizer to the Jews (2 Kings ix. 37;
Jeremiah viii. 2, ix. 22, xvi. 4, and xxv. 33). Human manure also.
(Consult McClintock and Strong’s Encyclopædia, article “Dung.”)
URINE USED IN THE MANUFACTURE OF SALT.
Gómara explains that, mixed with palm-scrapings, human urine served as
salt to the Indians of Bogota,—“Hacen sal de raspaduras de palma y orinas
de hombre.”—(“Hist. de las Indias,” p. 202.)
Salt is made by the Latookas of the White Nile from the ashes of goat’s
dung.—(See “The Albert Nyanza,” Sir Samuel Baker, Philadelphia, 1869, p.
224.)
Pallas states that the Buriats of Siberia, in collecting salts from the
shores of certain lakes in their country, are careful as to the taste of
the same: “Ils n’emploient que ceux qui ont un goût d’Urine et d’alkali.”
(“Voyages,” Paris, 1793, vol. iv. p. 246.) This shows that they must
once have used urine for salt, as so many other tribes have done.
The Siberians gave human urine to their reindeer: “Nothing is so
acceptable to a reindeer as human urine, and I have even seen them run to
get it as occasion offered.”—(John Dundas Cochrane, “Pedestrian Journey
Through Siberian Tartary,” 1820-23, Philadelphia, 1824, p. 235.)
Melville also relates that he saw the drivers urinate into the mouths of
their reindeer in the Lena Delta.—(Personal letter to Captain Bourke.)
Here the intent was evident; the animals needed salt, and no other method
of obtaining it was feasible during the winter months. Cochrane is
speaking of the Tchuktchi; but he was also among Yakuts and other tribes.
He walked from St. Petersburg to Kamtschatka and from point to point
in Siberia for a total distance of over six thousand miles. His pages
are dark with censure of the filthy and disgusting habits of the savage
nomads, as, of the Yakuts, “Their stench and filth are inconceivable....
The large tents (of the Tchuktchi) were disgustingly dirty and offensive,
exhibiting every species of grossness and indelicacy.” Inside the
tents men, women, and girls were absolutely naked. “They drink only
snow-water during the winter, to melt which, when no wood can be had,
very disgusting and dirty means are resorted to,” etc. But nowhere does
he speak of the drinking of human urine, which, as has been learned from
other sources, does obtain among them.
(Tchuktchees of Siberia.) “It would be impossible, with decency, to
describe their habits, or explain how their very efforts towards
cleanliness make them all the more disgusting.... It requires
considerable habitude or terrible experience in the open air to find any
degree of comfort in such abodes. The Augean stables or the stump-tail
cow-sheds appear like Paradise in comparison.”—(“Ice-Pack and Tundra,”
Gilder, New York, 1883, p. 105.)
PREPARATION OF SAL AMMONIAC, PHOSPHORUS, SOLUTION OF INDIGO.
Diderot and D’Alembert say that the sal ammoniac of the ancients
was prepared with the urine of camels; that phosphorus, as then
manufactured in England, was made with human urine, as was also
saltpetre.—(Encyclopædia, Geneva, 1789, article “Urine.”)
Sal ammoniac derives its name from having been first made in the
vicinity of the temple of Jupiter Ammon; it would be of consequence to us
to know whether or not the priests of that temple had administered urine
in disease before they learned how to extract from it the medicinal salt
which has come down to our own times.
Schurig devotes a chapter to the medicinal preparations made from
human ordure. In every case the ordure had to be that of a youth from
twenty-five to thirty years old. This manner of preparing chemicals from
the human excreta, including phosphorus from urine, was carried to such a
pitch that some philosophers believed the philosopher’s stone was to be
found by mixing the salts obtained from human urine with those obtained
from human excrement.—(See “Chylologia,” pp. 739-742.)
The method of obtaining sal ammoniac was not known to Pliny; he knew
of gum ammoniac, which he says distilled from a tree, called metopia,
growing in the sands near the Temple of Jupiter Ammon, in Ethiopia.—(Nat.
Hist. lib. 12, cap. 22.)
“A notion has prevailed that sal ammoniac was made of the sand on which
camels had staled, and that a great number going to the temple of Jupiter
Ammon gave occasion for the name of ammoniac, corrupted to armoniac.
Whether it ever could be made by taking up the sand and preparing it with
fire, as they do the dung at present, those who are best acquainted with
the nature of these things will be best able to judge. I was informed
that it was made of the soot which is caused by burning the dung of cows
and other animals. The hotter it is the better it produces; and for that
reason the dung of pigeons is the best; that of camels is also much
esteemed.” (Here follows a description of the method of distilling this
soot.)—(Pocock’s “Travels in Egypt,” in Pinkerton, vol. xv. p. 381.)
“Purifiée, l’Urine sert dans les arts pour dégraisser les laines,
dissoudre l’indigo, prépare le sel ammoniac.”—(Personal letter from Prof.
Frank Rede Fowke, South Kensington Museum, June 18, 1888.)
MANURE EMPLOYED AS FUEL.
The employment of manures as fuel for firing pottery among Moquis, Zuñis,
and other Pueblos, and for general heating in Thibet, has been pointed
out by the author in a former work. (“Snake Dance of the Moquis,” London,
1884.) It was used for the same purpose in Africa, according to Mungo
Park. (“Travels,” etc., p. 119.) The dung of the buffalo served the same
purpose in the domestic economy of the Plains Indians. Camel dung is the
fuel of the Bedouins; that of men and animals alike was saved and dried
by the Syrians, Arabians, Egyptians, and people of West of England for
fuel. Egyptians heated their lime-kilns with it.—(McClintock and Strong,
“Dung.” See, also, Kitto’s Biblical Encyclopædia, article “Dung.”)
Pocock says of camel dung: “In order to make fuel of it, they mix it, if
I mistake not, with chopped straw, and, I think, sometimes with earth,
and make it into cakes and dry it; and it is burnt by the common people
in Egypt; for the wood they burn at Cairo is very dear, as it is brought
from Asia Minor.”—(Pocock, in Pinkerton, vol. xv. p. 381.)
Bruce does not allude to any of the filthy customs which are detailed by
Schweinfurth, Sir Samuel Baker, and others; he does say that the Nuba
of the villages called Daher, at the head of the White Nile, Abyssinia,
“never eat their meat raw as in Abyssinia; but with the stalk of the
dura or millet and the dung of camels they make ovens under ground, in
which they roast their hogs whole, in a very cleanly and not disagreeable
manner.”—(“Nile,” Dublin, 1791, vol. v. p. 172.)
“Argol, the dried dung of camels, is the common fuel of
Mongolia.”—(“Among the Mongols,” Rev. James Gilmour, London, 1883, pp.
84, 146, 191, 296.)
The dung of camels is the fuel of the Kirghis.—(See “Oriental and Western
Siberia,” T. W. Atkinson, New York, 1865, pp. 218, 221.)
See also “From Paris to Pekin,” Meignan, London, 1885, pp. 186, 306, 310,
333; Burton’s edition of the “Arabian Nights,” vol. iii. p. 51; Father
Gerbillon’s Account of Tartary, in Du Halde, vol. iv. p. 151.
“Asses’ dung used for fuel and other purposes, such as making Joss
sticks.”—(Burton’s edition of the “Arabian Nights,” vol. ii. p. 149,
footnote.)
Cow-dung fuel and sheep-dung fuel alluded to by Huc, as used in
Thibet.—(See also Manning, Bogle, and Della Penna, in Markham’s “Thibet,”
London, 1879, p. 70.)
Friar William de Rubruquis, the Minorite, sent as ambassador to the Grand
Khan of Tartary, by Saint Louis, King of France, in 1253, speaks of
eating “Unleavened bread baked in Oxe-Dung or Horse-dung” (in Purchas,
vol. i. p. 34). Cow dung used for the same purpose in Thibet.—(See
Turner’s “Embassy to Thibet,” London, 1806, p. 202.)
“Cowe-dung fewell,” in Malta, mentioned by Master George Sandys, A.D.
1610 (in Purchas, vol. ii. p. 916).—(“Stercus bouinum,” in Egypt, idem,
vol. ii. p. 898.)
Yak manure used as fuel in Eastern Thibet, according to W. W. Rockhill in
“Border Land of China,” in “Century” Magazine, New York, 1890.
Cow manure employed for the same purpose by the people of Turkey in
Asia, in the valley of the Tigris, near Mosul, according to George
Smith.—(“Assyrian Discoveries,” New York, 1876, p. 122.)
The “whole fuel” of the Mongols is “cow or horse dung dried in the
sun.”—(Father Gerbillon’s Account of Tartary, in Du Halde, vol. iv. pp.
234, 270.)
The use of cow-dung as fuel in certain parts of the world would seem not
to be entirely divested of the religious idea.
“Firewood at Seringapatam is a dear article, and the fuel most commonly
used is cow-dung made up into cakes. This, indeed, is much used in every
part of India, especially by men of rank; as, from the veneration paid
the cow, it is considered as by far the most pure substance that can be
employed. Every herd of cattle, when at pasture, is attended by women,
and these often of high caste, who with their hands gather up the dung
and carry it home in baskets.
“They then form it into cakes, about half an inch thick, and nine inches
in diameter, and stick them on the walls to dry. So different indeed
are Hindu notions of cleanliness from ours that the walls of their best
houses are frequently bedaubed with these cakes; and every morning
numerous females, from all parts of the neighborhood, bring for sale
into Seringapatam baskets of this fuel. Many females who carry large
baskets of cow-dung on their heads are well-dressed and elegantly formed
girls.”—(“A Journey through Mysore,” Buchanan, Pinkerton, vol. viii. p.
612.)
SMUDGES.
Dried ordure is generally used for smudges, to drive away insects; the
Indians of the Great Plains beyond the Missouri burned the “chips” of the
buffalo with this object.
The natives of the White Nile “make tumuli of dung which are constantly
on fire, fresh fuel being added constantly, to drive away the
mosquitoes.”—(“The Albert Nyanza,” Baker, p. 53.)
“When they burn it (the dung of a camel) the smoke which proceeds from
it destroys Gnats and all kinds of vermin.”—(Chinese recipes given in Du
Halde’s “History of China,” vol. iv. p. 34.)
Schweinfurth describes the Shillooks of the west bank of the Nile as
“burning heaps of cow-dung to keep off the flies.”—(“Heart of Africa,”
vol. i. p. 16. See also “Central Africa,” Chaillé Long, New York, 1877,
p. 215.)
Such smudges were employed by the Arabians to kill bed-bugs. “Effugatione
Cimicum” effected by a “suffumigium” of “stercore vaccino.”—(“Avicenna,”
vol. ii. p. 214, a 47.)
Rev. James Gilmour describes a mode of extinguishing a burning tent,
observed among the Mongols, the counterpart of which is to be found in
“Gulliver’s Travels.”—(See “Among the Mongols,” p. 23.)
Lucius Cataline, accused by Marcus Cicero of raising a flame in the city
of Rome, “I believe it,” said he, “and, if I cannot extinguish it with
water, I will with urine.”—(Harington, “Ajax,” cap. “Ulysses upon Ajax,”
p. 22.)
HUMAN AND ANIMAL EXCRETA TO PROMOTE THE GROWTH OF THE HAIR AND ERADICATE
DANDRUFF.
For shampooing the hair, urine was the favorite medium among the
Eskimo.[61]
Sahagun, gives in detail the formula of the preparation applied by the
Mexicans for the eradication of dandruff: “Cut the hair close to the
root, wash head well with urine, and afterward take amole (soap-weed)
and coixochitl leaves—the amole is the wormwood of this country [in this
Sahagun is mistaken]—and then the kernels of aguacate ground up and
mixed with the ashes already spoken of (wood ashes from the fire-place),
and then rub on black mud with a quantity of the bark mentioned
(mesquite).”[62]
A similar method of dressing the hair, but without urine, prevails among
the Indians along the Rio Colorado and in Sonora, Mexico. First, an
application is made of a mixture of river mud (“blue mud,” as it is
called in Arizona) and pounded mesquite bark. After three days this
is removed, and the hair thoroughly washed with water in which the
saponaceous roots of the amole have been steeped. The hair is dyed a rich
blue-black, and remains soft, smooth, and glossy.
Dove-dung was also applied externally in the treatment of
baldness.—(Hippocrates, Kuhn, lib. 2, p. 854.)
The urine of the foal of an ass was supposed to thicken the hair. (See
Pliny, lib. xxviii. cap 11.) Camel’s dung, reduced to ashes and mixed
with oil, was said to curl and frizzle the hair (idem, lib. xxviii. cap.
8). The natives of the Nile above Khartoum have “their hair stained red
by a plaster of ashes and cow’s urine.”—(“The Albert Nyanza,” Sir Samuel
Baker, p. 39.)
And the Shillooks of the west bank make “repeated applications of clay,
gum, or dung,” to their hair.—(“Heart of Africa,” Schweinfurth, vol. i.
p. 17; idem, the Nueirs, p. 32.)
“L’aqua ex stercore distillata fait pousser les cheveux” (Bib. Scat. p.
29), while Schurig (Chylologia, p. 760) says that the same preparation
“promotes the growth of the hair and prevents its falling out.”
Schurig further says that swallow-dung was of conceded efficacy as a
hair-dye, and was applied frequently as an ointment. (Idem, p. 817.) He
recommends the use of mouse-dung for scald head and dandruff, and even
to excite the growth of the beard. (Idem, p. 823 _et seq._) Ammonia, or,
more properly speaking, “the ashes of hartshorn, burnt and applied with
wine,” was known to Pliny as a remedy for dandruff. (Pliny, lib. xxviii.
cap. 11.) Possibly the use of hartshorn for this purpose sprang from
the prior use of urine, from which hartshorn or ammonia was gradually
manufactured.
For loss of hair, the dung of pigeons, cats, rats, mice, geese, swallows,
rabbits, or goats, or human urine, applied externally, were highly
recommended by Paullini, in his “Dreck Apothek,” Frankfort, 1696.
Cat-dung was highly recommended by Sextus Placitus.
AS A MEANS OF WASHING VESSELS.
Among the Shillooks, “ashes, dung, and the urine of cows are the
indispensable requisites of the toilet. The item last named affects the
nose of the stranger rather unpleasantly when he makes use of any of
their milk vessels, as, according to a regular African habit, they are
washed with it, probably to compensate for a lack of salt.”—(“Heart of
Africa,” Schweinfurth, vol. i. p. 16.)
“The Obbo natives are similar to the Bari in some of their habits. I
have had great difficulty in breaking my cow-keeper of his disgusting
custom of washing the milk-bowl with cow’s urine, and even mixing some
with the milk. He declares that unless he washes his hands with such
water before milking the cow will lose her milk. This filthy custom is
unaccountable.”—(“The Albert Nyanza,” Baker, p. 240.)
A personal letter from Chief Engineer Melville, U. S. Navy, states that
the natives of Eastern Siberia use urine “for cleansing their culinary
materials.”
By the tribes on Lake Albert Nyanza, the “butter was invariably packed
in a plantain leaf, but frequently the package was plastered with
cow-dung and clay.” (“The Albert Nyanza,” p. 363. See, also, extract from
Paullini, on p. 316, and from Schurig, p. 121, of this volume.) There
certainly seems to be a trace of superstition in the first case mentioned
by Sir Samuel Baker.
In the County Cork, Ireland, rusty tin dishes are scoured with cow
manure; the manure is blessed, and so will benefit the dishes and bring
good luck. It is a not infrequent custom to bury “keelars” and other
dishes for holding milk under a manure-heap during the winter and early
spring (when cows are apt to be dry, and the milk-dishes empty), to
protect them (the dishes) from persons evilly disposed, who might cast
a spell on them, and so bewitch either the cows or the milk. Such an
evil-eyed person could not harm a dish unless empty.
“The cow is believed to be a blessed animal, and hence the manure is
sacred.” (Personal letter from Mrs. Fanny D. Bergen, Cambridge, Mass.)
This belief of the Celtic peasantry apparently connects itself with the
religious veneration in which the cow is held by the people of India.
FILTHY HABITS IN COOKING.
The Eskimo relate stories of a people who preceded them in the Polar
regions called the Tornit. Of these predecessors, they say, “Their way
of preparing meat was disgusting, since they let it become putrid, and
placed it between the thigh and the belly to warm it.”—(“The Central
Eskimo,” Dr. Franz Boas, in Sixth Annual Report, Bureau of Ethnology,
Washington, D. C., 1888, p. 635.)
This recalls the similar method of the Tartars, who used to seat
themselves on their horses with their meat under them.
XXVII.
URINE IN CEREMONIAL ABLUTIONS.
Where urine is applied in bodily ablutions, the object sought is
undoubtedly the procuring of ammonia by oxidation, and in no case of that
kind is it sought to ascribe an association of religious ideas. But where
the ablutions are attended with ceremonial observances, are incorporated
in a ritual, or take place in chambers reserved for sacred purposes,
it is not unfair to suggest that everything made use of, including the
urine, has a sacred or a semi-sacred significance.
No difficulty is experienced in assigning to their proper categories the
urinal ablutions of the Eskimo of Greenland (Hans Egede Saabye, p. 256);
of the Alaskans (Sabytschew, in Phillips, vol. vi.); of the Indians of
the northwest coast of America (Whymper’s “Alaska,” London, 1868, p. 142;
H. H. Bancroft, “Nat. Races,” vol. i. p. 83); of the Indians of Cape
Flattery (Swan, in “Smithsonian Contrib.”); of the people of Iceland (see
below); of Siberia (see below); and of the savages of Lower California.
Pericuis of Lower California. “Mothers, to protect them against the
weather, cover the entire bodies of their children with a varnish of coal
and urine.”—(Bancroft, vol. i. p. 559.)
Clavigero not only tells all that Bancroft does, but he adds that the
women of California washed their own faces in urine.—(“Hist. de Baja
California,” Mexico, 1852, p. 28; see, also, Orozco y Berra and Baegert.)
“People of Iceland are reported to wash their faces and hands in
pisse.” (Hakluyt, “Voyages,” vol. i. p. 664.) This report was, however,
indignantly denied of all but the common people by Arugrianus Jonas, an
Icelandic writer.
The inhabitants of Ounalashka “wash themselves first with their own
urine, and afterwards with water.”—(“Russian Discoveries,” William Coxe,
London, 1803, quoting Solovoof’s “Voyage,” 1764, p. 226.)
In the same volume is to be found the statement that in Alaska and the
Fox Islands, the people “washed themselves, according to custom, first
with urine, and then with water.”—(p. 225, quoting “Voyage of Captain
Krenitzin,” 1768.)
When a child gets very dirty “with soot and grease,” a Vancouver squaw
uses “stale urine” to cleanse it. “This species of alkali as a substitute
for soap is the general accompaniment of the morning toilet of both
sexes, male and female. During winter they periodically scrub themselves
with sand and urine.”—(J. G. Swan, “Indians of Cape Flattery, Smithsonian
Contributions to Knowledge,” No. 220, p. 19.)
Among the Tchuktchees, urine “is a useful article in their household
economy, being preserved in a special vessel, and employed as a soap or
lye for cleansing bodies or clothing.”—(“In the Lena Delta,” Melville, p.
318.)
“But they also wash themselves, as well as their clothes, with it; and
even in the hot bath, of which men and women are alike fond, because
they love to perspire, it is with this fluid they sometimes make their
ablutions.”—(Lisiansky, “Voyage round the World,” London, 1811, p. 214.)
Used as “a substitute for soap-lees, according to
Langsdorff.”—(“Voyages,” London, 1814, vol. ii. p. 47.)
“By night, the Master of the house, with all his family, his wife and
children, lye in one room.... All of them make water in one chamber-pot,
with which, in the morning, they wash their face, mouth, teeth, and
hands. They allege many reasons thereof, to wit, that it makes a faire
face, maintaineth the strength, confirmeth the sinewes in the hands, and
preserveth the teeth from putrefaction.”—(“Dittmar Bleekens,” in Purchas,
vol. i. p. 647.)
After describing the double tent of skins used by the Tchuktchees, Mr.
W. H. Gilder, author of “Schwatka’s Search,” says all food is served in
the “yoronger,” or inner tent, in which men and women sit, in a state of
nudity, wearing only a small loin-cloth of seal-skin.
After finishing the meal, “a small, shallow pail or pan of wood is
passed to any one who feels so inclined, to furnish the warm urine with
which the board and knife are washed by the housewife. It is a matter
of indifference who furnishes the fluid, whether the men, women, or
children; and I have myself frequently supplied the landlady with the
dish-water. In nearly every tent there is kept from the summer season a
small supply of dried grass. A little bunch of this is dipped in the
warm urine and serves as a dish-rag and a napkin. These people are
generally kind and hospitable, and were very attentive to my wants as a
stranger, and regarded by them as more helpless than a native. The women
would, therefore, often turn to me after washing the board and knife,
and wash my fingers and wipe the grease from my mouth with the moistened
grass. Any of the men or women in the tent who desired it would also ask
for the wet grass, and use it in the same way.
“It was not done as a ceremony, but merely as a matter of course or of
necessity.
“I do not think they would use urine for such purposes if they could get
all the water, and especially the warm water, they needed. But all the
water they have in winter is obtained by melting snow or ice over an oil
lamp,—a very slow process; and the supply is therefore very limited,
being scarcely more than is required for drinking purposes, or to boil
such fresh meat as they may have.
“The urine, being warm and containing a small quantity of ammonia,
is particularly well adapted for removing grease from the board and
utensils, which would otherwise soon become foul, and to their taste much
more disagreeable.
“The bottom of the ‘yoronger’ is generally carpeted with tanned
seal-skins, and they too are frequently washed with the same fluid.
The consequence is that there is ever a mingled odor of ammonia and
rotten walrus-meat pervading a well-supplied and thrifty Tchouktchi
dwelling.”—(Personal letter to Captain Bourke, dated New York, October
15, 1889.)
“Vice-Admiral of the Narrow Seas.” “A drunken man that pisses under the
table into his companion’s shoes.”—(Grose, “Dictionary of Buckish Slang,”
London, 1811, article as above.)
This use of urine as a tooth-wash has had a very extensive diffusion;
it is still to be found in many parts of Europe and America, of boasted
enlightenment. The Celtiberii of Spain, “although they boasted of
cleanliness both in their nourishment and in their dress, it was not
unusual for them to wash their teeth and bodies in urine,—a custom which
they considered favorable to health.”—(Maltebrun, “Univ. Geog.,” vol. v.
book 137, p. 357, article “Spain.”)
From Strabo we learn that the Iberians “do not attend to ease or luxury,
unless any one considers it can add to the happiness of their lives to
wash themselves and their wives in stale urine kept in tanks, and to
rinse their teeth with it, which they say is the custom both with the
Cantabrians and their neighbors.” (Strabo, “Geography,” Bohn, lib. iii.
cap. 4, par. 16, London, 1854. In a footnote it is stated that “Apuleius,
Catullus, and Diodorus Siculus all speak of this singular custom.”) The
same practice is alluded to by Percy, and also by the “Encyclopédie ou
Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences,” Neufchatel, 1745, vol. xvii. p. 499;
and the practice is said to obtain among the modern Spaniards as well.
“Les Espagnols font grand usage de l’urine pour se nettoyer les dents.
Les anciens Celtibériens faisoient la même chose.”—(Received from Prof.
Frank Rede Fowke, London, June 18, 1888.)
“Bien que soigneux de leurs personnes et propres dans leur manière de
vivre, les Celtibères se lavent tout le corps d’urine, s’en frottant
même les dents, estimant cela un bon moyen pour entretenir la santé du
corps.”—(Diodore, v. 33.)
“Nunc Celtiber, in Celtiberia terra
Quod quisque minxit, hoc solet sibi mane
Dentem atque russam defricare ginginam.”
(Catullus, “Epigrams,” 39.)
The manners of the Celtiberians, as described by Strabo and others, have
come down through many generations to their descendants in all parts of
the world; all that he related of the use of human urine as a mouth-wash,
as a means of ablution, and as a dentifrice, was transplanted to the
shores of America by the Spanish colonists; and even in the present
generation, according to Gen. S. V. Bénèt, U. S. Army, traces of such
customs were to be found among some of the settlers in Florida.
The same custom has been observed among the natives along the Upper Nile.
“The Obbo natives wash out their mouths with their own urine. This habit
may have originated in the total absence of salt in their country.”—(“The
Albert Nyanza,” Sir Samuel Baker, p. 240.)
In England likewise there was a former employment of the same fluid as a
dentifrice.
“‘Nettoyer ses dents avec de l’urine, mode espagnole,’ dit Erasme.”—(“Les
Primitifs,” Elie Réclus, Paris, 1885, quoting Erasmus, “De Civilitate.”)
Urine was employed as a tooth-wash, alone or mixed with orris powder.
“Farina orobi (bitter vetch) permisceatur cum urina.”—(“Medicus
Microcosmus,” Danielus Beckherius, pp. 62-64.)
A paragraph in Paullini’s “Dreck Apothek,” p. 74, would show that in
Germany the same usages were not unknown. As a dentifrice he recommends
urine as a wash; or a powder made of pulverized gravel stone, mixed with
urine.
Ivan Petroff states that the peasants of Portugal still wash their
clothes in urine.—(Ivan Petroff, in “Trans. American Anthropological
Society,” 1882, vol. i.)
Urine is used on whaling vessels, when stale, for washing flannel shirts,
which are then thrown overboard and towed after the ship.—(Dr. J. H.
Porter.)
Dr. V. T. McGillicuddy, of Rapid City, Dakota, furnishes the information
that Irish, German, and Scandinavian washerwomen who have immigrated to
the United States persist in adding human urine to the water to be used
for cleansing blankets.
“I have observed somewhere that the Basks and some Hindus clean their
mouths with urine, but I do not remember the book.”—(Dr. Alfred Gatchett,
Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, D. C.)
Dr. Carl Lumholtz, of Christiania, Norway, states that he had seen the
savages of Herbert River, Australia, in 18° south latitude, with whom he
lived for some months, use their own urine to clean their hands after
they had been gathering wild honey.
The statement concerning the Celtiberians may also be found in
Clavigero.—(“Hist. de Baja California,” p. 28, quoting Diodorus Siculus.)
Diderot and D’Alembert assert unequivocally that in the latter years of
the last century the people of the Spanish Peninsula still used urine as
a dentifrice.—(“Les Espagnols,” etc., reading as above given from “Dict.
Raisonné.” See Encyclopédie, Geneva, 1789, article “Urine.”)
XXVIII.
URINE IN CEREMONIAL OBSERVANCES.
But in the examples adduced from Whymper concerning the people of the
village of Unlacheet, on Norton Sound, “the _dancers_ of the Malemutes of
Norton Sound bathed themselves in urine.” (Whymper’s “Alaska,” London,
1868, pp. 142, 152.) Although, on another page, Whymper says that this
was for want of soap, doubt may, with some reason, be entertained.
Bathing is a frequent accompaniment, an integral part of the religious
ceremonial among all the Indians of America, and no doubt among the Inuit
or Eskimo as well; when this is performed by dancers, there is further
reason to examine carefully for a religious complication, and especially
if these dances be celebrated in sacred places, as Petroff relates they
are.
“They never bathe or wash their bodies, but on certain occasions the men
light a fire in the kashima, strip themselves, and dance and jump around
until in a profuse perspiration. They then apply urine to their oily
bodies and rub themselves until a lather appears, after which they plunge
into the river.”—(Ivan Petroff in “Transactions American Anthropological
Society,” vol. i. 1882.)
“In each village of the Kuskutchewak (of Alaska) there is a public
building named the kashim, in which councils are held and festivals
kept, and which must be large enough to contain all the grown men of the
village. It has raised platforms around the walls, and a place in the
centre for a fire, with an aperture in the roof for the admission of
light.”—(Richardson, “Arctic Searching Expedition,” London, 1851, p. 365.)
Those kashima are identical with the estufas of Zuñis, Moquis, and Rio
Grande Pueblos. Whymper himself describes them thus: “These buildings may
be regarded as the natives’ town hall; orations are made, festivals and
feasts are held in them.”
No room is left for doubt after reading the fuller description of these
kashima, contained in Bancroft. He says the Eskimo dance in them, “often
_in puris naturalibus_,” and make “burlesque imitations of birds and
beasts.” Dog or wolf tails hang to the rear of their garments. A sacred
feast of fish and berries accompanies these dances, wherein the actors
“elevate the provisions successively to the four cardinal points, and
once to the skies above, when all partake of the feast.”—(Bancroft,
“Native Races,” vol. i. p. 78.)
There is a description of one of these dances by an American, Mr. W.
H. Gilder, an eyewitness. “The kashine (_sic_) is a sort of town hall
for the male members of the tribe.... It is built almost entirely under
ground, and with a roof deeply covered with earth. It is lighted through
a skylight in the roof, and entered by a passage-way and an opening which
can only be passed by crawling on hands and knees.... In the centre of
the room is a deep pit, where in winter a fire is built to heat the
building, after which it is closed, and the heat retained for an entire
day. In this building the men live almost all the time. Here they sleep
and eat, and they seldom rest in the bosom of their families.” He further
says that there was “a shelf which extends all round the room against the
wall.... One young man prepared himself for the dance by stripping off
all his clothing, except his trousers, and putting on a pair of reindeer
mittens.... The dance had more of the character of Indian performances
than any I had ever previously seen among the Esquimaux.”—(“Ice-Pack and
Tundra,” pp. 56-58.)
The following information received from Victor Namoff, a Kadiak of
mixed blood, relates to a ceremonial dance which he observed among the
Aiga-lukamut Eskimo of the southern coast of Alaska. The informant, as
his father had been before him, had for a number of years been employed
by the Russians to visit the various tribes on the mainland to conduct
trade for the collection of furs and peltries. Besides being perfectly
familiar with the English and Russian languages, he had acquired
considerable familiarity with quite a number of native dialects, and was
thus enabled to mingle with the various peoples among whom much of his
time was spent. The ceremony was conducted in a large partly underground
chamber, of oblong shape, having a continuous platform or shelf,
constructed so as to be used either as seats or for sleeping. The only
light obtained was from native oil lamps. The participants, numbering
about ten dozen, were entirely naked, and after being seated a short time
several natives, detailed as musicians, began to sing. Then one of the
natives arose, and performed the disgusting operation of urinating over
the back and shoulders of the person seated next him, after which he
jumped down upon the ground, and began to dance, keeping time with the
music. The one who had been subjected to the operation just mentioned,
then subjected his nearest neighbor to a similar douche, and he in turn
the next in order, and so on until the last person on the bench had
been similarly dealt with, he in turn being obliged to accommodate the
initiator of the movement, who ceases dancing for that purpose. In the
meantime all those who have relieved themselves step down and join in
the dance, which is furious and violent, inducing great perspiration and
an intolerable stench. No additional information was given further than
that the structure may have been used in this instance as a sudatory,
the urine and violent movements being deemed sufficient to supply the
necessary amount of moisture and heat to supply the participants with a
sweat-bath.—(Personal letter from Dr. W. J. Hoffman, Bureau of Ethnology,
Washington, D. C., June 16, 1890.)
Elliott describes the “Orgies” in the “Kashgas” as he styles them. “The
fire is usually drawn from the hot stones on the hearth.... A kantog
of chamber-lye poured over them, which, rising in dense clouds of
vapor, gives notice by its presence and its horrible ammoniacal odor
to the delighted inmates that the bath is on. The kashga is heated to
suffocation; it is full of smoke; and the outside men run in from their
huts with wisps of dry grass for towels and bunches of alder twigs to
flog their naked bodies.
“They throw off their garments; they shout and dance and whip themselves
into profuse perspiration as they caper in the hot vapor. More of their
disgusting substitute for soap is rubbed on, and produces a lather, which
they rub off with cold water.... This is the most enjoyable occasion of
an Indian’s existence, as he solemnly affirms. Nothing else affords a
tithe of the infinite pleasure which this orgy gives him. To us, however,
there is nothing about him so offensive as that stench which such a
performance arouses.”—(Henry W. Elliott, “Our Arctic Province,” New York,
1887, p. 387.)
“Quoique généralement malpropres, ces gens ont, comme les autres Inoits
et la plupart des Indiens, la passion des bains de vapeur, pour lesquels
le kachim a son installation toujours prête.
“Avec l’urine qu’ils recueillent précieusement pour leurs opérations
de tannage, ils se frottent le corps; l’alcali, se mélangeant avec les
transpirations et les huiles dont le corps est imprégné, nettoie la
peau comme le ferait du savon; l’odeur âcre de cette liqueur putréfiée
paraît leur être agréable, mais elle saisit à la gorge les étrangers qui
reculent suffoqués, et ont grand’peine à s’y faire. Horreur! horreur!
oui, pour ceux qui ont un pain de savon sur leur table à toilette; mais
pour ceux qui ne possèdent pas ce détersif?”—(“Les Primitifs,” Réclus, p.
71, “Les Inoits Occidentaux.”)
“Nul s’étonnera que les Ouhabites et les Ougagos de l’Afrique orientale
en fassent toujours autant. Mais on a ses préférences. Ainsi Arabes et
Bedouines recherchent l’urine des chamelles. Les Banianes de Momba se
lavent la figure avec de l’Urine de vache, parceque, disent-ils, la
vache est leur mère. Cette dernière substance est aussi employée par les
Silésiennes contre les taches de rousseur. Les Chowseures du Caucase la
trouvent excellente pour entretenir la santé et développer la luxuriance
de la chevelure. A cette fin, ils recueillent soigneusement le purin des
étables, mais le liquide encore imprégné de chaleur vitale passe pour
le plus énergique. Les trayeuses flattent la bête, lui sifflent un air,
chatouillent certain organe et au moment précis, avancent le crâne pour
recevoir le flot qui s’épanche; la mère industrieuse fait inonder la tête
de son nourrisson en même temps que la sienne.”—(Idem, p. 73.)
The “Estufa” of the Pueblos was no doubt, in the earlier ages of
the tribal life, a communal dwelling similar to the “yourts” of the
Siberians, like which it had but one large opening in the roof, for the
entrance of members of the family, or clan, and the egress of smoke. An
examination of the myths and folk-lore of Siberia might reveal to us the
birth and the meaning of the visits of our good old Christmas friend,
Santa Claus, who certainly never sprang from European soil. A god, loaded
with gifts for good little children, could descend the ladders placed
in the chimneys of “yourts” and “estufas,” but such a feat would be an
impossibility in the widest chimneys ever constructed in Germany or
England for private houses.
The habitations of the natives of Ounalashka, according to Langsdorff,
are made with the entrances through the roofs, precisely like those of
the people of Kamtchatka.—(“Voyages,” vol. ii. p. 32.)
The “Estufa” model was perpetuated in the Temples of India, exactly as
the Imperial market-places of Rome supplied the type of the “Basilica” of
the Christian Church.
An article in “Frazer’s Magazine,” signed F. P. C., gives the dimensions
of the great Snake Temple of Nakhon-Vat in Cambodia: “Six hundred feet
square at the base, ... rises in the centre to the height of one hundred
and eighty feet, ... probably the grandest temple in the world.... In
the inner court of this temple are ‘tanks’ in which the living serpents
dwelt and were adored.... The difference between these ‘tanks’ and the
‘Public Estufas’ is simply this: the latter are partially or almost
completely roofed.”
Some time after reaching the conclusion just expressed and much loss of
study in a fruitless examination of Encyclopædias, which did not contain
so much as the name of the patron of childhood, the work of Mr. George
Kennan was perused in which the same views are anticipated by a number
of years; it is by no means the least important fact in an extremely
interesting volume.
“The houses, if houses they could be called, were about twenty feet in
height, rudely constructed of drift-wood which had been thrown up by the
sea, and could be compared in shape to nothing but hour-glasses. They had
no doors or windows of any kind, and could only be entered by climbing
up a pole on the outside, and slipping down another pole through the
chimney,—a mode of entrance whose practicability depended entirely upon
the activity and intensity of the fire which burned underneath.
“The smoke and sparks, although sufficiently disagreeable, were
trifles of comparative insignificance. I remember being told, in early
infancy, that Santa Claus always came into a house through the chimney;
and, although I accepted the statement with the unreasoning faith of
childhood, I could never understand how that singular feat of climbing
down a chimney could be safely accomplished.... My first entrance into a
Korak ‘yourt,’ however, at Kamenoi, solved all my childish difficulties,
and proved the possibility of entering a house in the eccentric way
which Santa Claus is supposed to adopt.”—(George Kennan, “Tent Life in
Siberia,” 12th edition, New York, 1887, p. 222.)
Steller describes a Festival of the Kamtchatkans occurring at the end
of November, after the winter provisions are in; in this, one party, on
the outside of the house, attempts to lower a birch branch down through
the chimney; the party on the inside attempts to capture it.—(Steller,
“Kamtchatka,” translated by Mr. Bunnemeyer.)
“Every time they make water, or other unclean exercise of nature, they
wash those parts, little regarding who stands by. Before prayer, they
wash both face and hands, sometimes the head and privities.”—(Blount,
“Voy. into the Levant,” in Pinkerton, vol. x. p. 261.)
“Among the Negroes of Guinea, when a wife is pregnant for the first
time, she must perform certain ‘ceremonies,’ among which is ‘going to
the sea-shore to be washed.’ She is followed by a great number of boys
and girls, who fling all manner of dung and filth at her in her way to
the sea, where she is ducked and made clean.”—(Bosman, “Guinea,” in
Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 423.)
“In 1847, I was then twenty-six years old, once an old woman (in
Cherbourg) came to me with a washing-pan, and asked me to piss into it,
as the urine of a stout, healthy young man was required to wash the
bosoms of a young woman who was just delivered of a child.”—(Personal
letter from Captain Henri Jouan, French Navy, to Captain Bourke, dated
Cherbourg, France, July 29, 1888.)
In Scotland, the breasts of a young mother were washed with salt and
water to ensure a good flow of milk. The practice is alluded to in the
following couplet from “The Fortunate Shepherdess,” by Alexander Ross,
1778.
“Jean’s paps wi’ sa’t and water washen clean,
Reed that her milk get wrang, fen it was green.”
(Quoted in Brand, “Pop. Ant.” vol. ii. p. 80, art. “Christening Customs.”)
This practice seems closely allied to the one immediately preceding. We
shall have occasion to show that salt and water, holy water, and other
liquids superseded human urine in several localities, Scotland among
others.
“Being to wean one of their children, the father and mother lay him on
the ground, and whilst they do that which modesty will not permit me to
name, the father lifts him by the arm, and so holds him for some time,
hanging in the air, falsely believing that by these means he will become
more strong and robust.”—(Father Merolla, “Voyage to the Congo,” in
Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 237, A.D. 1682.)
In the Bareshnun ceremony, the Parsee priest “has to undergo certain
ablutions wherein he has to apply to his body cow’s urine, and sand and
clay, which seem to have been the common and cheapest disinfectant known
to the ancient Iranians.”—(Dr. J. W. Kingsley, Personal letter to Captain
Bourke, apparently citing “The History of the Parsees,” by Dosabhai
Framje Karaka.)
The Manicheans bathed in urine.—(Picart, “Coûtumes,” etc.; “Dissertation
sur les Perses,” p. 18.)
“Le lecteur le plus dégoûté s’en occupe presque à son insu; quand il
demande à son ami, Comment allez-vous? s’il vous plaît si ce n’est là—où
se fait ce que nous disons? Dans un pays voisin on se salue en disant, La
matière est-elle louable? Et en Angleterre, c’est la même pensée qu’on
exprime lorsqu’on dit, en abordant quelqu’un, How do you do? Comment
faites-vous?”—(Bib. Scat. p. 21.)
“There is a place where whenever the King spits the greatest ladies of
his court put out their hands to receive it; and another nation where
the most eminent persons about him stop to take up his ordure in a linen
cloth.”—(Montaigne, Essays, “On Customs.”)
“A few days after birth, or according to the fancy of the parents, an
‘angekok,’ who by relationship or long acquaintance with the family, has
attained terms of great friendship, makes use of some vessel and with
the urine of the mother washes the infant, while all the gossips around
pour forth their good wishes for the little one to prove an active man,
if a boy, or, if a girl, the mother of plenty of children. The ceremony,
I believe, is never omitted, and is called Gogsinariva.”—(“The Central
Eskimo,” Boas, p. 610, quoting G. F. Lyon, “Private Journal of H. M.
S. Hecla, during the recent Voyage of Discovery under Captain Parry,”
London, 1824.)
The same custom is practised by the Eskimo of Cumberland Sound (idem).
“Buffalo dung I have seen carefully arranged in (Crow) Indian dance
tepees, having apparently some connection with the ceremonies.”—(Personal
letter from Dr. A. B. Holder, Memphis, Tenn., to Captain Bourke, Feb. 6,
1890.)
“In one of the sacred dances of the Cheyennes, there is to be seen
an altar surrounded by a semi-circle of buffalo chips. This dance or
ceremony is celebrated for the purpose of getting an abundance of
ponies.”—(See the description in Dodge’s “Wild Indians,” pp. 127, 128.)
The sacred pipes used in the Sun Dance of the Sioux are so placed that
the bowl rests upon a “buffalo chip.”—(“The Sun Dance of the Ogallalla
Sioux,” Alice Fletcher, in “Proceed. American Association for the
Advancement of Science,” 1882.)
The drinking of the water in which a new-born babe had been bathed is
intimated in the myths of the Samoans. When the first baby was born
“Salevao provided water for washing the child, and made it Saor, sacred
to Moa. The rocks and the earth said they wished to get some of that
water to drink. Salevao replied that if they got a bamboo he would send
them a streamlet through it, and hence the origin of springs.”—(“Samoa,”
Turner, London, 1884, p. 10.)
Although it is not so stated in the text, yet from analogy with other
cosmogonies we may entertain a suspicion as to how the god provided the
water,—no doubt from his own person.
STERCORACEOUS CHAIR OF THE POPES.
“Stercoraire, Chaire (Hist. des Papes); c’est ainsi qu’on nommoit à Rome,
au rapport de M. L’Enfant, une chaire qui étoit autrefois devant le
portique de la basilique, sur laquelle on faisait asseoir le Pape le jour
de sa consécration. Le chœur de musique lui chantoit alors ces paroles
du Psaume 113, selon l’Hébreu, et le 112, selon la Vulgate, v. 6, et
suiv. ‘Il tire de la poussière celui qui est dans l’indigence et il élève
le pauvre de son avilissement pour le placer avec les princes de son
peuple;’ c’étoit pour insinuer au Pape, dit cardinal Raspon, la vertu de
l’humilité, qui doit être la compagne de sa grandeur. Cet usage fut aboli
par Léon X, qui n’étoit pas né pour ces sortes de minuties.”—(“Encyc.
ou Dict. Raison. des Sciences,” etc., Neufchatel, 1765, tome quinzième,
article as above.)
Consult Ducange also, “Stercoraria Sedes,” wherein it is stated that the
use of this chair could be traced back to the tenth century.
“Stercoraria sedes, in qua creati pontifices ad frangendos elatos
spiritus considerent, unde dicta.”—(Baronius, “Annales,” Lucca, 1758.)
Read also the remarks upon the subject of Ducking Stools, from which this
seems to have been derived, under “Ordeals and Punishments.”
Father Le Jeune relates, among the ceremonies observed by the Indians
of Canada upon capturing a bear, that no women were allowed to remain
in the lodge with the carcass, and that special care was taken to
prevent dogs from licking the blood, gnawing the bones, or _eating the
excrement_.—(See “Relations,” 1634, vol. i., Quebec, 1858.)
XXIX.
ORDURE IN SMOKING.
Among all the observances of the every-day life of the American
aborigines, none is so distinctly complicated with the religious idea
as smoking; therefore, should the use of excrement, human or animal, be
detected in this connection, full play should be given to the suspicion
that a hidden meaning attaches to the ceremony. This would appear to
be the view entertained by the indefatigable missionary, De Smet, who
records such a custom among the Flatheads and Crows in 1846: “To render
the odor of the pacific incense agreeable to their gods it is necessary
that the tobacco and the herb (skwiltz), the usual ingredients, should be
mixed with a small quantity of buffalo dung.”[63]
The Sioux, Cheyennes, Arapahoes, and others of the plains tribes, to whom
the buffalo is a god, have the same or an almost similar custom.
The Hottentots, when in want of tobacco, “smoke the dung of the
two-horned rhinoceros or of elephants.”—(Thurnberg’s Account of the Cape
of Good Hope, quoted in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 141.)
The followers of the Grand Lama, as already noted, make use of his dried
excrements as snuff, and an analogous employment of the dried dung of
swine retained a place in the medical practice of Europe until the
beginning of the present century, and may, perhaps, still survive in the
Folk-medicine of isolated villages.
The people of Achaia say “that the smoke of dried cow dung, that of the
animal when grazing I mean, is remarkably good for phthisis, inhaled
through a reed.”—(Pliny, Nat. Hist. lib. xxviii. cap. 67.)
Dung is also used in Central Africa. “A huge bowl is filled with tobacco
and clay and sometimes with a questionable mixture, the fumes are inhaled
until the smoker falls stupefied or deadly sick—this effect alone being
sought for.”—(“Central Africa,” Chaillé Long, p. 266.)
“In Algeria, gazelle droppings are put in snuff and smoking tobacco; the
Mongol Tartars mix the ashes of yak manure with their snuff.”—(Personal
letter from W. W. Rockhill.)
Mr. Rudyard Kipling shows in his “Plain Tales from the Hills” (“Miss
Youghal’s Sais”) that the native population of India is accustomed to use
a mixture of one part of tobacco to three of cow-dung.
XXX.
COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE.
“To multiply and replenish the earth,” was the first command given to
man; to love, and to desire to be loved in return, is the strongest
impulse of our nature, and therefore it need surprise no student who
sets about investigating the occult properties attributed to the human
and animal egestæ to find them in very general use in the composition
of love-philters, as antidotes to such philters, as aphrodisiacs, as
antiphrodisiacs, and as aids to delivery.
ORDURE IN LOVE-PHILTERS.
Love-sick maidens in France stand accused of making as a philter a cake
into whose composition entered “nameless ingredients,” which confection,
being eaten by the refractory lover, soon caused a revival of his waning
affections.[64] This was considered to savor so strongly of witchcraft
that it was interdicted by councils.
The witches and wizards of the Apache tribe make a confection or philter,
one of the ingredients of which is generally human ordure, as the author
learned from some of them a few years since. The Navajoes, of same blood
and language as the Apaches, employ the dung of cows (as related in the
“Snake Dance of the Moquis,” p. 27.)
Frommann gives an instance of a woman who made love-philters out of her
own excrement. As late as Frommann’s day, the use of such philters was
punishable with death. The remedies for love-philters were composed of
human skull, coral, verbena flowers, secundines, or after-birth, and
a copious flow of urine. He says that Paracelsus taught that when one
person ate or drank anything given off by the skin of another, he would
fall desperately in love with that other. “Quod illi, qui ederunt aut
biberunt aliquid a scorte datum, in amorem alicujus conjiciantur et
rapiantur.” (Frommann, “Tractatus de Fascinatione,” pp. 820, 826, 970,
quoting Paracelsus, Tract. 1, de Morbis Amantium, cap. v.) He also cites
Beckherius to the effect that some philters were made of perspiration,
menses, or semen.—(Idem, quoting Beckherius, “Sapgyr. Microc.,” p. 89.)
John Leo, in Purchas (vol. ii. p. 850), speaks of “the roote Surnay
growing also upon the Western part of Mount Atlas.... The inhabitants of
Mount Atlas doe commonly report that many of those damosels which keepe
Cattell upon the said Mountaines, lose their Virginitie by no other
occasion than by making water upon said Roote.... This roote is said to
be comfortable and preseruatiue unto the priuie partes of man, and being
drunk in an Electuary to stirre up Venereal lust.”
Reginald Scot mentions a “Wolves yard” among the ingredients in a
love-philter.—(“Discoverie of Witchecraft,” London, 1651, p. 62.)
Human ordure was in constant use in the manufacture of these philters,
being administered both internally and externally. On this point it may
be proper to give the exact words of Schurig, who explains that it was
sometimes put in porridge, and in other cases in the shoes. In the last
example, the man who made such use of the excrement of his lady love was
completely cured of his infatuation, after wearing the defiled shoes
one hour. “Contra Philtræ tam interne quam externe adhiberi solet amatæ
puellæ stercus, ab exsiccato enim atque in pulmento personæ philtratæ
exhibito amorem in maximam antipathiam mutatam annotavit Eberhardus
Gockelius ... etiam Capitanei cujusdam meminit qui, postquam amasiæ
stercus novis calceis imposuerat, posteaque iisdem per integram horam
spatiatus fuerat ab illius amore liberabatur.”—(“Chylologia,” p. 774.)
Leopard-dung was in repute as an aphrodisiac.—(Idem, p. 820.)
“The urine that has been voided by a bull immediately after covering ...
taken in drink,” as an aphrodisiac; and “the groin well rubbed with earth
moistened with this urine.”—(Pliny, Bohn, lib. xxviii. cap. 80.)
“The wizard, witch, sorcerer, druggist, doctor, or medicine man ...
played the part of an ochreous Cupid. Instead of smiles and bright eyes,
his dealings were with some nasty stuff put into beer, or spread slyly
upon bread.... In the Shroft book of Egbert, Archbishop of York, one of
their methods is censured; and it is so filthy that I must leave it in
the obscurity of the original old English.”—(“Saxon Leechdoms,” vol. i.
p. 45.)
An ointment of the gall of goats, incense, goat-dung, and nettle-seeds
was applied to the privy parts previous to copulation to increase the
amorousness of women.—(See “Saxon Leechdoms,” vol. i. p. 351, quoting
Sextus Placitus.)
“Love-charms are made of ingredients too disgusting to mention,
and are given by the Mussulmans to women to persuade them to love
them.”—(“Indo-Mahomedan Folk-Lore,” No. 3, H. C., p. 180, in “Notes and
Queries,” 3d series, vol. xi., London, 1867.)
Vambéry has this obscure passage: “The good woman had the happy idea to
prescribe to the sick Khan five hundred doses of that medicine said to
have worked such beneficial effects upon the renowned poet-monarch of
ancient history.... The Khan of Khiva took from fifty to sixty of these
pills ‘for impuissance.’”—(“Travels in Central Asia,” New York, 1865, p.
166.)
Besides these elements there were employed others equally disgusting;
for example, the catamenial fluid, which seems to have been in high
repute for such purposes: “Quædam auditæ sunt jactantes se sua excrementa
propinasse, præcipue menstrua, quibus cogant se amari.”—(“Saxon
Leechdoms,” vol. i. p. 45, quoting Cæsalpinus, “Dæmonum Investigatio,”
fol. 154 b. Cæsalpinus died in 1603.)
“He has taken the enchanted philter, and soiled my garment with
it.”—(“Chaldean Magic,” Lenormant, London, 1877, p. 61, quoting an
Incantation of the Chaldean sorcerers. It is, of course, a matter of
impossibility to tell of what this philter was composed.)
“They say that if a man takes a frog, and transfixes it with a reed
entering its body at the sexual parts, and coming out at the mouth, and
then dips the reed in the menstrual discharge of his wife, she will be
sure to conceive an aversion for all paramours.”—(Pliny, lib. xxxii. cap.
13.)
“Sanguis menstruus, qui, a Paracelso vocatur Zenith Juvencularum; hic
primus virginis impollutæ multa in se habet arcana non semper revelanda.
Ut autem pauca adducam, extreme linteum a primo sanguine menstruo madidum
et exsiccatum, hanc denuo humectatum et applicatum pedi podagraci,
mirum quantum lenit dolores podagræ. Idem linteum, si applicetur parti
Erysipelate affectæ, incontinenti erysipelas curat. In affectibus ab
incantationibus et veneficiis oriundis multa præstat sanguis menstruus;
nam et ipse sanguis menstruus ad veneficia adhibetur, et sunt mulieres,
quæ pro philtris utuntur sanguine suo menstruo.” He instances such
a philter, made with menstrual and a hare’s blood, which drove the
recipient to mania and suicide. It was further used to make people
“impenetrable” to an enemy’s weapon, and to cure burning sores. (See
Michael Etmuller, “Opera Omnia,” vol. ii. p. 270, art. “Schrod. Dilucid.
Zoölogia.”)
A medical student was frequently courted by his neighbor’s daughter,
but he disregarded her advances. At one time, however, he slept with
the brother of the girl in her father’s house, and after that was so
infatuated that he would rise at midnight to kiss the jambs of the door
of her house. Some time afterwards, he sent his clothes to a tailor to be
mended, and, sewed up in his trousers, was found a little bundle of hair
from an unmentionable part of the girl’s body, containing the initials S.
T. I. A. M., which were by some interpreted to mean “Sathanas te trahat
in amorem mei.” As soon as this little bunch of hair was burned, the poor
fellow had rest.—(Paullini, pp. 258, 259.)
Human semen was equally used for the very same purpose. There is nothing
to show whether male lovers used this ingredient, and maidens the
menstrual liquid, or both indiscriminately; but it seems plausible to
believe that each sex adhered to its own excretion.
“Semen, f. Sperma, non modo comperimus per se a nonnullis ad veneris
scilicet ligaturam maleficam dissolvendam, sed et Momiam magneticam
inde fieri quæ amoris concilietur fervor. Quin et homunculum suum inde
meditatur Paracelsus.”—(Etmuller, “Opera Omnia,” vol. ii. p. 266.)
Semen, Beckherius informs us, was used in breaking down “Ligatures”
placed by witches or the devil, and in restoring impaired virility. But
it was sometimes employed in a manner savoring so strongly of impiety
that Beckherius preferred not to speak further.—(“Medicus Microcosmus,”
p. 122.)
Flemming tells us that we should not pass over in silence the fact that
human seed has been employed by some persons as medicine. They believed
that its magnetic power could be used in philters, and that by it a
lover could feed the flame of his mistress’s affections; hence from it
was prepared what was known as “magnetic mummy,” which, being given to a
woman, threw her into an inextinguishable frensy of love for the man or
animal yielding it,—a suggestion of animal worship. Others credited it
with a wonderful efficacy in relieving inveterate epilepsy, or restoring
virility impaired by incantation or witchcraft; for which purpose it was
used while still fresh, before exposure to the air, in pottage, mixed
with the powder of mace. Flemming alludes to a horrible use of relics,
good and bad, upon which human semen had been ejaculated; but this
involved so much of the grossest impiety that he declined to enter into
full details.—(“De Remediis ex Corpore Humano desumtis,” Samuel Augustus
Flemming, Erfurt, 1738, p. 22.)
The love-philter described in the preceding paragraph recalls a somewhat
analogous practice among the Manicheans, whose eucharistic bread was
incorporated or sprinkled with human semen, possibly with the idea that
the bread of life should be sprinkled with the life-giving excretion.[65]
The Albigenses, or Catharistes, their descendants, are alleged to have
degenerated into or to have preserved the same vile superstition.[66]
Understanding that these allegations proceed from hostile sources, their
insertion in this category has been permitted only upon the theory that
as the Manichean ethics and ritual present resemblances to both the
Parsee and Buddhist religions (from which they may to some extent have
originated), there is reason for supposing that ritualistic ablutions,
aspersions, and other practices analogous to those of the great sect
farther to the east, may have been transmitted to the younger religion in
Europe.
The following is taken from an episcopal letter of Burchard, Bishop of
Worms:—
“N’avez vous pas fait ce que certaines femmes ont coutume de faire?
Elles se dépouillent de leurs habits, oignent leur corps nu avec du
miel, étendent à terre un drap, sur lequel elles répandent du bléd, se
roulent dessus à plusieurs reprises; puis elles recueillent avec soin
tous les grains qui se sont attachés à leur corps, les mettent sur
la meule qu’elles font tourner à rebours. Quand ils sont réduits en
farine, elles en font un pain qu’elles donnent à manger à leurs maris
afin qu’ils s’affaiblissent et qu’ils meurent. Si vous l’avez fait, vous
ferez pénitence pendant quarante jours au pain et à l’eau.... Fecisti
quod quædam mulieres facere solent? Tollunt menstruum suum sanguinem
et immiscent cibo vel potui, et dant viris suis ad manducandum vel ad
bibendum, ut plus diligantur ab eis.... Fecisti quod quædam mulieres
facere solent? Prosternunt se in faciem, et discoopertis natibus, jubent
ut supra nudas nates, conficiatur panis, et eo decocto tradunt maritis
suis ad comedendum. Hoc ideo faciunt ut plus exardescant in amorem
illarum. Si fecisti duos annos per legitimas ferias pœnitias.”—(Dulaure,
“Traité des Différens Cultes,” vol. ii. p. 262 _et seq._)
The method of divination by which maidens strove to rekindle the expiring
flames of affection in the hearts of husbands and lovers by making cake
from dough kneaded on the woman’s posterior, as given in preceding
paragraph, seems to have held on in England as a game among little girls,
in which one lies down on the floor, on her back, rolling backwards and
forwards, and repeating the following lines:—
“Cockledy bread, mistley cake,
When you do that for our sake.”
While one of the party so lay down the rest of the party sat round; they
lay down and rolled in this manner by turns.
Cockle Bread. This singular game is thus described by Aubray and Kennett:
“Young wenches have a wanton sport which they call ‘moulding of cockle
bread,’ viz.: they get upon a table-board, and then gather up their knees
as high as they can, and then they wobble to and fro, as if they were
kneading of dough, and say these words:
‘My dame is sick, and gone to bed,
And I’ll go mould my cockle bread,
Up with my heels, and down with my head!—
And this is the way to mould cockle bread.’”
—(Quoted in Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” vol. ii. p. 414, article
“Cockle Bread.”)
These words “mistley” and “cockledy” were not to be found in any of the
lexicons examined, or in the “Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial
English” of Thomas Wright, M. A., London, 1869, although in the last was
the word “mizzly” meaning “mouldy.” It may possibly mean mistletoe.
“Cockle is the unhappy ‘lolium’ of Virgil, thought, if mixed with bread,
to produce vertigo and headache; therefore, at Easter, parties are made
to pick it out from the wheat. They take with them cake, cider, and
toasted cheese. The first person who picks the cockle from the wheat has
the first kiss of the maid and the first slice of the cake.”—(Fosbroke,
“Encyclopædia of Antiquities,” vol. ii. p. 1040.)
Vallencey describes a very curious ceremony among the Irish in the month
of September. “On the eve of the full moon of September ... straw is
burnt to embers, and in the embers each swain in turn hides a grain,
crying out, ‘I’ll tear you to pieces if you find my grain.’ His maiden
lover seeks, and great is her chagrin if she does not find it. On
producing it, she is saluted by the company with shouts; her lover lays
her first on her back, and draws her by the heels through the embers,
then turning her on her face repeats the ceremony until her nudities are
much scorched. This is called _posadamin_, or the meal-wedding.... When
all the maidens have gone through this ceremony, they sit down and devour
the roasted wheat, with which they are sometimes inebriated.”—(“De Rebus
Hibernicis,” vol. ii. p. 559.)
He undoubtedly means ergot; he himself says that it is “a grain that is
sometimes found growing amongst the wheat in Ireland.” He also calls
these “weddings” a “Druidical custom.”—(Idem, p. 598.)
A similar phallic dance is alluded to in John Graham Dalyell’s
“Superstitions of Scotland,” Edinburgh, 1834, p. 219.
In Sardinia “the village swains go about in a group ... to wait for the
girls who assemble on the public square to celebrate the festival. Here
a great bonfire is kindled, round which they dance and make merry. Those
who wish to be ‘sweethearts of Saint John’ act as follows: The young
man stands on one side of the bonfire, and the girl on the other; and
they, in a manner, join hands by each grasping a long stick, which they
pass three times backwards and forwards across the fire, thus thrusting
their hands thrice rapidly into the flames.” At this dance, we read of “a
Priapus-like figure, made of paste; but this custom, rigorously forbidden
by the Church, has fallen into disuse.” (“The Golden Bough,” Frazer,
vol. i. p. 291.) “In some parts of Germany young men and girls leap over
midsummer bonfires for the express purpose of making the hemp or flax
grow tall.”—(Idem, p. 293.)
“Amongst the Kara-Kirghis barren women roll themselves on the ground
under a solitary apple-tree in order to obtain offspring.” (Idem, vol.
i. p. 73.) That this is a manifestation of tree worship, the author
leaves us no room to doubt; and a consultation of his text will be
rewarded by several examples of a still more definite character,—such
as marriage with trees, wearing the bark as a garment in the hope of
progeny, etc.
Hoffman mentions a widow among the Pennsylvania Germans who “became
impressed with a boatman with whom she casually became acquainted, and
as he evinced no response to her numerous manifestations of regard, she
adopted the following method to compel him to love her, even against his
will. With the blade of a penknife she scraped her knee until she had
secured a small quantity of the cuticle, baked it in a specially prepared
cake, and sent it to him, though with what result is not known. The woman
was known to have the utmost faith in the charm.”—(“Folk-Medicine of
Pennsylvania Germans,” American Philosophical Society, 1889.)
“I was at Madrid in 1784.... A beggar, who generally took his stand at
the door of a church, had employed his leisure in inventing and selling
a species of powder to which he attributed miraculous effects. It was
composed of ingredients the mention of which would make the reader
blush. The beggar had drawn up some singular formularies to be repeated
at the time of taking the powder, and required, to give it its effect,
that those who took it should put themselves into certain postures more
readily imagined than described. His composition was one of those amorous
philtres in which our ignorant ancestors had so much faith; his, he
pretended, had the power of restoring a disgusted lover and of softening
the heart of a cruel fair one.”—(Bourgoanne’s “Travels in Spain,” in
Pinkerton, vol. v. p. 413.)
“When a young man is trying to win the love of a reluctant girl he
consults the medicine-man, who then tries to find some of the urine and
saliva which the girl has voided, as well as the sand upon which it has
fallen. He mixes these with a few twigs of certain woods, and places them
in a gourd, and gives them to the young man, who takes them home, and
adds a portion of tobacco. In about an hour he takes out the tobacco and
gives it to the girl to smoke; this effects a complete transformation in
her feelings.”—(“Conversation with Muhongo,” an African boy from Angola,
translated by Rev. Mr. Chatelain.)
Lovers who wished to increase the affections of their mistresses were
recommended to try a transfusion of their own blood into the loved one’s
veins.—(Flemming, “De Remediis,” etc., p. 15.)
See notes taken from Flemming, under “Perspiration;” also under
“After-Birth and Woman’s Milk,” and under “Catamenial Fluid.”
Beaumont and Fletcher may have had such customs in mind when writing “Wit
without Money.”
“_Ralph._ Pray, empty my right shoe, that you made your chamber-pot, and
burn some rosemary in it.”—(v. i.)
Rosemary, like juniper (q. v.), was extensively used for disinfecting
sleeping apartments.
ANTI-PHILTERS.
To protect the population from the baleful effects of the love-philter,
there was, fortunately, the anti-philter, in which, strangely enough, we
come upon the same ingredients. Thus mouse-dung, applied in “the form of
a liniment, acts as an antiphrodisiac,” according to Pliny (lib. xxviii.
cap. 80). “A lizard drowned in urine has the effect of an antiphrodisiac
upon the man whose urine it is.” (Idem, lib. xxx. cap. 49.) “The same
property is to be attributed to the excrement of snails and pigeon’s
dung, taken with oil and wine.”—(Idem.)
A powerful antiphrodisiac was made of the urine of a bull and the ashes
of a plant called “brya.” “The charcoal too of this wood is quenched
in urine of a similar nature, and kept in a shady spot. When it is the
intention of the party to rekindle the flames of desire, it is set on
fire again. The magicians say that the urine of a eunuch will have a
similar effect.”—(Idem, lib. xxiv. cap. 42.)
“According to Osthanes ... a woman will forget her former love by taking
a he-goat’s urine in drink.”—(Idem, lib. xxviii. cap. 77.)
Hen-dung was an antidote against philters, especially those made of
menstrual blood. “Contra Philtra magica, in specie ex sanguine menstruo
femineo.” (“Chylologia,” p. 816, 817.) Dove-dung was also administered
for the same purpose, but was not quite so efficacious.
A journeyman cabinet-maker had been given a love-potion by a young woman,
so that he couldn’t keep away from her. His mother then bought a pair of
new shoes for him, put into them certain herbs, and in them he had to
run to a certain town. A can of urine was then put into his right shoe,
out of which he drank, whereupon he perfectly despised the object of his
former affection.
A prostitute gave a love-potion to a captain in the army. Some of her
ordure was placed in a new shoe, and after he had walked therein an hour,
and had his fill of the smell, the spell was broken. Paullini here quotes
Ovid,—
“Ille tuas redolens Phineu medicamina mensas
Non semel est stomacho nausea facta meo.”
A man was given in his food some of the dried ordure of a woman whom
he formerly loved, and that created a terrible antipathy toward
her.—(Paullini, p. 258.)
“The seeds of the tamarisk mixed in a drink or meat with the urine of a
castrated ox will put an end to Venus.”—(“Saxon Leechdoms,” vol. i. p.
43, quoting Pliny, lib. 21, c. 92.)
“Galenos says that the priests eat rue and agnus castus, it seems, as a
refrigerative.”—(Idem, p. 43.)
The herb rue was used by the Romans as an amulet against witchcraft, and
was also employed in the exorcisms of the Roman Catholic Church.—(Brand,
“Popular Antiquities,” vol. iii. p. 315, article “Rural Charms.”)
An examination of the best available authorities upon the properties of
this plant disclosed the following: “It was formerly called ‘herb of
grace’ (see Hamlet, act iv. scene 5), because it was used for sprinkling
the people with holy water. It was in great repute among the ancients,
having been hung about the neck as an amulet against witchcraft, in
the time of Aristotle.... It is a powerful stimulant.” (Chambers’s
Encyclopædia, article “Rue.”) “Rue is stimulant and anti-spasmodic; ...
occasionally increases the secretions.... It appears to have a tendency
to act upon the uterus; ... in moderate doses proving emmenagogue, and
in larger producing a degree of irritation in the organ which sometimes
determines abortion; ... taken by pregnant women, ... miscarriage
resulted; ... used in amenorrhœa and in uterine hemorrhages.” (“United
States Dispensatory,” Philadelphia, 1886, article “Ruta.”) Here are
presented almost the same conditions as were found in the mistletoe,—the
plant had a direct, irritant action upon the genito-urinary organs,
and in all probability was employed to induce the sacred urination and
to asperse the congregation with the fluid for which holy water was
afterwards substituted.
Rue and agnus castus are mentioned by Avicenna as medicines which “coitus
desiderium sedant.” (Vol. i. pp. 266, b 45, 406, a 60.) The same author
(vol. i. p. 906, a 63) mentions rue with the testicles of a fox as an
Aphrodisiac, and the testicles of the goat are mentioned in the same
connection.—(Idem, p. 907, b 67.)
Dulaure (“Des Différens Cultes,” vol. ii. p. 288) speaks of certain
“fasciniers” or charlatans, who vended secretly love-philters to barren
women. “Ils prononçaient pour opérer leurs charmes des mots latins et
avaient l’intention de fixer dans les alimens des époux une poudre
provenant des parties sexuelles d’un loup.”
Beckherius repeats the antidote for a love-philter of placing some of the
woman’s ordure in the man’s shoe: “Si, in amantis calceum, stercus amatæ
ponatur;” and he also cites the couplet from Ovid already quoted, p. 225.
“Secundines” were also employed to render abortive the effects of
philters. (See Etmuller, “Opera Omnia,” Schroderi dilucidati Zoölogia,
vol. ii. p. 265.) “In philtris curandis spiritus secundinæ vel pulvis
secundinæ mirabilis facit.” This was of great use in epilepsy, but should
be, if possible, “secundinam mulieris sanæ, si potest esse primiparæ et
quæ filium enixa fuit.”—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 271.)
Against philters, as well as to counteract the efforts of witches
attacking people just entering the married state, by such maleficent
means as “ligatures,” and other obstacles, ordure was facile princeps as
a remedy. Likewise, to break up a love affair, nothing was superior to
the simple charm of placing some of the ordure of the person seeking to
break away from love’s thraldom in the shoe of the one still faithful.
It is within the bounds of possibility that this remedy would be found
potential even in our own times, if faithfully applied. “Contra philtra,
item pro ligatis et maleficiatis a mulieribus sequens Johannes Jacobus
Weckerus ... pone de egestione seu alvi excremento ipsius mulieris
mane in fotulari dextro maleficiati et statim cum ipse sentiet fœtorum
solvitur maleficium.... Quod si in amantis calceum stercus amatæ
posueris, ubi odorem senserit, solvitur amor,” etc. (several examples are
given).—(“Chylologia,” p. 791.)
Mr. Chrisfield, of the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C., imparts
a fact which dovetails in with the foregoing item in a very interesting
manner. He says that, in his youth, which was passed on the Eastern Shore
of Maryland, he learned that, among the more ignorant classes of that
section it was a rule that when a father observed the growing affection
of his son for some young girl, he should endeavor to obtain a little of
her excrement, and make the youth wear it under the left arm-pit; if he
remained constant in his devotion after being subjected to this test,
the father felt that it would be useless to interpose objection to the
nuptials.
There is a case mentioned in Scotland in which “aversion was inspired on
the part of the female.” To remedy this “the man got a cake” (ingredients
not mentioned) “to be put under his left arm, betwixt his shirt and his
skin, observing silence, until the nuptial couch was sprinkled with water
and the mystical cake withdrawn.”—(“Superstitions of Scotland,” Dalyell,
p. 305.)
One might safely wager guineas to shillings that, in the above example
the mystical cake was the legitimate descendant of one formerly
compounded of very unsavory ingredients, and that the water with which
the nuptial couch was to be sprinkled, had replaced a fluid closely
related to the liquid employed by the Hottentots on such occasions.
“To procure the dissolving of bewitched and constrained love, the
party bewitched must make a jakes (i. e. privy) of the lover’s shoe.
And to enforce a man, how proper soever he be, to love an old hag, she
gives unto him to eate (among other meates) her own dung.”—(Scot’s
“Discoverie,” p. 62.)
This subject of “Nouer l’aiguillette” is referred to by Dulaure.—(“Traité
des Dif. Cultes,” vol. ii. p. 288.)
“If a man makes water upon a dog’s urine, he will become disinclined to
copulation, they say.”—(Pliny, lib. xxx. c. 49.)
“Beware thee that thou mie not where the hound mied; some men say that
there a man’s body changeth so that he may not, when he cometh to bed
with his wife, bed along with her.”—(De Med. de Quad. of Sextus Placitus,
from “Saxon Leechdoms,” vol. i. p. 365.)
XXXI.
SIBERIAN HOSPITALITY.
A curious manifestation of hospitality has been noticed among the
Tchuktchi of Siberia: “Les Tschuktschi offrent leurs femmes aux
voyageurs; mais ceux-ci, pour s’en rendre dignes, doivent se soumettre à
une épreuve dégoûtante. La fille ou la femme qui doit passer la nuit avec
son nouvel hôte lui présente une tasse pleine de son urine; il faut qu’il
s’en rince la bouche. S’il a ce courage, il est regardé comme un ami
sincère; sinon, il est traité comme un ennemi de la famille.”—(Dulaure,
“Des Divinités Génératrices,” Paris, 1825, p. 400.)
Among the Tchuktchees of Siberia, “it is a well known custom to use
the urine of both parties as a libation in the ceremony; and likewise
between confederates and allies, to pledge each other and swear eternal
friendship.”—(“In the Lena Delta,” Melville, p. 318.)
The presentation of women to distinguished strangers is a mark of savage
hospitality noted all over the world, but never in any other place with
the above peculiar accompaniment; yet Mungo Park assures his readers
that, during his travels in the interior of Africa, a wedding occurred
among the Moors while he was asleep. He was awakened from his doze by an
old woman bearing a wooden bowl, whose contents she discharged full in
his face, saying it was a present from the bride.
Finding this to be the same sort of holy water with which a Hottentot
priest is said to sprinkle a newly married couple, he supposed it to be
a mischievous frolic, but was informed that it was a nuptial benediction
from the bride’s own person, and which, on such occasions, is always
received by the young unmarried Moors as a mark of distinguished
favor.—(Quoted in Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” London, 1849, vol. ii. p.
152, article “Bride-Ales.” See also Mungo Park’s “Travels in Africa,” New
York, 1813, p. 109.)
In Hottentot marriages “the priest, who lives at the bride’s kraal,
enters the circle of the men, and coming up to the bridegroom, pisses
a little upon him. The bridegroom receiving the stream with eagerness
rubs it all over his body, and makes furrows with his long nails that
the urine may penetrate the farther. The priest then goes to the outer
circle and evacuates a little upon the bride, who rubs it in with the
same eagerness as the bridegroom. To him the priest then returns, and
having streamed a little more, goes again to the bride and again scatters
his water upon her. Thus he proceeds from one to the other until he has
exhausted his whole stock, uttering from time to time to each of them
the following wishes, till he has pronounced the whole upon both: ‘May
you live long and happily together. May you have a son before the end
of the year. May this son live to be a comfort to you in your old age.
May this son prove to be a man of courage and a good huntsman.’”—(Peter
Kolbein, Voy. to the Cape of Good Hope, in Knox, “Voyages,” London, 1777,
vol. ii. pp. 399, 400. This statement of Kolbein is cited by Maltebrun,
Univ. Geog. vol. ii. article “Cape of Good Hope,” but he also mentions
Thurnberg, Sparmann and Foster as authorities. Pinkerton, vol. xvi. pp.
89 and 141, likewise quotes from Thurnberg on this subject.)
“Have I not drunk to your health, swallowed flap-dragons, eat glasses,
drank wine, stabbed arms, and done all the offices of protested gallantry
for your sake?”—(Marston’s “Dutch Courtesan,” London, 1605; see also
footnote on the same point in the “Honest Whore,” Thomas Dekkar, 1604,
edition of London, 1825. “Dutch flap-dragons,” “Healths in urine.” See
also “A New Way to Catch the Old One,” Thomas Middleton, 1608, ed. of
Rev. Alex. Dyce, London, 1840; footnote to above: “Drinking healths in
urine was another and more disgusting feat of gallantry.” Again, for
flap-dragons, see in “Ram Alley,” by Ludovick Barry, 1611, ed. of London,
1825.)
In the “Histoire Secrète du Prince Croq’ Étron,” M’lle Laubert, Paris,
1790, Prince Constipati is entertained by the Princess Clysterine; “elle
lui donna de la limonade, de la façon d’Urinette” (p. 17).
Brand has a very interesting chapter, entitled “Drinking Wine in the
Church at Marriages,” in which it appears that the custom prevailed
very generally among nations of the highest civilization, of having the
bride, groom, and invited guests, share in a cup or chalice, filled
with some intoxicant; in England, a country which has never raised the
grape, this drink is wine; in Ireland, it was whiskey. Brand traces it
back to a Gothic origin, but he himself calls attention to the breaking
of wine-glasses at the marriage ceremony among Hebrews, from which
circumstance a still greater antiquity may be inferred.
“Cobbler’s punch,” urine with a cinder in it.—(Grose, “Dictionary of
Buckish Slang,” London, 1811.)
“A beautiful lady, bathing in a cold bath, one of her admirers, out of
gallantry, drank some of the water.”—(Idem, article “Toast.”)
“We were told that the priest (of the Hottentots) certainly gives
the nuptial benediction by sprinkling the bride and groom with his
urine.”—(Lieut. Cook, R. N., in “Hawkesworth’s Voyages,” London, 1773,
vol. iii. p. 387.)
Similar statements are to be found in the writings of Hahn and others of
the Dutch missionaries to the natives of South Africa.
The malevolence of witchcraft seems to have taken the greatest pleasure
in subtle assaults upon those just entering the married state.
Fortunately, amulets, talismans, and counter-charms were within reach of
all who needed them. The best of all these was thought to be urination
through the wedding-ring.—(See Brand, “Pop. Ant.,” vol. iii. p. 305.)
The variants of this practice are innumerable, and are referred to by
nearly all the old writers.
Beckherius tells his readers that to counteract the effects of
witchcraft, and especially of “Nouer l’Aiguillette” ... “Si per nuptialem
annulum sponsius mingat, fascina et Veneris impotentia solvetur, qua a
maleficiis ligatus fuit.”—(“Med. Microcos.” p. 66.)
“Pisse through a wedding-ring if you would know who is hurt in his
privities by witchcraft.”—(Reg. Scot, “Discoverie,” p. 64.)
“Si quis aliquo veneficio impotens ad usum veneris factus fuerit at quam
primum mingat per annulum conjugalem.”—(Frommann, “Tract. de Fascinat.”
p. 997.)
Etmuller did not believe that witches could “nouer l’aiguillette;”
he attributed that effect to excessive modesty; yet all the remedies
mentioned by him, by which the testes of the bridegroom were to be
anointed, contained “Zibethum” as an ingredient.—(See his “Opera Omnia,”
vol. i. p. 461 b, and 462 a.)
For loss of virility, Paullini recommends drinking the urine of a bull,
immediately after he has covered a cow, and smear the pubis with the
bull’s excrements; also piss through the engagement ring (pp. 152, 153).
But when witches have been the occasion of such impotence, the victim
should urinate through the wedding ring immediately after discovering
his misfortune; he also advises urination upon a broom; human ordure was
also efficacious. Or, take castor-oil plant, put it into a pot, add some
of the patient’s urine, hermetically seal, boil slowly, and then bury in
an unfrequented spot. By this method, the witches will either be made
to piss blood, or have other tormenting pains until they relieve the
bewitched one.—(Idem, pp. 264, 265.)
Etmuller describes another “sympathetic” cure for this infirmity: This
prescribed that the bridegroom should catch a fish (the Latin word is
“lucium,” meaning probably our pike), forcibly open its mouth, urinate
therein, and throw the fish back in the water, upstream; then try to
copulate, taking care to urinate through the wedding-ring, both before
and after. “Si quis emat lucium piscem sexus masculini, huic per vim
aperiatur os, et in os ejus immittatur urinam, maleficiati. Hic lucius
ita vivus immittatur in fluvium, idque contra ejusdem cursum ... subito
namque tollitur maleficium si non sit nimis inveteratum, etc.... probatum
etiam fuit si sponsus ante copulationem et etiam post eam mittat suam
urinam per annulum sponsalitium quem accepit a sponsa.” He gives
another cure, of much the same kind, which, however, required that the
micturation through the ring should be done in a cemetery while the
patient was lying on his back on a tombstone. “A vetula suppeditato dum
scil. in cementerio quodam missit urinam per annulum cujusdam lapidis
sepulchro incumbentis.”—(Etmuller, vol. i. p. 462 a, 462 b.)
This remedy is believed in and practised by the peasantry in some
parts of Germany to the present day. “A married man who has become
impotent through evil influences can obtain relief by forming
a ring with his thumb and forefinger, and urinating through it
secretly.”—(“Sagen-märchen, Volkaberglauben, aus Schwaben,” Drs.
Birlinger and Buck, Freiburg, 1861, p. 486.)
Grimm, in his “Teutonic Mythology” (vol. iii.) refers to “Nouer
l’aiguillette,” but adds nothing to what has been presented above.
There are certain quaint usages connected with weddings among the
peasantry of Russia, as well as among the rustic population of England,
which might excite the curiosity of antiquarians. In the first case,
there is a “sprinkling” with water once used by the bride for the purpose
of bathing her person; in the other, there is a “sale” of a liquid by the
bride, this liquid being an intoxicant.
Wedding ceremonies of the peasantry of Samogitia: “The bride was led on
the wedding-day three times round the fireplace of her future husband; it
was then customary to wash her feet, and with the same water that had
been used for that purpose the bridal bed, the furniture, and all the
guests were sprinkled.”—(Maltebrun, “Univ. Geog.,” vol. ii. p. 548, art.
“Russia.”)
By a reference back to page 60 of this volume, it will be seen that the
Queen of Madagascar favored her subjects in the same way. This sprinkling
with the water used as above may be a survival of a former practice, in
which the aspersion was with the urine of the bride.
“Bride-Ale, Bride-Bush, and Bride-Stake are nearly synonymous terms, and
are all derived from the circumstance of the bride’s selling ale on the
wedding-day, for which she received, by way of contribution, whatever
handsome price the friends assembled on the occasion chose to pay her for
it.” (Brand, “Pop. Ant.,” vol. ii. p. 143, art. “Bride-Ales.”) In this
article he introduces the story from Mungo Park already given in these
pages, and seems to have a suspicion that the custom above described
could be traced back to a rather unsavory origin.
The derivation of the English word “bridal” is very obscure; Fosbroke
says that the word “bride-ale” comes from the bride’s selling ale on her
wedding-day, and the friends contributing what they liked in payment
of it.—(“Cyclop. of Antiq.,” vol. ii. p. 818, under “Marriage” and
“Bride-Ales.”)
The Latin name for beer or ale was “cerevisia,” which would seem to be a
derivative from the name of the goddess. It may, in earlier ages, have
been a beverage dedicated to that goddess, employed in her libations, and
held sacred as the means of producing the condition of inebriation, which
in all nations has been looked upon as sacred. Réclus tells that there
are still nations who regard their brewers as priests, and there are
others who exalt their milkmen to that office: “Les Chewsoures du Caucase
ont leurs prêtres brasseurs; les Todas des Neilgherries leurs divins
fromagiers.”—(“Les Primitifs,” p. 116, article “Les Inoits Occidentaux.”)
Hazlitt mentions the case where the Fairies, having a mock baptism and no
water at hand, made use of strong beer.—(“Fairy Tales,” London, 1875, p.
385.)
Beer would appear entitled to claim as old an origin as alcohol; it
is mentioned in the sacred books of the Buddhists of Tibet: “La Bière
d’hiver (dguntchang).”—(“Pratimoksha Sutra,” translated by W. W.
Rockhill, Paris, 1885, Société Asiatique.)
XXXII.
PARTURITION.
For the cure of sterility, Pliny says that “authors of the very highest
repute ... recommend the application of a pessary made of the fresh
excrement voided by an infant at the moment of its birth.” The urine
of eunuchs was considered to be “highly beneficial as a promoter of
fruitfulness in females.”—(Lib. xxviii. cap. 18.)
“A hawk’s dung, taken in honeyed wine, would appear to render females
fruitful.”—(Idem, lib. xxx. c. 44.)
“Ut mulier concipiat, infantis masculi stercus quod primum
enatus emittet, suppositum locis mulieris conceptionem facit et
præstat.”—(Sextus Placitus, “De Medicamentis ex Animalibus,” Lyons, 1537,
pages not numbered, article “De Puello et Puella Virgine.”)
Schurig recommends an application of bull-dung to the genitalia of women
to facilitate pregnancy. (“Chylologia,” vol. ii. p. 602.) The woman drank
her own urine to ease the pains of pregnancy. (Idem, p. 535.) There is
a method of inducing conception outlined in vol. ii. p. 712, by the use
of a bath of urine poured over rusty old iron. Mouse-dung was applied
as a pessary in pregnancy. (Idem, pp. 728, 729.) Hawk-dung drunk by a
woman before coitus insured conception. (Idem, p. 748.) Goose or fox dung
rubbed upon the pudenda of a woman aided in bringing about conception.
(Idem, p. 748.) Leopard-dung was also supposed to facilitate conception;
pastilles were made of it, and the sexual parts fumigated therewith; or a
pessary was inserted and kept in place for three days and three nights:
“Ea quamvis antea sterilis fuit, deinceps tamen concipiet.”—(Idem, p.
820.)
But Schurig warns his readers that care must be exercised in the use
of such remedies. He gives an instance of a woman who applied the dung
of a wolf to her private parts, and soon after bearing a child, found
him possessed of a wolfish appetite.—(Idem, lib. i. cap. 1, article “De
Bulimo Brutorum,” p. 24.)
“When ladies desire to know whether or not they are enceinte, Paullini
recommends that they urinate in an earthen vessel wherein a needle has
been thrown. Let it stand over night; should the needle become covered
with small red spots, the woman is enceinte; but should it be black or
rusty, she is not. To determine whether she is to have a son or daughter,
dig two small pits; put barley in one, and wheat in the other; let the
enceinte lady urinate into both; then cover up the vessels with earth; if
the wheat sprout first, it is to be a son; if the barley sprout before
the wheat, it is to be a daughter.”—(Paullini, p. 163.)
Or, throw a pea into each parcel of urine; then the pea which germinates
first, etc., etc. “Aut injiciatur lens in unius cujusque urina et cujus
efflorescit, ille culpa caret,” is the method suggested by Danielus
Beckherius.—(“Med. Microcos. aut Spagyria Microcosmi,” pp. 60, 61,
quoting from still older authorities.)
He gives still another plan: “If you wish to determine whether a woman is
to bear children, pour some of her urine upon marsh-mallows; if they be
found dry on the third day, she’ll not conceive.” “Si explorare volueris,
utrum mulier ad concipiendam sit idonea, tunc super malvam sylvestram
urinam ejus funde; si ille tertio die arida fuerit, omnino minus idoneam
illam habeto.”—(Idem, p. 61.)
Paullini urges that the excrements of goats, hawks, horses, geese, and
the urine of camels be taken to remedy sterility (p. 161).
And the very same remedies are given by Beckherius and still older
writers.
English women, in some localities, drank the urine of their husbands to
assist them in the hour of labor.
“In the collection entitled ‘Sylon, or the Wood’ (p. 130) we read that ‘a
few years ago, in this same village, the women in labor used to drinke
the urine of their husbands, who were all the while stationed, as I have
seen the cows in St. James’s Park, straining themselves to give as much
as they can.’”—(Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” London, 1849, vol. iii.
article, “Lady in the Straw.”)
“Mariti urina hausta partum difficilem facilitare dicitur.”—(Etmuller,
vol. ii. p. 265, Schroderi, “Dilucidati Zoölogia.”)
An instance of the drinking of her own urine by a pregnant woman is to be
read in Schurig (p. 45), art. “De Pica.”
The warm urine of the husband was drunk for the same purpose: “Scil.
Hartmannus commendat ut difficiliter pariens libat haustum urinæ mariti
sui et ita si hic fuerit genuinus fœtus parientam illam ex parti solvi
putat; ast si urinæ aliquid subest erit illud sali volatili ad morem
aliorum omnium volatilium, attribuendum.” (Etmuller, vol. ii. pp. 171,
172.) Here we have the husband’s urine employed not only as a medicine,
but as a test of the wife’s fidelity.
John Moncrief directs that, to facilitate conception, a pessary should
be inserted in the vagina, of which hare’s dung was to be a component.
Horse’s dung, drunk in water, aided a woman in childbirth.—(“The Poor
Man’s Physician,” Edinburgh, 1716, p. 149.)
“Ut mulier post partum in secundis non laboret, de lotio hominis
subtiliter gustet et secundæ statim sequentur.”—(Sextus Placitus.)
Dioscorides prescribed both human ordure and the dung of the vulture to
bring about the expulsion of the fœtus.—(Materia Medica, edition of Kuhn,
vol. i. p. 232 _et seq._)
Goose-dung, in internal doses, was prescribed by Pliny for the same
purpose.—(Lib. 30, c. 4.)
But the dung of the elephant or menstrual blood prevented conception,
according to Avicenna: “Impregnationem prohibent ... stercus elephantis,”
vol. i. p. 390, b 11; “Impregnationem prohibent ... sanguis menstruus, si
supponatus.”—(Vol. i. pp. 330, a 35, 388, b 50.)
For accidents to pregnant women, apply rabbit’s dung externally; for
miscarriages, man’s urine, internally; the excreta of lionesses, hawks,
and chickens, internally; of horses and geese, externally and also
internally; and of pigeons and cows, externally. For after-birth pains,
the patient’s own urine, externally; or the excrement of chickens,
internally.—(Paullini.)
Schurig recommended the use of lion-dung, internally, in cases of
difficult parturition.—(“Chylologia,” p. 819.)
Etmuller says of secundines: “In partu difficili nil est præstantius” (p.
270).
Both Pliny and Hippocrates recommend hawk-dung in the treatment of
sterility, and to aid in the expulsion of the fœtus in childbirth; it
was to be drunk in wine; their prescription is copied by Etmuller:
“Hippocrates et Plinius ad sterilitatem emendandam propinant.”—(vol. ii.
p. 285.)
For the expulsion of the dead fœtus, Pliny recommended a fumigation of
horse-dung.—(Lib. xxviii. c. 77.)
And Sextus Placitus says: “Similiter, mortuum etiam partum ejicit. Idem
facit ut mulier facile pariat si totum corpus suffumigaveris claudit et
ventrem.”—(Cap. “De Equo.”)
Etmuller advises the use of these fumigations to aid in the expulsion
of the fœtus and after-birth; a potion of the dung should also be
administered in all such cases, being, in his opinion fully equal to the
dung of dogs or swallows.—(Vol. ii. p. 263.)
A parturient woman in New Hampshire, drank the urine of her husband as
a diuretic, forty or fifty years ago.—(Mrs. Fanny D. Bergen, Cambridge,
Massachusetts.)
Flemming is another who recommends a draught of the husband’s urine to
aid in delivery: “Porro, in partu difficili, urinam mariti calidam calido
haustam esse” (p. 23).
“A urine tub was held above the head of a woman in labor to ward off all
manner of evil influences.”—(Henry Rink, “Tales and Traditions of the
Eskimo,” Edinburgh, 1875, p. 55.)
“Gomez” (which is the “nirang” or urine of the ox) was prescribed to be
drunk as a purifying libation by a woman who had miscarried. (See Fargard
V. Avendidad, Zendavesta (Darmesteter’s translation), Max Müller’s
edition. “Sacred Books of the East,” Oxford, 1880, p. 62.) “She shall
drink gomez mixed with ashes, three cups of it, or six or nine, to wash
over the grave within her womb.... When three nights have passed, she
shall wash her body, she shall wash her clothes, with gomez and with
water by the nine holes, and thus shall she be clean.”—(Idem, pp. 63, 90.)
“Avec une tendre sollicitude, les bonnes amies versent sur la tête de
la femme en travail le contenu d’un pot de chambre pour fortifier,
disent-elles.”—(“Les Primitifs,” Elie Réclus, p. 43; “Les Inoits
Orientaux.”)
“The Commentaires of Bernard the Provincial, informs us” says Daremberg,
“that certain practices, not only superstitious but disgusting, were
common among the doctrines of Salerno; one, for instance, was to eat
themselves, and also to oblige their husbands to eat, the excrements of
an ass fried in a stove in order to prevent sterility.”—(“The Physicians
of the Middle Ages,” Minor, Cincinnati, Ohio, p. 6, translated from
Dupouy’s “Le Moyen Age Médical.”)
Mr. Havelock Ellis calls attention to the use of cow’s urine after
confinement by the women of the Cheosurs of the Caucasus. See also under
“Witchcraft,” “Therapeutics,” “Divination,” “Amulets and Talismans,”
“Cures by Transplantation,” “Ceremonial Observances.”
WEANING.
For an example of Urinal Aspersion, in connection with Weaning, see on
page 211.
XXXIII.
INITIATION OF WARRIORS.—CONFIRMATION.
The attainment by young men of the age of manhood is an event which among
all primitive peoples has been signalized by peculiar ceremonies; in a
number of instances ordure and urine have been employed, as for example:
The observances connected with this event in the lives of Australian
warriors are kept a profound secret, but, among the few learned is the
fact that the neophyte is “plastered with goat dung.”—(See “Aborigines of
Australia,” A. Brough Smyth, London, 1878, vol. i. p. 59, footnote.)
In some parts of Australia, Smyth says that the youth of fourteen or
fifteen had to submit himself to the rite of “Tid-but,” during which
his head was shaved and plastered with mud (“the head is then daubed
with clay”) “and his body is daubed with clay, mud, and charcoal-powder
and filth of every kind.” (Smyth had previously specified goat-dung.)
“He carries a basket under his arm, containing moist clay, charcoal,
and filth.... He gathers filth as he goes, and places it in the
basket.”—(Idem, vol. i. p. 60.)
The young initiate throws this filth at all the men he meets, but not
at the women or children, as these have been warned to keep out of his
way. This is the account given by Smyth, but Featherman, from whom Smyth
derived his information, makes no such restriction in his text, simply
stating that the young man was considered to be “excommunicated _de
facto_.” (See A. Featherman, “Social History of the Races of Mankind,”
2d Division, London, 1887, p. 152.) But, in either case, it is surely
remarkable to stumble upon the counterpart of one of the proceedings of
the Feast of Fools in such a remote corner of the globe.
“Among many of the tribes, the ceremony of introducing a native into
manhood, is said to be accompanied with some horrible and disgusting
practices.”—(“The Nat. Tribes of S. Australia,” Adelaide, 1879,
Introduction, xxviii, received through the kindness of the Royal Soc. of
Sydney, N. S. Wales, T. B. Kyngdon, Secretary.)
“In order to infuse courage into boys, a warrior, Kerketegerkai, would
take the eye and tongue of a dead man (probably of a slain enemy), and
after mincing them and mixing with his urine, would administer the
compound in the following manner. He would tell the boy to shut his
eyes and not look, adding: ‘I give you proper kaikai’ (‘kaikai’ is an
introduced word, being the jargon English for food). The warrior then
stood up behind the sitting youth, and putting the latter’s hand between
his (the man’s) legs, would feed him. After this dose, ‘heart along,
boy no fright.’”—(A. C. Haddon, “The Ethnography of the Western Tribes
of Torres Straits,” in Journal of the Anthrop. Institute, Great Britain
and Ireland, xix. no. 3, 1890, p. 420. Received through the kindness of
Professor H. C. Henshaw, U. S. Geol. Survey, Washington, D. C.)
“Some other customs are altogether so obscene and disgusting I must, even
at the risk of leaving my subject incomplete, pass them over by only thus
briefly referring to them.”—(“Nat. Tr. of S. Australia,” p. 280.)
Monier Williams repeats almost what Müller says about the Parsis. A young
Parsi undergoes a sort of confirmation, during which “he is made to drink
a small quantity of the urine of a bull.”—(“Modern India,” London, 1878,
p. 178.)
FEARFUL RITE OF THE HOTTENTOTS.
A religious rite of still more fearful import occurs among the same
people at the initiation of their young men into the rank of warriors—a
ceremony which must be deferred until the postulant has attained his
eighth or ninth year. It consists, principally, in depriving him of the
left testicle, after which the medicine man voids his urine upon him.[67]
“At eight or nine years of age, the young Hottentot is, with great
ceremony deprived of his left testicle.” (Kolbein, p. 402.) He says
nothing about an aspersion with urine in this instance, but on the
succeeding page he narrates that there is first a sermon from one of
the old men, who afterwards “evacuates a smoking stream of urine all
over him, having before reserved his water for that purpose. The youth
receives the stream with eagerness and joy; and making furrows with the
long nails in the fat upon his body, rubs in the briny fluid with the
quickest action. The old man, having given him the last drop, utters
aloud the following benediction: ‘Good fortune attend thee; live to old
age. Increase and multiply. May thy beard grow soon.’”—(Idem, p. 403.)
“The young Hottentot, who has won the reputation of a hero by killing
a lion, tiger, leopard, elephant, etc., is entitled to wear a bladder
in his hair; he is formally congratulated by all his kraal. One of the
medicine-men marches up to the hero and pours a plentiful stream over him
from head to foot,—pronouncing over him certain terms which I could never
get explained. The hero, as in other cases, rubs in the smoking stream
upon his face and every other part with the greatest eagerness.”—(Idem,
p. 404.)
Rev. Theophilus Hahn cites Kolbein in “Beiträge für Kunde der
Hottentoten,” in Jahrbuch für Erdkunde, von Dresden, 1870, p. 9, as
communicated by Dr. Gatchett of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, D.
C. For further references to the Hottentot ceremony of Initiation, by
sprinkling the young warrior with urine, consult Pinkerton’s “Voyages,”
vol. xvi. pp. 89 and 141, where there is a quotation from Thurnberg’s
“Account of the Cape of Good Hope.” See also Maltebrun, “Univ. Geog.”
vol. ii. article “The Cape of Good Hope.”
The Indians of California gave urine to newly-born children. “At time
of childbirth, many singular observances obtained; for instance,
the old women washed the child as soon as it was born, and drank of
the water; the unhappy infant was forced to take a draught of urine
medicinally.”—(Bancroft, H. H. “Native Races,” vol. i. p. 413.)
Forlong states that at the time of investiture of the Indian boy with
the sacred thread, “the fire is kindled with the droppings of the sacred
cow.”—(“Rivers of Life,” London, 1883, vol. i. p. 323.)
Valuable information was also received from Mr. Edward Palmer, of
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, especially in regard to the Kalkadoon
tribe near Cloncurry, who are among those who split the urethra.
In order to bring up an Eskimo child to be an “Angerd-lartug-sick,”—that
is, “a man brought up in a peculiar manner, with a view to acquiring a
certain faculty by means of which he might be called to life again and
returned to land, in case he should be drowned,”—“for this purpose the
mother had to keep a strict fast and the child to be accustomed to the
smell of urine.”—(Rink, “Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo,” p. 45.)
Réclus says of the Inuit child selected to be trained as an Angekok:
“Sitôt née, la petite créature sera aspergée d’urine de manière à
l’imprégner de son odeur caractéristique; c’est décidément leur eau
bénite. Ailleurs, la barbe, la chevelure, l’entière personne des rois
et sacrificateurs sont ointes d’huile prise dans de saintes ampoules;
ailleurs, elles sont beurrées et barbouillées de bouse soigneusement
étendue.”—(“Les Primitifs,” p. 84, “Les Inoits Occidentaux.”)
For initiation in witchcraft, “Dans la Hesse, le postulant se place
sur du fumier en prononçant des formules magiques, et pique un crapaud
avec un bâton blanc qu’il jette ensuite à l’eau.”—(“La Fascination,” J.
Tuchmann, in “Mélusine,” Paris, July-August, 1890, p. 93.)
“I am strongly inclined to the belief that all these rites are survivals
or debased vestiges of the blood-covenant practice, by which the
partaking of each other’s selves (by whatever is a portion of one’s self)
is a form of covenanting by which two persons become as one. Are you
aware of the fact that the habit of giving the urine of a healthy child
to a new-born babe has prevailed down to the present day among rustic
nurses in New England, if not elsewhere, in America? I can bear personal
testimony to this fact from absolute knowledge. It is a noteworthy
fact that the Hebrew word _chaneek_, which is translated ‘trained’ or
‘initiated,’ and which is used in the proverb, ‘Train up a child,’ etc.,
has as its root-idea (as shown in the corresponding Arabic word) the
‘opening of the gullet’ in a new-born child, the starting the child in
its new life. Among some primitive peoples fresh blood, as added life,
is thus given to a babe; and in other cases it is urine.”—(Personal
letter from Rev. H. K. Trumbull, editor of the “Sunday-School Times,”
Philadelphia, April 19, 1888.)
“The priesthood of the false gods is hereditary in the family.... Others
may be introduced into the corps of fetich priests, but they have to pay
dearly for the honor.... Every morning before sunrise and every evening
at sunset the aspirants were heard singing in choir, directed by an
old fetich priestess.” These ceremonies of consecration “last several
days.... The crinkled hair which is completely shaved off of some, and
only from the crown of the head of others, the aspersion of lustral
water, the imposition of the new name.”—(“Fetichism,” Rev. P. Baudin, New
York, 1885, pp. 74, 75.)
“One observer of the customs of the blacks has stated in the journal of
the Anthropological Society of London that in the Hunter River District
of New South Wales, the catechumens at some parts of the Bora ceremonies
are required to eat ordure; but I have made diligent inquiries in the
same locality and elsewhere, but have found nothing to corroborate his
statement. Similarly, in one district in Queensland, it is said that the
blacks, whether at the Bora or not I cannot say, make cup-like holes in
the clay soil, collect their urine in them, and drink it afterwards. This
latter statement may be true, but I have never been able to substantiate
it by information from those who know. Various considerations, however,
lead me to think it possible that our blacks, in some places at least
(for their observances are not everywhere the same), may use ordure and
urine in that way, thinking that the evil spirit will be propitiated by
their eating in his honor that which he himself delights to eat; just as
in Northwestern India a devotee may be seen going about with his body
plastered all over with human dung in honor of his god. And our blacks
have good reason to try to propitiate this unclean spirit (Gunungdhukhya)
in every possible way, for they believe that he can enter their bodies,
and effecting a lodgment in their abdomen, feed there on the foulest of
the contents, and thus cause cramps, fits, madness, and other serious
disorders. The non-Aryan population of India have similar beliefs;
for among the devil-worshippers of Western India there are certain
malignant spirits called Bhutas; and these in their habits are similar to
Gunungdhukhya. They too cause mischief by taking possession of the body,
and they delight to devour human beings; they too live in desert places,
especially among tall trees. They take the forms of men and animals, and
prowl about in burial-grounds, and eat the carcasses.”—(Personal letter
from John Frazer, LL.D., dated Sydney, New South Wales, December 24,
1889.)
This correspondent has struck the keynote of the curious behavior of the
prophet Ezekiel and others. Believing, as was believed in their day, that
deities ate excrement, why should not they, the representatives of the
gods, eat it too? And if a god enter into a man’s body to eat excrement,
why should not the victim feed him on that which is so acceptable, and by
gorging him free himself from pain?
See, under “War Customs,” the use of the drink _wysoccan_ by the Indians
of Virginia, in their ceremonies of initiation.
See, under “Ordeals and Punishments,” page 254, in regard to the belief
of the Australians.
WAR-CUSTOMS.—ARMS AND ARMOR.
It is remarkable that we should be able to adduce any example of the
employment of excrementitious matter in war customs; not that we should
not suspect their existence, but because on occasions of such importance
the medicine-men, who arrogate to themselves so much consequence in
all military affairs, would naturally be more careful to conceal their
performances from profane eyes. There is very little reason to doubt
that a fuller examination would be rewarded with new facts of additional
interest and value.
When the Dutch were besieging Batavia, in the Island of Java, in 1623,
the natives daubed themselves with human ordure, in all likelihood for
some vague religious purpose,—“a 1629, in obsidione Batavos obsessos, in
defectu aliorum ad defensionem necessariorum requisitorum hostes suos
Indos stercore humano ex cloacis collecto, ollisque in ipsorum nuda
corpora conjecto, fugasse.”—(“Chylologia,” p. 795.)
“Les Malais se servent de l’urine pour tremper leurs fameux criss. Ils
enfoncent ces poignards dans la terre, et pendant un certain temps,
ils viennent uriner de manière que cette terre soit toujours imbibée
d’urine.”—(Personal letter from Dr. Bernard, Cannes, France, dated July
7, 1888.)
Against what was known in the Middle Ages as “magical impenetrability,”
human ordure was in high repute. The sword or “machete” of the person
exposed to attack from such an enemy should be rubbed in pig-dung. But
let Schurig tell his own story: “Scilicet, priusquam cum adversario hujus
rei suspecto congrediaris, cuspis machæræ vel gladii, stercori suillo
infigatur; vel si eminus agendum, globuli bomberdis infarciendi per
sphincterem ani ducantur; quod certissimum dicitur antidotum contra hanc
non minus quam Diaboli Incantationes.”—(“Chylologia,” p. 791, par. 64.)
Frommann states that arms may be bewitched so that they can do
harm; but he makes no mention of human or animal excreta in such
connection.—(“Tract. de Fascinat.,” p. 654.)
“Dum gladio quo vulnus fuit inflictum sive cruento sive non cruento
applicatur unguentum quod vocant magneticum armarium quo curatur vulnus.”
(Etmuller, vol. i. p. 68.) This magnetic ointment was made of human
ordure and human urine.
See also page 298 of this volume.
“The Scythians prefer mares for the purposes of war, because they can
pass their urine without stopping in their career.”—(Pliny, lib. viii.
cap. 66.)
The “black drink” of the Creeks and Seminoles was an emetic and cathartic
of somewhat violent nature. It was used by the warriors of those tribes
when about to start out on the war-path or engage in any important
deliberations.—(See Cornwallis Clay’s dissertation upon the Seminoles of
Florida, in “Annual Report of Bureau of Ethnology,” Washington, D. C.,
1888.)
The “black drink” of the Creeks was made from the Iris Versicolor
(Natural order, Iridacæa), “an active emeto-cathartic, abundant in swampy
grounds throughout the Southern States.”—(See Brinton, “Myths of the New
World,” New York, 1868, p. 274.)
Beverly mentions “a mad potion,” “the Wysoccan,” used by the Indians of
Virginia during “an initiatory ceremony called Huskansaw, which took
place every sixteen or twenty years,” which he calls “the water of
Lethe,” and by the use of which they “perfectly lose the remembrance
of all former things, even of their parents, their treasure, and their
language.”—(“Golden Bough,” vol. ii. p. 349, quoting Beverly’s “History
of Virginia,” London, 1722, p. 177.)
See, under “Insults,” p. 256, for the war customs of the Samoans. See
also “Catamenia;” “Witchcraft.”
XXXIV.
HUNTING AND FISHING.
The African hunter in pursuit of game, such as elephants, anoints himself
“all over with their dung.”—(Father Merolla, in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p.
251, “Voyage to Congo.”) This, he says, is merely to deceive the animal
with the smell.
Pliny relates that in Heraklea the country-people poisoned panthers with
aconite. But the panthers had sense enough to know that human excrement
was an antidote. (Lib. xxviii. c. 2.) Again in lib. viii. c. 41 he tells
of the aconite-poisoned panther curing itself by eating human excrement.
Knowing this fact, the peasants suspend human excrement in a pot so high
in the air that the panther exhausts itself in jumping to reach it, and
dies all the sooner.
Schurig (“Chylologia,” p. 774) has the above tale, but has taken it from
Claudius Æmilianus, as well as Pliny.
The reindeer Tchuktchi feign to be passing urine in order to catch their
animals which they want to use with their sleds. The reindeer, horses,
and cattle of the Siberian tribes are very fond of urine, probably on
account of the salt it contains, and when they see a man walking out from
the hut, as if for the purpose of relieving his bladder, they follow him
up, and so closely that he finds the operation anything but pleasant.
“The Esquimaux of King William’s Land and the adjacent peninsula often
catch the wild reindeer by digging a pit in the deep snow, and covering
it with thin blocks of snow, that would break with the weight of an
animal. They then make a line of urine from several directions, leading
to the centre of the cover of the pitfall, where an accumulation of snow,
saturated with the urine of the dog, is deposited as bait. One or more
animals are thereby led to their destruction.”—(Personal letter from the
Arctic explorer, W. H. Gilder, dated New York, October 15, 1889.)
“The dogs of the Esquimaux are equally fond of excrement, especially
in cold weather, and when a resident of the Arctic desires to relieve
himself, he finds it necessary to take a whip or a stick to defend
himself against the energy of the hungry dogs. Often, when a man wants to
urge his dog-team to greater exertion, he sends his wife or one of the
boys to run ahead, and when at a distance, to stoop down and make believe
he is relieving himself. The dogs are thus spurred to furious exertion,
and the boy runs on again, to repeat the delusion. This never fails of
the desired effect, no matter how often repeated.”—(Idem.)
“I only know one superstitious use of excrement,—that wherein the
hooks were placed round some before the fishing incantations began.”
(“The Maoris of New Zealand,” E. Tregear, in “Journal of the Anthrop.
Institute,” London, 1889.) This bears a very close resemblance to certain
of the uses of cow-dung in India.
The people of Angola, west coast of Africa, when about to set out on a
hunt, are careful to collect the dung of the elephant, antelope, and
other kinds of wild animals, and hand them to the medicine-man, who makes
a magical compound out of them, and places it in a horn. It then serves
as an amulet, and will ensure success in the hunt.—(“Muhongo,” an African
boy from Angola; interpretation made by Rev. Mr. Chatelain.)
XXXV.
DIVINATION.—OMENS.—DREAMS.
Among the ancients there was a method of divination by excrementitious
materials.—(See “Scatomancie,” in Bib. Scat. p. 28.)
“Gaule, in his ‘Mag-Astromancers Posed and Puzzled’ (p. 165), enumerates
as follows the several species of divination.” (Here follows a list of
fifty-three kinds.) One of the kinds enumerated is “Spatalomancy, by
skin, bones, excrement.”—(Brand, “Pop. Ant.,” pp. 329, 330.)
In the “Rhudhiradhyaya, or Sanguinary Chapter,” translated from the
Calica Puran, in the 4th vol. “Asiatic Researches,” 4th ed., London,
1807, the following is stated in regard to human victims: “If, at the
time of presenting the blood, the victim discharges fæces or urine, or
turns about, it indicates certain death to the sacrificer.”
The Peruvians had one class of wizards (i. e., medicine-men) who “told
fortunes by maize and the dung of sheep.”—(“Fables and Rites of the
Yncas,” Padre Cristoval de Molina, translated by Clement C. Markham,
Hakluyt Society Transactions, London, 1873, vol. xlviii., p. 14. Molina
resided in Cuzco, as a missionary, from 1570 to 1584.)
“Les Hachus (a division of the Peruvian priesthood) consultaient l’avenir
au moyen de grains de maïs ou des excréments des animaux.”—(Balboa,
“Histoire de Pérou,” p. 29, in Ternaux, vol. xv.)
See, also, D. G. Brinton’s “Myths of the New World,” New York, 1868, pp.
278, 279.
Ducange, enumerating the pagan superstitions which still survived
in Europe in A.D. 743, mentions divination or augury by the dung of
horses, cattle, or birds: “De auguriis vel avium, vel equorum, vel boum
stercoracibus.”—(Ducange, Glossary, article “Stercoraces.”)
“What wise man would think that God would commit his counsel to a dog,
an owle, a swine, or a toade; or that he would hide his secret purposes
in the dung or bowels of beastes?” Reg. Scot (“Discoverie,” p. 150),
speaking of the omens consulted by Spaniards, English, and others,
says: “Among the rustics of France, to dream of ordure was regarded as a
sign of good luck; in like manner, to have a ball, or anything that one
carried in the hand, fall in ordure, was also a sign of good fortune.”
“To dream of ordure means that somebody is going to try to bewitch
you.”—(“Muhongo,” a boy from Angola, Eastern Africa, in conversation with
Captain Bourke; translation by Rev. Mr. Chatelain.)
This belief in the good or bad prognostications to be derived from dreams
about ordure, was very widely disseminated. “Luck, or Good Luck. To tread
in Sir Reverence; to be bewrayed; an allusion to the proverb, ‘Sh-tt-n
luck is good luck.’”—(“Grose, Dict. of Buckish Slang,” London, 1811.)
“Inasmuch as the sun of morning, or spring, comes out of the dark-blue
bird of night, we can understand the popular Italian and German
superstition, that when the excrement of a bird falls upon a man it is
an omen of good luck. The excrement of the mythical bird of night, or
winter, is the sun.”—(“Zoöl. Mythol.,” Angelo de Gubernatis, vol. ii. p.
176, London, 1872.)
“When a Hindu child’s horoscope portends misfortune or crime, he is
born again from a cow, thus: being dressed in scarlet, and tied on a
new sieve, he is passed between the hind legs of a cow, forward through
the fore legs to the mouth, and again in the reverse direction, to
simulate birth; the ordinary birth ceremonies (aspersion, etc.) are
then gone through, and the father smells his son as a cow smells her
calf.”—(Frazer, “Totemism,” Edinburgh, 1887, p. 33.)
To put one’s foot in dung is supposed by the French peasantry to imply
the acquirement of wealth.—(Mr. W. W. Rockhill.)
Among the Kamtchatkans, if a child has been born in stormy weather, they
believe that to be a bad omen, and that the child will cause storm and
rain wherever it goes. As soon as it is grown and can speak, they purify
it, and appease heaven by the following method: During a most violent
storm of wind and rain, the child is compelled to walk naked, holding a
cup or shell of Mytues high above its head, around the ostrag and all
balagans and dog huts, and to say the following prayer to Billukai and
his Kamuli: “Gsaulga, set yourselves down and stop urinating or storming;
this shell is used to salty but not to sweet water; you make me very wet,
and I almost freeze to death; besides, I have no clothing; see how I
tremble.”—(Steller, translated by Bunnemeyer.)
Divination by urine seems to have been superseded by holy water in a
“chrystall.” Scot, speaking of the latter mode, says: “They take a glass
vial, full of holy water, ... on the mouth of the vial or urinall,”
etc.—(“Discoverie,” p. 188.)
There is among children in the United States and England, and possibly
on the continent of Europe as well, a superstition to the effect that
the one who plucks the dandelion will become addicted to the habit of
urinating in bed during sleep. The author has been unable to trace the
origin of the curious notion or to obtain any explanation of it.
“Leontodon. Dandelion. Children that eat it in the evening
experience its diuretic effects in the night, which is the reason
that other European nations as well as the British vulgarly call
it piss-a-bed.”—(Encyclopædia, Philadelphia, Penn., 1797, article
“Leontodon.”)
“The following compendious new way of magical divination, which we find
so humorously described in Butler’s ‘Hudibras’ as follows, is affirmed by
M. Le Blanc, in his ‘Travels,’ to be used in the East Indies:—
“‘Your modern Indian magician
Makes but a hole in th’ earth to pisse in,
And straight resolves all questions by it,
And seldom fails to be in th’ right.’”
(Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” vol. iii. p. 331, article “Divination.”)
Cicero makes no mention of a method of divination by excrement, although,
as shown by the references from the “Bib. Scat.” and from Ducange, such
methods must have been in vogue.
The Kamtchatkans believe that “if they ease nature during sleep, it
signifies guests of their nation.”—(Steller, translated by Bunnemeyer.)
Montfaucon says that the Roman Haruspices “observed in the beasts that
were sacrificed not only the entrails in general, but also the gall and
bladder in particular.”—(“L’Antiquité expliquée,” lib. i. part 1, cap. 6.)
See extract from Gilder’s “Schwatka’s Search,” under “Mortuary
Ceremonies,” p. 262. See “Witchcraft,” “Amulets and Talismans,”
“Urinoscopy,” “Virginity,” “Sterility,” “Courtship and Marriage,”
“Childbirth.”
XXXVI.
ORDEALS AND PUNISHMENTS, TERRESTRIAL AND SUPERNAL.
In beginning this chapter it is fair to say that oaths will herein be
regarded as a modified form of the ancient ordeal, in which the affiant
invokes upon himself, if proved to have sworn falsely, the tortures of
the ordeal, mundane or celestial, which in an older form of civilization
he would have been obliged to undergo as a preliminary trial.
The author learned while campaigning against the Sioux and Cheyennes, in
1876-1877, that the Sioux and Assinaboines had a form of oath sworn to
while the affiant held in each hand a piece of buffalo chip.
Among the Hindus, “sometimes the trial was confined to swallowing
the water in which the priest had bathed the image of one of the
divinities.... The negroes of Issyny dare not drink the water into
which the fetiches have been dipped when they affirm what is not the
truth.”—(“Phil. of Magic,” Eusèbe Salverte, New York, 1862, vol. ii. p.
123.)
They formerly may have drunk the urine of the god or priest.
In “the ‘Domesday Survey,’ in the account of the city of Chester, vol.
i. p. 262, we read: ‘Vir sive mulier falsam mensuram in civitate faciens
deprehensus, IIII solid. emendab. Similiter malam cervisiam faciens, aut
in Cathedra ponebatur stercoris, aut IIII solid. de prepotis.’”—(Brand,
“Popular Antiquities,” vol. iii. p. 103, article “Ducking Stool.”)
“The ducking stool was a legal punishment. Roguish brewers and bakers
were also liable to it, and they were to be ducked in stercore in the
town ditch.”—(Southey, “Commonplace Book,” 1st series, p. 401, London,
1849.)
In Loango, Africa, “When a man is suspected of an offence he is carried
before the king,” and “is compelled to drink an infusion of a kind of
root called ‘imbando.’ ... The virtue of this root is that, if they
put too much into the water, the person that drinketh it cannot void
urine.... The ordeal consists in drinking and then in urinating as a
proof of innocence.”—(See “Adv. of Andrew Battell,” in Pinkerton’s
“Voyages,” vol. xvi. p. 334.)
In Sierra Leone the natives have a curious custom to which they subject
all of their tribe suspected of poisoning. They make the culprit drink a
certain “red water; after which for twenty-four hours he is not allowed
to ease nature by any evacuation; and should he not be able to restrain
them, it would be considered as strong a proof of his guilt as if he had
fallen a victim to the first draught.”—(Lieutenant John Matthews, R. N.,
“Voyage to Sierra Leone,” 1785, London, 1788, p. 126.)
In the Hindu mythology, “slanderers and calumniators, stretched upon
beds of red-hot iron, shall be obliged to eat excrements.”—(Southey,
“Commonplace Book,” 1st series, London, 1849, p. 249. He also refers to 2
Kings xviii. 27, and to Isaiah xxxvi. 12.)
“D’après le système religieux de Brahme, la punition des calomniateurs
dans l’enfer, consiste à être nourris d’excréments.”—(Majer. Dict.
Mythol. en Allemagne, t. 2, p. 46; Bib. Scat., p. 12.)
Herodotus relates that Pheron, the son of Sesostris, conqueror of Egypt,
became blind, and remained so for ten years.
“But in the eleventh year an oracle reached him from the city of Buto,
importing that the time of his punishment was expired, and he should
recover his sight by washing his eyes with the urine of a woman who had
intercourse with her own husband only, and had known no other man.”
Herodotus goes on to relate that Pheron tried the urine of his own wife
and that of many other women ineffectually; finally he was cured by
the urine of a woman whom he took to wife; all the others he burnt to
death.—(“Euterpe,” part ii. cap. 3.)
In the “Histoire Secrète du Prince Croq’ Étron,” par M’lle Laubert,
Paris, 1790, King Petaud orders Prince Gadourd to be buried alive in
ordure,—a punishment which would have suggested the author’s acquaintance
with Brahminical literature even had she not confessed it in these terms:
“Genre de supplice qui n’était pas nouveau puisque d’après le système
religieux de Brahme, la punition des calomniateurs dans l’enfer, consiste
à être nourri d’excréments.”
The Africans have an ordeal,—“a superstitious ordeal, by drinking the
poisonous Muave,” which induces vomiting only, according to Livingston
(“Zambesi,” London, 1865, p. 120). This may or may not be the “red drink”
of Lieutenant Matthews cited above.
Under the head of “Latrines,” allusion has been made to the prohibition,
in the laws of the Thibetan Buddhists, against throwing ordure upon
growing plants, etc. There is another case mentioned by Rockhill,
which may as well be inserted here: “Si une bhikshuni jette des
excréments de l’autre côté d’un mur sans y avoir regardé, c’est un
pacittiya.”—(“Pratimoksha Sutra,” translated by W. W. Rockhill, Soc.
Asiatique, Paris, 1885.)
In the words just quoted we find the definition of the offence as a
“pacittiya,” or sin. The punishment for each sin or class of sins was
carefully regulated and well understood in Thibetan nunneries.
“Cock-stool.” “A seat of ignominy ... in which scolding or immoral
women used to be placed formerly as a punishment; ... same as ‘sedes
Stercoraria.’”—(“Folk-Etymology,” Rev. A. Smythe-Palmer, London, 1882.
See also Chambers’s “Book of Days,” vol. i. p. 211.)
The Chinese have a very curious and very horrible mode of punishment;
criminals of certain classes are enclosed in barrels or boxes filled
with building lime, and exposed in a public street to the rays of the
noon-day sun; food in plenty is within reach of the unfortunate wretches,
but it is salt fish, or other salt provision, with all the water needed
to satisfy the thirst this food is certain to excite, but in the very
alleviation of which the poor criminals are only adding to the torments
to overtake them when by a more copious discharge from the kidneys the
lime shall “quicken” and burn them to death.
In the famous bull of Ernulphus, Bishop of Rochester, cited in “Tristram
Shandy,” the delinquent was to be cursed, “mingendo, cacando.”—(See
“Tristram Shandy,” Lawrence Sterne, ed. of London, 1873, vol. i. p. 188.)
“Fasting on bread and drinking water defiled by the excrement of a fowl”
are among the disciplinary punishments cited in Fosbroke’s “Monachism,”
London, 1817, p. 308, note.
This specimen of monastic discipline may be better understood when
read between the lines. The veneration surrounding chicken-dung in the
religious system of the Celts, prior to the introduction of the Christian
religion, could be uprooted in no more complete manner than by making
its use a matter of scorn and contempt; history is replete with examples
wherein we are taught that the things which are held most sacred in one
cult are the very ones upon which the fury and scorn of the superseding
cultus are wreaked. On this point read the notes taken from the pamphlet
of Mr. James Mooney, in regard to the superstitions attaching to the uses
of chicken-dung among the Irish peasantry.
“I have mentioned the sacrifice of cocks by Kelts; it was, and still
is, all over Asia, the cheap, common, and very venial substitute for
man.”—(“Rivers of Life,” Forlong, London, 1883, vol. ii. p. 274.)
We may reasonably infer that the dung of chickens as used by the Irish is
a representative of, and a substitute for, human ordure.
The Easter season which has preserved and transmitted to our times
so many pagan usages, has among its superstitions one to the effect
that “every person must have some part of his dress new on Easter day,
or he will have no good fortune that year. Another saying is that
unless that condition be fulfilled, the birds are likely to spoil your
clothes.”—(Brand, “Pop. Antiq.” vol. i. p. 165, art. “Easter Day.”)
The Kalmucks believe in many places of future punishment, one of
them being “un de ces séjours est couvert d’une nuée d’ordures et de
vidanges.” (Pallas, Paris, 1793, vol. i. p. 552.) This is the belief
inculcated by their Lamas.
At the Lithuanian festival called “Sabarios,” fowls were killed
and eaten. “The bones were then given to the dog to eat; if he did
not eat them all up, the remains were buried under the dung in the
cattle-stall.”—(“The Golden Bough,” vol. ii. p. 70.)
In cases of sickness “the inhabitants of a village are forbidden to wash
themselves for a number of days, ... and to clean their chamber-pots
before sun-rise.”—(“The Central Eskimo,” Dr. Franz Boas, in Sixth An.
Rep. Bur. of Ethnol. Wash. D. C. 1888, p. 593.)
“We have seen that in modern Europe, the person who cuts or binds or
threshes the last sheaf is often exposed to rough treatment at the hands
of his fellow-laborers. For example, he is bound up in the last sheaf and
thus encased is carried or carted about, beaten, drenched with water,
thrown on a dunghill, etc.”—(“The Golden Bough,” i. 367.)
In several parts of Germany, the Fool of the Carnival was buried under a
dung-heap. (Idem, vol. i. p. 256.) Further on, is given this explanation:
“The burying of the representative of the Carnival under a dung-heap
is natural, if he is supposed to possess a quickening and fertilizing
influence like that ascribed to the effigy of Death.”—(Idem, vol. i. p.
270.)
“In Siam it was formerly the custom, on one day of the year, to single
out a woman broken down by debauchery, and carry her on a litter through
all the streets, to the music of drums and hautboys. The mob insulted
her and pelted her with dirt; and, after having carried her through the
whole city, they threw her on a dunghill.... They believed that the woman
thus drew upon herself all the malign influences of the air and of evil
spirits.”—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 196.)
In Suabia there is a rough harvest game in which one of the laborers
takes the part of the sow; he is pursued by his comrades and if they
catch him “they handle him roughly, beating him, blackening or dirtying
his face, throwing him into filth.... At other times he is put in a
wheelbarrow.... After being wheeled round the village, he is flung on a
dunghill.”—(Idem, vol. ii. pp. 27, 28.)
The negroes of Guinea are firm believers in the theory of Obsession,
and have a god “Abiku” who “takes up his abode in the human body.” He
generally bothers little children, who sometimes die. “If the child
dies, the body is thrown on the dirt-heap to be devoured by wild
beasts.”—(“Fetichism,” Baudin, p. 57.)
“The Iroquois inaugurated the new year in January” with “a festival
of dreams.... It was a time of general license.... Many seized the
opportunity of paying off old scores by belaboring obnoxious persons, ...
covering them with filth and hot ashes.”—(“The Golden Bough,” vol. ii. p.
165, quoting Charlevoix, “La Nouvelle France.”)
“During the madder harvest in the Dutch province of Zealand, a stranger
passing by a field where the people are digging the madder roots, ‘will
sometimes call out to them, Koortspillers’ (a term of reproach). Upon
this, two of the fleetest runners make after him, and if they catch him,
they bring him back to the madder field and bury him in the earth up to
his middle at least, jeering at him all the while; they then ease nature
before his face.”—(Idem, vol. i. p. 379.)
“Now, it is an old superstition that by easing nature on the spot where
a robbery is committed, the robbers secure themselves for a certain time
against interruption.... The fact, therefore, that the madder-diggers
resort to this proceeding in presence of the stranger proves that they
consider themselves robbers and him as the person robbed.”—(Idem, p. 380.)
In connection with the above, the following deserves consideration:
“Reverence. An ancient custom which obliges any person easing himself
near the highway or footpath, on the word ‘reverence’ being given him
by a passenger, to take off his hat with his teeth, and, without moving
from his station, to throw it over his head, by which it frequently falls
into the excrement. This was considered as a punishment for the breach of
delicacy. A person refusing to obey this law might be pushed backwards.
Hence, perhaps, the term ‘sir-reverence.’”—(Grose, “Dict. of Buckish
Slang.”)
It is more likely that the practice had some connection with the fear of
witchcraft, or the evil eye of the stranger; we can hardly credit that
peasantry living in an age when the highest classes received their guests
at bedside receptions, “ruelles,” or in their “cabinets d’aisance,” would
be squeamish in the trifling matter just alluded to.
In Japan “When any of these panders die ... their bodies are cast upon a
dunghill.”—(John Saris, in Purchas, i. 368, A.D. 1611.)
“The tricks of the fayry called Pach.” “I smurch her face if it be
cleane, but if it be durty, I wash it in the next pisse-pot I can
finde.”—(“Life of Robin Goodfellow,” Black Letter, London, 1628, in
Hazlitt’s “Fairy Tales,” London, 1875, p. 205.)
But the “women fayries,” under similar circumstances, “wash their faces
and hands with a gilded child’s clout.”—(Idem, p. 206.)
“Their own spirits too will have nothing but excrement to eat, if during
life the rites of the Bora (Initiation) have not been duly performed.
With this compare the declaration of the Indian Manes (xii. 71) that a
Kahatya who has not done his duty, will, after death, have to live on
ordure and carrion. And in the Melanesian Hades the ghosts of the wicked
have nothing to eat but vile refuse and excrement.”—(Personal Letter from
John Frazer, LL.D., to Captain Bourke, dated Sydney, New South Wales,
Dec. 24, 1889.)
The Australians believed that if a man did not allow the septum of the
nose to be pierced, he would suffer in the next world. “As soon as ever
the spirit Egowk left the body, it would be required, as a punishment, to
eat Toorta-gwannang” (filth not proper for translation).—(“Aborigines of
Victoria,” Smyth, vol. i. p. 274.)
Among some of the Australian tribes is found a potent deity named
“Pund-jel,” whom Mr. Andrew Lang thinks may be the Eagle-Hawk. “As
a punisher of wicked people, Pund-jel was once moved to drown the
world, and this he did by a flood which he produced (as Dr. Brown
says of another affair) by a familiar Gulliverian application of
hydraulics.”—(“Myth, Rit., and Relig.,” Lang, London, 1887, ii. 5.)
Maurice cites five meritorious kinds of suicide, in the second of which
the Hindu devotee is described as “covering himself with cow-dung,
setting it on fire, and consuming himself therein.”—(Maurice, “Indian
Antiquities,” London, 1800, vol. ii. p. 49.)
“Throw this slave upon the dunghill.”—(King Lear, act iii. sc. 6.)
When Squire Iden killed Jack Kade he exclaimed:—
“Hence will I drag thee, headlong by the heels,
Unto a dunghill which shall be thy grave.”—(2 K. Henry, vi. 10.)
“_Steward._ Out, dunghill.”—(King Lear, act iv. sc. 6.)
“Forbearance from meat and work are also prescribed to a single woman
in case the sun or moon (though we should rather call it a bird flying
by) should let any uncleanness drop upon her; otherwise, she might
be unfortunate, or even deprived of her life.”—(Crantz, “History of
Greenland,” London, 1767, vol. i. p. 216.)
The “bitter water” of the Hebrew ordeals by which the woman accused of
unfaithfulness was either proved innocent, or had her belly burst upon
drinking, presents itself in this connection.—(See Numbers v.)
Dante, in his cap. xiii. speaks of those condemned for flattery: “a crowd
immersed in ordure.”—(Cary’s translation.)
Ducange alludes to what may have been an ordeal or a punishment: “Aquam
sordidam et stercoratem super sponsam jactare.”—(“In Lege Longobardi,”
lib. i. tit. 16, c. 8.)
The Hebrew prophets sat on dungheaps while the recalcitrant people
of Israel were warned: “Behold, I will spread dung upon your faces,
even the dung of your solemn feasts, and one shall take you away with
it.”—(Malachi ii. 3.)
By reference to another portion of this volume, it will be seen that
stercoraceous matter was deemed potent in frustrating witchcraft. Thus
a mother was ordered to throw a “changeling” child upon a dunghill (p.
403.) The prostitutes of Amsterdam kept horse-dung in their houses for
good luck, etc. Consequently, when we read of the corpses of criminals or
witches having been thrown upon dunghills, we may let fancy indulge the
idea that it was to render nugatory any schemes the ghost might cherish
of wreaking revenge.
The historian Suetonius relates that the unfortunate Roman emperor
Vitellius was pelted with excrement before being put to death.
Among the unlawful acts for Brahmans or Kshatriyas who are compelled to
support themselves by following the occupations of Vaisyas, is selling
sesamum, unless “they themselves have produced it by tillage.... If he
applies sesamum to any other purpose but food, anointing, and charitable
gifts, he will be born again as a worm, and together with his ancestors
be plunged into his own ordure.”—(“Vasishtha,” cap. ii. 27-30. “Sacred
Books of the East,” Oxford, 1882, vol. xiv., edition of Max Müller. This
is one of the oldest of the Sacred Books. The same prohibition is to be
found in “Prasna” 11, “Adhyaya” 1, “Kandika” 2.)
XXXVII.
INSULTS.
It is somewhat singular to find in the myths of the Zuñis—the very
people among whom we have discovered the existence of this filthy rite
of urine-drinking—an allusion to the fact that to throw urine upon
persons or near their dwellings was to be looked upon as an insult of
the gravest character. During the early winter of 1881 the author was at
the Pueblo of Zuñi, New Mexico, while Mr. Frank H. Cushing was engaged
in the researches which have since placed him at the head of American
anthropologists, and then heard recited by the old men the long myth of
the young boy who went to the Spirit Land to seek his father. One of the
incidents upon which the story-tellers dwelt with much insistence was the
degradation and ignominy in which the boy and his poor mother lived in
their native village, as was shown by the fact that their neighbors were
in the habit of emptying their urine vessels upon their roof and in front
of their door.
The threat made against the Jews by Sennacherib (in Isaiah xxxvi. 12)
deserves consideration in this connection; and also the threat in the Old
Testament, “There shall not be left one that pisses against the wall.”
“Connected with the Samoan wars, several other things may be noted, such
as consulting the gods, ... haranguing each other previous to a fight,
the very counterpart of Abijah, King of Judah, and even word for word
with the filthy-tongued Rabshakeh.”—(“Samoa,” Turner, p. 194.)
The people of Samoa have a myth relating a separation which occurred
between the natives of several islands, due to the fact that the men and
women living on Tutuaila “began to make a dunghill of their floating
island.”—(Olosenga, idem, p. 225.)
“Nebuchadnezzar likewise gave Zedekiah (after he had made him dance and
play before him a long while) a laxative drink, so that, like a beastly
old fellow (as there are many such betwixt York and London), _totus
deturpatus fuit_, he smelt as ill as your Ajax.” In a marginal reference,
he adds: “According to an old ballad,—
‘And all to b⸺n was he, was he.’”
—(Harington, “Ajax,” p. 35.)
This behavior, disgusting as it appears to us in all its features,
had its parallel in the conduct of a prominent member of European
aristocracy, who was wont to indulge his anger in a manner strikingly
similar to the above at such moments as seemed to be proper for the
punishment of his servants. His name is suppressed at the request of the
correspondent furnishing the item.
Niebuhr says that the grossest insult that can be offered to a man,
especially a Mahometan, in Arabia, is to spit upon his beard, or to say
“De l’ordure sur ta barbe.”—(“Desc. de l’Arabie,” Amsterdam, 1774, p. 26.)
Niebuhr’s remarks in regard to the offence taken by the Bedouins at such
an infraction of their etiquette as flatulence are repeated in a vague
and guarded form by Maltebrun (“Univ. Geog.,” vol. ii. part “Arabia”).
In Angola, Africa, the greatest insult is, “Go and eat s—t.”—(Muhongo.)
“Dunghill. A coward. A cock-pit phrase, all but gamecocks being styled
dunghills.”—(Grose, “Dictionary of Slang,” London, 1811.)
Tailors who accepted the wages prescribed by law were styled “Dung” by
the “Flints,” who refused them.—(Idem.)
Among the rough games of English sailors was one, “The Galley,” in which
a mopful of excrement was thrust in a landsman’s face.—(Idem.)
In Angola, Africa, flatulence is freely permitted among the natives;
but any license of this kind taken while strangers are in the vicinity
is regarded as a deadly insult.—(“Muhongo,” translated by Rev. Mr.
Chatelain.)
In the report of one of the early American explorations to the
Trans-Missouri region occurs the story that the Republican Pawnees,
Nebraska, once (about 1780-90) violated the laws of hospitality by
seizing a calumet-bearer of the Omahas who had entered their village,
and, among other indignities, making him “drink urine mixed with bison
gall.”—(“Long’s Expedition,” Philadelphia, 1823, vol. i. p. 300.)
Bison gall itself sprinkled upon raw liver, just warm from the carcass,
was regarded as a delicacy. The expression “excrement eater” is applied
by the Mandans and others on the Upper Missouri as a term of the vilest
opprobrium, according to Surgeon Washington Matthews, U. S. Army (author
of “Hidatsa,” and other ethnological works of authority), whose remarks
are based upon an unusually extended and intelligent experience.
“They gave me the abuse of the Punjabi, ... pelting me with sticks and
cow-dung till I fell down and cried for mercy.”—(“Gemini,” Rudyard
Kipling, in “Soldiers Three,” New York, 1890.)
“May the garbage of the foundations of the city be thy food; may the
drains of the city be thy drink.”—(“The Chaldean Account of Genesis,”
George Smith, New York, 1880.)
Among the Cheyenne expressions of contempt is to be found one which
recalls the objurgations of the Bedouins; namely, _natsi-viz_, or
“s—t-mouth.”—(Personal notes of September 25, 1878, interview with the
chiefs of the Northern Cheyennes, Ben Clark, interpreter.)
Rev. J. Owen Dorsey, who has made such prolonged and careful studies of
the manners and myths of the tribes of the Siouan stock, is authority for
the statement that the worst insult that one Ponca can give another is to
say, “You are an eater of dog-dung;” and it is noticeable that the words
of the expression are rarely used in the language of every-day life. He
gives other examples from myths, etc., and supplies a variant of the
story narrated by Captain Long; but as all this is to appear in one of
the Doctor’s coming books, it is omitted from these pages.
The Kamtchatkans say, “May you have one hundred burning lamps in your
podex,” “Eater of fæces with his fish-spawn,” etc.—(Steller, translated
by Bunnemeyer.)
“Stercus.” As a term of abuse.—“Nolo stercus curiæ dici
Glauciam.”—(Cicero, “De Oratoribus,” 3, 41, 164; Andrew’s “Latin
Dictionary,” New York, 1879, article “Stercus.”)
Caracalla put to death those who made water in front of his statues.
“Damnati sunt eo tempore (that is, the end of his wars with the
Germans) qui urinam in eo loco ferrant in quo statuæ aut imagines erant
principis.”—(Ælius Lampridius, “Life of the Emperor Caracalla,” edition
of Frankfort, 1588, p. 186, lines 43 and 44.)
There are some very singular laws of the ancient Burgundians in regard
to abusive words. “Si quis alterum concagatum clamaverit, 120 denariis
mulctetur.”—(Barrington, “Obs. on the Statutes,” London, 1775, p. 315.)
“I’ll pick thy head upon my sword,
And piss in thy very visonomy.”
(“Ram Alley,” Ludowick Barry, 1611, edition of London, 1825.)
“The devil’s dung in thy teeth.”
(“The Honest Whore,” Thomas Dekkar, 1604, edition of London, 1825.)
“Again the coarsest word, _khara_. The allusion is to the vulgar saying,
‘Thou eatest skitel’ (that is, ‘Thou talkest nonsense’). Decent English
writers modify this to ‘Thou eatest dirt;’ and Lord Beaconsfield made it
ridiculous by turning it into ‘eating sand.’”—(“Arabian Nights,” Burton’s
edition, vol. ii. pp. 222, 223.)
Readers of classical history will recall the incident of the outrage
perpetrated by the mob of Tarentum upon the person of the Roman
ambassador Posthumus, 282 B.C. A buffoon in the street threw filth upon
his toga. The ambassador refused to be mollified, and tersely telling
his assailants that many a drop of Tarentine blood would be required to
wash out the stains, took out his departure. A cruel war followed, and
the Tarentines were reduced to the rank of a conquered province.—(See
“History of Rome,” Victor Duruy, English translation, Boston, 1887, vol.
i. p. 462.)
“When the multitude had come to Jerusalem, to the feast of unleavened
bread, and the Roman cohort stood over the temple, ... one of the
soldiers pulled back his garment, and stooping down after an indecent
manner, turned his posteriors to the Jews, and spake such words as might
be expected upon such a posture.” The narration describes the riot which
followed as a result, and ten thousand people were killed.—(See Josephus,
“Wars of the Jews,” book ii. edition of New York, 1821.)
The dispute between Richard the Lion-Hearted and the Arch-Duke of
Austria, which resulted afterwards in the incarceration of the English
king in a dungeon, had its rise in the great insult of throwing the
Austrian standard down into a privy. Matthew of Paris says distinctly
that Richard himself did this. “Now he, being over well disposed to
the cause of the Norman, waxed wroth with the Duke’s train, and gave
a headstrong, unseemly order for the Duke’s banner to be cast into a
cesspool.”—(See “The Third Crusade and Richard the First,” T. A. Archer,
in “English History from Contemporary Writers,” New York, 1889.)
“_Bigot._ Out, dunghill! Darest thou brave a nobleman?”
(“King John,” iv. 3.)
“_Gloster._ Shall I be flouted thus by dunghill grooms?”
(“1 King Henry VI.,” i. 3.)
“_York._ Base dunghill villain and mechanical.”
(“2 King Henry VI.,” i. 3.)
“‘Khara,’ meaning dung, is the lowest possible insult. ‘Ta-kara’ is the
commonest of insults, used also by modest women. I have heard a mother
use it to her son.”—(Burton, “Arabian Nights,” vol. ii. p. 59, footnote.)
XXXVIII.
MORTUARY CEREMONIES.
A Parsi is defiled by touching a corpse. “And when he is in contact
and does not move it, he is to be washed with bull’s urine and
water.”—(“Shapast la Shayast,” cap. 2.; “Sacred Books of the East,” Max
Müller, editor, Oxford, 1880, pp. 262, 269, 270, 272, 273, 279, 281, 282,
333, 349.)
In the cremation of a Hindu corpse at Bombay, the ashes of the pyre were
sprinkled with water, a cake of cow-dung placed in the centre, and around
it a small stream of cow-urine; upon this were placed plantain-leaves,
rice-cakes, and flowers.—(“Modern India,” Monier Williams, p, 65.)
“They who return from the funeral must touch the stone of Priapus,
a fire, the excrement of a cow, a grain of sesame, and water,—all
symbols of that fecundity which the contact with a corpse might have
destroyed.”—(“Zoöl. Mythol.,” De Gubernatis, p. 49.)
The followers of Zoroaster were enjoined to pull a dead body out of the
water. “No sin attaches to him for any bone, hair, grass, flesh, dung,
or blood that may drop back into the water.”—(Fargard VI., Vendidad,
Zendavesta, Darmesteter’s edition; Max Müller’s edition of the “Sacred
Books of the East,” Oxford, 1880, p. 70.)
“There dies a man in the depths of the vale; a bird takes flight from
the top of the mountain down into the depths of the vale, and it eats up
the corpse of the dead man there; then up it flies from the depths of
the vale to the top of the mountain; it flies to some one of the trees
there,—of the hard-wooded or the soft-wooded, and upon that tree it
vomits, it deposits dung, it drops pieces from the corpse.... If a man
chop any of that wood for a fire, he is not regarded as defiled because
... Ahura-Mazda answered, ‘There is no sin upon any man for any dead
matter that has been brought by dogs, by birds, by wolves, by winds, or
by flies.’”—(Fargard V., of same work.)
If a dog had died on a piece of ground, the ground had to lie fallow for
a year; at the end of that time, “they shall look on the ground for any
bones, hair, flesh, dung, or blood that may be there.”—(Fargard VI.)
If the clothing of the dead “has not been defiled with seed or sweat
or dirt or vomit, then the worshippers of Mazda shall wash it with
gomez.”—(Fargard VII. Gomez (bull-urine) again alluded to as the great
purifier on pp. 78-80, 104, 117, 118, 122, 123, 128, 182, 183, 212.)
The sacred vessels that had been defiled by the touch of a corpse were to
be cleaned with gomez.—(Idem, pp. 91, 92.)
The most efficacious gomez was that of “an ungelded bull.”—(Idem, p. 212.)
“They shall cover the surface of the grave with ashes or
cow-dung.”—(Fargard VIII.)
“Let the worshippers of Mazda here bring the urine wherewith the
corpse-bearers shall wash their hair and their bodies.”—(Fargard VIII.
See, also, p. 201 of this volume.)
In describing the funerals of the Eskimo, Gilder says: “The closing
ceremony was a most touching one. After ‘Papa’ had returned from the
grave, Armow went out of doors and brought in a piece of frozen something
that it is not polite to specify, further than that the dogs had entirely
done with it, and with it he touched every block of snow on a level with
the beds of the igloo. The article was then taken out of doors and tossed
up in the air, to fall at his feet; and by the manner in which it fell he
could joyfully announce that there was no liability of further deaths in
camp for some time to come.”—(“Schwatka’s Search,” Gilder, p. 234.)
“The Africans have an evil spirit called ‘Abiku,’ who takes up his
abode in the human body.” This spirit is believed to cause the
death of children. “If the child dies, the body is thrown on the
dirt-heap.”—(“Fetichism,” Baudin, p. 57.)
There is also a purification of the soul of the dying by the same
peculiar methods. In Coromandel,[68] the dying man is so placed that his
face will come under the tail of a cow; the tail is lifted, and the cow
excited to void her urine. If the urine fall on the face of the sick man,
the people cry out with joy, considering him to be one of the blessed;
but if the sacred animal be in no humor to gratify their wishes, they are
greatly afflicted.
“The inhabitants of the coast of Coromandel carried those of their sick
who were on the point of death, as a last resource, to the back of a fat
cow, whose tail they twisted to make her urinate; if the cow’s urine
spread over the whole face of the patient, it was a very good sign to the
dirty rascals.”—(Paullini, pp. 80, 81.)
With equal solicitude does the Hottentot medicine-man follow the remains
of his kinsmen to the grave, aspersing with the same sacred liquid
the corpse of the dead and the persons of the mourners who bewail his
fate.[69]
At Hottentot funerals, “two old men, the friends or relations of the
deceased, enter each circle and sparingly dispense their streams upon
each person, so that all may have some; all the company receive their
water with eagerness and veneration. This being done, each steps into
the hut, and taking up a handful of ashes from the hearth, comes out
by the passage made by the corpse, and strews the ashes by little and
little upon the whole company. This, they say, is done to humble their
pride.”—(Kolbein, p. 401.)
“It is a pity that men in a savage state should take delight in doing
that which is nasty, but such is the fact. It is a very common custom for
the tribe, or that portion of it who are related to the one who has died,
to rub themselves with the moisture that comes from the dead friend. They
rub themselves with it until the whole of them have the same smell as
the corpse.”—(“Aborigines of Victoria,” Smyth, vol. i. p. 131.) But in a
footnote he adds that some of the Australians will not touch a dead body
with the naked hand.
In the mortuary ceremonies of the Encounter Bay tribe (South
Australians), “the old women put human excrement on their heads,—the sign
of deepest mourning.”—(Idem, vol. i. p. 113.)
The corpse of an Australian chief was surrounded “with wailing women,
smeared with filth and ashes.”—(“Native Tribes of South Australia,”
Adelaide, 1879, p. 75, received through the kindness of the Royal
Society, New South Wales, Sydney, T. B. Kyngdon, Secretary.)
“In the burial ceremonies, the women of many tribes besmear or plaster
their heads with excrement and pipe-clay.”—(Personal letter from John F.
Mann, Esq., dated Neutral Bay, Sydney, New South Wales.)
“When a child dies, women who carried it in their hands must throw their
jackets away if the child has urinated on them. This is part of the
custom that everything that has come in contact with a dead person must
be destroyed.”—(“The Central Eskimo,” Boas, p. 612.)
The Kootenays of Canada have a ceremonial aspersion after funerals. “When
those who have buried the body return, they take a thorn bush, dip it
into a kettle of water, and sprinkle the doors of all lodges.”—(“Report
on the Northwest Tribes of Canada,” Dr. Franz Boas, to the British
Association for the Advancement of Science, Newcastle-upon-Tyne meeting,
1889, p. 46.)
Describing Italian funerals, Blunt says: “When the procession has reached
the church, the bier is set down in the nave, and the officiating priest,
in the course of the appointed service, sprinkles the body with holy
water three times,—a rite in all probability ensuing from that practised
by the Romans, of thrice sprinkling the bystanders with the same
element.”—(“Vestiges,” p. 183.)
In the Tonga Islands, there are two principal personages,—Tooitonga and
Veachi,—who are believed to be the living representatives of powerful
gods. Upon the death of Tooitonga, certain ceremonies are practised,
among which: “The men now approach the mount, i. e., the funeral mound,
it being dark, and, if the phrase be allowable, perform the devotions
to Cloacina, after which they retire. As soon as it is daylight the
following morning, the women of the first rank, wives and daughters of
the greatest chiefs, assemble with their female attendants, bringing
baskets, one holding one side and one the other, advancing two and
two, with large shells to clear up the depositions of the preceding
night, and in this ceremonious act of humiliation, no female of the
highest consequence refuses to take her part. Some of the mourners in
the ‘fytoca’ generally come out to assist; so that, in a very little
while, the place is made perfectly clean. This is repeated the fourteen
following nights, and as punctually cleaned away by sunrise every
morning. No persons but the agents are allowed to be witnesses of these
extraordinary ceremonies; at least, it would be considered highly
indecorous and irreligious to be so. On the sixteenth day, early in the
morning, the same females again assemble; but now they are dressed up
in the finest ‘gnatoo,’ and most beautiful Hamao mats, decorated with
ribbons, and with wreaths of flowers round their necks; they also bring
new baskets ornamented with flowers, and little brooms, very tastefully
made. Thus equipped they approach, and act as if they had the same task
to do as before, pretending to clear away the dirt, though no dirt is
now there, and take it away in their blankets.... The natives themselves
used to regret that the filthy part of these ceremonies was necessary to
be performed, ... and that it was the duty of the most exalted nobles,
even of the most delicate females of rank, to perform the meanest and
most disgusting offices, rather than that the sacred grounds in which he
was buried should remain polluted.” (Dillon’s “Expedition in Search of La
Perouse,” London, 1829, vol. ii. pp. 57-59.) Dillon says that this “must
be considered a religious rite, standing upon the foundation of very
ancient customs.”—(Idem, p. 57.)
XXXIX.
MYTHS.
“All peoples have invented myths to explain why they observed certain
customs.”—(“The Golden Bough,” vol. ii. p. 128.)
“Myth changes while custom remains constant; men continue to do what
their fathers did before them, though the reasons on which their fathers
acted have long been forgotten. The history of religion is a long attempt
to reconcile old custom with new reason; to find a sound theory for an
absurd practice.”—(Idem, p. 62.)
The Australians have a myth of the Creation of Man; it is given in Latin:
“Ningorope lætitiæ plena in latrina lutum amœne erubescens cernebat; hoc
in hominis figuram formabat, quæ tactu divæ motum vitalem sumebat et donc
ridebat.”—(“Aborig. of Victoria,” Smyth, vol. i. p. 425.)
This myth is given in English from another authority, on next page of
this volume.
The Creation Myth of the Australians relates that the god “Bund-jil
oceanum creavit minctione per plures dies in terrarum orbem. Bullarto
Bulgo magnam lotii copiam indicat.” (Idem, vol. i. p. 429.) (Bund-jil
created the ocean by urinating for many days upon the orb of the earth.)
The natives say that the god being angry “Bullarto Bulgo” upon the earth.
Bullarto Bulgo indicates a great flow of urine.
The same myth has already been given from Andrew Lang, under “Ordeals and
Punishments.”
In the cosmogonical myths of the islanders of Kadiack, it is related that
the first woman, “by making water, produced seas.”—(Lisiansky, “Voy.
round the World,” London, 1814, p. 197.)
“In the fourth story” (i. e., stories told by the Kalmucks and Mongols)
“it is under the excrement of a cow that the enchanted gem, lost by the
daughter of the king, is found.”—(“Zoöl. Mythol.,” De Gubernatis, p. 129.)
In the mythic lore of the Hindus, the god Utanka sets out on a journey,
protected by Indra. “On his way, he meets a gigantic bull, and a
horseman who bids him, if he would succeed, eat the excrement of the
bull; he does so, rinsing his mouth afterwards.”—(Idem, p. 80.)
Further on we learn that Utanka was told “the excrement of the bull was
the ambrosia which made him immortal in the kingdom of the serpents.”
(Idem, pp. 81, 95.) Here we have the analogue of the use of excrement and
urine in Europe to baffle witches, and of the drinking of the Siberian
girl’s urine, which in all probability was proffered to the guest as an
assurance that no witchcraft was in contemplation, or else to baffle the
witches, much as, in England, bridal couples urinated through the wedding
ring.
The Chinese have a mythical animal which has been identified with the
Tapir; it is called the Mih; to it they ascribe the power to eat iron
and copper. “For this reason the urine of this animal is prescribed when
a person has swallowed iron or copper; it will, in a short time, change
them into water.”—(“Chinese Repository,” Canton, 1839, vol. vii. pp. 46,
47.)
“The story of Joa lo Praube is repeated almost word for word in the
adventures of the Kamtchatkan god ‘Kutka;’ or, to be more exact, there
is a myth in which it is narrated that that god had a great many tricks
played upon him, in one of which he runs sticks into his gluteal
region.”—(Steller, translated by Bunnemeyer.)
This god Kutka was a great sodomite, and in some points, resembled the
anti-natural god of the Sioux.
Speaking of the god “Aidowedo,” the serpent in the Rainbow as believed by
the Negroes of Guinea, Father Baudin says: “He who finds the excrement of
this serpent is rich forever, for with this talisman he can change grains
of corn into shells which pass for money.” (“Fetichism,” Rev. F. Baudin,
New York, 1885, p. 47.) He goes on to narrate a very amusing tale to the
effect that the negroes got the idea that a prism in his possession gave
him the power to bring the Rainbow down into his room at will, and that
he could obtain unlimited quantities of the precious excrement.
Another myth of the foolish god “Kutka” represents him as falling in love
with his own excrement and wooing it as his bride; he takes it home in
his sleigh, puts it in his bed, and is only restored to a sense of his
absurd position by the vile smell.—(Steller, translated by Bunnemeyer.)
Possibly all this may be a myth to explain or to represent the state of
mind into which those who indulged in the “muck-a-moor” were thrown, but
even this interpretation seems far-fetched.
Sir John Moore, it is stated, fell in love with his own urine, and we
have read from Montaigne the story of the French gentleman who preserved
his egestæ to show to his visitors.
The tribes of the Narinyeri, Encounter Bay, South Australia, have
a legend that difference in language was caused when certain of
their ancestors “ate the contents of the intestines of the goddess
‘Wurruri.’”—(“Nat. tribes of South Australia,” Adelaide, 1879, p. 60,
received through the kindness of the Roy. Soc., Sydney, N. S. Wales, T.
B. Kyngdon, Secretary.)
In the same chapter we are told of the omission of one or two ceremonies
“which were too indecent for general readers” (p. 61).
In the “Bachiller de Salamanca,” Le Sage has a hero whose misfortunes
would lead us to suspect that Le Sage had been reading of some of the
doings of the Kamtchatkan god “Kutka,” who, among the numerous pranks
played upon him by his enemies, the mice, suffered the ignominy of having
“a bag made of fish-skin attached to his orificium ani while he lay sound
asleep. On his way home Kutka desired to relieve nature, but was much
surprised, on leaving, at the insignificant deposit notwithstanding he
had freed himself of so great a burden.
“Surprised at his cleanliness, he narrated the circumstances to Clachy
(his wife), who soon discovered the true state of affairs, and pulling
off Kutka’s pantaloons, detached the heavily laden bag with great
laughters.”—(Steller, translated by Bunnemeyer.)
In the 14th century farce of “Le Muynier,” the Miller has absorbed some
of the popular ideas of his day, professed by certain philosophers of the
time. He believes that, at the moment of death, the soul of a man escapes
by the anus, and warns the priest to absolve him from his sins, saying:
“Mon ventre trop se détermine. Helas! Je ne scay que je face; ostez-vous.”
The priest answers: “Ha! sauf vostre grace!”
Then the miller remarks: “Ostez-vous, car je me conchye.”
The wife and the priest pull the sick man to the edge of the bed and
place him in such a position that if the doctrine of soul-departure by
the anus be true, they may witness the miller’s final performance. The
phenomenon of rectal flatulence is now observed, when suddenly, to the
consternation of the wife and priest, a demon appears and placing a sack
over the dying miller’s anus, catches the rectal gas and flies off in
sulphurous vapor.—(“Med. in the Middle Ages,” Minor, p. 84, translated
from “Le Moyen Age Médical,” by Dupouy.)
It was generally believed in Europe that the eggs of the Basilisk
or Cockatrice could only be hatched by a toad or by the heat of a
manure-pile.—(See “Mélusine,” Paris, January-February, 1890, p. 20.)
Ireland has been called the “Urinal of the Planets” from the constant
and copious rains which visit it.—(See Grose, “Dict. of Buckish Slang,”
London, 1811.)
The Apaches have a myth, or story, the analogue of the “Fee-fo-Fum” of
our own childhood; but the giant, instead of smelling the blood of an
Englishman, in the words given in Spanish, “huele la cagada.”
The Chinese myth concerning the wonderful digestive powers of the “Mih”
has its counterpart in the ancient belief that the same power was
possessed by the Ostrich.
“The Wangwana and Wanyumbo informed me ... that if the elephant observes
the excrement of the rhinoceros unscattered, he waxes furious, and
proceeds instantly in search of the criminal, when woe befall him if
he is sulky, and disposed to battle for the proud privilege of leaving
his droppings as they fall. The elephant, in that case, breaks off a
heavy branch of a tree, or uproots a stout sapling like a boat’s mast,
and belabors the unfortunate beast until he is glad to save himself by
hurried flight. For this reason, the natives say, the rhinoceros always
turns round and thoroughly scatters what he has dropped.”—(“Through the
Dark Continent,” Henry M. Stanley, New York, 1878, vol. i. p. 477.)
“In other myths, in the Brahmanas, Prajapati creates man from his body,
or rather the fluid of his body becomes a tortoise, the tortoise becomes
a man, etc.”—(“Myth, Ritual, and Religion,” Andrew Lang, London, 1887,
vol. ii. p. 248. See also under chapter on the Mistletoe, p. 99 of this
volume.)
“Moffatt is astonished at the South African notion that the sea was
accidentally created by a girl.” (“Myth, Ritual, and Religion,” Lang,
vol. i. p. 91.) Perhaps this tale belongs to our series of myths.
“The Encounter Bay people have another myth, which might have been
attributed by Dean Swift to the Yahoos, so foul an origin does it
attribute to mankind.”—(Idem, Lang, vol. i. p. 170.)
“As the mythology and traditions of other heathen nations are more or
less immoral and obscene, so it is with these people.” (“Nat. Trib. of S.
Australia,” p. 200.) “Mingarope having retired upon a natural occasion
was highly pleased with the red color of her excrement, which she began
to mould into the form of a man, and tickling it, it showed signs of life
and began to laugh.”—(Idem, p. 201.)
The myth relating that differences in language sprung up after certain of
the tribes had eaten the excrement of the goddess “Wurruri” is given on
p. 268; it has been recited in this volume on a previous page. There was
another god, named Nurunduri, of whom the story is told that he once made
water in a certain spot, “from which circumstance the place is called
Kainjamin (to make water.)”—(Idem, p. 205.)
Among the Bilgula of British Columbia, there is a myth which relates that
a certain stump of a tree was a cannibal and had captured a girl. Once,
when he had gone out to fish for halibut, “he ordered his urinary vessel
to call him if the girl should make an attempt to escape. When she did
so, the vessel cried, ‘Rota-gota, Rota-gota, gota.’”—(Personal letter
from Dr. Franz Boas, Clark University, Worcester, Mass.)
There is a riddle among the Kamtchatkans in regard to human feces: “My
father has numerous forms and dresses; my mother is warm and thin and
bears every day. Before I am born, I like cold and warmth, but after I
am born, only cold. In the cold I am strong, and in the warmth, weak; if
cold, I am seen far; if warm, I am smelled far.”—(Steller, translated by
Bunnemeyer.)
Among some of the Eskimo tribes the Raven is represented as talking to
its own excrement and consulting it; excrement occurs frequently in their
legends.—(Personal letter from Dr. Boas, as above.)
From the preceding paragraph we see that the Eskimo must have formerly,
even if they do not now, consulted excrement in their Divination; the
extract from Gilder, given under “Mortuary Ceremonies” confirms this
hypothesis.
The people of Kamtchatka believed that rain was the urine of Billutschi,
one of their gods, and of his genii; but, after this god has urinated
enough, he puts on a new dress made in the form of a sack, and provided
with fringes of red seal hair, and variously colored strips of leather.
These represent the origin of the Rainbow.
The Kamtchatkan god Kutka was once pursued by enemies, but saved himself
“by ejecting from his bowels all kinds of berries, which detained his
pursuers.”
The myths of the Kamtchatkans offer a parallel to the stories that the
presents of the devil always turned into dross. There is the story of the
god Kutka, upon whom, as we have seen, many tricks were played. In one
the food with which he supplied himself “turned into peat, rotten wood,
and piss.”—(Steller, translated by Bunnemeyer.)
“The Central Eskimo believe that rain is the urine of a deity.”—(See “The
Central Eskimo,” Boas, p. 600.)
“Amber (as some thinke) is made of whale’s dung.”—(John Leo, “Observ. of
Africa,” in Purchas, vol. ii. p. 772.)
Ambergris was anciently supposed to be the dung of the whale or other
monster of the sea.—(Mr. W. W. Rockhill.)
This view about the origin of amber was not credited by Avicenna. “Ambram
non esse stercus animalis maris.”—(Vol. i. p. 273, b10.)
In the liturgy of the hill tribes of the Nilgherris, it is related—
“Mada a uriné dans le feu.”
“Mada a fienté à la face du soleil.”
—(Quoted in “Les Primitifs,” p. 245.)
Réclus, in the same work, gives a fragment of an Orphic song: “Glorieux
Jupiter, le plus grand des Olympiens, toi qui te plais dans les crottins
des brebis, qui aimes à t’enfoncer dans les fientes des chevaux et des
mulets.”—(p. 246, quoting from “Fragmenta Orphei,” edited by Hermann.)
“The blessed Apostle Paul, being rapt in contemplation of divine
blissfulness, compares all the chief felicities of the earth, esteeming
them (to use his own words) as ‘stercora,’ most filthy dung in regard of
the joys he hoped for.”—(Harington, “Ajax,” p. 26.)
“He is truly wise that accounteth all earthly things as dung that he may
win Christ.”—(Matt. xvii. 23, quoted in Thomas à Kempis, cap. iv., “Of
the Doctrine of Truth.”)
“It was current among the small boys at school some thirty-five years
since, that were a man to make water whilst in connection with a woman
she would die.”—(Personal letter from Prof. Frank Rede Fowke, South
Kensington Museum, London, England.)
The name of the city of Chicago has been traced by some philologist
to the Indian word for skunk; and it is said to be “equal to bestiola
fœda mingens.” The urine of this little animal was believed by some of
the Indian tribes to be capable of blinding the man in whose eyes it
entered; the animal itself was deified by the Aztecs under the name of
Tezcatlipoca.
For the interpretation given for the word “Chicago,” see the work “Indian
Names of Places near the Great Lakes,” by Captain Dwight Kelton, U. S.
Army, Chicago, Illinois, 1888.
XL.
URINOSCOPY, OR DIAGNOSIS BY URINE.
The examination of the urine and feces of the sick seems to have obtained
in all parts of the world, and among all sorts of people; but in the
earlier stages of human progress it was complicated with ideas of
divination and forecast, which would make it a religious observance.
The health of a patient was shown by the condition of his urine.—(Pliny,
lib. xxviii. cap. 6.)
The Arabians used to bring to their doctors “the water of their sick in
phials.”—(Burton, “Arabian Nights,” vol. iv. p. 11.)
In the index to the Works of Avicenna there are two hundred and
seventy-five references to the appearance, etc., of the urine of the
sick.—(Translation of Avicenna made by Gerard of Cremona, edition of
Venice, 1595.)
“Apothecaries used to carry the water of their patients to the
physician.”—(Fosbroke, “Encyclopædia of Antiquities,” vol. i. p. 526,
article “Urine.”)
To determine whether a man had an affection of the lungs or liver, some
of his urine was cast upon wheat bran, which was then put aside in a
cool place; if worms appeared, he was afflicted, etc.—(Beckherius, “Med.
Microcosmus,” p. 62.)
From an examination of the feces and urine of the patient to determine
his present state of health, and if possible to make a prognosis of
his future condition, was, in the minds of ignorant or half-educated
men merely the first step in the direction of determining the future
of the commonwealth by an inspection of the viscera and the excrement
of the victims whose blood smoked upon its altars. The Romans were
addicted to this mode of divination, which Schurig incorrectly styles
“Anthropomancy.” He relates that Heliogabalus was especially fond of
this, and, indeed, he credits that voluptuary with its introduction, and
expresses his gratification that he met his deserts in being killed in
a privy and left to die in ordure. The Saxons also were given to this
method of consulting the future.—(See “Chylologia,” pp. 749, 750.)
“Uromantie. ff. (Med. et Divin.), mot formé de “ouron,” urine, et
“manteia,” divination, qui signifie l’art de diviner par le moyen des
urines l’état présent d’une maladie, et d’en prédire les évènements
futurs.”—(“Encyc. ou Dict. Rais. des Sciences,” etc., fol. Neufchatel,
1745, vol. xvii. p. 499, given in personal letter to Captain Bourke from
Professor Frank Rede Fowke, South Kensington Museum, London, England.)
“_Falstaff._ Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my
water?
“_Page._ He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy
water; but for the party that owed it, he might have more
diseases than he knew for.”—(Shakspeare, “2 King Henry IV.,” i.
2.)
Sir Thomas More was possessed of great wit and a fine flow of spirits,
which even the approach of death could not dispel. Upon receiving
notification that he had been condemned to death by his master, King
Henry VIII., “he called for his urinal, and having made water in it, he
cast it and viewed it (as physicians do) a pretty while; at last he sware
soberly that he saw nothing in that man’s water but that he might live if
it pleased the king.”—(“Ajax,” p. 61.)
Thibetan doctors examine the urine of the patient; then churn it and
listen to the noise made by the bubbles.—(Mr. W. W. Rockhill.)
“How to vex her,
And make her cry so much that the physician,
If she fall sick upon it, shall want urine
To find the same by, and she, remediless,
Die in her heresy.”
(“Scornful Lady,” v. 1, Beaumont and Fletcher.)
The people of Europe did not restrict their examinations to the egestæ
of human beings; they were equally careful to scrutinize every day the
droppings of the hounds, hawks, and other animals used in the chase.—(See
“Ajax.”)
In the farce of “Master Pathelin” (A.D. 1480), the hero, “in his ravings
abuses the doctors ... for not understanding his urine.... Charlatans
especially exploited in this field of medicine, practising it illegally
in the country under the name of ‘water-jugglers’ and ‘water-judges.’
Such men still practise in Normandy and in certain northern provinces of
France.”—(“Med. in the Middle Ages,” Minor, p. 82.)
“It is a common practice in these days, by a colourable deriuation
of supposed cunning from the vrine, to foretell casualties, and the
ordinary euents of life, conceptions of a woman with child, and definite
distinctions of the male and female in the womb.” (Cotta, “Short
Discovery,” London, 1612, p. 104. He goes on to say that even as a mode
of strict medical diagnosis, urinoscopy is not a certain test, the body,
in every disease, being more or less disordered, and this disorder acting
upon the urine.)
Montaigne tells the story of a gentleman who always kept for seven or
eight days his excrements, in different basins, in order to talk about
and show them. (Buckle, “Commonplace Book,” vol. ii. p. 357, quoting from
Montaigne’s “Essais,” lib. iii. cap. 9, p. 600.)
Speaking of melancholy people, Burton says, “Their urine is most part
pale and low-colored, ‘urina pauca, acris, biliosa’ (Arctæus), and not
much in quantity.... Their melancholy excrements, in some very much, in
others little.”—(“Anatomy of Melancholy,” vol. i. p. 268.)
ON THE INFLUENCE OF THE EMOTIONS UPON THE EGESTÆ.
Reciprocally, the influence exerted by the emotions over functional
disturbances has been made the subject of investigation by learned
commentators.
“Aristote, dans les Problèmes Physiques, s’occupe des rapports qui
lient les impressions de l’âme aux fonctions intestinales. Il recherche
pourquoi une frayeur subite et violente cause presque toujours et
incontinent la diarrhée.” (Aule-Gelée, lib. xix. c. 4, “Bib. Scatalog.”
p. 66.)
Schurig gives numbers of instances of the power of the mind over the act
of alvine dejection; evacuation may be caused by perturbation of mind,
by fear, by insomnia, by thunder, by anger, etc. See “Chylologia,” p.
701. In a preceding chapter Schurig narrates several examples of people,
principally women, who were never able to excite nature to the act of
evacuation except by artificial aids addressed to some faculty of the
mind,—imagination, laughing, etc.
Harington, in “Ajax,” mentions the case of the Pope’s Legate, “who
brought the last jubilee into France; who, fearing the pages who by
custom bustle about him to divide his canopie, and suspecting treason
among them, suddenly laid you wot of in his breeches” (p. 16).
Dr. Fletcher, United States Army, has devoted considerable attention
to this subject. He has kindly placed the results of his wide range of
reading at the disposal of the author of this volume.
“The more you cry, the less you piss,”—a vulgar saying of considerable
antiquity. This saying is founded upon a correct physiological
observation; an excess of one secretion results in a proportionate
diminution of others.
The great Greek scholar, Porson, indulged his wit by transliterating
into Hellenic characters the above homely saw, and thereby mystified the
learned pundits who were called upon to read it.[70]
“If love demands weeping, oh, why should I spare
Those floods which, of course, must be lavished elsewhere?”
“And midst their bawling and their hissing,
They cried, to keep themselves from p⸺g.
Finding their water would come out,
They thought it best, without dispute,
Rather than wet both breeks and thighs,
To let it bubble through their eyes.”
(Homer Burlesqued, book xii.)
“I must call, from between thy thighs,
The urine back into thine eyes,
And make thee, when my tale thou hearest,
Channel thy cheeks with launt reversed.”
(Musarum Deliciæ, i. p. 110.)
“Launt” is an obsolete word, meaning urine. See Cotgrave’s Dictionary.
“What if she whine, shed tears, and frown?
Laugh at her folly, she’ll have done;
Never dry up her tears with kisses,
The more she cries, the less she p⸺s.”
(Reflections, Moral, Critical, and Cosmical, part iii.
p. 23, A.D. 1707.)
This expression is to be found also in old French,—perhaps is derived
from it: “Pleurez donc, et chiez bien des yeux, vous en pissez
moins.”—(“Moyen de Parvenir,” A.D. 1610.)
“Juletta, how loath she was to talk, too, how she feared me!
I could now piss mine eyes out for mere anger.”
(“The Pilgrim,” iii. 4, Beaumont and Fletcher.)
The converse of the adage is illustrated in the following epigram on a
lady who shed her water at seeing the tragedy of “Cato:”
“Whilst maudlin chiefs deplore their Cato’s fate,
Still, with dry eyes, the Tory Celia sate;
But, though her pride forbade her eyes to flow,
The gushing waters found a vent below.
Tho ’n secret, yet with copious streams she mourns,
Like twenty river-gods, with all their urns.
Let others screw on hypocritic face,
She shows her grief in a sincerer place;
Here Nature reigns, and passion, void of art,
For this road leads directly to the heart.”
(Nick Rowe.)
“But Sandwich, though with vast surprise,
He saw the monarch’s weeping eyes,
Told him it would not be amiss,—
The more he cryed, the less he pissed.”
(From “The New Foundling Hospital of Wit,” vol. lv. p. 204.)
“‘Boh,’ said to be the name of a Danish general, who so terrified his
opponent, Foh, that he caused him to bewray himself.”—(Grose, Dict. of
Buckish Slang, art. “Boh.” See, also, in same volume, the account of
the Puritan preacher who met with the same accident in his pulpit upon
hearing that the royal troops were approaching,—art. “Sh—t Sack.”)
XLI.
ORDURE AND URINE IN MEDICINE.
The administration of urine as a curative opens the door to a flood of
thought. Medicine, both in theory and practice, even among nations of the
highest development and refinement, has not, until within the present
century, cleared its skirts of the superstitious hand-prints of the dark
ages. With tribes of a lower degree of culture it is still subordinate
to the incantations and exorcisms of the “medicine man.” It might not be
going a step too far to assert that the science of therapeutics, pure and
simple, has not yet taken form among savages; but to shorten discussion
and avoid controversy, it will be assumed here that such a science does
exist, but in an extremely rude and embryotic state; and to this can
be referred all examples of the introduction of urine or ordure in the
_materia medica_, where the aid of the “medicine man” does not seem to
have been invoked, as in the method employed for the eradication of
dandruff by Mexicans, Eskimo, and others, the Celtiberian dentifrice,
etc.[71]
When the compilation and correlation of data bearing upon this subject
was first begun, the exceeding importance of the pharmaceutical
division was manifest. In the opinion of the author, this part of the
investigation should have been assumed by a student possessed of a
preliminary training in medicine, and it was not until urged on by
friendly correspondents that he concluded, upon resuming his labors, to
augment these references by citations from the more prominent writers of
ancient and modern times, who have demonstrated the importance of the
subject by devoting to its consideration not passing sentences and scant
allusions, but pregnant chapters and bulky volumes.
By great good fortune he was enabled to make the fullest use of the
library of the Army Medical Museum, which, under the supervision of
Surgeon John S. Billings, United States Army, has become the finest
special bibliothèque in the world.
From Surgeon Billings, and his able assistants, Doctors Fletcher and
Wise, were received, besides the courteous attentions which every student
has the right to expect, an intelligent and sympathetic co-operation
which cannot be too gratefully acknowledged.
In such an embarrassment of riches as now confronted him, he exercised
the right of drawing only upon the authorities which would appeal to
all critics as most entitled to prominence; to have followed any other
course, and to have attempted to engraft all available material, would
have swollen this chapter to hundreds, perhaps thousands of pages.
“Sprengel pense que Asclépiade, surnommé Pharmacion, est le premier
qui ait conseillé les excréments humains; mais il est probable qu’il
ne fit qu’ériger en préceptes écrits un usage déjà consacré en Orient,
particulièrement en Egypte.”—(“Bib. Scat.,” pp. 29, 30.)
The earliest writer whose works have been consulted was Hippocrates,
termed the “Father of Medicine,” born 460 B.C. “He was a member of the
family of the Asclepiadæ, ... and a descendant of both Esculapius and
Hercules. He was born of a family of priest-physicians, and was the first
to throw superstition aside, and to base the practice of medicine on the
principles of inductive philosophy.”—(“Encyclopædia Britannica.”)
Galen wrote a series of commentaries upon his writings. Medical
commentators are not in accord as to how many of the works attributed to
him are genuine; but the editions of the accepted and the suspected to be
spurious are almost innumerable, and printed in every language of Europe.
In the edition by Francis Adams (Sydenham Society, London, 1849), there
is no mention of the use of human or animal excreta in pharmacy. But
in another edition can be read that ass’s dung was given to restrain
excessive catamenial flow.—(Kuhn’s edition, Leipsig, 1829, vol. i. p.
481.)
Etmuller says that Hippocrates prescribed hawk-dung to aid in the
expulsion of the fœtus and as a remedy for sterility (vol. ii. p. 285).
The general use of excrementitious material in the medical practice of
Hippocrates’ own day must be accepted from evidence deduced from outside
sources. For example, Aristophanes, who was his contemporary (born
446 B.C., Encyc. Britan.), stigmatized all the medical fraternity as
“excrement-eaters;” and Xenocrates, another practitioner of the same
date, of whose writings, however, nothing has come down to us beyond
the meagre outline to be found in the commentaries of Galen, made
constant employment not only of human and animal excreta, but of all the
secretions and excretions as well. According to Appleton’s Encyclopædia,
Xenocrates was born 396 B.C.
Schurig relates of Aristophanes that he called doctors “fecivores ...
quod quidem adulatores fuerint quin excrementa Magnorum degustare
voluerint.” He also says: “Quare de illo non inepte dixit quidam, eum
dignum fuisse Xenocrates Medico, qui excrementis variis animalium omnes
morbos curare solitus erat.”—(“Chylologia,” p. 82.)
“Xenocrates, who flourished sixty years before Galen, had also a good
list of nasty prescriptions, for which the veil of a dead language is
required.” (“Saxon Leechdoms,” lib. i. p. xviii.) These included the
urine of women and their catamenia.
Aristophanes called the physicians of his time σκατοφάγους, or
excrement-eaters. “Ce qui était plus malin que vrai, car les compères
en faisaient manger à leurs clients plus qu’ils n’en mangeaient
eux-mêmes.”—(“Bibliotheca Scatalogica.”)
Human excrements, under the name of “botryon,” were used by Æschines of
Athens, for the cure of quinsy. (Pliny, lib. xxviii. c. 10.) Æschines
lived between 389-317 B.C.
“Serapion of Alexandria flourished B.C. 278, forty years after the
date of Alexander the Great, and was one of the chiefs of the empiric
school.... He in epilepsy prescribed ... dung of crocodiles.”—(“Saxon
Leechdoms,” vol. i. p. xiv.)
The next in chronological order would be Pliny, from whom can be
extracted a veritable mine of information on this point; then
Dioscorides, who lived in the latter years of the first and the opening
ones of the second centuries of the Christian era; and then Galen, born
at Pergamos, in Mysia, 130 A.D., “the most celebrated of ancient medical
writers,” and “appointed by the Emperor Marcus Aurelius to the position
of medical guardian of his son, the young prince, and later on Emperor,
Commodus.”—(Encyc. Brit.)
The classical authorities will conclude with Sextus Placitus, from whose
works much of importance has been extracted.
Each author will be allowed to speak in his own words, and the necessary
deductions will be made afterwards; only the remarks bearing upon
love-philters and child-birth have been assigned to the chapters devoted
to the treatment of those subjects, and this merely to reduce the chances
of repetition.
The following remedies are taken from Pliny, from the books and chapters
given opposite each case:—
“A plant that has been grown upon a dung-heap in a field is a very
efficacious remedy, taken in water, for quinsy.”—(Lib. xxiv. c. 110.)
“A plant upon which a dog has watered, torn up by the roots, and not
touched with iron, is a very speedy cure for sprains.”—(Idem, c. 111.)
“Camel’s dung, reduced into ashes, and incorporat with oile, doth curle
and frizzle the hair of the head, and taken in drinke, as much as a man
may comprehend with three fingers, cureth the dysenterie; so doth it also
the falling sickness. Camel’s piss, they say, is passing good for Fullers
to scour their cloth withall; and the same healeth any running sores
which be bathed therein. It is well known that the barbarous nations
keep this stale of theirs until it be five years old, and then a draught
thereof to the quantity of one hermine is a good laxative potion.”—(Lib.
xxviii. c. 8.)
Goat’s dung good for sore eyes.—(Idem, c. 11.)
For “Skals in the Head” the Romans used “Bul’s Urine.” Stale chamber-lye
was also considered good. “The gall of buck goats, tempered with Bul’s
stale, killeth lice.” Dog-dung and goat-dung also were prescribed.—(Idem,
c. 11.)
Wolf’s dung is mentioned as good for cataract.—(Idem, c. 11.)
Hen’s dung, the white part, prescribed for the cure of poisonous
mushrooms; also to cure flatulence (but in any living creature it causes
flatulence, says Pliny). Ashes of horse-dung fresh made and burned, the
urine of a wild boar, the green dung of an ass, are among the medicaments
mentioned for ear-ache (idem, c. 11); also “Urine of a Bul or a Goat, or
stale chamber lye made hotte;” also “Calfe’s Pisse, Calfe’s dung.” Goat
and horse dung were employed to drive away snakes.—(Idem, c. 110.)
Human urine used in curing the bites of mad dogs.—(Idem, c. 18.)
Pliny notices that the Greeks used the scrapings of the bodies of
athletes for emmenagogues, for uterine troubles, for sprains, muscular
rheumatism, etc. “We find authors of the very highest repute proclaiming
aloud that the seminal fluid is a sovereign remedy for the sting of the
scorpion. In the case, too, of a woman afflicted with sterility they
recommend the application of a pessary made of the fresh excrement voided
by an infant at the moment of its birth.... They have even gone so far,
too, as to scrape the very filth from off the walls of the gymnasia, and
to assert that this is possessed of certain calorific properties.... The
urine has been the subject not only of numerous theories with authors,
but of various religious observances as well, its properties being
classified under several distinctive heads; thus, for instance, the urine
of eunuchs, they say, is highly beneficial as a promoter of fruitfulness
in females.” He mentions the urine of children as a sovereign remedy for
the poisonous secretion of the asp, which “spits its venom into the eyes
of human beings.” Human urine was used in eye troubles, “albugo, films,
and marks upon the eyes, white specks upon the pupils, and maladies of
the eyelids.” It was also used in the cure of burns, suppuration of the
ears, as an emmenagogue, for sun-burn, and for taking out ink-spots.
“Male urine cured Gout.” Urine cured “eruptions on the bodies of infants,
corrosive sores, running ulcers, chaps upon the body, stings inflicted
by serpents, ulcers of the head, and cancerous sores of the generative
organs.... Every person’s urine is the best for his own case.”—(Lib.
xxviii. c. 18.)
The ashes of camel’s dung were administered internally in epilepsy, and
also for dysentery.—(Idem, c. 27.)
Camel’s urine applied to running sores; barbarous nations kept it for
five years, and then used it as a purgative.—(Idem.)
The dung of the hippopotamus was used in fumigations, “for the cure of a
cold ague.”—(Idem, c. 31.)
The urine of the once (ounce) “helpeth the strangury;” it was also taken
internally for sore throat.—(Idem.)
Hyena-urine “is said to be useful in diseases of long standing” (idem, c.
27); also given in drink for dysentery; also applied in liniments.—(Idem.)
Crocodile-dung used for eye troubles and for epilepsy; used in form of a
pessary, as an emmenagogue.—(Lib. xxviii. c. 29.)
Lynx-urine for strangury and pains in the chest.—(Idem, c. 32.)
Goat-urine an antidote for bites of serpents.—(Idem, c. 42.)
Goat-dung an antidote for bites of serpents.—(Idem.)
Horse-dung, taken from a horse on pasture, an antidote for the bites of
serpents.—(Idem.)
Goat-dung for scorpion bites.—(Idem.)
Calves’ dung for scorpion bites.—(Idem.)
She-goat’s dung, bite of mad dog.—(Idem.)
Badger-dung, cuckoo-dung, swallow-dung, taken internally, bite of mad
dog.—(Idem.)
Bull-dung, dandruff, applied locally.—(Idem, c. 46.)
Goat’s dung, dandruff.—(Idem.)
Wolf-dung for cataract.—(Idem, c. 47.)
She-goat’s dung for ophthalmia and eye-troubles generally;
internally.—(Idem.)
Wild-boar urine, ear-troubles.—(Idem, c. 48.)
Ass-dung, deafness.—(Idem.)
Horse-dung, deafness; also used in liniments.—(Idem.)
Bull’s urine, deafness.—(Idem.)
She-goat’s urine, deafness.—(Idem.)
Calf-dung, deafness.—(Idem.)
Calf-urine, deafness.—(Idem.)
Asses’ urine, internally, in elephantiasis.—(Lib. xxviii. c. 30.)
Cat-dung, rubbed on the neck, to remove bones from the throat.—(Idem, c.
51.)
Warm urine, cow-dung, and goat-dung applied to scrofulous sores.—(Idem.)
Goat urine and dung for cricks in neck.—(Idem, c. 52.)
Hare-dung, internally, for cough.—(Idem, c. 53.)
Boar’s dung, swine’s dung, internally, pains in loins.—(Idem, c. 56.)
Cow-dung, externally, sciatica.—(Idem, c. 56.)
Asses’ dung, internally, affections of spleen.—(Idem, c. 57.)
Horse-dung, internally, bowel complaints.—(Idem, c. 58.)
Boar’s or swine’s dung, internally, dysentery.—(Idem, c. 59.)
Hare, ass, horse, or goat dung, internally, dysentery.—(Idem.)
Calf-dung, internally, flatulence.—(Idem.)
Hare-dung, internally, hernia.—(Idem.)
Ass-dung, internally, diseases of colon.—(Idem.)
Swine-dung, internally, diseases of colon.—(Idem.)
Wild-boar’s urine, internally, diseases of bladder; also used internally
in treatment of urinary calculi.—(Idem, c. 60.)
Goat-dung, internally, urinary calculi.—(Idem.)
Goat-dung, externally, ulcers upon the generative organs.—(Idem.)
Wild-asses’ urine, diseases of the genitalia, externally.—(Idem, c. 61.)
Goat-urine, diseases of the genitalia, externally.—(Idem.)
Goat-dung, diseases of the genitalia, externally; also, internally, for
gout.—(Idem.)
Cow-dung, internally, gout.—(Idem.)
Calf-dung, internally, gout.—(Idem.)
Goat-dung, sciatica, externally.—(Idem.)
Wild-boar’s dung, swine’s dung, chaps, corns, callosities.—(Idem, c. 62.)
Asses’ urine, applied to feet galled by travel.—(Idem.)
Calf-dung, burnt, applied to varicose veins.—(Idem.)
Wild-boar’s urine, drunk, for epilepsy.—(Idem, c. 63.)
Horse’s urine, drunk, for epilepsy; also for delirium.—(Idem.)
Asses’ urine, externally, in paralysis.—(Idem.)
Dung of a new-born ass, internally, yellow jaundice.—(Idem, c. 64.)
Dung of a colt, internally, yellow jaundice.—(Idem.)
Goat-dung, externally, for broken bones.—(Idem, c. 65.)
Cow-dung, burnt, diluted with boys’ urine, was rubbed on the toes of the
patient in quartan fevers.—(Idem, c. 66.)
Calf-dung, internally, in melancholia.—(Idem, c. 67.)
Swine’s dung, internally, consumption.—(Idem.)
Wild-boar’s urine, internally, dropsy.—(Idem, c. 68.)
Cow-urine, internally, dropsy.—(Idem.)
Calf-urine, internally, dropsy.—(Idem.)
Bull-urine, internally, dropsy.[72]—(Idem.)
Calf-dung, cow-dung, swine’s dung, asses’ dung, all applied externally
for the cure of erysipelas and purulent eruptions.—(Idem, c. 69.)
Wild-boar’s dung, swine’s dung, calf-dung, goat-dung, cow-dung,
externally, for sprains, indurations, and boils.—(Idem, c. 70.)
Wild-boar’s dung, swine’s dung, hare-dung, goat-dung, externally, burns
of all kinds.—(Idem, c. 71.)
Goat-dung, wild-boar’s dung, externally, contusions, bruises, etc.—(Idem,
c. 72.)
The Emperor Nero, being of scrofulous tendency, drank the ashes of
wild-boar dung in water, to refresh himself.—(Idem.)
Asses’ dung, burnt, externally, hemorrhages.—(Idem, c. 73.)
Calf’s dung, burnt, externally, hemorrhages.—(Idem.)
Swine’s dung, externally, to ulcers.—(Idem, c. 74.)
Goat-dung, externally, to ulcers.—(Idem.)
Swine’s dung, fresh, externally, to wounds.—(Idem.)
Horse’s dung, cow-dung, fresh, externally, to wounds.—(Idem.)
Asses’ dung, externally, itch.—(Idem, c. 75.)
Cow-dung, externally, itch.—(Idem.)
Cow-dung, she-goat’s dung, applied externally to extract thorns.—(Idem,
c. 76.)
Wild-boar’s dung, or swine’s dung, internally, in inflammation of the
uterus.—(Idem, c. 77.)
Asses’ dung, in plaster or powder, or as a fumigation, for all uterine
troubles.—(Idem.)
Ox-dung as a fumigation, for falling of the womb.—(Idem, lib. xxviii. c.
77.)
Cat’s dung, as a pessary, for uterine ulcerations.—(Idem.)
“She-goat’s urine, taken internally, and the dung applied topically, will
arrest uterine discharges, however much in excess.”—(Idem.)
Swine’s dung, as an injection, used to cure beasts of burden of voiding
blood.—(Idem, c. 81.)
“The oxen in the Isle of Cyprus cure themselves of gripings in the
abdomen, it is said, by swallowing human excrement.”—(Idem.)
Dung of mice and the ashes of sheep-dung prescribed for dandruff. The
dung of a peacock stated to be of great value in medicine, but for what
not stated.—(Idem, c. 6.)
Sheep-dung, externally, in serpent bites.—(Idem, c. 15.)
“A most efficient remedy for wounds inflicted by the asp,” was for “the
person stung to drink his own urine.”—(Idem, c. 18.)
“For the bite of all spiders ... sheep’s-dung, applied in
vinegar.”—(Idem, c. 27.)
Poultry-dung, good as an application for the sting of the
scorpion.—(Idem, c. 29.)
“The dung of poultry, provided it is of a red color, is very useful,
applied with vinegar.” Also for bite of a mad dog.—(Idem, c. 32.)
The urine of a mad dog was believed to be injurious to those people who
trod upon it, especially those persons with scrofulous sores.—(Idem.)
“The proper remedy in such cases is to apply horse-dung.”—(Idem.)
“Whoever makes water where a dog has previously watered, will be
susceptible of numbness in the loins.”—(Idem, c. 32.)
“Poultry-dung, but the white part only, ... is an excellent antidote to
the poison of fungi and mushrooms; it is a cure also for flatulence and
suffocations,—a thing the more to be wondered at, seeing that if any
living creature only tastes this dung, it is immediately attacked with
griping pains and flatulency.”—(Idem, c. 33.)
“The dung of wood pigeons ... an antidote to quicksilver.”—(Idem.)
Sheep-dung, mouse-dung, poultry-dung, applied externally in the treatment
of baldness or “alopœcia,” so called from “alopex,” a fox, “an animal
very subject to the loss of its hair.”—(Idem, c. 34.)
Mouse-dung, externally, “affections of the eyelids.”—(Idem, c. 37.)
Poultry-dung as a liniment for short-sighted persons.—(Idem, c. 38.)
“Peacocks swallow their dung, it is said, as though they envied man the
various uses of it.”—(Idem.)
Pigeon’s dung, externally, fistula.—(Idem.)
Hawk-dung, turtle-dove dung, externally, “albugo.”—(Idem.)
Pigeon’s dung, externally, imposthumes of the parotid gland.—(Lib. 29,
39.)
Mouse-dung, raven’s dung, sparrow-dung. The ashes of these were plugged
into carious teeth, and used externally for all tooth troubles.—(Lib. 30,
c. 8.)
Mouse-dung, good to impart sweetness to sour breath (idem, c. 9); also
prescribed for the stone.—(Idem, c. 8.)
“The dung of lambs before they have begun to graze ... alleviated ...
affections of the uvula and pains in the fauces. It should be dried in
the shade.”—(Idem, c. 11.)
Pigeon’s dung used as a gargle for sore throat (idem); used internally
for quinsy (idem, c. 12); internally for dysentery (idem, c. 19); and
externally for the cure of “iliac passion.”—(Idem, c. 20.)
Mouse-dung, rubbed on the abdomen, was considered to be a cure for
urinary calculi.—(Idem, c. 21.)
The flesh of a hedge-hog, killed before it had time to discharge its
urine upon its body, was a cure for strangury; but, it would cause
strangury if able to urinate upon itself before death.—(Idem, c. 21.)
Dove-dung, internally, for urinary calculi.—(Idem.)
Swallow-dung, as a suppository and purgative.—(Idem.)
Dog-dung, externally, fissure in ano.—(Idem, c. 22.)
Mouse-dung.—(Idem.)
Pigeon’s dung, externally, in fissure in ano.—(Idem.)
Mouse-dung and pigeon’s-dung, externally, for tumors.—(Idem.)
Sheep and poultry dung, externally, in gout.—(Idem.)
Ring-dove-dung, liniment for pains in the joints.—(Idem, c. 23.)
The ashes of pigeon’s or of poultry dung, externally, for excoriations of
the feet.—(Idem, c. 25.)
Mule-urine, sheep and poultry dung, externally, for corns on feet.—(Idem.)
Dog-urine, sheep and poultry dung, externally, for warts of all
kinds.—(Idem.)
Swallow-dung, internally, cure of fevers.—(Idem, c. 30.)
Pigeon’s, poultry, and sheep dung, externally, boils and
carbuncles.—(Idem, caps. 33, 34.)
Sheep-dung, externally, burns.—(Idem, c. 35.)
Pigeon’s dung, snuff made of for brain hemorrhage.—(Idem, c. 38.)
Horse-dung, externally, hemorrhages from wounds.—(Idem.)
Sheep-dung, ashes of, externally, carcinoma.—(Idem, c. 39.)
Sheep-dung, externally, wounds and fistulas.—(Idem.)
Mouse-dung, cautery.—(Idem.)
Weasel’s dung, ashes of, cautery.—(Idem.)
Pigeon’s-dung, ashes of, cautery.—(Idem.)
Poultry-dung and pigeon’s dung, externally, old cicatrices.—(Idem, c. 40.)
Sheep’s dung, externally, female complaints.—(Idem, c. 43.)
Mouse-dung, externally, swelled breasts.—(Idem.)
EXTRACTS FROM THE WRITINGS OF DIOSCORIDES.
Dioscorides devotes a chapter to the medicinal values of different
ordures; a condensation only of the translation need be given, since the
original is inserted.
The fresh dung of domestic cattle was considered good for inflamed
wounds; for pains at extremity of spine; and, when made into a plaster
with oil, it dissolved glandular and scrofulous swellings and tumors.
The dung of bulls was a remedy for falling of the womb; when drunk with
wine, was frequently given as a remedy in epilepsy; used also in the cure
of suppressed menstruation and to expel the fœtus in retarded delivery;
administered in menstrual hemorrhages; for the alleviation of gout in the
feet, serpent bites, erysipelas, etc. Goat and sheep dung was used for
the same purposes.
Dried goat-dung, drunk in wine, checked hemorrhages, as did that of asses
and horses. The dung of grass-fed kine taken in wine for scorpion bites.
Dove and poultry dung given to break up the old sores and scrofulous
swellings.
Hen-dung believed to be almost a specific against the effects of
poisonous mushrooms; it was to be drunk in wine.
Stork-dung was another remedy for epilepsy; it was also to be drunk in
wine.
Vulture-dung expelled the fœtus; mouse-dung expelled calculi.
Hen-dung, especially that laid during the dog-days, was good for
dysentery.
Fresh human ordure was applied to inflamed wounds, and as a plaster in
angina; dog-dung was also used in such cases.
Crocodile-excrement was in high repute as a cosmetic. (See “Cosmetics.”)
Purchasers were warned that it was frequently adulterated with the
excrement of starlings fed on rice.
The urine of the patient himself should be drunk in cases of serpent
bites, poisons from drugs, bites of scorpions, mad dogs, etc. For
old ulcers, cicatrices, “lepras,” an excellent application; also for
ulcerations in the genitalia, sores in the ears, etc.
The urine of an undefiled boy was highly commended for various purposes,
especially when triturated with honey in a brass mortar.
The “sediment of urine” (see “Mangeurs de Blanc”) was regarded as of
great value in erysipelas. Bull’s urine was given for the cure of
ulcerated ears.
Goat urine expelled stone from the bladder; likewise, beneficial in
dropsy, if drunk daily.
Asses’ urine cured mania.
“Dioscoride, lib. ii. cap. 73, et ses commentateurs, P. Andr. Mathicle,
fol. 238, et J. Cornarius, comment. cap. 69, fol. m. 134, permettent
l’usage des stercoraria pour les paysans, et quand on n’a rien de mieux
sous la main, mais ils l’interdisent pour les habitants des villes et les
personnages honorati alicujus estimationis. Outre son grand ouvrage, de
maître médical on attribue généralement à Dioscoride un traité désigné
sous le titre de Euporista, ou des remèdes faciles à procurer.” (This
was published at Strasbourg and again at Frankfort in 1565 and 1598,
respectively, from the original Greek.) “Dans l’Euporista, Dioscoride
cherche à établir que les remèdes indigènes valent souvent mieux que
ceux qu’on fait venir à grands frais des pays éloignés, et, à ce titre,
il mentionne le stercus comme offrant de curieuses ressources.”—(“Bib.
Scatalogica,” p. 74.)
“Stercus bovis armentalis recens impositum, inflammationem ex vulneribus
lenit; foliis autem involutum in cineris calentis calefit, atque ita
imponuntur. Simili modo fotu applicitum coxendicis cruciatus mitigat. Ex
aceto vero cataplasmatis vice impositum duritias, strumas et glandarum
tumores discutit. Speciatim vero bovis masculi fimus prolapsum uterum
suffitu restituit, accensi quoque nidore culices abiguntur. Cuprarum
præsertim in montibus degentium, stercus ex vino bibitum regium morbum
emendat, cum aromatibus vero potum menses ciet et fœtus ejiciet.
“Siccum, tritumque et cum turre in velleræ appositum, fluxum muliebrem
cohibet aliasque sanguinis eruptiones ex aceto compescit. Ustum ac
cum aceto aut oxymelite illitum calvitiei medetur. Cum axungia vero
cataplasmata adhibitum podagracis opitulatur. Decoctum in aceto, aut vino
imponitur ad serpentiæ morsum, herpetas, erysipelata, parotides. Quin et
ischiadicis ustis eorum ope administratur utiliter hunc in modum; in eo
cavo, quod est inter pollicem et indicem qua parte pollex committitur,
lana oleo imbuta prius substernitur, ac dein singulatim imponuntur
fimi caprini ferventes pilulæ, donec sensus per brachium ad coxendicem
perveniat doloremque mitiget atque adustis talis arabica appellatur.
“At vero stercus ovillum ex aceto impositum sanat epinyctidas, clavos,
verrucas, quæ thymi vocantur, et quæ pensiles sunt.... Aprinum autem
aridum in aqua aut vino potum, sanguinis rejectionem sistit ac diuturnum
sedat lateris dolorem. Sed ad rapta convulsaque, ex aceto bibitur;
luxatis vero exceptum curato rosaceo medetur. Porro tam asinorum quam
equorum fimum, sive crudum sive crematum, addito aceto, sanguinis
eruptiones cohibet. Armentinorum vero, qui herba pascuntur, siccum
stercus vino imbutum et bibitum a scorpione ictis magnopere auxiliatur.
“Columbinum quoniam vehementer calefacit ac urit, farinæ crudæ
admiscetur, et ex aceto quidem strumas discutit. Carbunculos vero
emarginat cum melle, lini seminæ, et oleo tritum, nec non ambustis quoque
medetur. Gallinaceum eadem, sed malignis, præstat. Speciatim tamen contra
letales fongos et colicos dolores confert, si ex aceto aut vino bibatur.
Ciconæ vero fimium ex aqua potum comitialibus prodesse creditur. Vulturis
suffumigatum fœtum excutere traditur. Murium cum aceto tritum illitumque
calvitiei medetur, cum turre vero et mulso potum calculos expellit. Sed
et subditæ infantibus muscerdæ alvum ad dejectionem lacessunt. Caninum
stercus, quod per caniculæ ardores exceptum fuerit, aridum cum vino aut
aqua potum, alvum cohibet. Ad humanum recens cataplasmatis vice impositum
vulnera ab inflammatione vindicat, simul vero glutinat. Siccum autem cum
melle perunctum anginosos auxiliari traditur.
“Stercus crocodilis terrestris mulieribus confert ad colorem facei
nitoremque producendum.
“Optimum vero quod candidissimum et friabile amyli modo leve in humore
statim eliquiescit, atque dum teritur, subacidum est et fermentum
redolet. Sunt qui id vendant adulterant fimo non dissimili sturnorum quos
oryza paverunt. Alii amylum aut cimoliam subigunt, et adescito, colore,
per rarum cribrum, paullatim percolant et siccant, ut vermiculorum specie
loco genuini vendant. Ceterum humanum stercus siccum melle subactum, et
gutturi impositum sicut et caninum, anginosis opitulari in arcanis, aut
turpibus etiam inveniunt.”—(Dioscorides, “Materia Medica,” Latin-Greek
edit. of Kuhn, Leipsig, 1829, vol. i., pp. 222 _et seq._)
“Humanam urinam suum cuique bibere prodest contra viperæ morsus et
letalia pharmaca, hydropemque incipientem; prodest etiam ea fovere
echinorum marinorum scorpionis itidem marini draconisque ictus. Canina
rabidi canis morsibus perfundendis idonea est; lepras quoque et
pruritus, nitro addito, exterit. Vetus etiam achoras, furfures, scabiem,
fervidasque eruptiones potentius extergit, quin et ulcera depascentia,
etiam genitalium coarcet. Purulentis quoque auribus infusa pus condensat,
et in malicordio cocta animalcula (quæ forte in aures irrepsirent)
ejicit. Pueri innocentis absorta urina anhelantibus confert, cocta vero
in æreo vaso cum melle cicatrices albugines et caligines emendat.
“Quin etiam ex ea et ære cyprio idoneum auro ferruminando glutea
paratur. Sedimentum urinæ erysipelata illita mitigat. Fervefactum cum
cyprino appositumque uteri dolorem demulcet ex utero, strangulata levat,
palpebras deterget et oculorum cicatrices expurgat. Taurinum lotium cum
myrrha tritum et instillatum dolores aurium lenit.
“Aprinum iisdem viribus præditum est sed peculiariter vesicæ calculos
potu comminuit et expellit. Caprinum traditur ad hydropem inter cutem
cum spica nardi binisque aquæ cyathis quotidie bibiti urinas ducere et
alvum instillatum, vero aurium doloribus mederi. Asinino denique ferunt
nephreticos sanari.”—(Dioscorides, idem, vol. i. pp. 227 _et seq._)
On p. 228 Dioscorides speaks of the use of a medicine known as “lynx
urine,” but which he says was a variety of amber.
THE VIEWS OF GALEN.
Galen disapproved of the pharmaceutical use of human ordure on account
of its abominable smell, but he assented to the employment of that of
domestic cattle, goats, crocodiles, and dogs; he makes known, moreover,
that human ordure was taken internally, as a medicine, by very many
persons.
“De Copro, Stercore, Copros, sive Copron, sive Apoptema, apellari
velis perinde est. Scito autem hanc substantiam vim habere vel maxime
digerentem. Verum stercus humanum ob fœtorem abominandum est, at bubulum,
caprinum, crocodilorum terrestrium, et canum, ubi in ossibus duntaxat
vescuntur neque graviter olet, et multa experientia non tantum nobis, sed
et aliis medicis me natu majoribus comprobatum est. Siquidem Asclepiades
cui cognomentum erat Pharmaceon, et alia omnia medicamenta collegit, ut
multos impleret libros, et stercore ad multos sæpe affectus utitur non
modo medicamentis, quæ focis imponuntur commiscens, sed iis quoque quæ
intro in os sumuntur.”—(Galeni Claudii, “Opera Omnia,” edit. of Dr. Carl
Gottleib Kuhn, Leipsig, 1826, vol. xii., pp. 290, 291.)
Dog-dung, especially of an animal “sola ossa cani edenda exhibens duobus
continuo diebus, ex quibus durum, candidum, ac minime fœtorum stercus
proveniebat.” Such dog-dung was administered in angina, dysentery,
inveterate ulcers, etc., in milk or other convenient menstruum.—(Idem,
vol. xii. p. 291.)
The urine of boys was drunk by patients suffering from the plague in
Syria, but the year is not given.—(See idem, vol. xii. p. 285.)
Galen did not believe that calculi had the slightest value for effecting
a reduction of calculi.—(Idem, lib. xii. p. 290.)
Galen could not bring himself to agree with Xenocrates, who recommended
the internal and external employment of sweat, urine, catamenial
fluid, and ear-wax in medicine. (Idem, lib. xii. p. 249.) “At potis
sudoris aut urinæ aut mensium mulieris abominanda detestandaque est,
atque horum in primis stercus, quod tamen scribit Xenocrates, si oris
ac gutturis partibus inungatur et in ventrem devoretur, quid præstare
valeat.—Scripsit etiam de aurium sordis devorandis. At ego ne has quidem
morbo deinceps liber degerem. Atque his etiam magis abominandum puto
stercus. Estque probrum gravius homini modesto audire stercorivorum quam
fellatorum aut cinædum.”
He shows that it was used by some physicians in “psoras,” and in
“lepras,” in the washing of ulcers, affections of the ears and genitalia,
as an embrocation and a liniment for scald and scabby head, and by
rustics in the alleviation of the pains of sore feet. (Galen, lib. xii.
p. 285 _et seq._)
Galen instances the ordure of a boy, dried, mixed with Attic honey,
given as a cure for consumption. “Stercus pueri siccum cum melle Attico
ad lævorem tritum.” (Idem, lib. xii. p. 294.) The boy was to be fed on
vegetables and well-cooked bread, leavened, made with a little salt, in a
small oven (Clibanus, Dutch oven?). The boy was also to be temperate in
drink, using only a small quantity of good wine.—(Idem, lib. xii. p. 294.)
Wolf-dung was given in drink, in the intervals between the paroxysms of
colic; the white excrement ejected after eating bones was regarded as the
stronger, and especially that which had not touched the ground,—a thing
not difficult to find, because he says the wolf has the same disposition
as the dog; that is, to eject its urine and ordure upon rocks, stones,
thorns, and bushes, whenever possible, etc.—(Galen, “Opera Omnia,” Kuhn’s
edition, lib. xii. pp. 295-297.)
Goat-dung was useful in the reduction of inveterate hard tumors and
boils. Galen used it with great success when made into a cataplasm
with barley meal. “We also use it,” he adds, “in dropsy” (“aquam inter
cutem”). It was also employed in “lepras,” “psoras,” and other skin
affections. It was applied as a plaster in tumors and other swellings and
in abscesses of the ear; also in bites of vipers and other wild beasts
(“aliarum bestiarum”). It was drunk in wine as a cure for the yellow
jaundice, and applied as a suppository, mixed with incense, in uterine
hemorrhages. But Galen thought that the internal employment at least
of such disgusting curatives is of questionable expediency, especially
when more agreeable remedies may be available. This objection would,
of course, apply with special force in cities, although he admits that
travellers, country people, and those suffering from poison, must use
the first thing within reach (vol. xii. p. 299). Bull-dung was regarded
by Galen as of value in the cure of the stings of bees and wasps (see
notes on the same subject taken in the State of New Jersey). In Mysia, a
country near the Hellespont, physicians ordered it to be smeared on the
skins of dropsical patients in the sun. The same treatment was supposed
to help consumptive patients, if the dung was that of grass-fed stock;
but he repeats that such remedies are better adapted for rustics than for
the inhabitants of cities (lib. xii. p. 301).
Sheep-dung was used for all kinds of warty and excrescential growths
externally, either raw or burnt, and in the latter case was often mixed
with, or superseded by, goat-dung (lib. xii. p. 302).
The dung of wild doves was preferred to the excrement of the domestic
pigeon; administered internally, generally mixed with the seed of
the nasturtium, in all inveterate pains affecting sides, shoulders,
skull, loins, kidneys, in vertigo, head-aches, etc. It was used just as
frequently in cities as in rural communities (lib. xii. p. 302).
Mouse-dung seems to have been extensively used in medical practice,
although Galen ridicules the fact, and does not mention the purposes of
its employment (lib. xii. p. 307).
The dung of barn-yard fowl was used for the same purposes as dove-dung.
Some people thought that the dung was more efficacious if dropped by a
fowl that had been stuffed with mushrooms. Galen here takes occasion to
remark that all animals must differ in the character of their excreta
as they do in their food; the same animal, by a change of habitat, and
consequent change of food, must cause a perceptible variation in the
qualities of its excrement (lib. xii. p. 304). Galen flatly expresses his
disbelief in the medicinal value of the excrement of the goose, stork,
eagle, or hawk, although he admits that they were used internally by
many practitioners of good standing, in difficulties of the respiratory
organs; but he says these same authorities are wont to extol the merits,
in the treatment of the same diseases, of such absurd remedies as
night-owl’s blood, human urine, etc.—(Galen, lib. 12, p. 305.)
Lucian, in his treatise upon remedies for the cure of gout
(“tragopodagra”), makes mention in several places of excrementitious
remedies,—as, for example, “dung of mountain-goat and man,”
“And Bones, and Skin, and Fat, and Blood, and Dung,
Marrow, Milk, Urine, to the fight are brought.”
—(Edition of William Tooke, F. R. S., London, 1820, vol. i. p. 741.)
SEXTUS PLACITUS.
This author is supposed to have lived in the beginning of the fourth
century after Christ.
The edition of his work, “De Medicamentis ex Animalibus,” was printed
in Lyons, in 1537. The pages are not numbered, and the citations are
consequently by chapter.
Goat-urine was given as a drink to dropsical patients (“De Capro”). This
urine was also drunk by women to relieve suppression of the menses.
For inflammation of the joints, goat-dung was dried and applied as a
fine powder; for colic, a fomentation of hot goat-dung was applied to
the abdomen; for serpent bites it was applied as a plaster, and also
drunk in some convenient liquor. For tumors goat-dung was to be applied
externally.
For ear troubles goat-urine was applied as a lotion. “Ad aures nimus
bene audientium, Apri lotium in nitro repositum tepefactum, auribus
instillatur audire facit” (“De Apro”).
For burns, whether by water or fire, burnt cow-dung was to be sprinkled
on. “Ad combusturam sive ab aqua, sive ab igne factam, Taurinus fimus
combustus et aspersus sanat” (“De Tauro”).
“Ad profluvium mulierum, Taurus ibicuncque pastus fuerit folia ulmi
arboris de fimo ipsius facias siccari et terre in pollinem tenuissimum,
mitte ipsum in carbones in quodam testo, et deponas in vaso et sedeat
mulier quæ patitur encatesma diligenter co-operta (well covered up), et
sanabitur ut mireris” (“De Tauro”).
_Testo_ means the “lid of a pot;” _encatesma_ means a “sitting-bath;” and
the sense seems to be that the woman was to take the dung of a bull which
had been eating the leaves of an elm-tree, dry, reduce to fine powder,
throw on hot coals on the lid of a pot, and let the woman sit on this,
well covered up, and have a steam-bath.
For all kinds of tumors, as well as for every kind of head-ache, the
dung of elephants was applied externally. (“De Elephantis.”) He makes no
mention of the use of asses’ dung, but strongly recommends the use of
the excrement of the horse. “Ad sanguinem e naribus profluentem, equi
stercus siccum et aspersum, sanguinem fluentem retinet, maxime naribus
suffumigatum.” He also recommends the use of horse-dung externally in
the treatment of ear-ache, and for retention of the menses internally.
“Ad aurium dolorem, stercus equi siccum et rosaceo succo liquefactum
et collatum, auribus instillatur aurium dolorem perfecte tollit....
Ad ventrem non fluentem, nimiumque tumescentem, Equi stercus aqua
liquefactum, et percolatum, postea bibitum, mox faciet egressum.”—(“De
Equo.”)
Cat-dung was used in the eradication of dandruff and of scald in the
head; for excessive after-birth hemorrhages in the form of fumigation
or bath. For the relief of a person who had swallowed a bone or thorn,
his fauces were rubbed with cat-dung. For the relief of the quartan
ague, hang cat-dung and cow horn or hoof to the patient’s arm; after
the seventh attack the fever will leave him for good.—(Idem. See under
“Witchcraft,” extract from Etmuller, p. 267.)
Vulture-dung, mixed with the white dung of dog, cured dropsy and palsy,
especially if from a vulture which had lived on human flesh; to be taken
internally.—(“De Vulture.”)
The urine of a virgin boy or girl was an invaluable application for
affections of the eyes; also for stings of bees, wasps, and other
insects. As a cure for elephantiasis, the urine of boys was to be
drunk freely. “Ad elephantiam puerorum, pueri lotium si puer biberit
liberaliter.”
The crust from human urine was useful in burns and in bites of mad dogs.
(Idem. See notes on the Parisian “Mangeurs du blanc.”) For cancers man’s
ordure was burnt and sprinkled over the sore places; for tertian fevers,
it had to be that of the patient himself; and to be held in the left hand
while burning, then placed in a rag, and tied to his left arm before the
hour of the recurrence of the fever. “Ad tertianas, ipsius ægri stercus
sinistra manu sublatum comburunt et in sinistro brachio ante horam
accessionis suspendunt.”—(“De Puello et Puella Virgine.”)
Hawk-dung, boiled in oil, made an excellent application for sore eyes.
(“De Accipitro.”) Crow-dung was given to children to cure coughs, and was
placed in carious teeth to cure tooth-ache.—(“De Corvi.”)
Dove-dung was applied externally to tumors.—(“De Columba.”)
“SAXON LEECHDOMS.”
In “Saxon Leechdoms,” is arranged the medical lore of the early centuries
of the Saxon occupancy and conquest of England.
“Alexander of Tralles (A.D. 550) ... guarantees, of his own experience
and the approval of almost all the best doctors, dung of a wolf with bits
of bone in it” for colic.—(“Saxon Leechdoms,” lib. i. c. 18.)
“Bull’s dung was good for dropsical men; cow’s dung for women” (vol. i.
c. 12, quoting Pliny, lib. xxviii. c. 68).
Swine-dung was applied to warts (vol. i. p. 101).
“For bite of any serpent, melt goat’s grease and her turd and wax, and
mingle together; work it up, so that a man may swallow it whole” (vol. i.
p. 355, quoting Sextus Flacitus).
For dropsy, “Let him drink buck’s mie ... best is the mie.... For sore of
ears, apply goat’s mie to the ear.... Against churnels, mingle a goat’s
turd with honey ... smear therewith.”
“For thigh pains,” “for sore joints,” “for cancer,” “against swellings,”
“tugging of sinews,” “carbuncle,” “smear with goat’s dung” (vol. i. pp.
355, 357).
“For every sore ... let one drink bull’s urine in hot water; soon
it healeth.... For a breach or fracture ... lay bull’s dung warm on
the breach.... For waters burning or fires, burn bull’s dung and shed
thereon.” (Idem, p. 369.) The word “shed” as here employed means to
urinate, apparently.
“For swerecothe or quinsy,” the Saxons used an external application of
the white “thost” or dung of a dog which had been gnawing a bone before
defecation (vol. ii. p. 49).
“Against shoulder pains, mingle a tord of an old swine.”—(Idem, p. 63.)
“If a sinew shrank ... take a she-goat’s tord” (p. 69).
“Against swelling, take goat’s treadles sodden in sharp vinegar” (p. 73).
For a leper, boil in urine hornbeam, elder, and other barks and
roots.—(Idem, p. 79.)
“A wound salve for lung diseases,”—of this the dung of goose was an
important ingredient (p. 93).
“A salve for every wound.... Collect cow-dung, cow-stale, work up a large
kettle full into a batter, as a man worketh soap, then take apple-tree
rind” and other rinds mentioned, and make a lotion (p. 99).
For felons, leg diseases, and erysipelas, calf and bullock dungs were
applied as a fomentation (p. 101).
“For a dew worm, some take warm, thin ordure of man, they bind it on for
the space of a night” (vol. ii. p. 125).
“Against a burn, work a salve; take goate turd,” etc.—(Idem, p. 131.)
“For a horse’s leprosy ... take piss, heat it with stones, wash the horse
with the piss so hot.”—(Idem, p. 157.)
“If there be mist before the eyes, take a child’s urine and virgin honey;
mingle together.... Smear the eyes therewith on the inside” (vol. ii. p.
309).
“For joint pain ... take dove’s dung and a goat’s turd,” externally (vol.
ii. p. 323).
“For warts ... take hound’s mie and a mouse’s blood,” externally.—(Idem,
p. 323.)
“Against cancer ... take a man’s dung, dry it thoroughly, rub to dust,
apply it. If with this thou were not able to cure him, thou mayst never
do it by any means.”—(Idem, p. 329.)
“Si muliebra nimis fluunt ... take a fresh horse’s tord, lay it on hot
glades, make it reek strongly between the thighs, up under the raiment,
that the woman may sweat much.”—(Idem, pp. 332, 333.)
“A smearing for a penetrating worm” was made with “two buckets of
bullock’s mie,” among many other ingredients.—(Idem, p. 333.)
“If a thorn or a reed prick a man in the foot, and will not be gone,
let him take a fresh goose tord and green yarrow ... paste them on the
wound.”—(Idem, p. 337.)
“Against a penetrating worm ... smear with thy spittle ... and bathe with
hot cow-stale” (vol. iii. p. 11).
“Against a warty eruption.... Warm and apply the sharn or dung of a calf
or of an old ox.”—(Idem, p. 45.)
“An asses tord was recommended to be applied to weak eyes.”—(Idem, p. 99.)
AVICENNA.
A careful examination of a Latin edition of “Averrhoes,” Lyons, 1537,
discovered nothing in regard to the medicinal use of human or animal
egestæ.
But, on the contrary, the works of Avicenna teem with such references;
there is hardly a page of the index to his portly volumes that does not
contain mention of stercoraceous remedies. Out of all this abundance
these selections will show that the Arabian physicians made of such
medicaments the same free use as their older brethren of the subverted
Roman empire: “Matricem mundant,” “Urina” (vol. i. p. 330, a 38);
“Sanguinem sistunt,” “Urina hominis cum cinere vitis” (vol. i. p. 466, a
26); “Scabei,” “Scabiei ulcerosa conferunt,” “Urina” (vol. i. p. 330, a
8); “Sciatica conferunt,” “Stercus vaccarum et Caprarum cum adipe porci”
(vol. i. p. 390, a 5); for scrofula “Stercus Caprarum” (vol. i. p. 388,
a 11); “Lentiginibus conferunt,” “stercus lupi” (vol. i. p. 387, b 66);
“Erysipelati conferunt,” “fex urinæ hominis” (vol. i. p. 330, a 11);
while for the same disease, as well as for “excoriationi conferunt” were
prescribed “stercus cameli et pecudis” (vol. i. p. 388, a 11); “Urinæ
fex,” (idem, vol. i. p. 408, a 39); “Lapidi conferunt,” “Stercus muris
cum thure” (vol. i. p. 390, b 2); again (vol. i. p. 361, a 60); “urina
porci” (vol. i. p. 408, a 66).
Lizard-dung an ingredient in a collyrium (vol. ii. p. 322, a 34).
“Matricis dolores conferunt,” “urina hominis decocta cum porris” (vol.
i. p. 408, b 1). Goat-dung “Matrici fluxui conferunt,” “stercus caprarum
siccum” (vol. i. p. 388, a 15, and vol. i. p. 390, a 50).
For epilepsy, one of the remedies was “stercus cameli” (vol. i. p. 338,
a 6). Yellow jaundice, “Icteritias conferunt,” “urina mulieris cum aqua
mellis” (vol. i. p. 330, a 31); for burns, “Stercus caprarum et ovium cum
aceto” (vol. i. p. 389, b 62). Another remedy for burns was, “Stercus
columbarum cum melle et semine lini” (vol. i. p. 389, b 65).
“Impetigine conferunt,” “urina” (vol. i. p. 330, a 10); for ulcers,
“Stercus cameli et pecudis” (vol. i. p. 388, a 9); also for the same,
“stercus canis ab ossibus cum mellis” (vol. i. p. 390, a 2); also “urina
asini et hominis” (vol. i. p. 408, a 31); human urine again prescribed
for ulcers, in vol. i. p. 231, 646.
“Stercoris muris decoctio” alleviated difficulty in urination (vol. i.
p. 361, a 63). “Impetigine conferunt,” “stercus columbarum et turdorum”
(vol. i. p. 390, a 1).
As a cure for the wounds of Armenian arrows (9, “De sagittis Armenis”)
Avicenna says: “Jam parvenit ad me quod potus stercoris humani est
theriaca ad illud” (vol. i. p. 305, a 5). (“Theriaca” means literary a
remedy for the bites of serpents and wild beasts, but in the present case
it is used to mean a panacea.)
For poisonous bites, “ad morsum viperarum et omnium venenosorum
animalium” “et iterum quæ bonæ sunt” (“Medicinæ” understood) “est stercus
caprinum commixtum in vino et detur in potu” (vol. ii. p. 227, b 36);
“Urina hominis” also prescribed for the same in the same paragraph. The
dung of goats, mixed with pepper and cinnamon, a provocative of the
menses (vol. i. p. 390, a 49).
The dung of mice prescribed internally for the cure of running from the
ears, to aid in the expulsion of the after-birth, calculus, poison of
venomous reptiles, etc. (vol. i. pp. 361, a 58).
“Matrici fluxui conferunt,” “stercus caprarum siccum” (vol. i. p. 388, a
15, and vol. i. pp. 390, a 50).
“Spasma conferunt,” “Urina” (vol. i. p. 408, a 40); “Splenis duritiei
conferunt,” “Stercus caprarum” (vol. i. p. 30, a 50).
“Ano conferunt,” “Urina infantium lactentium” (vol. i. p. 408, a 55).
“Stercus pecudis adustum cum aceto” was prescribed for the bite of a mad
dog (vol. i. pp. 388, a 21); “Urina cum nitro” (idem, vol. i. p. 408, b
7); “Canis stercus pro anginæ curatione” (vol. i. p. 616, a 59).
MISCELLANEOUS.
Marco Polo mentions that in the province of Carazan (Khorassan?), the
common sort of people carried poison about their persons, so that if
taken prisoners by the Tartars, they might commit suicide; but the
Tartars compelled them to swallow dog’s dung as an antidote.—(See Marco
Polo, in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p. 143.)
“In cases of sickness, the Eskimo of Cumberland Sound are not allowed to
clean their chambers before sunrise.”—(“The Central Eskimo,” Boas, p.
593.)
The writings of the best medical authorities for the first two
centuries after the discovery of the art of printing teem with copious
dissertations upon the value of these medicaments in all diseases, and as
potent means of frustrating the maleficence of witches; the best of these
writings will be selected and arranged in chronological order.
“A dram of a shepe’s tyrdle,
And good Saint Francis gyrdle,
With the hamlet of a hyrdle,
Are wholsom for the pyppe.”
(Brand, “Pop. Ant.” vol. iii. p. 311, art. “Rural Charms,”
quoting Bale, “Interlude concerning the Laws of Nature,
Moses, and Christ.” 4to. 1562.)
“An oyle drawne out of the excrements of Chyldren” and “An Oyle drawne
out of Manne’s Ordure,” described as medicines in the “Newe Jewell of
Health,” by George Baker, Chirurgeon, London, 1576 (Black Letter), pp.
171, 172, was prescribed for fistula and several other ailments.
“Water distilled from Manne’s Ordure” was given internally for the
falling sickness, dropsy, etc.... There was also an “Oyle drawne out of
the Excrements of Chyldren,” as well as one from “Manne’s Ordure” (see
“Doctor Gesnerus, faithfully Englished,” p. 76). In the same work we
read of “Water of Doue’s dung ... which helpeth the stone” when taken
internally.—(Idem p. 77.)
Paracelsus seems to be entitled to more credit than is generally accorded
him; he was a chemist, in the early stages of that science, groping in
the dark, but he was not the mere quack so many are anxious to make him
out to have been. He condemns the old practice of medicine:—“The olde
Physitians made very many medicines of most filthy things, as of the
filth of the eares, sweat of the body, of women’s menstrues (and that
which it is horrible to be spoken), of the Dung of man and other beastes,
spittle, urine, flies, mice, the ashes of an owle’s head, etc.... Truly,
when I consider with myself the pride of these fooles which disdaine this
metalline part of Physicke (which after their manner, contumeliously they
call Chymerican, and therefore can neither helpe their owne nor many
other diseases), I call to mind a storie ... of Herachio Ephesio, which
being sick of a leprosie, despising the help of Physitians, anoynting
himself over with cow-dung, set himselfe in the sun to drie, and falling
asleepe was torn to pieces by dogges.”—(Paracelsus, “Experiments,”
translation of 1596, p. 59.)
This last statement should be compared with the description of the
suicides of the East Indian fanatics, given under “Ordeals and
Punishments.”
Dr. Fletcher, United States Army, states that in old medical practice in
England, from the time of Queen Elizabeth down to comparatively modern
days, consumptive patients were directed to inhale the fumes of ordure.
“Some physicians say that the smell of a jakes is good against the
plague.”—(“Ajax,” p. 74.)
Urine was one of the ingredients from which Paracelsus prepared his
“Crocus or Tincture of Metals.”—(See “Archidoxes,” English translation,
London, 1661, p. 59.)
Further on he says, “The salt of man’s urine hath an excellent quality
to cleanse; it is made thus,” etc. (p. 74). He also says: “Man’s dung,
or excrement, hath very great virtues, because it contains in it all the
noble essences, viz.: of the Food and Drink, concerning which wonderful
things might be written.”—(“Archidoxes,” lib. v. p. 74.)
“To distill Oyle of a Man’s Excrements, ... Take the Doung of a young,
sanguine child, or man, as much as you will.... This helpeth the Canker
and mollifieth fistulas; comforteth those that are troubled with
Alopecea.”—(“The Secrets of Physicke,” London, 1633, p. 98.)
“For any manner of Ache ... a plaister of Pigeon’s dung” (see “A Rich
Storehouse or Treasurie for the Diseased,” Ralph Blower, London, 1616,
black letter, p. 3); also, “Hen’s Dung” (idem, p. 4); to provoke urine, a
plaster of Horse dung was applied to the patient (p. 25.)
“For spitting of blood ... the dung of mice was drunk in wine” (idem, p.
29); for sore breasts of women, a plaster of Goose dung (p. 33); “for
Burns and Scalds ... a Plaster of Sheepe’s doung,” (p. 38); also, “the
Doung of Geese” (p. 39).
“For deafe ears ... the pisse of a pale Goat” was poured into them (p.
67); horse-dung was used as a face-lotion (p. 106); for the bloody flux
soak the feet in water in which “Doue’s Doung has been seethed” (p.
119). For the gout, “Stale pisse” was an ingredient in a composition
for external application (p. 119). For stitch in the side and back
“Pigeon’s Doung” was used externally (p. 172); for sciatica, “Oxe-Doung
and Pigeon’s Doung” in equal parts, were applied as a plaster (p. 173).
Cow-dung was used internally in hydrocele (“The Chyrurgeon’s Closet,”
London, 1632, p. 38); the urine of boys was used as an application to
ulcers in the legs (idem, p. 24); again, the urine of immaculate boys was
employed for the cure of all inveterate ulcers (p. 27); goat-dung was
applied externally for the cure of auricular abscesses and for ulcers
(pp. 35 and 42); cow-dung and dove-dung were used in the same manner
(idem p. 42); dove-dung was also used externally in the treatment of
sciatica (p. 48), and for “Shingles” (idem p. 51). Goat-dung, externally,
for tumors (p. 49); goose-dung, externally, for canker in the breasts of
women (p. 50); swallow-dung, externally, for angina; chicken-dung for the
same (p. 58); cow-dung, externally, for tumors in the feet (p. 56); cow
and goat dung, externally, in dropsy (p. 222); and many others throughout
the volume.
In a black letter copy of “The Englishman’s Treasure,” London, 1641, is
given a cure for wounds, in which it is directed “To wash the wounde
very cleane with urine.”—(In Toner Collection, Library of Congress,
Washington, D. C.)
To restrain excessive menstrual flow, apply hot plasters of horse-dung,
between the navel and the privy parts.—(See “The Englishman’s Treasure,”
by Thomas Vicary, Surgeon to King Henry VIII., Queen Mary, and Queen
Elizabeth; London, 1641, p. 184; this little volume contains nothing else
of value to this work.)
Horse-dung was used internally for pleurisy (“Secrets in Physicke,” by
the Comtesse of Kent, London, 1654, pp. 26, 27); goose-dung, internally,
for yellow jaundice (idem, p. 37); “Hound’s Turd,” externally, “to cure
the bleeding of a Wound” (idem, p. 46); peacock’s dung, internally, for
the falling sickness or convulsions (idem, p. 56); “The patient’s own
water,” externally, for pains in the breast (p. 64); pigeon’s dung, both
internally and externally, in child-birth pains (p. 68); goose-dung,
externally, for burns (p. 96); hen’s dung, externally, for burns (p.
152); and for sore eyes (p. 174); “stale urine,” externally, for sore
feet (p. 163).
“The stale of a cow and the furring of a chamber-pot” to be given,
applied locally and externally, for scald head (“Most excellent and
most approved Remedies,” London, 1652, p. 80). “The Urine of him that
is sick,” externally, for stitch in the side (p. 115); goose dung,
externally, for canker in woman’s breast (p. 129); “Urin of a Man Child
(he beeing not aboue 3 years of age)” was a component in a salve for the
king’s evil (p. 132). For patients sick of the plague, “Let them drink
twice a day a draught of their own urin” (p. 143).
“A certain countryman at Antwerp was an example of this, who, when he
came into a shop of sweet smells, he began to faint, but one presently
clapt some fresh smoking horse-dung under his nose and fetched him
to again.”—(Levinus Lemnius, “The Secret Miracles of Nature,” Eng.
translation, London, 1658, p. 107, speaking of the effects of sweet and
nasty smells upon different persons.)
“The urine of a Lizard, ... the dung of an elephant,” were in medical
use, according to Montaigne (“Essays,” Hazlitt’s translation, New York,
1859, vol. iii. p. 23; art. “On the Resemblance of Children to their
Parents”). Also, “the excrement of rats beaten to powder” (idem). The
above remedies were for the stone.
Doctor Garrett mentions “water of amber made by Paracelsus out of
cow-dung,” and gives the recipe for its distillation, as well as for that
of its near relative, “water of dung,” the formula for which begins with
the words, “Take any kind of dung you please.”[73]
The work of Daniel Beckherius, “Medicus Microcosmus,” published in
London, in 1660, is full of the value of excrementitious remedial agents.
Urine alone was applied to eradicate lice from the human head; but a
secondary application of dove’s dung was then plastered on (p. 62). Urine
was drunk as a remedy for epilepsy, used as an eye-wash, and various
other ocular affections, and dropped into the ears for various abscesses
and for deafness (pp. 63, 64).
A lotion of one’s own urine was good for the palsy; but where this had
been occasioned by venery, excessive drinking, or mercury, the urine of
a boy was preferable (p. 64). A drink of one’s own urine, taken while
fasting, was commended in obstructions of the liver and spleen, and in
dropsy and yellow jaundice (idem); but some preferred the urine of a
young boy (p. 65). For jaundice the remedy should be drunk every morning,
and the treatment continued for some time (idem).
For retention of urine the remedy was to drink the urine of a young girl
(p. 66). Urine was drunk as a remedy for long-continued constipation
(idem); for falling of the womb stale urine was applied as a fomentation
(idem); for hysteria human ordure and stale urine were applied to the
nostrils (idem); the urine of the patient was drunk as a cure for
worms (idem); urine was used as a wash for chapped hands, also for all
cutaneous disorders (idem); also for “ficus ani” (p. 67). For gout in
the feet the patient should bathe them in his own urine, also for travel
sores, as he would then be able to resume his journey next day (idem).
One’s own urine was drunk as a preservative from the plague. Beckherius
says he knew of his own knowledge that it had been used with wonderful
success between 1620 and 1630 for this purpose.
Urine was recommended as a drink in lues veneris; while a sufferer
from cancer was bathed in his own urine and Roman vitriol; ulcers were
likewise bathed with the patient’s own urine (p. 68). Urine was applied
as a lotion to wounds, bruises, and contusions (p. 69). Beckherius
recites the case of a laborer who was buried under a falling mass of
earth, in 1522, but, being protected by some obstruction, nourished
himself for seven days on his own urine. Besides being used alone in the
above cases, urine entered as an ingredient into medicines for old sores
(p. 72); against the growth of “wild hairs,” ocular affections, throat
troubles as gargle (p. 73), affections of the spleen (p. 74). The urine
of a boy was to be employed in paralysis and in erysipelas (idem); the
urine of a boy was also prescribed in suppression of the menses, and
the urine of a man in podagra (75). The urine of undefiled boys entered
into the composition of _aqua ophthalmica_, and was used externally in
rheumatism of the legs (p. 74).
The urine of boys was used as an ointment in some fevers; also as a
fomentation in tympanitis, as a plaster in dropsy, for gangrene and
podagra, in various clysters, in the cure of calculi and cachexy (pp.
78, 79); in some of the plasters cow and dove dung also entered. For
the treatment of anasarca there was a “spagyric preparation of urine.”
To make the spirit of urine by distillation, some took the urine of
a healthy man, some that of a wine-drinking boy of twelve years (pp.
81, 82). This spirit was administered in lung troubles, in dropsy,
suppression of the menses, all kinds of fevers, retention of urine,
calculus, etc. (p. 85); also in eye troubles, strangury, diabetes,
podagra, catarrh, melancholia, phrensy, cardialgia, syncope, dysentery,
plague, malignant fevers (p. 86).
The “spirit of urine” was again distilled with vitriol to make an
anti-podagric remedy (85).
Salt of urine was made by distilling the urine of a boy and collecting
the saline residuum; it was administered in cardiac troubles and to aid
in the expulsion of the dead fœtus; from it were made various empirical
remedies,—moon salt, the salt of Jove, salt of Mercury, spirit of Orion,
mercurius microcosmicus, which were used for all kinds of physical
infirmities (p. 87). The quintessence of urine was distilled from the
urine of a strong, healthy, chaste man of thirty years, who had drunk
heavily of wine for the occasion; by another authority it is recommended
that this happen while the sun and Jupiter may be in “Piscibus.” This
was used in calculi of the kidneys and bladder and in all ulcerations of
those parts; externally, as a lotion in gonorrhæa and external ulcers of
the private parts, for wounds and lesions of all sorts, urinary troubles,
worms, putrid fevers, and as a preservative against the plague, for hard
tumors, etc. (p. 97).
An “anti-epileptic spirit” had the urine of boys as its main component
(p. 95); there was an “anti-epileptic extract of the moon” (p. 96); an
“anti-podagric medicament” of the same components almost. A “panacea
solaris” had for its principal ingredient the urine of a boy who had been
drinking freely of wine (p. 97).
HUMAN ORDURE.
Beckherius cites a case where its use for three days cured a man of
yellow jaundice; dried, powdered, and drunk in wine, it cured febrile
paroxysms (p. 112); it was recommended to be that of a boy fed for some
time on bread and beans.
To smell human ordure in the morning, fasting, protected from plague (pp.
112, 113).
He also gives the mode of preparing “zibethum,” or “occidental sulphur”
(p. 116).
As a cure for angina a mixture was prescribed containing the white dung
of dogs; also human ordure, swallow-dung, licorice, and candy (p. 113).
In cancer, human ordure was applied as a plaster, mixed with turpentine,
tobacco, antimony, powdered litharge, powdered crabs, etc. (pp. 113, 114).
He also gives the formulas for preparing _aqua_ and _oleum ex stercore
humano_ (p. 114). In other places the use of ordure and urine in medicine
is mentioned as a matter of course.—(See p. 274; also under the headings
of “Ass,” “Mouse,” “Horse,” etc.; again, pp. 114, 192 _et seq._)
Beckherius gives a list of a number of preparations which to our more
enlightened view of such things must appear trivial, and need not be
repeated here in detail,—such as one for “extracting the vitriol of
metals,” etc. Into the preparation of all these human urine entered.
Potable gold was made with a menstruum of spirits of wine and human
urine, half and half (pp. 100-102); there was an “oil of sulphur”
prepared from human urine (103); there was a “precipitate of mercury and
urine” (idem); there was finally a _ludum urinæ_, the residuum after the
distillation of the _aqua_ or the _spiritus_ respectively, which was
prescribed medicinally in the same way as these were (pp. 109, 110).
Von Helmont called the salt obtained by the distillation of human urine
“duelech.” (See “Oritrike, or Physicke Refined,” John Baptist von
Helmont, English translation, London, 1662, pp. 847-849.) This was the
name generally given by Paracelsus to the stone in the bladder. Von
Helmont instances a cure of tympanitis or dropsy by a belly-plaster of
hot cow-dung, and adds, “Neither, therefore, doth Paracelsus vainly
commend dungs, seeing that they are the salts of putrefied meats” (p.
520).
Petræus (Henricus) Nosolog. Harmon. lib. i. dissertat. 13, p. 252, et
Joh. Schæderas, pharmacop. med. chym. lib. v. p. 829, “stercus siccatum
tritum et cum melle illitum ad anguinam curandam magni usus esse
dicunt.”—(“Bib. Scatalogica,” p. 84.)
The ponderous tomes of Michael Etmuller contain all that was known or
believed in on this subject at the time of their publication, A.D. 1690.
He gives reasons for the employment of each excrement, solid or liquid,
human or animal, which need not be detailed at this moment.
Human urine. “Urina calif. exsiccat, resolvit, abstergit, discutit,
mundificat, putredini resistit, ideoque usus est præcipue intrinsecus
in obstructione epatis, lienis, vesicæ, biliaræ, pestis preservatione,
hydrope, ictero.... Exstrinsecus siccat scabiem, resolvit tumores,
mundificat vulnera etiam venenata, arcet gangrænam, solvit alvum (in
clysmata) abstergit furfures capitis.... compescit febriles insullus
(pulsui applicata) exulceratas aures sanat (instillata pueri urina)
oculorum tubedine subvenit (instillata) artuum tremorem tollit (lotione)
uvulæ tumorem discutit (gargas), lienis dolores sedat (cum cinere
cataplasmata).”
From the urine of a wine-drinking boy, “urina pueri (ann. 12) vinum
bibentis,” distilled over human ordure, was made “spiritus urinæ” of
great value in the expulsion of calculi, although it stunk abominably,
“sed valde fœtet.” This was employed in the treatment of gout, asthma,
calculi, and diseases of the bladder. (Etmuller, “Schroderi Diluc.,” vol.
ii. p. 265.) There are several other methods given of obtaining this
“spiritus urinæ per distillationem.”
Then there was a “spiritus urinæ per putrefactionem.” To make this, the
urine of a boy twelve years old, who had been drinking wine, was placed
in a receptacle, surrounded by horse-dung for forty days, allowed to
putrefy, then decanted upon human ordure, and distilled in an alembic,
etc. There were other methods for making this also, but this one will
suffice. The resulting fluid was looked upon as a great “anodyne” for all
sorts of pains, and given both internally and externally, as well as in
scurvy, hypochondria, cachexy, yellow and black jaundice, calculi of the
kidneys and bladder, epilepsy, and mania.
“Potable gold” was made from this spirit. “Idem spiritus optime
purificatus (scil. aliquoties) in aqua pluvia solvendo et distillando
cumque spiritus vini analytice unitus solvit aurum, unde aurum potabile”
(vol ii. p. 266).
A urine bath was good for gout in the feet. A drink of one’s own urine
was highly praised as a preservative from the plague. “Urinæ: Potus urinæ
propriæ laudatur in preservanda et curanda peste.” Such a draught was
also used by women in labor. “Urinæ hausta a mulieribus parturientibus
partum facilitat.” Clysters of urine were administered in tympanites, or
dropsy of the belly. Urine was applied in ulcerations of the ears.
Saltpetre was formerly made from earth, lime, etc., saturated with human
urine, ordure, etc.
The “spiritus urinæ” obtained by the distillation of urine, removed
obstructions from the bladder, meatus, etc., expelled calculi, and was a
diaphoretic and an anti-scorbutic; it was likewise used in the cure of
hypochondria, cachexy, chlorosis, etc., taken internally.
From the distillation of vitriol and urine an anti-epileptic medicine was
obtained.—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 271.)
From the above-mentioned “spiritus urinæ per distillationem” was prepared
“magisterium urinæ seu microcosmi,” useful in cases of atrophy; it
also prevented the pains of the stone, if taken monthly before the new
moon.—(Etmuller, vol. ii. p. 266.)
Human ordure. “Stercus (carbon humanum Paracelsi, aliis sulph. occiden.)
emollit, maturat, anodynum est. Ea propter magni usus ad mitigandum
dolores incantatione introductos (impositum) ad anthraces pestilentiales
maturandos, ad phlegmonem, v. g. gutturis seu anginam curandam (siccatum,
tritum et cum melle illitum) ad inflammationem vulnerum arcendam. Quin et
intrinsecus a nonnullis adhibetur in angina (crematum et potui datum), in
febribus ad paroxysmos profligandos (eodem modo propinatum dos. 32), in
epilepsia, quam stercus primum infantuli siccatum et pulverisatum, et ad
complures dies exhibitum, radicitus evellere aiunt” (vol. ii. p. 266).
He alludes to the “aqua” and the “oleum” “ex stercore distillatum,”
both used in ophthalmic diseases, as cosmetics to restore color to the
face, to restore and produce hair, to cure tumors and fistulas, and
remove cicatrices, and for the cure of epilepsy. “Interne prodesse
aiunt comitialibus et hydropicis, lapidemque renum et vesicæ pellere,
morsibusque canis rabidi, venenatorumque animalium subvenire.” The “oleum
ex stercore” had to be prepared from the ordure of a young man, not a
boy, “juvenis, non pueri” (vol. ii. p. 266).
Etmuller tells the same story we have already had from so many other
sources, in regard to the medicinal properties ascribed to human ordure.
It was looked upon as a valuable remedy, applied as a poultice for all
inflammations and suppurations, carbuncles and pest buboes, administered
for the cure of bites of serpents, and all venomous animals. It should
be taken raw, dried, or in drink. It was the only specific against the
bites of the serpents of India, especially the “napellus,” whose bite
kills in four hours unless the patient adopts this method of cure. It was
considered a specific against the plague, and of great use in effecting
“magico-magnetic” or “sympathetic or transplantation” cures. It was also
in high repute for baffling the efforts of witches.
“Water distilled from ordure was good for sore eyes, especially if the
man whose ordure was used had been fed only on bread and wine. This was
administered internally for dropsy, calculus, epilepsy, bites of mad
dogs, carbuncles, etc.” (vol. ii. p. 272).
“Zibetta occidentalis nihil est aliud quam stercus mediante digestione ad
suavolentiam redactum, qua Zibettam mentitur; vid. Agricola,” vol. ii. p.
266.
Of the value of this “zibethum” Etmuller quotes from an older authority:
“Rosencranzerus in Astron. inferior (p. 232), dicit quod zibethum humanum
... si illinatur parti genitali mulieris fœmina attrahat fœtum et
precaveatur abortus” (vol. ii. p. 272).
Human ordure, containing as it does “an anodyne sulphur, ... destructive
of acids,” was supposed to be beneficial in burns, inflammations, and
as a plaster for the dispersal of plague buboes.... “In insulis Botiis
dictis, gens quoddam serpentis repiriri, cujus morsum mors sequatur, nisi
stercus proprium demorsi mox assumatur. Tandem aqua stercoris humani
cosmetica, ab aliis ophthalmatica censetur sic ut et ejusdem oleum
contra cancrum mammarum specifice commendatur” (vol. ii. p. 171).
“In stercoribus animalium magna latet vis medica, ratione scilicet salis
volatilis; in specie stercus porcinum omnes hæmorrhagias ad miraculum
sistit, sive in forma pulveris ad ʒ i., sive in forma electuarii
adhibens; annus est quo rustica quædam post abortum insigne patiebatur
mensium profluvium cui cum meo suasu maritus inscie propinasset stercus
suillum, fluxus cessavit et mulier pristinæ reddita sanitati. Stercus
equinum summum est remedium in passione hysterica, et doloribus colicis,
si succus expressus cum cerevisia vel vino propinetur; sic quoque
conducit in variolis et morbilis infantum, propinatus cum cerevisia
calida, qui optime per sudorem expellit ut taceam de effectu quem præstat
in pleuritide laudando.
“Ut ita licet volatilia in uno puncto convenire videantur, diversis
tamen, ratione diversæ et specificæ cujuslibet craseus medeantur morbos.”
(vol. ii. sect. 3, “Pyrotechnia Rationalis,”—“de Animalibus,” Etmuller,
“Opera Omnia,” xx.)
“Animalium omnium participant de natura salis ammoniaci constant quippe
(are certainly known) ex acido et alcali oleoso volatili indeque, auræ
beneficio alterantur in nitro, præsertim avium excrementa quicquid igitur
præstant, operantur ex vi salis ammoniacali” (vol. ii. p. 171).
The use of animal dungs was noted, but not unqualifiedly commended
by Etmuller, in the following cases: dog-dung, mixed with honey,
for inflammation of the throat; wolf-dung, in form of powder, as an
anti-colic.
Dog-dung (album Græcum officinalis) was regarded as useful in dysentery,
epilepsy, colic; was applied externally in angina, malignant ulcers,
hard tumors, warty growths, etc. Especial value was attached to such
dung gathered in the month of July, from a bone-fed dog, because it was
whiter, purer, and less fetid. Dog-urine was employed as a lotion for
warty growths, ulcers on the head, etc. (vol. ii. p. 253).
“Dicitur in officinis semper album Græcum, nunquam stercus.” The dog
“debite nutriatur cum ossibus solis, cum nullo vel pauco potu” (vol. ii.
p. 254).
Goat-dung was used in hard tumors of the spleen and other parts of
the body; in buboes, ear-abscesses, inveterate ulcers, dropsy, scabby
head, lichen, etc. (p. 254). In all these its use was external, but
for other troubles of the spleen, yellow jaundice, retention of the
menses, and similar ailments, it was given internally. Goat-urine was
given internally in removal of calculi, urinary troubles, and (after
distillation) for dropsy. The egestæ of the wild goat were used for
almost identically the same disorders (vol. ii. p. 254).
The juice of horse-dung was used by the English in colic, pleurisy, and
hysteria.—(Etmuller, vol. ii. p. 254.)
Pig-dung, dried, snuffed up into the nostrils, cured nasal hemorrhages.
Compare this with the use made of the dried excrement of the Grand Lama
as a sternutatory and general curative.
Hyena-dung was used in medicine, but the diseases are not mentioned.
Sparrow-dung and mouse-dung, if made into pills, and taken to the number
of nine, would bring on the menses of women.
Cow-dung was recommended as a fomentation in gout.
The use of cow-dung, internally, was highly commended for expelling
calculi and for the cure of retention of urine, on account of the
“volatile nitrous salts which ascended in the alembic, and which had a
good effect upon the kidneys.”
The common people drank the juice expressed from this dung in all cases
of colic and pleurisy, for which they found it a beneficial medicine.
“Ulterius valde convenit ad pellendum calculum et ciendam urinam propter
sal. vol. nitrosum qui ascendit per alembicam unde ad nephritidem et
ciendam urinam valde commendatur a poterio.... Plebii in colico dolore
succum ex stercore propinant, quod verum est, non solum in colico sed
etiam in pleuritide præsentaneum remedium” (vol. ii. pp. 249, 250).
The juice of young geese, gathered in the month of March, was used in
jaundice and cachexy.... Hen-dung was sometimes employed as a substitute
for goose-dung. Peacock-dung was employed in all cases of vertigo....
Swallow-dung was used in cases of angina and inflammation of the tonsils
(vol. ii. p. 171).
Hawk-dung was used for sore eyes. Duck-dung “fimus morsui venenatorum
animalium imponitur” (vol. ii. p. 286).
Goat-dung, drunk in cases of hemorrhage.... Goat-urine considered a
specific for the expulsion of calculi of the bladder. Asses’ urine drunk
for diseases of the kidneys, atrophy, paralysis, consumption, etc.
Asses’ dung taken internally in form of powder or potion, and applied
also externally in all cases of hemorrhage, excessive uterine flow, and
troubles of that nature (vol. ii. p. 247). It was thought by some to be
best when gathered in the month of May; others thought that dog-dung
should be substituted. Cow-urine was a beneficial application to sore
eyes.
Cow-dung was used in all cases of burns, inflammations, rheumatism, etc.,
“apum ac vesparum morsibus.” (We have already seen that it has been used
for bee stings in the State of New Jersey.) “Suffitu reprimit uterum
prolapsum.” Finally, it was used as a plaster in dropsy.—(Etmuller, vol.
ii. p. 248.)
Dove-dung was applied generally in cataplasms and rubefacient plasters
for the cure of rheumatism, headache, vertigo, colic pains, apoplexy;
also in boils, scorbutic swellings, etc., and drunk as a cure for
dropsy.—(Etmuller, vol. ii. p. 287.)
Quail-dung, “fimum in vino potum, dysenteriam sanare tradit Kynarides”
(vol. ii. p. 288).
Fresh calf-dung was rubbed on the skin for the cure of erysipelas.
Fox-dung was applied externally for the cure of all cutaneous disorders
(vol. ii. pp. 283-285).
Kid-dung (Capreolus or Chevreuil) was drunk as a cure for yellow jaundice
(vol. ii. p. 257).
Cat-dung was applied as a poultice to scab in the head and to gout in the
feet (vol. ii. p. 259).
Horse-dung, fresh or burnt to ashes, was applied externally as a
styptic, used as a fumigation to aid in the expulsion of the fœtus and
after-birth; also drunk as a potion for colic pains, strangulation of
the uterus, expulsion of the fœtus and after-birth, and for pleurisy.
“Stercus equinum est medicina magni et multi usus.... Interne succus ex
stercore recenti expressus.” For the certain cure of pleurisy, it should
be the dung of a young stallion, especially if oat-fed. “In Angina certe
stercus equinum non cedit stercori hirundinum ... et canis” (vol. ii. p.
263).
Lion-dung, taken internally, was an anti-epileptic.
Hare-dung was administered internally in calculus and dysentery, and
externally for burns.
Hare-urine was applied in ear troubles.
Wolf-dung was found efficacious, taken internally, in colic.
Musk was frequently given, mixed with zibethum, as a carminative; also as
a nervine and a cardiac.
Mouse-dung found its advocates as a remedy, given internally, in the
constipation of children, calculi, used in enemata.
The internal administration of rat-dung removed catamenial obstructions.
Mouse-dung was styled “album nigrum;” dog-dung, “album Græcum.”
Sheep-dung was administered internally in yellow jaundice; “maximi usus
in aurigine, sumptum cum petroselino” (rock-parsley),—while, externally,
it was applied to hard tumors, swellings, boils, burns, etc.
The urine of red or black sheep was given internally in dropsy. “Urina
(nigræ vel rubræ ovis) sumpta, aquam inter cutem abigit.” The dose was
from five to six ounces.
Hog-dung, externally, in cutaneous disorders, bites of venomous animals,
nasal hemorrhage,—for the cure of this last even the odor was sufficient;
“sufficit etiam odor.”
Michaelus Etmuller, “Opera Omnia,” “Schroderi dilucidati Zoölogia,”
Lyons, 1690, vol. ii. pp. 263-279, inclusive.
Quail-dung was administered for epilepsy when the bird had been fed on
hellebore.—(Etmuller, “Opera Omnia,” “Schrod. Diluc. Zoöl.” vol. ii. p.
288.)
Cuckoo-dung, taken in drink, cured the bites of mad dogs.—(Idem.)
White hen-dung was preferred for medicinal purposes. It was employed
for the same ailments as dove-dung, but was not believed to be so
efficacious. It was especially valuable in colic and uterine pains, in
yellow jaundice, calculus, abscesses in the side, suppression of urine,
etc. (vol. ii. p. 289).
There was another cure for the bites of mad dogs,—the dung of the swallow
taken internally. It was also considered to be a cure for colic pains and
kidney troubles, and was made into a suppository in cases of irritation
of the rectum (vol. ii. p. 290).
Kite-dung was sometimes applied externally in pains of the joints (vol.
ii. p. 291).
As a purgative, starling dung is enumerated in this strange list of
filthy medicaments (vol. ii. p. 292).
The egestæ of wild oxen was used for the same therapeutical purposes as
the excrement of the domesticated bovines (vol. ii. p. 252).
Peacock-dung. “Stercus proprietate vertiginem et epilepsiam sanat (in
dies multos exhibitum).” It should be administered in wine, and the
treatment was to be persisted in from the new until the full moon, or
longer. “Continuando a novilunio usque ad plenilunium, aut amplius.... In
epilepsiam est specificum magno usu expertum.” It was likewise considered
of great value in the cure of vertigo, but the dung of the cock should be
given to men; that of the hen, to women. Etmuller, however, did not think
this distinction to be necessary (vol. ii. pp. 292, 293).
The dung of geese, old or young, was employed in the treatment of yellow
jaundice, for which it was believed to be a specific. The dose was one
scruple. The geese should have been fed on “herba chelidonii.” Next to
the yellow jaundice, it was of special value in scurvy, taken either in
the form of a powder or a decoction. For the cure of dropsy it was the
main ingredient in several of the remedies prescribed. It was also the
principal component in the manufacture of “aqua ophthalmica Imperatoris
Maximiliani,” to prepare which, the dung of young geese was gathered in
the months of April and May (vol. ii. p. 287).
Stork-dung, stercus ciconiæ. Believed to be potential in epilepsy and
diseases of the same type. “Stercus, si ex aqua hauritur, comitialibus
aliisque morbis capitis prodesse credunt.”—(Etmuller, vol. ii. p. 287.)
The laxative properties of mouse-dung were extolled by Dr. Jacob
Augustine Hunerwolf, in “Ephemeridum Physico-Medicarum,” Leipzig, 1694,
vol. i. p. 189.
Rosinus Lentilius relates that there was a certain old hypochondriac,
of fifty or more, who, in order to ease himself of an obstinate
constipation, for more than a month drank copious draughts of his own
urine, fresh and hot, but with the worst results, “Per mensem circiter
urinam suam statim a mictu calentem ipsa matuta hauriret.”—(In “Ephem.
Physico-Medicarum,” Leipzig, 1694, vol. ii. p. 169.)
On the page just cited and those immediately following, can be found some
ten or twelve pages of fine print, quarto, elucidative of the uses of the
human excreta, medicinally, and as a matter of morbid appetite.
To the Ephemeridum, Dr. Lentilius also contributed a careful résumé of
all that was at that time known of the medicinal or other form of the
internal employment of the human excreta; he premised his remarks by
saying that while some persons sent to foreign countries and ransacked
their woods and forests for medicines, there were others who sought
their remedies nearer home, and did not disdain the employment of
the vilest excrements. “I am not speaking now,” he remarks, “of the
excrements of animals, but of human ordure and human urine. We know,”
he continues, “that horse-dung is used for the cure of colic, pig-dung
for checking internal hemorrhages, dog-dung or album Græcum for angina,
goose-dung for yellow jaundice, peacock-dung for vertigo, and goat-dung,
in Courland beer, for malignant fevers.” The Mexicans used human ordure
as an antidote against serpent bites in two-scruple doses, drunk in
some convenient liquor: “De homerda contra venenatos Mexicano—serpentis
ictus—ad ʒ ii. in convenienti liquore hausta” (p. 170). The same mixture
was drunk by the Japanese, as a remedy against the wounds made by
poisoned weapons: “De eadem mixtura sed e stercore proprio confusa contra
telorum venena Japonensibus pota.” Observe that in this last case the
ordure had to be that of the wounded man himself.
Etmuller recommends its use in expelling from the system the virus of
“napelli” whatever that may have been. To cure the plague, the patient
was to consume a quantity equal in size to a filbert. To frustrate the
effects of incantation and witchcraft, it had to be drunk in oil. Used
in the same manner, it was supposed to be of use in expelling worms:
“De eadem mixtura, sed a stercore proprio,” etc., as already quoted.
“De stercore humano, seu recente seu arido, adsunto ad expugnandum
napelli virus, etiam a nostratibus commendato, de quo vid. Etmuller,
etc.... In peste fuganda mane ad avellanas quantitatem devorando, ...
ad morbos e fascino ex aceto propinato ... ad expellendos vermes eodem
modo usurpato.” He alludes also to “Oletum” and the medicines made with
it, as an ingredient; but says he will leave “Zibethum” and “Occidental
Sulphur” to Paracelsus and the members of his school. He quotes Galen
as recommending the drinking of the urine of a stout, healthy boy, as
a preventive of the plague. “Urina pueri sani bibita ... preservans a
peste,” quoting Galen, lib. x. “De Simp. Med. Fac.” A draught of her
husband’s urine was of great assistance to a woman in uterine troubles:
“Sic, in δυσοχία urinæ maritalis haustum concelebrant alii.” The urine
of a chaste boy was much commended by many writers for internal use in
dropsy, splenic inflammation, etc. “Sic urinam impolluti pueri quotidie
potum, esse medicamentum laudabile et præsentaneum, ad lienis morbos
et hydropem.” It would be useless to quote further in the words of the
original. Lentilius goes on to say that a potion of one’s own urine
was extolled in the treatment of the bites of snakes, wounds by deadly
weapons, incipient dropsy and consumption.
To drink one’s own urine for the space of three days was a sure cure for
the yellow jaundice, also in preserving from the plague. But Von Helmont
was of the opinion that in this last case its virtues were derived from
the fact that it was a stimulant and served to keep up the spirits. By
Etmuller, its use was strongly recommended in the treatment of the yellow
jaundice, etc. (citing Etmuller). It was likewise highly extolled by
Avicenna.
We are next treated to a feast of big words, in which we learn that
on account of its “nitrosity” and “volatility,” it was regarded as a
“detersive,” and “penetrative,” while, on account of the alkali it
contained, it was a neutralizer of the “fermenting acids,” and therefore
applicable in cardialgia, anorexia, gout, toothache, colic, yellow
jaundice, and intermittent fevers, either the urine “of the patient
himself or that of a wine-drinking boy.”
Boyle, the eminent philosopher, is quoted as saying that, in his opinion,
the virtues of human urine, as a medicine, internally and externally,
would require a volume by themselves. Boyle is also credited with having
published a tract on this subject, in Leipzig, 1692, over the signature
“B.”
Lentilius devotes a number of pages of close, logical reasoning to
demonstrate the fallacy of supposing that human excreta can be of any
possible utility in therapeutics. According to his opinion, Nature
voided them from the body because the body had no further use for them;
therefore, their re-absorption could scarcely be other than deleterious;
this was all the more true in disease, because the patient being in
a morbid state, that which he ejected could by no process of correct
reasoning be regarded as healthy. This argument, although of great
interest and value, is very long and pertains rather to the history of
medicine proper than to this essay.
Lentilius concludes by saying that no more cruel threat could be made
than that of Sennacherib against the Jews that he would make them eat
their own excrement and drink the water which bathed his feet: “Quam
futurum esse, ut quisquis sua stercora voraturus, et aquam pedum suorum
bibiturus sit.” Esa. 36, ver. 12. “Væ miseris ægrotis, quo rumores ad
urinæ potum rediit.”—(In “Ephem. Phys. Medic.” Leipzig, 1694, vol. ii.
pp. 169 to 176, inclusive; the pages are quarto, the number of words to
the page about 375.)
Lentilius has either stolen bodily from Paullini, or anticipated him; he
has all of Paullini’s facts, but seems, in addition, to have been much of
a philosopher, which Paullini was not.
Christian Franz Paullini’s “Filth Pharmacy,” Frankfort, 1696, is better
known than any other of the works cited, being in German, of small size,
and confining itself almost exclusively to a recapitulation of diseases,
with the appropriate excrementitious curative opposite each.
Six different editions are contained in the Library of the U. S. Army
Medical Museum, in Washington; of these, that of Frankfort, 1696 (268
pages, duodecimo), was selected, and the work of translation entrusted
to Messrs. Smith and Pratz; being perfectly familiar with English and
German, their interpretation, made slowly and carefully, may be relied on
as minutely correct.
Paullini has done nothing beyond collecting his ample list of cases in
which the human and animal excreta were employed in the treatment of
diseases; he has in no instance ventured upon an explanation of the
reason for such use, such as Etmuller supplied.
He treats of the employment of human ordure and urine, and animal
excreta, in the following diseases: headache, insomnia, vertigo,
dementia, melancholia, mania, gout, convulsions, palsy, epilepsy, sore
eyes, cataract, ophthalmia, ear troubles, bleeding of the nose, nasal
polypi, carious teeth, dropsy of the head, wens, asthmatic troubles,
coughs, spitting of blood, consumption, pleurisy, fainting spells,
diseases of the mammary glands, tumors, colic, abnormal appetite, worms,
hernia, sciatica, ulceration of the bowels, constipation, diarrhœa,
dysentery, obstructions of the liver, dropsy, jaundice, kidney troubles,
gravel, stone, retention of urine, excessive flow of urine, impaired
virility, swelling of the testicles, uterine displacements, menstrual
troubles, sterility, accidents to pregnant women, miscarriages, difficult
labor, pains after childbirth, gout of feet, rheumatism, fevers of all
kinds, poisons, plague, syphilitic and venereal diseases, abscesses,
sprains, contusions, bruises, wounds, ring-worm, felons, itch, freckles,
as a cosmetic, for rash, tetter, loss of hair, lice, gangrene, colds,
warts, fissure of the rectum, fistulas, corns, bunions, love-potions, and
to baffle witchcraft.
For headache, pigeon-dung was used internally, and the dung of a red cow
and of the peacock, externally.
Insomnia, donkey-dung, internally; gout and pigeon dung, externally.
Human urine was also used for the same purpose (pp. 28, 29).
Vertigo. Pigeon, peacock, and squirrel dung, all used internally.
Dementia. Donkey-dung, externally.
Melancholia. Calf or ox dung, internally; owl-dung, externally.
Mania. Human ordure, internally; boy’s urine, internally, and also owl’s
and chicken’s dung, internally.
Gout. Boy’s urine, externally, and owl’s, jenny’s, horse’s, cow’s,
deer’s, and sow’s dung, externally.
Convulsions. Peacock and horse dung, externally.
Palsy. Let the patient wash with his own urine or that of a young boy
(pp. 28, 29); administer peacock’s or horse’s dung internally.
For the cure of the dread disease, epilepsy, human ordure and the urine
of boys were administered internally, and there were likewise internal
applications of the dung of horses, peacocks, mice, dogs, black cows,
lions, storks, and wild hogs; no external applications are noted for this
disease (pp. 28, 29, 42, 43).
Another remedy for epilepsy was to take the excrements of a fine, healthy
youth, dry them, and extract the oil by means of heat; rectify this oil
and take inwardly (pp. 42, 43).
For inflamed and running eyes make a collyrium of the warm urine of young
boys, mingled with other ingredients. Make an external application of
boys’ urine, or of the dung of swallows, pigeons, cows, goats, prairie
hens, horses, lizards, doves. There was no internal administration of any
of the above suggested.
For ophthalmic troubles, the same treatment as the above.
Cataract. Make an external application of human ordure, of boy’s urine,
or of the dung of wolves, green lizards, or geese.
Earache or ringing in the ear, or abscesses. Apply the urine of young
boys mixed with honey, or apply fresh human urine.
Other ear troubles. External application of boy’s urine or of the
patient’s own urine; external application of the dung of the white goat,
or pigeon’s, cat’s, deer’s, rabbit’s, jenny’s, wild hog’s or wolf’s dung.
Bleeding at the nose. External application of dog’s urine, of horse
urine, or of the dung of calf, donkey, hog, cow, horse, camel, or rabbit.
Nasal polypi. Dung of dog or donkey, externally.
Toothache or carious teeth. One’s own ordure, or the dung of wolf, dog,
raven, mouse, or horse, in all cases externally (pp. 52, 53).
Toothache. Apply a poultice of human excrement, mixed with
camomile-flowers, to the cheek.
Dropsy of the head. Take boy’s urine internally.
Croup and throat troubles generally. Boy’s urine, both internally and
externally; a gargle and a potion of one’s own urine; and both internal
and external applications of the white dung of dogs, gathered in July; or
the dung of geese, pigeons, eagles, goats, owls, hens, or wolves.
Asthmatic troubles. Salts of urine or pigeon’s dung, externally.
Coughs. The dung of dogs, internally, or the dung of geese; the dung of
ravens, deer, or sparrows, externally.
Spitting of blood. The excreta of wild sows, doves, sheep, cows, horses,
mice, dogs, or peacocks, internally.
Consumption. The patient’s ordure, internally; his own or a boy’s urine,
or mice-dung, internally (pp. 74, 75).
Another remedy for consumption was to let the patient drink a mixture of
his own urine beaten up with fresh egg; repeat for several successive
mornings; also, let him eat his own excrement (pp. 74, 76).
For pleurisy, we read that there was an external application of the
patient’s own urine, or that the dung of donkeys, horses, stallions,
mares, hens, pigeons, and dogs was given internally.
Fainting-spells. Human ordure, externally; one’s own urine, internally;
cow-urine or the dung of horses, sheep, or birds, externally.
Diseases of the mammary glands. The dung of cows or mice, internally, and
also an external application of that of oxen, goats, hogs, dogs, cows, or
pigeons.
Cancer of the breast. The patient’s own ordure internally, with external
applications of the dung of geese, cows, goats, or rabbits.
Wens. External applications of the dung of cows, rats, mice, goats,
sheep, geese, pigeons, or jennies.
Colic. Human ordure, internally; “Eau de Millefleurs,” internally (we
know that “Eau de Millefleurs” was itself a composition of cow-dung);
take bees internally (the only instance recorded of such a use of this
insect), or the dung of horses, cats, swallows, or chickens, externally.
A youth in Leyden fell madly in love with a young girl, but could not get
the consent of his parents to marry her. He was seized with a violent
fever and constipation. In this desperate condition he imagined that a
drink of fresh urine from his beloved would benefit him; he accordingly
wrote to her, begging her to satisfy his longing, which she accordingly
granted, and after drinking of the beverage to his heart’s content, he
found immediate relief (whether from the constipation or the passion
Paullini neglects to state).—(Paullini, pp. 106, 107.)
Abnormal appetite. The same remedies as are enumerated for colic, q. v.
Worms. The patient’s own urine, internally; the dung of horses or cows or
hogs, internally.
Hernia. Rabbit-dung, internally.
Sciatica. External application of the dung of goats, pigeons, horses, or
chickens.
Constipation. Human ordure, internally; human urine, internally; or the
excreta of sows, mice, chickens, geese, sparrows, magpies, or pigeons
internally.
Diarrhœa. Dog-dung, internally; sow, donkey, or cow dung, externally.
Dysentery. The patient’s own ordure or that of a boy, internally; human
urine, internally; or the excreta of dogs, horses, hogs, crows, rabbits,
donkeys, mules, or elephants, internally.
Obstructions of the liver. Salts of urine, internally; or the dung of
geese, swallows, or deer, internally.
Dropsy. Human ordure, internally; the patient’s own urine or that of a
boy, internally; or external applications of dung of geese, chickens,
goats, donkeys, dogs, deer, horses, or sheep, internally.
Kidney troubles. Human urine, both internally and externally; goose-dung,
internally; sheep-dung, externally; donkey or deer dung, internally.
Kidney diseases, stone in the bladder. Take internally human urine or
water, distilled over human ordure, or the dried catamenia of women, or
the scrapings of chamber-pots taken in brandy.—(Paullini, pp. 142, 143.)
Gravel. The patient’s own urine, internally; or the dung of pigeons,
rats, chickens, mice, wild hogs, or donkeys, both internally and
externally.
Excessive urination. The dung of goats, mice, or wild hog, internally.
Difficult urination. The urine of a girl, internally; the urine of
the patient, both internally and externally; the dung of sparrows,
internally; or the dung of donkeys, goats, chickens, geese, roosters, or
pigeons, externally.
Impaired virility and swelling of the testicles. The dung of prairie
hens, or that of sparrows, internally; or the dung of rabbits, bulls,
cows, or goats, externally.
Uterine displacements. Human ordure, internally; the dung of falcons,
horses, or bulls, internally, or the dung of sows, donkeys, or sheep.
Human excrement was applied outwardly in treatment of falling of the
womb; this was also considered a good method of treating inflammation of
the vagina; stale urine and the steam of old socks, and asses’ dung, was
applied outwardly. The scrapings of chamber vessels was taken inwardly,
mixed with other ingredients (pp. 154, 155).
For menstrual troubles menstrual blood was administered internally;
the urine of boys, internally; the excreta of donkeys and rabbits,
both internally and externally; and those of hogs, rats, and horses,
externally.
For cessation of the menses. Take internally pulverized menses dried, and
wear a chemise smeared with human blood (most probably the chemise of a
woman who had been more fortunate in her purgation); or boil boys’ urine
and garlic together, and inhale the steam (p. 158).
Gout, rheumatism. The patient’s own urine, both internally and
externally; the urine of boys, externally; the dung of mice or rabbits,
internally; the excreta of cows, bulls, calves, donkeys, pigeons,
peacocks, storks, dogs, goats, or wild hogs, externally.
Another remedy for gout and rheumatism was the excreta of chickens, dogs,
or cocks, internally.
Tertiary fever. Human ordure and urine, internally; the excreta of sows,
donkeys, chickens, and swallows, and the white dung of dogs, internally.
Quaternary fever. The ordure of infants, internally; the urine of an old
woman, mixed with donkey-dung, externally; the dung of geese gathered in
May, of dogs, of sparrows, chickens, and sheep, internally; and cat-dung,
externally.
Malignant fevers. The urine of the patient, internally; the urine of a
jenny, internally; the dung of a red cow, of a reindeer, horse, sheep, or
goat, internally; no external applications in this case.
Antidotes for poisons. Human ordure internally, and human urine both
internally and externally; the excreta of hogs, ducks, swallows, goats,
calves, or chickens, internally; of pigeons, cows, sheep, donkeys, and
horses, externally.
Plague. Human ordure and urine, internally; bull-dung, internally; the
dung of cows, chickens, or pigeons, externally.
Syphilis and venereal diseases. Human urine, internally, also externally;
and the excreta of horses and dogs, externally.
Abscesses and sprains. The urine of boys, externally; the excreta of
cows, goats, dogs, pigeons, chickens, camels, geese, externally; or of
the wild hog, both internally and externally.
Boils. Human ordure and urine, externally; the dung of chickens, pigeons,
goats, dogs, cows, bulls, sheep, or foxes, externally.
Wounds. Human ordure and urine, externally; the excreta of dogs and
goats, internally; or of cows, pigeons, chickens, donkeys, and sheep,
externally.
Ring-worm, felons. Human ordure, externally; menstrual blood,
externally; the excreta of geese, cows, sows, cats, sheep, goats, or
chickens, externally.
Itch, freckles, rash, tetter, etc. Geese-dung, internally; the excreta of
donkeys, dogs, chickens, crocodiles, foxes, or pigeons, externally.
Loss of hair, lice. Human urine, externally; the excreta of pigeons,
cats, rats, mice, swallows, geese, rabbits, or goats, externally.
Gangrene. The urine of a virgin, externally; the white dung of chickens,
or horse-dung, externally.
Colds. Human ordure and urine, externally; the excreta of sheep, cows,
bulls, chickens, hogs, pigeons, or horses, externally.
Warts. The patient’s own urine, externally; the excreta of dogs, sheep,
camels, goats, cows, calves, or of a black dog, externally.
Fissure of the rectum, bunions, corns. The excreta of dogs, hogs, sheep,
pigeons, chickens, goats, mice, or of cows, gathered in May, externally.
Fistula. Human ordure, externally; the dung of dogs and mice, internally.
Yellow jaundice. Take internally the oil of human excrements, or drink
human urine for nine days (pp. 132, 133).
Bloody flux. Human excrements dried, taken internally, are of great
benefit (pp. 108, 109).
Insomnia. Take the “Spiritus Urinæ” internally.
Fits or spasms. Take the urine of young boys internally (pp. 28 and 29.)
“Take an old rusty piece of iron, be it a horse-shoe or anything else;
lay it on the fire until it be red-hot; then take it out of the fire
and let the patient make water upon it and take the fume thereof at his
nose and mouth, using this three days together, and it will cure him (of
yellow jaundice).”—(“The Poor Man’s Physician,” John Moncrief, Edinburgh,
1716, p. 174.)
“For running ulcers of the head ... bathe the whole head with old
urine.”—(Idem, p. 66.)
“To provoke flow of urine ... neat’s dung, mixt with honey, made hot,
applied to the share bone.”—(Idem, p. 133.)
For stone in bladder, “mouce-dung drunk.”—(Idem, p. 134.)
“The dung, flesh, and haire of a hare drunk.”—(Idem, p. 131.)
“Goat’s-dung drunk ... for the space of three days.” (Jaundice.)—(Idem,
p. 116.)
“Goat’s-dung, if drunk, brought back the catamenia.”—(Idem, p. 141.)
“Goose and hen dung, drunk with the best wine, miraculously cureth sudden
suffocations of the mother.”—(Idem, p. 144.)
“For a perverse or froward mother (i. e., womb), apply stinking smells to
the privities, and sweet smells to the nose.”—(Idem, pp. 144, 151.)
“For the squinsy ... take the dung of a hog, newly made and as hot as you
can get it, ... apply to the place, and it cureth.”—(Idem, p. 172.)
“For all imposthemes ... the dung of a goose which had first fasted
three days, and then fed on an eel before being killed,” was applied
externally.—(Idem, p. 180.)
“For swellings behind the ears, ... goat-dung, boiled,” was applied as a
plaster.—(Idem, p. 84.)
For boils, carbuncles, etc., “an emplaister made of the dung of a peacock
cureth faithfully.”—(Idem, p. 163.)
“For the cure of fistula, ‘man’s-dung and pepper’ were to be applied
externally; goat’s-dung externally; dove’s-dung was to be drunk in
goat’s-milk; the juice of cow-dung, in wine, was to be cast into the
fistula, and a plaster of the same was to be applied.”—(Idem, pp. 165,
166.)
“Qui mane jejune, per novem dies, bibit propriam urinam non patietur
epilepsiam, paralysim, nec colicam, et qui bibit propriam urinam
sanabitur a sumpto veneno.”—(Idem, pp. 169, 170.)
“D’après le témoignage de Charles Lancilotti, l’acqua di sterco humano
pigliata in una calante por lo spation di nuove giorni sana quelli
che patiscono il male caduco.” (Voyez Guida alla Chimica.)—(“Bib.
Scatalogica,” p. 29.)
Schurig’s “Chylologia,” published in Dresden, 1725, contains citations
from nearly seven hundred authorities. As these are nearly all of very
ancient date, and only in a few cases accessible to scholars restricted
to American libraries, this learned work of Schurig becomes all the more
valuable to such as desire to study intelligently and profoundly this
subject of the use of human and animal excreta in religious rites or in
religious medicine.
Some of the writers quoted by Schurig favor, others oppose the medical
employment of the human excretions. Among those in favor of it, according
to him, may be seen the names of Galen and Dioscorides. In Schurig’s day
there seems to have been much opposition developing, especially when
other remedies were available; although Schurig says that the Dutch
soldiers returning from the Indies spoke in praise of what they had seen
there of the use of such medicaments. Among European practitioners, human
ordure was employed alone, mixed with water or other ingredients, or a
water and an oil were distilled from it.
It would be a useless task to repeat the names of all the authorities
mentioned by this learned German, or to give in detail all the
prescriptions in which the alvine dejecta figure as components. Their
insertion here would add nothing to the value of these notes, as they
are strictly pharmaceutical in their spirit; it may, however, be of some
interest to the student to learn just what diseases were supposed to be
amenable to this course of treatment, and just how the curatives were to
be administered.
For angina pectoris, the ordure passed by a young boy after eating
lupines, to be taken internally (p. 758). For the same disease there were
other recipes for ordure in pills, plasters, and decoctions, as well as
for electuaries of ordure, to be blended with honey (p. 756).
For bringing boils, ulcers, etc., to a head, for sprains, luxations,
etc., a poultice of human ordure, applied hot, was considered the best
specific (p. 757).
For rheumatic gout, a hot poultice of human ordure was considered of
value (p. 757).
Renal calculi. “Aqua ex stercore distillata” was given internally (p.
757). For cancers and malign ulcers, human ordure was used as a local
poultice; also given internally, in pills or powders. Pope Benedict was
cured of a cancer by this treatment (pp. 758, 759).
Epilepsy. Peacock-dung was used internally in conjunction with human
ordure (p. 762).
Erysipelas was treated with a poultice of human ordure (p. 762). “Oleum
ex stercore distillatum” was also given internally (p. 762).
Cicatrices, small-pox pustules. Bathe with “aqua ex stercore distillata”
(p. 760).
Gangrene, cured by application of warm ordure and urine (p. 763).
Dropsy; use “aqua ex stercore distillata” internally (p. 764).
Yellow jaundice, by human ordure drunk in wine (p. 764). Here he quotes
Paullini, and others with whom we are already familiar.
Piles. Plaster of human ordure (p. 766). The same method of treatment for
tumors (p. 777).
Ring-worm and other skin diseases. Use “oleum ex stercore” internally (p.
766).
Inflammation of the breasts of young mothers; local application of human
ordure (p. 767).
Burns and scalds. “Aqua ex stercore” locally (p. 760). Inflammations,
ditto (p. 766).
Dysentery. “Aqua ex stercore” internally (p. 761), quoting Paullini.
Empyematis. “Oleum ex stercore,” internally (p. 761).
Epilepsy. “Cured and prevented by excrement. infantis,” internally (p.
761).
For all fevers. Ordure, mixed with honey, internally, quoting Paullini
(pp. 762, 763).
Fistula in ano or in lachryma. Local application of human ordure (p. 763).
Birth-marks were effaced by a plaster of human ordure, or of meconium (p.
771).
Ophthalmia, cataract, etc. Human ordure, applied as a plaster. Also,
“aqua ex stercore distillata,” internally (p. 771).
Toothache. Plaster of human ordure, mixed with powdered chamomile
flowers, quoting Paullini (p. 772).
Œdema. Plaster of human ordure and of cow-dung (p. 772).
Felons. Plaster of human ordure. Also, one of the same, mixed with
assafœtida, quoting Paullini (p. 772).
Hysteria. Human ordure, drunk in wine (p. 773).
Bites of mad dogs, serpents, and all wild animals. Ordure, or “oleum ex
stercore distillatum,” or “aqua ex stercore distillata,” internally (pp.
767, 768).
In the island of Manilla, human ordure was held in such high estimation
as a remedy for the cure of the bites of all venomous animals, that it
was carried fresh, or dessicated, in little pyxes or pouches suspended
from the neck, ready for instant use. An example is given, on the
authority of a Franciscan friar, for years a missionary in that country,
of a man so bitten, and so near death that he could not open his mouth,
whose teeth were pried asunder, and this remedy inserted. He recovered
immediately.
Human ordure was also used internally, in Mexico, for the cure of serpent
bites, as we have learned previously from other sources. (p. 767.)
For worms in the head. “Oleum ex stercore distillatum,” applied locally
(p. 777).
Poisons. Human ordure, internally (pp. 777, 778).
For wounds occasioned by poisoned weapons, in the island of Macassar,
human ordure was administered internally, until vomiting was induced.
The same treatment was observed in Armenia, while in Celebes it was the
recognized antidote against vegetable poisons, quoting Paullini (pp. 778,
779).
Plague. Human ordure and human urine were mixed together, and taken
internally, to cure or prevent the plague. Human ordure was also taken
alone, in the form of pills, and applied to plague buboes as a plaster.
Schurig says he personally knew a certain clergyman in Dresden, in 1680,
who took such pills with good effect (p. 775).
Scabs and tetter, local applications of “oleum ex stercore distil.” (p.
776).
Pleurisy, “Ol. ex sterc. dist.,” internally (p. 774).
Gout. Human ordure as a plaster, and also internally (p. 775); here he
again cites Paullini, among others not known to us.
SCHURIG’S IDEAS REGARDING THE USE IN MEDICINE OF THE EGESTÆ OF ANIMALS.
Schurig devotes the fourteenth chapter of his work to a treatise “De
Stercoribus Brutorum.” It is unnecessary to enter much into detail
upon this point; it will be sufficient to give only a small number of
the recipes, with notes upon the manner of administering, and, where
possible, the opinions expressed in regard to their efficacy.
From these we may be enabled to form some idea of the line of medical
thought of the ancient practitioners.
Beginning with goose-dung, we find it commended as warm and drying in
its effects; an aperient and endowed with power over the menses; also
over the after-birth and urine; and hence of value in jaundice, scurvy,
and dropsy. It was also employed in many other diseases, principally in
fevers, in whooping-cough, in cachexy, liver troubles, and when applied
externally as a plaster, was of such value in the treatment of sore
eyes that the Emperor Maximilian resorted to its use with the greatest
advantage; again, applied as a plaster, it was used in angina and in
mammary cancer. The dung of young geese was regarded as the best, and
it should be gathered when possible in the early spring, preferably in
the month of March, while still “green,” on the meadows; most of the old
prescriptions insist upon this, as will be seen from the sample given in
this paragraph.
The dose of the dried powder was from half a dram to a full dram, and
it was administered in wine, or mixed with cinnamon and sugar. It was
frequently combined with hen-dung, or diluted with the urine of she-goats
or he-calves. Some practitioners doubted whether it was superior to
dove-dung for the same diseases. When used in whooping-cough or throat
swellings, it was placed under the tongue of the patient. The following
are the words with which Schurig begins his panegyric upon its virtues:—
“Calefacit et siccat vehementer; incidit, aperit; menses, secundinas, et
urinas potenter movet; hinc maximi usus est in morbo regio, scorbuto, et
hydrope.”
℞:
Stercor. Anserin. vern. temp. collect. et in Sole exsic.
Pull. Gallinæ.—ana. ʒi.
Absinth. ℈ii.
Cinnamoni. ℈i.
Sacchar. ℥i½. —M. ft. Pulv. subtiliss.
Asses’ dung was considered by Schurig to be an especially good remedy
in all diseases of hemorrhage. “Singulare remedium contra quamvis
hæmorrhagias” (p. 800); but it had to be collected in the month of May;
“Stercus asininum in Majo collectum.” It was to be taken in doses of one
or more drachms, or only the juice squeezed from it into some medicinal
water.
Dried in the sun, or in a warm place, it was good for bleeding at the
nose; “ad solem vel in loco calido exsiccetur et fiat pulvis qui per
nares attractus subito illarum hæmorrhagias compescit.” It was regarded
as an infallible remedy for restraining an excessive menstrual flow.
“Infallibile remedium ad constringendum fluxum menstruum esse stercus
asininum ... asserit Johannes Petrus Albrechtus.”
This dung was also in great vogue in all cases of uterine inflammation,
applied locally as a plaster. It was administered both internally and
externally for gout of the feet, and used as a component of a plaster
for dropsy. It was given internally for colic. Collected in the month of
May, it was administered internally to dissolve calculi. “Stercus bubulum
mense Majo collectum miram præbet aquam adversus Calculos, quos solvit
et una urinam movet, quam nigram prima die pellit, calculis vehementer
attritis. Hæc aqua in officinis vocatur omnium florum.” This water, known
officinally as “water of all-flowers,” was used in attacks of plague, and
in cases of gangrene, inflammation, rheumatism, etc.; also in dropsy and
in cancerous ulcers (p. 800 _et seq._).
Schurig devotes considerable space to the dung of dogs, called by some
“Flowers of Melampius,” and by others by the “more honest name of album
Græcum.” “Stercus caninum, quod nonnulli flores Melampi, pharmacopœi
autem honestiore nomine album Græcum vocant (to differentiate it from
the black, which was the dung of mice), ad differentiam nigri, quod est
muscerda” (p. 803).
He believed that it was in its effects “drying, cleansing, solvent,
an aperient, a dissipater of swellings, such as carbuncles, a solver
of ulcers,—hence useful in dysentery, in epilepsy, colic, and such
complaints, as well as in angina, guttæ, malignant ulcers, hard tumors,
dropsy, warts, etc.” “Siccat, abstergit, discutit, aperit, apostemata
rumpit, exulceratione abstergit, hinc utile est in Dysenteria, quin etiam
in Epilepsia, dolore colico, et similibus;” also “in anginæ, gutturi,
ulceribus malignis, tumores duros, hydropicas, verrucas, etc.” Also in
fistulas, inflammation of the tonsils, etc. It was applied externally to
malignant ulcers by being sprinkled upon them, or as a plaster; applied
also as a plaster in dropsy. It was used in combination with the dung of
swallows (“stercus hirundinum”), or of owls (“noctuæ”). Used as a gargle
in throat trouble (pp. 803-807).
“Album Græcum” was considered best when obtained from “white” dogs,
as they were supposed to have the soundest constitutions. This was
especially the case in the treatment of epilepsy (p. 80). Here we have a
very decided trace of “Color Symbolism.”
“Album Græcum” was taken, preferentially, from dogs which, for at least
three days previously, had been nourished on hard bones, with the least
possible amount of water to drink; such dung was hard, white, and of
faint odor, “durum, album, nec graviter olet.” Some of the prescriptions
call for the dung of a fasting dog; “stercum canis per jejunium emaciati”
(p. 806).
Schurig tells us that the dung of the goat was used both internally
and externally in medicine. It was believed to be efficacious in the
expulsion of calculi, in the reduction of hard tumors, in the dissipation
of tetter, ring-worm, scald, leprosy, abscesses behind the ears, bites
of serpents and other wild animals, in the restriction of excessive
catamenial flow, etc. It was applied as a plaster in the treatment of
tumors in the limbs, swellings of the testicles, in gout, œdema, cancer,
inflammatory rheumatism, carbuncles, atrophy of the muscles, tumors in
the mammæ, etc. But when made into a plaster, was frequently mixed with
the patient’s own urine (p. 809).
Schurig pronounces it a rubefacient; it was of use in alleviating
rheumatic pains, headache, vertigo, pains in side, shoulders, brain, and
loins, colic, apoplexy, lethargy; it was supposed to be able to dissolve
scrofulous and all other tumors, and was beneficial in the treatment of
gout; used internally, it expelled dropsical water through the urine and
also dissolved calculi; as a plaster, it was used in the cure of the
bites of mad dogs; likewise for scald head; internally, the Austrian
midwives employed it in the treatment of hysteria; while, throughout
Germany, it was administered in cases of suppression of the menses (p.
809 _et seq._).
As to horse-dung, Schurig has to say that either it or the juice
extracted from it was drunk to aid in easing the pains of colic, to
assist in the expulsion of the placenta, or of a dead fœtus, or in
cases of strangulation of the uterus; externally, it was believed to be
serviceable in restraining eruptions of the blood. To be of the greatest
medicinal value, this dung should be taken from a stallion fed on oats.
It was regarded as of great value in developing small-pox pustules upon
women and children (p. 812 _et seq._).
A rustic remedy which seems to have had a wide dissemination, for the
alleviation of the cramp-colic, was composed of the juice expressed
from horse-dung, mixed with warm beer, taken internally, while at the
same time there was applied to the region of the umbilicus a plaster of
warm horse-dung and hot ashes; such a plaster was employed in the cure
of pleurisy among the English. In the same disease a mixture of warm
horse-dung and beer was taken both internally and externally.
Cat-dung, in wine, formed the remedy in cases of vertigo and epilepsy.
While its use was recommended principally in external applications, there
were not wanting those who relied upon it mainly in internal application.
It was reputed to possess especial efficacy in loss of hair, and supposed
to be serviceable in preventing baldness, applied as an unguent.
Administered internally, it suppressed immoderate menstrual flow. For the
cure of felons, which so many in those days believed to be occasioned by
a small worm, it was of certain efficacy, if bound round the afflicted
thumb or finger. Paullini is quoted as having had personal experience
with felons thus cured. But Paullini himself was of opinion that the dung
of the goose was of equal value with that of the cat in this case (p.
815).
Hen-dung was recommended for use in burns. It was regarded as beneficial
against magic philters, “in specie ex sanguine menstruo fœmineo.” It
was considered good for all those ailments for which dove-dung was
prescribed, but was not quite so efficacious. It was excellent for colic,
for uterine pangs, yellow jaundice, calculus, suppression of urine, for
all pains in the bowels, for strangling of the womb and pains therein,
for poison, witchcraft, for seat-worms, etc. Externally, it was applied
for all sores in the eyes, ulcers, warts, cicatrices, piles, pains in the
feet and arms (pp. 816, 817).
Swallow-dung is mentioned as of internal and external application. It was
regarded of great efficacy in the treatment of mad-dog bites, quaternary
fevers, colic, inflammation of the kidneys, etc. It was applied as a
plaster in cases of headache, angina, inflammation of the tonsils, and
as a suppository in relaxation of the rectum. Its efficacy was conceded
in dyeing the hair, being invaluable when used frequently as an unguent.
Etmuller is quoted as expressing the opinion that they owe their action
to the presence of “Armoniacal” salts. The swallow’s nest, with all its
contents, was also sometimes ground up into a plaster, and swallow-dung
itself was occasionally substituted for “album Græcum” (pp. 817 _et
seq._).
Lion-dung exerted its potency in cases of difficult labor, and it was the
panacea against epilepsy and apoplexy. One of the Grand Dukes of Austria
was cured of epilepsy by its use. Preference was given to the excrement
of a female lion, except where she had just brought forth young. An
anti-epileptic remedy of great repute was composed of burnt crow’s-nest,
burnt tortoise, burnt human skulls, linden-tree bark, and lion-dung, made
into an infusion by long digestion in spirits of wine (pp. 819, 820).
Leopard’s dung dissolved calculi; was taken as a potion for the cure of
dysentery; applied as a plaster for the cure of burns; hernia was cured
by a bolus composed of leopard’s dung, human mummy, burnt worms, syrup,
and other ingredients. The ashes of the dung, skin, and hair of the
leopard, in combination, expelled calculi. This remedy should be drunk,
dissolved in wine; it was also a sure remedy for the most obstinate cases
of colic. It was applied externally in sciatica, also in constriction of
the vulva, and was employed to facilitate conception. In the last-named
instance pastilles (trochisci) were likewise made and the parts
fumigated. Or a pessary was inserted and kept in place for three days and
nights; “et quamvis antea sterilis fuerit, deinceps tamen concipiet.” To
prevent falling out of eye-lashes and eye-brows, an ointment was prepared
of which the dung of the leopard was an ingredient. Finally, it was in
esteem as an aphrodisiac, and to expel wind from the womb (p. 820).
Wolf-dung, drunk in wine, or taken as a powder, in doses of one scruple
or more, was used in the treatment of the colic. Paullini is quoted as
recommending its use in fevers. The dung of wolves, as of dogs, should,
if possible, be that which is white in color, dejected by animals which
have been feeding upon bones, and deposited upon rocks, thorns, bushes,
or the lower branches of trees, but not on the ground. It was employed
internally in pains in the limbs, and administered, also internally, in
form of powder, in attacks of vertigo. Desiccated, it was blown into eyes
afflicted with cataract. The cavities of carious teeth were filled with
wolf-dung, to ease the pains of tooth-ache. For nasal hemorrhage, the
smoke of burning wolf-dung was snuffed up into the nostrils; but another
prescription was to drink an infusion of wolf-dung in red wine. If sheep
detected the odor of wolf-dung about their paddocks, or folds, they would
behave as if bewitched, running from side to side, bleating and showing
as much terror as if their arch-enemy, the wolf, was himself at hand.
Knowing this fact, rascally mountebanks were wont to perpetrate tricks
upon the ignorant and unsuspecting rustics, by secreting some of this
dung in the stable with the ewes and lambs, frightening them out of their
wits, and then persuading their masters that their flocks were suffering
from some hidden ailment for the cure of which they would demand a big
fee in money or fat sheep.
Schurig recommends the use of mouse-dung, both internally and externally,
for various disorders, for constipation in children, for scald head,
and dandruff, in which cases it was applied as an ointment, for the
elimination of calculi in kidneys and bladder, for all swellings in the
fundament, piles, warts, tumors in ano, hemorrhages of the lungs, for the
suppression of the menses, and even to excite the growth of the beard.
When taken internally, it was administered in broth, milk, or panada;
externally, it was made into a plaster with butter and such ingredients.
It was at times mixed with the dung of sparrows (p. 823 _et seq._).
Sheep-dung figures in medicinal preparations, to be used either
internally or externally. Internally, as a decoction, in yellow jaundice,
obstructions and constipation of the bowels, and in small pox. Also as a
specific in the cure of gonorrhœa, when given in form of pills. For pains
in the intestines, for swellings, burns, and ingrowing toe-nails, it was
applied as a plaster (p. 826 _et seq._).
Peacock-dung, the great specific in all cases of epilepsy and vertigo,
was administered in doses of one dram, and in France was held in high
repute for such purposes. It should be used from the new to the full
moon, and be taken in white wine (p. 828).
This paragraph about the medicinal value of the droppings of the peacock
deserves more than a cursory glance; in it we have a strong suggestion
of the former association of this bird with moon worship. The peacock,
we know, was the bird that drew the car of Juno, and that goddess was as
much a lunar deity as Diana.
Pig-dung or swine-dung appears as one of the remedies, of both internal
and external application, for nasal hemorrhage, and uterine flux. For
nasal hemorrhages, it was dried and reduced to powder, and drawn up
into the nostrils as a sort of snuff. Applied, externally, warm, to the
vulva, it was regarded as an aid in hemorrhage of the uterus; it was also
given internally for the same purpose. It was not used exclusively for
such hemorrhages, but had a great repute as a styptic in general, and
was applied to wounds of all descriptions. It was therefore used both
externally and internally for the suppression of excessive menstrual
flow, and taken internally to restrain spitting of blood. It was of
general use in the treatment of felons, and was also regarded as an
invaluable febrifuge.
For nasal hemorrhage, it was occasionally bound round the temples. Oddly
enough, it was believed to be a remedy for fetor of breath. “Alii miscent
stercus porcinum exsiccatum, cum pulvere rosarum pro corrigendo fœtore”
(p. 830 _et seq._).
As an external application for tumors of all kinds, cow-dung had a host
of advocates, who likewise extended its use to the cure of scrofulous
sores. For scrofulous wens, there was a cataplasm made of a composition
of various dungs,—those of the cow, goat, and doves, among others. This
was also to be taken internally, in white wine.
A plaster of cow-dung was used in gout of the feet. The dung of grass-fed
cows was considered excellent for tumors, etc.; but its efficacy was
increased when mixed with cow-urine or the urine of the patient himself;
this was also in request for the treatment of œdema. For the stings of
bees and wasps, a plaster of cow-dung was frequently used: “Contra apum
et vesparum ictus, stercus vaccinum cum aceto utiliter adhibetur” (p.
837). The dung of a black cow, burned and given in scruple doses to a
newly born child, preserved it from epilepsy and consumption; it was also
employed to mitigate the pains of dentition. The dung of bulls and cows,
collected in the month of May, distilled with water, made a panacea for
kidney diseases; it also expelled calculi and induced a flow of urine.
“Hæc aqua vocatur aqua omnium florum,” was employed both internally
and externally in gangrene, inflammations, rheumatism, spasms, dropsy,
suppression of urine, etc., and was used externally to remove freckles
and as a general cosmetic.—(“Chylologia,” p. 835 _et seq._)
In the “Complete English Physician,” London, 1730, there are recipes
which include the dung of geese, dogs, doves, horses, peacocks, hogs, and
cows.
In the “Complete English Dispensatory” of John Quincy, London, 1730,
p. 307, under the head “Distillation of Urine,” it is alleged that the
salts obtained from the urine “of a sound young man, newly made,” was
beneficial in rheumatism and arthritis. “Urina hominis,—urine of a man.
Some have got a notion of this being good for the scurvy, and drink their
own water for that end, but I cannot see with what reason. Some commend
it boiled into the consistence of honey, for rheumatic pain, rubbing it
onto the part affected; in which case it may do good, because it cannot
but be very penetrating.... Urina vaccæ,—cow piss. Some drink this as
a purge. It will operate violently, but it is practised only among the
ordinary people, and has nothing in its virtues to prefer it to more
convenient and cleanly medicines, any more than the former” (pp. 248,
249).
Father Du Halde says of camel’s dung: “When it is dried and reduced
to a powder, it will stop bleeding of the nose by being blown into
it.”—(Chinese recipes given in Du Halde’s “History of China,” London,
1736, vol. iv. p. 34.)
“The dung (of sheep) is a prevalent medicine against the jaundice,
dropsy, cholick, pleurisy, spleen, stone, gravel, scurvy, etc., taken
either in powder, tincture, or decoction. The dung, made into a cataplasm
with camphire, sal armoniack, and a little wine, opens, digests,
attenuates and eases pain. It is excellent in abscesses about the ears
and other emunctories, swellings in women’s breasts, pain of the spleen,
and gout.”—(Pomet, “History of Drugs,” English translation, London, 1738,
p. 256.)
The rare and erudite pamphlet of Samuel Augustus Flemming, “De Remediis
ex Corpore Humano desumtis,” Erfurt, 1738, although containing not more
than thirty-two pages, is filled with a mass of curious information upon
subjects generally disregarded. Flemming remarks that those who could
use urine, calculi, and things of that kind in medical practice, should
not shrink from the employment of ordure as well. “And it is truly
wonderful,” he says, “that a substance, the very aspect and odor of which
are sufficient to induce an inevitable nausea, should be regarded not
merely as a matter of curiosity and study, but held in the highest repute
as a unique and most precious treasure for the preservation of health.”
Yet Paracelsus, and others of his school, knowing the natural repugnance
to the acceptance of such medicines, prepared it under the name of
“Zibethum Occidentalis,” and administered it in doses of from one to two
drams, given in honey or wine, to ward off attacks of fever; by others,
it was employed as a plaster in cases of throat-inflammation, being then
called “Aureum.” Others again were of the opinion, from an examination
of its chemical nature, that it was fairly entitled to a place in the
Materia Medica. An oil and water were distilled from it, and used in
ocular sores, corrosive ulcers, and all sorts of fistulas; for affections
of the scalp, for the ulcers of erysipelas, for ring-worm and tetter, and
especially the pains of gout. Finally, it was believed by many to be of
exceptional efficacy in the cure of the plague, being taken internally.
“Qui urina, calculi et aliis delectantur, non a stercore ipso
abhorrebunt,” etc. The full citation in Latin need not be repeated, as it
is expressed in much the same manner as the views of Schurig, Paullini,
Etmuller, Beckherius, and others on the same subject. He cites Zacutus
Lusitanus Poterus and Johannes Anglicanus, neither of whose writings are
to be found in America.
Speaking of human urine, Flemming says that physicians boasted not only
of their ability to diagnose disease from urine, but to use the fluid
itself in the treatment of disease. It was employed in two ways: either
in the raw state, as emitted from the person in due course of nature, or
in chemical preparations extracted from it. It was often administered
with beneficial results in dropsy as an enema. In difficult labor, a
draught of the husband’s urine taken warm brought easy and safe delivery.
A drink of the patient’s own urine was highly commended in hysteria. As
an external application for the eradication of dandruff, scab, and other
scalp troubles, it was held in high esteem among the common people.
A salt and a spirit were prepared from urine by distillation, and
highly spoken of in the treatment of frenzy, mania, and kindred mental
infirmities of a grave type.
Flemming quotes from Beckherius, whose writings have already been
presented, and from Quercetanus, in “Pharmac. dogmat.,” p. 119.
(“De Remediis ex Corpore Humano desumtis,” Samuel Augustus Flemming,
Erfurt, p. 24 _et seq._)
In the “Physiological Memoirs of Surgeon-General Hammond, U. S. Army,”
New York, 1863, a chapter is devoted to uræmic intoxication, or the
exhilaration produced by the entrance into the blood of urine, either
injected or abnormally absorbed. This part of the subject should be
carefully scrutinized by medical experts, whose determinations may
make known whether or not the drunken frenzy of the Zuñi dancers could
be attributed to the unnatural beverage exclusively or to that in
combination with other intoxicants.
Dunglison says: “Human urine was at one time considered aperient; and
was given in jaundice in the dose of one or two ounces. Cow’s urine,
urina vaccæ, all-flower water, was once used, warm from the cow, as a
purge.”—(“Dunglison’s Medical Dictionary,” Philadelphia, Pa., 1860,
article “Urine.”)
In the “Lancet,” October, 1880, p. 56, Mr. G. F. Masterman draws
attention to the chemical analysis of beef tea, and shows that it is
analogous to urine, excepting that it contains less urea and uric acid.
“Many writers have endeavored to impress the public and the profession
with the true value of beef tea, viz., that it is not a nutrient but a
stimulant, and that it mainly contains excrementitious materials.”—(“Beef
Tea, Liebig’s Extract, Extractum Carnis, and Urine,” Richard Neale, M.
D., in the “Practitioner,” London, November, 1881, p. 343 _et seq._)
“In South America urine is a common vehicle for medicine, and the urine
of little boys is spoken highly of as a stimulant in malignant small-pox.
Among the Chinese and Malays of Batavia urine is very freely used. One
of the worst cases of epistaxis ceased after a pint of fresh urine was
drunk, although it had for thirty-six hours or more resisted every form
of European medicine. This was by no means an unusual result of the use
of urine, as I was informed by many of the natives.... As a stimulant and
general pick-up, I have frequently seen a glass of child’s or a young
girl’s urine tossed off with great gusto and apparent benefit. The use of
urate of ammonia and guano was noticed by Bauer in 1852, who found their
external use of value in phthisis, lepra, morphoæ, and other obstinate
skin diseases. Dr. Hasting’s report of the value of the excreta of
reptiles in 1862, in the treatment of phthisis, will also be fresh in the
recollection of the older members of the profession.”—(Idem.)
Some of the tribes of Central Africa use human urine as an invigorant
during the fever season, much as Europeans employ quinine.—(Rev. Mr.
Chatelain, missionary in Angola, Africa.)
“The people of Angola apply fresh urine to all cuts and
bruises.”—(“Muhongo,” African boy from Angola, West Africa, in personal
interview with Captain Bourke, translated by Rev. Mr. Chatelain,
missionary.)
ORDURE AND URINE IN FOLK-MEDICINE.
Excrementitious remedies are still to be met with in the folk-medicine
of various countries; indeed, the problem would be to determine in what
country of the world at the present day the more ignorant classes do not
still use them. The extracts to be now given will show that folk-medicine
still retains a hold upon medicaments the use of which is generally
believed to have passed away with the centuries.
“I never had an opportunity of seeing the following deed, but it was
many times asserted to me by serious persons: In our province, Brittany,
when somebody in the peasantry has a cheek swollen by the effects of
toothache, a very good remedy is to apply upon the swollen cheek, as a
poultice, freshly expelled cow-dung, and even human dung, just expelled
and still smoking, which is considered as much more efficient.”—(Personal
letter from Captain Henri Jouan, French Navy, Cherbourg, France, July 29,
1888.)
“Dans nos pays, on ne connaît pas, contre les piqûres, de guêpes et
autres insectes, venimeux, et contre les brûlures caustiques, de l’Urtica
Ureus, de meilleur remède que l’application de l’urine.”—(Personal letter
from Dr. Bernard, Cannes, France, August, 1888.)
In describing the medicine of the Samoans, Turner says: “On some
occasions mud and even the most unmentionable filth was mixed up and
taken as an emetic draught.”—(London, 1884, p. 139, “Samoa.”)
“Maw-wallop. A filthy composition, sufficient to provoke
vomiting.”—(Grose, “Dict. of Buckish Slang,” London, 1811.)
“In Fayette County an emetic for croup is made by mixing urine and
goose-grease, and administering internally, and also rubbing some of the
mixture over the throat and breast.”—(“Folk-Lore of the Pennsylvania
Germans,” Hoffman, in “Journal of American Folk-Lore,” Cambridge, Mass.,
January-March, 1889, p. 28.)
For incised wounds use human urine as a lotion; for lacerated wounds
apply human excrement.—(Sagen-Märchen, Volksaberglauben, aus Schwaben,
Freiburg, 1861, p. 487.)
“Horse-dung and beer” are mentioned as the remedy used in England
and France for the cure of “exceeding faintness.”—(See Black,
“Folk-Medicine,” London, 1883, pp. 152, 153, quoting Floyer and De La
Pryne.)
Among the many quaint recipes preserved in the Materia Medica of English
physicians down almost to our own day we find that pigeon’s dung was used
“to make a cataplasm against scrophulous and other like hard tumors; ...
for an ointment against baldness; ... for a cataplasm to ripen a plague
sore; ... to make a powder against the stone.”—(John Mathews Eaton,
“Treatise on Breeding Pigeons,” London, pp. 39, 40, quoting Dr. Salmon.)
Wolf-dung recommended in the treatment of colic.—(Black, “Folk-Medicine,”
p. 54.)
“A decoction of sheep’s dung and water was used in recent times in
Scotland for whooping-cough and in cases of jaundice.”—(Idem, p. 167.)
On the same page Black shows that the same remedy was extensively
employed in Ireland in the treatment of the measles.
“In the south of Hampshire a plaster of warm cow-dung is applied to open
wounds.”—(Idem, p. 161.)
“Water of cow-dung,” collected in May and June, used as a purge by people
in England.—(Southey, “Commonplace Book,” p. 554.)
On the same page he says that “man’s excrement which had been some days
discharged, thinned with so much ale,” was given to horses with the blind
staggers,—“a common experiment.”—(Idem.)
A poultice of pigeon’s dung and pounded rose-leaves was in use for a
stitch in the side.—(Southey, “The Doctor,” London, 1848, p. 59.)
Swine’s dung as a remedy for dysentery in Ireland, alluded to in terms of
high approval by Borlase, quoted by Southey in “Commonplace Book,” p. 149.
Hon. E. W. P. Smith, secretary of the United States Legation in the
Republic of Colombia, South America, states that among the San Blas
Indians of that country, and the lower classes generally, the patient’s
own urine is applied warm for sore eyes.
Mrs. Fanny D. Bergen, of Cambridge, Mass., has for some years devoted
time and intelligent study to the acquisition of data bearing upon the
superstitions connected with the human saliva. While making this valuable
and curious collection she has also been fortunate enough to encounter
much relating to kindred superstitions, and has very generously placed
at the disposal of the author of this volume all that related to the
employment of human and animal egestæ.
Urine a cure for chapped hands, on Deer Isle.
Urinate into your shoe to keep it from squeaking, on Deer Isle.
Sheep-dung tea, a cure for measles, is extensively used on Deer Isle.
Boys urinate on their legs to prevent cramp. This practice was common in
eastern Maine twenty to thirty years ago.
Water standing in the depressions of cow-dung was formerly recommended as
a certain cure for pulmonary consumption, in New York.
Oil tried from the penis of the hog and applied to the loins of a child
suffering from weakness of kidneys or bladder cured such diseases, in
northern parts of the United States and in parts of Nova Scotia.
One’s own urine was administered for gravel in Staffordshire, England,
within the past ten years.
A woman in England was given her own urine to drink, after a severe
illness, to prevent “fits,” in the present generation. A poultice of
fresh, warm cow-dung cured a man of rheumatism in New York. Measles were
cured by giving the patient a decoction of lamb’s excrements (locally
called “nanny-beads”), in Brunswick, N. Y., about 1825. A newly born
child was given a spoonful of woman’s urine as a laxative, in 1814,
in St. Albans, Vt. The white, limy part of hen-manure was used for
canker-sores in mouth, in Abingdon, Ill. Cow-manure was used for swelled
breasts in County Cork, Ireland. Sheep-manure tea was used for measles in
County Cork, Ireland, and by the negroes of Chestertown, Md. Sheep-dung
tea for measles all over New England, Ohio, and Cape Breton. Cow-dung,
as fresh as possible, plastered on inflamed breasts, commonly known as
“bealed” breasts, within the last twenty-five years, on Cape Breton.
Similar excrementitious remedies are in use among the Pennsylvania
Germans. Cow-dung poultices are applied in the treatment of diphtheria,
or as lenitives in cases of sore or gathered breasts. “Tea made of
sheep-cherries (Gen. et spec.?) is given for measles.”—(“Folk-Medicine of
the Pennsylvania Germans,” in “Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc.,” 1889.)
For reasons not ascertained, the use of these revolting medicaments has
nearly always been veiled under the language of euphemism. Sheep-dung
is rarely called by its own name, but always, as has been shown in the
preceding remarks, “sheep-nanny tea,” etc. In the same manner, the use
of human excreta was veiled under the high-sounding designations of
“zibethum,” “oriental sulphur,” etc.
This use of sheep-dung in the treatment of measles must be very ancient
and wide-spread. Surgeon Washington Matthews notes its existence among
the Navajoes, who learned it from the Spaniards.
“Slight wounds are cured” by the application of dirt to the part
affected.—(“Nat. trib. of S. Australia,” p. 284, received through the
kindness of the Roy. Soc. Sydney, N. S. Wales, T. B. Kyngdon, Secretary.)
Mr. Chrisfield, of the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C., states
that urine was a remedy for earache among people on eastern shore of
Maryland and Virginia; while for the cure of jaundice, in New England,
“the spider, and even a more disagreeable remedy, is administered in a
spoonful of molasses.”—(“Folk-Medicine,” Black, London, 1883, p. 61,
quoting Napier, “Folk-Lore,” p. 95, and “Folk-Lore Record,” vol. i. p.
45.)
“I am impressed to tell you of a custom that prevailed to some extent
among the people of this State (Iowa); this was the use of sheep-dung for
measles. The dung was made into what the old women denominated ‘tea,’
and was familiarly known as ‘sheep-nanny tea.’ It was believed to be
singularly efficacious in bringing out the eruption. The mixture was
sweetened with sugar, and thus disguised was given to children. This
practice was kept up among certain classes until about twenty years ago;
I have not heard of it, at least in recent years. I can trace the custom
through the origin of the families in which it was practised here to
Indiana and North Carolina.”—(Personal letter from Prof. S. B. Evans,
Ottumwa, Iowa, to Captain Bourke, April 16, 1888.)
“I was told by an old person, now dead, that some fifty years since the
urine of a cow was given internally as a remedy for chlorosis, in the
counties of Norfolk and Suffolk.”—(Personal letter from Prof. Frank Rede
Fowke to Captain Bourke, dated London, England, June 18, 1888.)
“In the country where I was born I have seen several times, when a cow or
an ox had one of its horns knocked away by a shock or any other cause,
people pissing into the horn before putting it again over its root. This
was supposed necessary to cause the horn to stick firmly against the
root.”—(Personal letter from Captain Henri Jouan, French Navy, Cherbourg,
July 29, 1888.)
“The presence of ammonia in the secretions (whose power of neutralizing
acids may have been accidentally discovered) may have had something
to do with the repute of the excretions of the kidneys. I remember to
have been told as a little boy of the virtues of urine as a relief
to chapped hands, also as a counter-irritant for inflamed eyes. In
the former case the ammonia would soften as an alkali; in the latter,
the salts present would act to reduce congestion, like common salt,
by endosmosis.”—(Personal letter from Prof. E. N. Horsford, Harvard
University, to Captain Bourke, April 19, 1888.)
“I have been recently informed, by a man who is acquainted with the
peculiarities of Parisian life, that there are men who are in the habit
of swallowing the scum which they obtain from the street urinals, and
that they are known as ‘Les mangeurs du blanc.’” (Prof. Frank Rede
Fowke.) According to Parent du Chatelet, a “mangeur du blanc” meant in
Paris, until 1810, “a man who lived off the earnings of a strumpet.” The
name has since been changed to “paillasson.” (See “La Prostitution,”
Paris, 1857, vol. i. p. 138.)
“When I was a boy we had in my father’s house a gang of cats, and
I remember that frequently the people of Cherbourg came and asked
permission to search in our garrets for cat’s dung, which, they said,
mixed and infused in white wine, produced a very efficient drink against
periodical fits of fever.”—(Captain Henri Jouan, French Navy.)
“Lye-tea, made of human urine and lime-water, was used for colds by the
‘old people’ in the rural parts of Central New York.”—(Conversation with
Colonel Pierce, Dr. Pangborn, and Lieutenant W. G. Elliott, U. S. Army,
at San Carlos Agency, Arizona.)
The savages of Australia apply to wounds the resin of the eucalyptus,
and also the bark of the same tree, previously steeped in human urine.
(Personal letter from John Mathew, Esq., M. A., to Captain Bourke,
dated “The Manse,” Coburg, Victoria, November, 1889.) The same thing is
referred to in “The Australian Race,” E. M. Curr, Melbourne, 1886, vol.
i. p. 256. In regard to the uses of the crust of latrines, in connection
with “mangeurs du blanc,” see other pages of this volume.
“Philos.; hermet.; urine du vin, le vinaigre. Urine des jeunes colériques
Le Mercure Philosophe.” Dict. National, par M. Bescherelle, aîné, Paris,
1857, sub voc. Urine (p. 1573).
We have already been informed from Marco Polo that the prisoners taken by
the Tartars often poisoned themselves; “for which reason the great lords
haue dogs’ dung ready, which they force them to swallow, and that forceth
them to vomit the poyson” (in Purchas, vol. i. p. 92); and we have also
learned, from many sources,—Etmuller, Schurig, Levinus Lemnius, Flemming,
Paullini, Beckherius, Lentilius,—of the antidotal powers of the excreta.
The existence of the very same belief was detected among the natives of
America.
Padre Inamma, whose interesting researches upon rattlesnake bites and
their remedies (made in Lower California, some time before the expulsion
of the Jesuits, in 1767) are published in Clavigero,[74] says that the
most usual and most efficacious antidote was human ordure, fresh and
dissolved in water, drunk by the person bitten.
Along the Isthmus of Darien the belief was prevalent among the aborigines
that the most efficacious remedy for poisoned arrows was that which
required the wounded man to swallow pills of his own excrement.[75]
So in Peru, “when sucking infants were taken ill, especially if their
ailment was of a feverish nature, they washed them in urine in the
mornings, and when they could get some of the urine of the child, they
gave it a drink.”[76]
OCCULT INFLUENCES ASCRIBED TO ORDURE AND URINE.
In Canada, human urine was drunk as a medicine. Father Sagard witnessed a
dance of the Hurons in which the young men, women, and girls danced naked
around a sick woman, into whose mouth one of the young men urinated, she
swallowing the disgusting draught in the hope of being cured.[77]
Analogous medicaments may be hinted at in Smith’s account of the
Araucanians of Chili: “Their remedies are principally if not entirely,
vegetable matter, though they administer many disgusting compounds
of animal matter, which they pretend are endowed with miraculous
powers.”—(Smith, “Araucanians,” New York, 1855, p. 234.)
Brand enumerates obsolete recipes, one of which (disease not mentioned)
directed the patient to take “five spoonfuls of knave child urine of an
innocent.”—(Brand, “Pop. Ant.,” London, 1849, vol. iii. p. 282.)
The Crees apply the dung of animals lately killed to sprains.—(See
“Mackenzie’s Voyages,” etc., to the Arctic Circle, London, 1800, introd.
p. 106.)
Henry M. Stanley says that, for the cure of certain ulcers due to
fly-blow, from which his men suffered, “Safeni, my coxswain on the
Victoria Nyanza, ... adopted a very singular treatment, which I must
confess was also wonderfully successful.... This medicine consisted of a
powder of copper and child’s urine, painted over the wound with a feather
twice a day.”—(“Through the Dark Continent,” New York, 1878, vol. ii. p.
369.)
“It appeared that the dung of the donkey, rubbed on the skin, was
supposed to be a cure for rheumatism, and that this rare specific
was brought from a distant country in the East, where such animals
exist.”—(“The Albert Nyanza,” Sir Samuel Baker, Philadelphia, 1869, p.
372.)
“The Mandingoes of Africa dress abscesses with cow’s dung.”—(See Mungo
Park’s “Travels in Africa,” in Pinkerton, vol. xvii. p. 877. See, also,
the edition of his works, “Travels in Africa,” New York, etc.)
The author has seen cow-manure plastered with soothing effect upon
bee-stings in New Jersey.
“Pro remedio, in pluribus morbis urina fœminæ externe applicata, in
eximia estimatione habetur.”—(“The Native Tribes of South Australia,”
Adelaide, 1879, introduction, xvi. See, also, Eyre, “Expedition into
Central Australia,” London, 1845, ii. 300.)
“Pilgrim’s Salve. A Sir-Reverence; human excrement.”—(Grose, “Dictionary
of Buckish Slang,” London, 1811.)
“The medicine-men of the Ove-herero, who live south of Angola (which is
on the west coast of Africa), urinate over the sick, in order to cure
them.”—(“Muhongo,” interpretation by Rev. Mr. Chatelain.)
The Inuit medicine-man asperses the sick with human urine, “le
goupillonne avec de vieilles urines, à l’instar des docteurs à poison
bochimans ... les Cambodgiens aspergent également le démon de la
petite-vérole avec de l’urine, mais cette urine est celle d’un cheval
blanc.”—(Réclus, “Les Primitifs,” p. 98.)
“There are few complaints that the natives do not attempt to cure, either
by charms or by specific applications. Of the latter, a very singular one
is the application personally of the urine from a female,—a very general
remedy, and considered a sovereign one for most disorders.”—(Eyre,
“Expedition into Central Australia,” London, 1845, vol. ii. p. 300;
contributed by Prof. H. C. Henshaw, Bureau of Ethnology, Smithsonian
Institution, Washington, D. C.)
(See previous references to the therapeutics of the native Australians in
this volume.)
“Plasters of mixed grass, butter, and cow-dung were placed on the
wounds” of sore-backed animals in Abyssinia.—(“A Visit to Abyssinia,” W.
Winstanley, London, 1881, vol. ii. p. 3.)
Cameron employed a native medicine-man, near Lake Tanganyika, to treat
one of his men who had injured his eye. “His treatment consisted
of a plaster of mud and dirt, and his fee was forty strings of
beads.”—(“Across Africa,” London, 1877, vol. i. p. 322. The word “dirt,”
as used by Cameron in the above sentence, no doubt means ordure.)
Mr. Stewart Culin, of Philadelphia, Penn., who has been making careful
investigations into the Chinese materia medica, states that “frequent
directions for the use of urine” are to be seen “among the official
remedies in the herbal.” Only a few pages back, reference was had to
the use by the Chinese in Batavia of all kinds of excrementitious
remedies.[78]
The Reverend Maurice J. Bywater writes from Nassau, Bahamas, that
during the seven years he was on missionary duty in the island of
Borneo, he witnessed several very curious and remarkable instances of
the restorative and stimulating effects of human urine, as used by the
Chinese immigrants in cases of accident.
The Coreans use the same system of medicine as the Chinese. Both employ
plasters of human excrement for bites, erysipelas, inflammations, etc.
They use the urine of a healthy boy as a tonic.—(Dr. H. T. Allen,
Secretary of Legation, Corean Embassy, Washington, D. C., 1888.)[79]
Our knowledge of the Thibetans is still so limited that we must not
attach too much importance to the little we have so far gained; there is
still much to be learned concerning that singular, isolated race.
The strange veneration accorded the excrement of the Grand Lama has been
fully discussed, but their sacred books do not show that the employment
of stercoraceous medicaments is carried any farther.
According to the translation of the “Pratimoksha Sutra” made by Mr. W.
W. Rockhill, sick Buddhist monks were ordered to employ the following
remedies: “Le beurre fondu, l’huile, la mélasse, le miel, l’écume de
mélasse.”—(“Asiatic Society,” Paris, 1885, p. 22.)
Dr. Francis Parkman, in his “Jesuits in North America,” Boston, 1867,
introduction, p. xl., speaks of the “revolting remedies” employed by the
Huron, Iroquois, and Algonquin tribes.
The following are among many of the curious recipes given in the “Tragedy
of the Gout,” written by Blambeauseant, in 1600:—
“Ther’s the odorous sheep’s dung, given always on the sly.”
“A little blue ointment, mixed with man’s ordure.”
“Virgin’s urine, as a cure for all the men in town.”
(“Medicine in the Middle Ages,” Minor, p. 88.)
Further references can be found in the following list, taken from the
“Bibliotheca Scatalogica,” which likewise contains several of those from
which citations have already been made.
“Cet emploi des stercora, et en particulier, de ceux de l’homme,
pour les usages pharmaceutiques, est très réel. On nommait médecins
stercoraires ceux qui les prescrivaient, et on dissimulait l’origine de
la substance sous diverses dénominations bizarres ou ridicules (carbon
humanum, oletum, sulphur occidentale). Suivant Paracelse, les excréments
humains pouvaient par une certaine préparation, acquérir l’odeur du musc
et de la civette; de là le nom qu’on leur donnait de civette ou musc
occidental.”—(“Bib. Scat.,” p. 29.)
Ganin, De Simplic. Medicament. facultat. lib. x. fol. m. 75, _seq._ “An
stercoris usus licitur? Conceditur.”—(No. 200 of the “Bib. Scat.,” p. 77.)
“202. Gufer, Joh. Medicin. domest. tab. 3, p. 11, et Joh. phil. Gieswein,
De Mater. Medic. p. 292, imprimis laudant stercus hominis qui lupinos
comedit.”—(Idem, p. 78.)
“203. Helvetius, Joh. Freder, Diribitor. med. p. 112, _seq._, recommande
le stercus humanum recens et adhuc calidum.”—(Idem.)
Hérodote, lib. ii.; Hésïode, “Opera et Dies.”
Sheep-dung, boiled in milk, recommended for the cure of the whooping
cough by the Swedish physician Hjoort, as well as by the French doctor
Baumer.—(“Bib. Scat.” p. 78.)
Hoffmann, Fred. annot. in Petr. poter, Pharmacop. Spagyric (lib. i. p.
445), dit que excrementa alvina magnam vim possident.
Homère, Odyssée, lib. vi.—(“Bib. Scat.” p. 78.)
Kircher, Podronus Ægypticus, cap. ult.
Laerce (Diogène) in Pythagor.
Langius (Christ.), Oper. Medic., “regarde les médicaments stercoraux
ut res indigna et execrabilis, cependant il en permet l’usage contra
desperatissimos morbos” (p. 79).
Lotichus, Johan. De casei nequitiæ, Francof. 1640, “sordidi medicastri et
σκατοφάγοι excrementis frui solent; sed homo vero cordatus et bonæ mentis
se abstinet” (p. 81).
“M. Gustave Brunet a inséré dans sa traduction des propos de table de
Martin Luther” (Paris, 1844, p. 377), “quelques pensées du célèbre
réformateur qui appartiennent à notre sujet. L’une roule sur la
transformation des excréments en nouveaux aliments; l’autre sur les
propriétés de la fiente,” etc. (p. 81).
Macrobii Saturnal. lib. iii.; Martialis, Epigrammata, iv. 88; vii. 18;
xii. 40, 77, et ailleurs (p. 81).
Mayern, Theodor. de Prax. Medic. syntagm. alter mêle le stercus à la
poudre d’œillets (gilly-flowers).
Menangiana. Paris, 1715, 4 vols. in 12 On trouve dans ce livre divers
passages relatifs à notre sujet. Voy. t. 1, pp. 9, 180, 222; t. 2, p.
198; t. 3, p. 239.
Clemens d’Alexandrie, Recogn. lib. v. p. 71.
Denne, Ludovic. Pharmac. dissert. l. p. m. 411, _seq._ “Il blâme l’usage
médical des excréments humains” (p. 73).
Diodore de Sicile, lib. i. cap. 8, p. 73.
Damian, P. Opuscula, c. 2, p. 73.
“Praterius, Praxis, lib. iii. p. 330, recommande surtout l’huile et l’eau
extraite de stercore humano. Suivant Belleste, Chirurg. d’hôpital, part
3, p. 248, chap. 4, le sel extrait des excréments du malade atteint de
dysenterie le guérit.”
Plutarque, Apoph. Laconic., p. 232. Petrus Pharmacop. Spagiric. p.
m. 445, regarde le stercus comme pouvant fournir rara et perfecta
remedia. Reference is had to the thirteenth chapter of Rabelais “sur les
anisterges.” Rivinus (Augustus Quirinus) Censur. Medicament. officinal.
cap. 2, p. 10, _et seq._ et 15 _et seq._, “strenue contra stercorum usum
pugnat.” There are other old medical authorities cited, some fully,
others only partially in favor of the medicinal use of the excreta; and
one or two in antagonism thereto.—(“Bib. Scat.” p. 38 _et seq._).
“On a appelé album nigrum les crottes des souris et des rats, jadis
employés comme purgatif par les médecins stercoraires. Merde du diable,
stercus diaboli, c’est l’assafœtida, espèce de gomme.” (“Bib. Scat.”
p. 128. See also Grose, Dict. of Buckish Slang, Lond. 1811, Assafœt.)
On the principle of “lucus a non lucendo,” the works of Swieten,
“Commentariorum,” etc., Lyons, 1776, are worthy of special mention;
careful examination fails to discover any allusion to the use of excreta,
human or animal, in pharmacy or therapeutics, and no mention is made of
witchcraft. Therefore the works of this author mark a new stage in the
development of scientific and religious thought.
In Warner’s “Topographical Remarks relating to the southwestern parts
of Hampshire,” 1793 (vol. ii. p. 131), speaking of the old register of
Christ Church, that author tells us, “The same register affords, also,
several very curious receipts, or modes of cure in some singular cases of
indisposition; they are, apparently, of the beginning of the seventeenth
century, and couched in the uncouth phraseology of that time.” I forbear,
however, to insert them, from motives of delicacy.—(Brand, “Pop. Ant.”
vol. iii. p. 306, article “Physical Charms.”)
“A new-born babe was not considered fully prepared for life’s journey
until its stomach had been filled and emptied by a potation of molasses
diluted with the vesical secretions of the first youngster that could be
secured for the purpose.”—(“Professional Reminiscences,” Benjamin Eddy
Cutting, M. D., Curator of the Lowell Institute, Boston, Mass., 1888, p.
40.)
OTHER EXCREMENTITIOUS REMEDIES.
It was not enough that the urine and ordure of men and animals should be
employed in pharmacy; everything that could be taken from the bodies of
men or animals, wild or domesticated, living or dead, was enlisted to
swell the dread list of filth remedies.
Etmuller supplies the following list of remedies; “sumuntur ex corpore
vivente:” Hair, nails, saliva, ear-wax, sweat, milk, menses, after-birth,
urine, ordure, semen, blood, calculi, worms, lice, caul (of infant),
... and these “ex partibus corporis demortui.” ... The whole corpse,
flesh, skin, fat, bones, skull, moss growing on a skull, brain, gall,
heart. Gall of animals has been used by the Indians of North America as
a stimulant. (See Etmuller, Michaelus, “Opera Omnia,” vol. ii. p. 265,
Schrod. “Dil. Zoöl.”)
He also recites that the following parts of domestic kine were used in
medical practice: horns, bile, liver, spleen, blood, marrow, tallow,
fat, hoofs, urine, ordure, testicles, milk, butter, cheese, phallus, and
bones.—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 248 _et seq._)
HAIR.
“The first hair cut from an infant’s head will modify the attacks of
gout.... The hair of a man torn down from the cross is good for quartan
fevers.”—(Pliny, lib. xxviii. cap. 7.)
“The smell of a woman’s hair, burnt, will drive away serpents, and
hysterical suffocations, it is said, may be dispelled thereby. The ashes
of a woman’s hair, burnt in an earthen vessel, will cure eruptions and
porrigo of the eyes ... warts and ulcers upon infants ... wounds upon the
head ... corrosive ulcers ... inflammatory tumors and gout ... erysipelas
and hemorrhages, and itching pimples.”—(Pliny, lib. xxviii. c. 20.)
Schurig commends the use of human hair in cases of baldness, applied
externally in salve, chopped fine or in ashes; for the cure of yellow
jaundice, it was powdered and drunk in some suitable menstruum; it was
employed in luxation of the joints, for hemorrhage from wounds: “Ad canis
morsuum, infantis capilli cum aceto impositu morsum sine tumore sanant
et capitis ulcera emendant.”—(Sextus Placitus, art. “De Puello et Puella
Virgine.”)
Flemming advised that it be powdered and drunk in wine as a cure for
yellow jaundice; woman’s hair, powdered and made into a salve, with
lard, was of general efficacy; men’s hair was burned under the nostrils
of those suffering from lethargy; and was drunk for “suffocation of the
womb.”—(“De Remediis,” etc. p. 8.)
A medicinal oil was distilled from the hair of a full beard, and an
ointment made from the same. Powdered human hair was drunk as a potion
in a cure for yellow jaundice; the ashes of burnt hair were made into
an unguent with mutton tallow, and applied to the nostrils of people
in a state of lethargy; in “suffocation of the uterus,” this ointment
was applied to the pudenda. The hair of a patient was frequently used
in affecting “sympathetic cures,” or in what were called “Cures by
Transplantation,” but the names of the diseases are not given by Flemming
(p. 21). (But see under “Cures by Transplantation” in this volume.)
In China, the shavings of the hair, which must amount to a considerable
quantity, since hundreds of millions of people shave the head close
daily, are preserved for manuring the land.—(See “Bingham’s Exped. to
China,” London, 1842, vol. ii. p. 7.)
In China, everything connected with the tilling of the fields is still
a religious rite. Probably no country in the world of equal advancement
has adhered with more tenacity to old usages in all that pertains to the
turning-up of the soil; there are ceremonies in which the Emperor himself
must lead with a plough. How much all this may have to do with the
utilization of a refuse which has been so generally regarded as possessed
of “magical” or “medicinal” properties, is, in all likelihood, never to
be ascertained; but attention should be attracted to the fact, in the
same manner that it was found worth while to make an examination into the
history of latrines.
“Among ourselves, it is a Devonshire belief that you can give a neighbor
ague by burying a dead man’s hair under his threshold.”—(“Folk-Medicine,”
Black, p. 27.)
“In Devonshire and in Scotland alike, when a child has whooping-cough, a
hair is taken from its head, put between slices of bread and butter, and
given to a dog, and if in eating it the dog cough, as naturally he will,
the whooping-cough will be transferred to the animal, and the child will
go free.” The same method of cure is practised in Ireland, but the animal
selected is an ass.—(Idem, p. 35.)
“Certain oak-trees at Berkhampstead, in Hertfordshire, were long famous
for the cure of ague. The transference was simple, but painful. A lock of
hair was pegged into an oak, and then, by a sudden wrench, transferred
from the head of the patient to the tree.”—(Idem, p. 39.)
Clippings of hair and rags are offered to holy wells in Ireland, Borneo,
Malabar, etc., not merely as offerings to deities, but in order to
effect a “transference” of diseases to the people who may take hold of
them.—(Idem, pp. 39, 40; quoting from Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” vol.
ii., and others.)
“In New England, to cure a child of the rickets, a lock of its hair is
buried at cross-roads, and if at full moon, so much the better.”—(Idem,
p. 56.)
It is believed in parts of England that the hairs from a donkey’s
back, wrapped up in bread, and given to a sick child, will cure the
whooping-cough; another remedy of the same kind is to take clippings from
the child’s own head, mix them in butter, and give to a dog, which will
take the disease from the child; still another was to mount the sufferer
upon the back of an ass, and lead him nine times round an oak-tree.—(See
Brand, “Pop. Ant.” vol. iii. p. 288, art. “Physical Charms.”)
The Romans attached certain omens to the manner, time, and place of
cutting the nails and hair.—(See Pliny, lib. xxviii. c. 5.)
The ancients believed that “no person in a ship must pare his nails, or
cut his hair except in a storm.”—(Brand, “Pop. Ant.,” vol. iii. p. 239,
art. “Omens Among Sailors,” quoting Petronius Arbiter.)
“When a man has his hair cut, he is careful to burn it, or bury it
secretly, lest falling into the hands of some one who has an evil eye,
or is a witch, it should be used as a charm to afflict him with a
headache.”—(Livingston, “Zambesi,” London, 1865, p. 47.)
Etmuller relates that in his time women suffering from retention of the
menses were in the habit of plucking the hair growing on the pubis, which
would promptly cause their reappearance, but whether by the irritation
or by taking the hair internally, is not clear:—“Mulieres suffocatæ ex
utero soleant vellicare in pilis pubis, ut citius et felicius ad se
redeant.” Finger-nail clippings were drunk as an emetic, especially
by soldiers while on campaign:—“Ungues infusi in vinum vel potum cum
vehementia cient vomitum et purgant per fecessum ... propinavit pro
vomitorio et purgante militibus ungues proprios infusos per noctem in
vinum calidum.”—(Etmuller, vol. ii. p. 269.)
“The hair and nails are cut at the full moon.”—(Grimm, “Teutonic
Mythology,” Stallybrass, London, 1882, vol. ii, p. 712 _et seq._)
The Patagonians “all believe that the witches and wizards can injure whom
they choose, even to deprivation of life, if they can possess themselves
of some part of their intended victim’s body, or that which has proceeded
thence, such as hair, pieces of nails, etc.... And this superstition is
the more curious from its exact accordance with that so prevalent in
Polynesia.”—(“Voyage of the Adventure and Beagle,” London, 1839, vol. ii.
p. 163, quoting the Jesuit Faulkner.)
“Which is the most deadly deed whereby a man increases most the baleful
strength of the Dævas, as he would by offering them a sacrifice?”
“Ahura Mazda answered:—‘It is when a man here below combing his hair or
shaving it off, or paring off his nails, drops them in a hole or in a
crack.’”—(Fargard XVII. Avendidad, Zendavesta, Oxford, 1880, p. 186.)
Beckherius states that the clippings of the finger-nails made an
excellent emetic. “Vomitorium non inelegans ex iis paratur.”—(“Med.
Mic.”)
Flemming goes more into detail; he says that the finely ground clippings
of the hoof of the elk, stag, goat, hull, etc., were employed as a
vomitory, but in their absence, human finger-nails were substituted;
“istam ungulorum speciem quæ ab homine desumitur, substitui.”
Human finger-nail clippings were also recommended in “sympathetic”
cures.—(Flemming, “De Remediis,” p. 21.)
“He who trims his nails and buries the parings is a pious man; he who
burns them is a righteous man; but he who throws them away is a wicked
man, for mischance might follow should a female step over them.”—(Paul
Isaac Hershon, “Talmudic Miscellany,” Boston, 1880, p. 49; footnote to
above, “The orthodox Jews in Poland are to this day careful to bury away
or burn their nail-parings.”)
On a fragment of a Chaldean tablet occurs this curious passage:—
“A son to his mother,
(if) he has said to her, Thou art not my mother
His hair and nails shall be cut off,
In the town he shall be banished from land and water.”
(“Chaldean Magic,” François Lenormant, London, 1873, p. 382.)
In the province of Moray, Scotland, “In hectic fevers and consumptive
diseases they pare the nails of the fingers and toes of the patient,
put these in a bag made of a rag from his clothes, ... then wave their
hand with the rag thrice round his head, crying ‘Deas Soil,’ after which
they bury the rag in some unknown place.” Pliny, in his Natural History,
mentions it as practised by the magicians or Druids of his time.—(Brand,
“Pop. Ant.,” vol. iii. p. 286, art. “Physical Charms.”)
SUPERSTITIONS CONNECTED WITH THE HUMAN SALIVA.
The most recent work on this subject is the extended monograph of Mrs.
Fanny D. Bergen, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, now in press, and to
the pages of which the author of this volume has contributed his own
collection of data.
Reference may also be had, with advantage, to Brand’s Popular
Antiquities, Reginald Scot’s “Discoverie of Witchcraft,” Black’s
“Folk-Medicine,” Samuel Augustus Flemming’s “De Remediis ex Corpore
Humano desumtis,” Lenormant’s “La Magie chez les Chaldéens,” and to the
works of Pliny, Galen, “Saxon Leechdoms,” Levinus Lemnius, Beckherius,
Etmuller, and many others.
John Graham Dalyell, “Superstitions of Scotland,” Edinburgh, 1834, has
a chapter on the occult influences attributed to human saliva. When the
Khonds of Orissa were about to sacrifice a human victim, they were wont
to solicit the favor of having him spit in their faces; “sollicitent un
crachat qu’ils s’étendront soigneusement.”—(“Les Primitifs,” Réclus, p.
368.)
In the ritual of the Hill Tribes of the Nilgherris, it is related:—
“Mada a craché dans les fontaines.”
(Quoted in “Les Primitifs,” p. 244.)
Frommann, in his “Tractatus de Fascinatione,” Nuremburg, 1675, speaks of
the anointing of eyes with saliva, to cure blindness; this he compares to
the use made by our Saviour of the same (p. 196).
“The Kirghis tribes apply to their sorcerers, or Baksy, to chase away
demons, and thus to cure the diseases they are supposed to produce. To
this end they whip the invalid until the blood comes, and then spit in
his face.”—(“Chaldean Magic,” François Lenormant, London, 1873, p. 212.)
Many interesting practices connected with the human saliva, are given
in Lady Wilde’s “Ancient Legends and Superstitions of Ireland,” Boston,
1888. See also “The Golden Bough,” James G. Frazer, M.A., London, 1890,
vol. i. pp. 385, 386.
CERUMEN OR EAR-WAX.
Pliny speaks of its use in medicine (lib. xxviii. cap. 7); Galen does
also. Flemming recommended its internal use in colic and cramps; and
externally as an application to wounds.—(“De Remediis,” etc., p. 22.)
Paullini was of the opinion that a good salve for sore eyes could be
prepared from cerumen (pp. 42, 43).
“The excrement of the ears, like unto a yellow oyntment, is a great
comfort in the pricking of the sinews.”—(Von Helmont, “Oritrika,” English
translation, London, 1662, p. 247.)
Galen thought that ear-wax was efficacious in the cure of whit-nails; the
other “sordes” were also employed, but he would not write about them, on
account of the difficulty of obtaining them,—such as the perspiration
flowing in the bath, or scraped from the body after severe exercise; and,
finally, the fatty matter of wool was of medicinal value, and seemed to
have the same properties as butter.—(Galen, “Opera Omnia,” lib. xii. p.
309, Kuhn’s edition, Leipzig, 1829.)
WOMAN’S MILK.
Woman’s milk mitigated redness of eyes and inflammation of the lachrymal
glands; it should be used with vitriol. For “gutta serena” it was
applied as an ointment; in cases of atrophy it was regarded by many as
of commendable utility, especially if drawn from the woman’s breast; the
same treatment was a specific in obstinate hiccough.
A butter prepared from woman’s milk was used in diseases of children,
especially colic, and in ocular affections. (See Flemming, “De Remediis,”
etc., p. 18.) Its remedial efficacy forms the basis of Pliny’s c. 21,
lib. xxviii.; if possible, it should be that of a woman who had just
borne male twins. “If a person is rubbed at the same time with the milk
of both mother and daughter, he will be proof for all the rest of his
life against all affections of the eyes.... Mixed with the urine of a
youth who has not yet arrived at puberty, it removes ringing in the
ears.”—(Idem.)
“Matricis vulneribus confert ... lac mulieris.”—(Avicenna, vol. i. p.
337, a 36.)
The Empress of China took the milk of sixty wet nurses to keep herself
alive, according to Mr. Frank G. Carpenter.
Woman’s milk is still used in the rude trephining of the African Kabyles
as a dressing.—(See “Prehistoric Trephining,” by Dr. Robert Fletcher, in
vol. v. “Contributions to North American Ethnology,” Washington, D. C.,
1882.)
HUMAN SWEAT.
Human perspiration was believed to be valuable not only as a means of
prognosis in some diseases, but its appearance was dreaded in others. If
the perspiration of a fever-stricken patient was mixed with dough, baked
into bread, and given to a dog, the dog would catch the fever, and the
man recover. It was efficacious in driving away scrofulous wens, and in
rendering philters abortive. It was narrated that if a man, who under
the influence of a philter, was forced to love a girl against his will,
would put on a pair of new shoes, and wear them out by walking in them,
and then drink wine out of the right shoe, where it could mingle with the
perspiration already there, he would promptly be cured of his love, and
hate take its place.
This corresponds closely to the urine case already noted; and it is
proper to repeat Flemming’s own words on the matter: “Narrant quod,
si quis philtro fascinatus era fuerit, ad amandam præter voluntatem
virginem, ut is noves induat calces, miliareque unum obambulando
conficiat, quo sudor animadvertatur postque vinum e calceo dextri pedis
sudore madido, hauriat, sic ab illicito amore liberari amoremque in odium
converti dicunt.”—(“De Remediis,” p. 19.)
See Etmuller, who used it in scrofula, lib. ii. p. 265; Pliny, lib. 28;
Galen and Avicenna (sweat of gladiators), vol. i. p. 398, a 17, and
elsewhere.
SUPERSTITIONS CONNECTED WITH THE CATAMENIAL FLUID.
For the opinions entertained by the ancients regarding its occult powers,
read Pliny (Bohn’s edition), lib. xxviii. cap. 23, and again lib. viii.
cap. 13. “On the approach of a woman in this state, must will become
sour, seeds which are touched by her become sterile, grafts wither away,
garden-plants are parched up, and the fruit will fall from the tree
beneath which she sits; ... a swarm of bees if looked upon by her will
die immediately, brass and iron will immediately become rusty.... Dogs
tasting the catamenial fluid will go mad.... In addition to this, the
bitumen which is found at certain periods of the year floating on the
Lake of Judea, known as Asphaltites,—a substance which is peculiarly
tenacious, and adheres to everything it touches,—can only be divided into
separate pieces by a thread which has been dipped into this virulent
matter.” (Lib. vii. cap. 13, and again lib. xxviii. cap. 23.) In a
footnote it is stated that both Josephus (“Bell. Jud.,” lib. iv. cap.
9) and Tacitus (lib. v. cap. 6) give an account of this supposed action
of this fluid on the bitumen of Lake Asphaltites. “Hail-storms, they
say, whirl-winds, and lightning even, will be scared away by a woman
uncovering her body merely, even though menstruating at the time.” (Lib.
xxviii. cap. 23.) Menstruating women, in Cappadocia, perambulated the
fields of grain to preserve them from worms and caterpillars. (Idem.)
“Young vines, too, it is said, are injured irremediably by the touch of
a woman in this state; and both rue and ivy plants, possessed of highly
medicinal virtues, will die instantly upon being touched by her....
The edge of a razor will become blunted on coming in contact with
her.”—(Idem.)
“All plants will turn pale upon the approach of a woman who has the
menstrual discharge upon her.” (Pliny, lib. xix. cap. 57.) The same
opinion prevailed in France down to our own times. (Idem, footnote.)
“Expiations were made with the menstrual discharge, ... not only by
midwives, but even by harlots as well” (lib. xxviii. cap. 20).
Frommann cites Aristotle and Pliny in reference to the maleficent
effects of the menses and of the uncanniness of a menstruating woman.
Aristotle said her glance took the polish out of a mirror, and the next
person looking into it would be bewitched. Frommann quotes a man who said
he saw a tree in Goa which had withered because a catamenial napkin had
been hung in it.—(“Tractatus de Fascinatione,” Nuremburg, 1675, pp. 17,
18.)
“Stains upon a garment made with the catamenial fluid can only be removed
by the agency of the urine of the same female.”—(Pliny, lib. xxviii. cap.
24.)
“An Australian black fellow who discovered that his wife had lain on his
blanket at her menstrual period, killed her, and died of terror himself
within a fortnight. Hence Australian women at these times are forbidden
under pain of death to touch anything that men use.” (“The Golden Bough,”
Frazer, vol. i. p. 170. He supplies other examples from the Eskimo and
the Indians of North America. “Tinneh,” etc., p. 170.) In the following
example we are not certain that the young women selected were undergoing
purgation, but there is some reason for believing that such was the case,
especially in view of the general dissemination of the ideas connected
with the catamenia. “In a district of Transylvania, when the ground is
parched with drought, some girls strip themselves naked, and, led by an
older woman, who is also naked, they steal a harrow and carry it across
the field to a brook, where they set it afloat. Next they sit on the
harrow, and keep a tiny flame burning on each corner of it for an hour;
then they leave the harrow and go home. A similar rain-charm is resorted
to in India; naked women drag a plough across the field by night.”—(“The
Golden Bough,” Frazer, vol. i. p. 17.)
For all bites of centipedes the people of Angola, Portuguese and negroes,
apply the catamenial fluid. This remedy is implicitly believed in by all
concerned.—(Rev. Mr. Chatelain, missionary to Angola, Africa.)
For the Inuit, see “Les Primitifs,” Réclus, Paris, 1885.
The dread felt by the American Indians on this subject is too well known
to need much attention in these pages; it corresponds in every respect
to the particulars recited by Pliny. Squaws, at the time of menstrual
purgation, are obliged to seclude themselves; in most tribes they are
compelled to occupy isolated lodges; and in all are forbidden to prepare
food for any one but themselves.
It is believed that were a menstruating woman to step astride of a
rifle or a bow or a lance, the weapon would have no further utility.
Medicine-men are in the habit of making a saving clause, whenever they
proceed to make “medicine;” this is to the effect that the “medicine”
will be all right provided no woman in this peculiar condition be allowed
to approach the tent or lodge of the officiating charlatan.
Among the Navajoes of Arizona it is customary for the women to wear a
strip of sheep-skin, called a “chogan;” when the necessity for its use
has disappeared, the woman goes outside of the village and conceals it
in the forks of one of the cedar or juniper trees so numerous in the
mountains. The author once found one of these; but the people with him
were impressed with the idea that no good would come from being near it.
At another time he knew of a young boy who had been hit by a “chogan”
which had been dislodged by a wind-storm. He was almost frantic with
terror, and devoted three or four days to singing and to washing in a
“sweat-bath.”
The Ostiaks of Siberia would seem to have the same ideas on this subject
as the Apaches and Navajoes have.—(See Pallas, “Voyages,” vol. iv. p. 95.)
Danielus Beckherius informs his readers that menstrual blood was used
in medicine (pp. 23 _et seq._); philters were prepared from it (idem,
p. 341). “Zenith juvencarum sc. sanguines menstruum” were given for
epilepsy,—that is, the first menses of a girl (idem, p. 42). The lint
of the napkin itself was thus given also (idem),—“litura pannorum
menstruorum datur patienti sanari morbum comitialium.” The first napkin
used by a healthy virgin was preserved for use in cases of plague,
malignant carbuncles, etc., dampened with water and laid on the part
affected; also used in erysipelas (idem, p. 43, “Med. Microcosmus”).
Dried catamenia were given internally for calculi, epilepsy, etc., and
externally for podagra; they were also used in treatment of the plague,
for carbuncles, aposthumes, being placed thereon with a rag wet with
rosewater or oil, into which menstrual fluid had been poured; it was good
as a cosmetic to drive away pimples (p. 265).
To restrain an immoderate flow of the menses a napkin was saturated with
menstrual blood, and then kept for a certain time in an aperture made in
the bark of a cherry-tree. “Ad immodicum menstruorum fluxum cohibendum
sunt qui pannum menstruum sanguine imbutum certo tempore cerasi radice
in cortice apertæ indunt, incisuramque iterum operiunt.”—(Etmuller, “Op.
Omnia;” Schrod. “Dil. Zoöl.,” vol. ii. p. 265.)
Paullini prescribes the “dried catamenia of women” for the cure of kidney
diseases (pp. 142, 143), also for ring-worm, felons, menstrual troubles.
Frommann gives the same cure for immoderate menses, by placing the napkin
in a cherry-tree.—(See “Tract. de Fascinatione,” p. 1006.)
“Excoriationi conferunt ... sanguis menstruus.”—(Avicenna, vol. i. p.
388.)
According to Flemming, menstrual blood was believed to be so powerful
that the mere touch of a menstruating woman would render vines and all
kinds of fruit-trees sterile (herein he seems to be following Pliny).
It was believed to be valuable medicinally in relieving obstructions
to the menstrual flow of other women; even the soiled smock of a woman
who had menstruated happily was efficacious in assisting another woman
whose menses for any cause were retarded. A small portion of the menses,
dried and taken internally, mitigated the ailment known as dysmenorrhœa.
Flemming states that, while in his time this remedy had been gradually
superseded, its use was still kept up among the poor and ignorant, in
erysipelas, face-blotches, and as an ingredient in an ointment for
podagra or gout.—(“De Remediis,” pp. 16, 17.)
The Laplanders “say that they can stop a vessel in the middle of its
course, and that the only remedy against the power of this charm is the
sprinkling of female purgations, the odor of which is insupportable to
evil spirits.”—(“Regnard’s Journey to Lapland,” in Pinkerton, vol. i. p.
180.)
“To cure a young woman of consumption she was given monthly discharges to
drink.”—(“Dutchess County, New York,” 1832, Mr. Joseph Y. Bergen, Jr.,
Cambridge, Mass.)
Isaiah compareth our justice “panno menstruatæ.”—(Harington, “Ajax,” p.
24.)
“Crines fœminæ menstruosæ, the haires of a menstruous woman are turned
into serpents within short space.”—(Scot, “Discoverie,” p. 221.)
“Men have a special objection to see the blood of women at certain times;
they say that if they were to see it they would not be able to fight
against their enemies and would be killed.” (Mrs. James Smith, “The
Roandik Tribes,” p. 5.) Hence, although bleeding is a common Australian
cure among men, women are not allowed to be bled. (Angas, vol. i. p. 3.)
“This aversion is perhaps the explanation of that seclusion of women at
puberty, childbirth, etc., which has assumed different forms in many
parts of the world.”—(“Totemism,” Frazer, p. 54, footnote.)
Old women were suspected of using the first menstrual flow of a young
girl in love-philters.—(Samuel Augustus Flemming, “De Remediis.”)
“For colic take the scrapings of the nails of a catamenial virgin, mix
with water, and take.”—(Sagen-Märchen, Volksaberglauben aus Schwaben,
Freiburg, 1861, p. 487.)
There were many curious ideas prevalent in olden times as to the manner
in which the basilisk or cockatrice could be engendered. “Si l’on place
dans une gourde de verre du sang menstruel, et si l’on fait putréfier
celui-ci dans le ventre d’un cheval, il en naît un basilic.”—(“Mélusine,”
Paris, January-February, 1890, p. 19.)
Although the Israelites had many notions in common with the American
Indians on the subject of the catamenial fluid, and the seclusion of
women undergoing purgation, there does not seem to have been any effort
made to preserve or to hide the cloths used on such occasions. Thus the
Prophet Isaiah (lxiv. 6) says of the idols of the Gentiles that they must
be cast aside as the napkins soiled with the menses. “Hoc est disperges
ea (de idolis loquitur) sicut immunditionem menstruatæ.”—(Contributed by
Doctor Robert Fletcher.)
References to use of the catamenial fluid in witchcraft will be found in
Beckherius, quoting Josephus:
“Hiawatha, wise and thoughtful,
You shall bless to-night the corn-fields,
Draw a magic circle round them,
To protect them from destruction.
“Rise up from your bed in silence,
Lay aside your garments wholly,
Walk around the fields you planted,
“Covered with your tresses only,
Robed with darkness as a garment.”
(“Hiawatha,” Longfellow, canto xiii., “Blessing the Corn-Fields.”)
Menstruating women were excluded from the Jewish synagogues and from
the communion table of the early Christian Church: “Menstruatæ mulieres
superstitiose exclusæ ab ecclesia.”—(Baronius, “Annales,” Lucca, 1758,
tome 3, 266, xi.)
AFTER-BIRTH AND LOCHIÆ.
Both of these were used medicinally; the lochiæ were useful in
restraining uterine hemorrhages; after-birth, dried and powdered,
deprived love-philters of their power; it was used as an anti-epileptic,
to relieve retention of the menses, etc. (See Flemming, “De Remediis,” p.
17.) Secundines were used in the treatment of epilepsy.—(See Etmuller,
vol ii. p. 265).
HUMAN SEMEN.
Etmuller knew nothing of the remedial value of human semen beyond the
fact that Paracelsus had recommended its use in some cases (vol. ii. p.
272).
Pliny mentions the use of human semen as a medicine (lib. xxviii. c. 10).
The savage Australians have “a last and most disgusting remedy ...
deemed infallible in the most extreme cases.... ‘Mulierem ob juventutem
firmitatemque corporis lectam sex vel plures viri in locum haud procul
a castris remotum deducant. Ibique omnes deinceps in illa libidinem
explent. Tum mulier ad pedes surgere jubetur quo facilius id quod maribus
excepit effluere possit. Quod in vase collectum ægrotanti ebibendum
præbent.’ The aborigines have unbounded faith in this truly horrible
dose, and enumerate many, many instances where it has effected marvellous
cures. We, however, have known of its having been administered in several
cases without the remotest revivifying result. It may be that this fluid
is—in fact some savants positively assert that it is so—the very essence
of life, as well as containing the germs thereof, and that administering
a draught thereof to a patient slowly but surely dying from exhaustion,
consequent upon a long fit of illness (the illness itself having died out
or been cured) might have the wonderful effect detailed so positively
by the natives; but this is a question for physicians to decide.”—(“The
Abor. of Victoria and Riverina,” Melbourne, 1889, p. 55, P. Beveridge,
received through the kindness of the Royal Soc., Sydney, N. S. Wales, F.
B. Kyngdon, Secretary.)
“Impetigine conferunt ... sperma.”—(Avicenna, vol. i. p. 330, a 10.)
For gout Avicenna prescribed “Sanguis menstruus,” “Sperma hominis” (vol.
i. p. 330, a 12; idem, a 13); “Sanguis menstruus calidus” (vol. i. p.
388, b 9); also “Stercus caprarum” (vol. i. p. 390, a 13). Consult also
what has been said of this secretion under “Love-philters.”
HUMAN BLOOD.
The medicinal employment of human blood is described by Pliny (lib.
xxviii. cap. 105).
Beckherius says that human blood was employed in the treatment of
epilepsy. Faustina, the wife of the philosophical emperor, Marcus
Antoninus, anxious to have a child, drank the warm blood of a dying
gladiator, and then shared her husband’s bed, and at once became
pregnant, and brought forth the cruel Commodus. Human blood was also used
in effecting “sympathetic cures.”—(“Medic. Microcos.” pp. 122, 128.)
But it was essential that the human blood so employed should be pure
and undefiled; lovers who wished to increase the affection of their
mistresses, were recommended to try an infusion of their own blood into
the loved one’s veins. The blood of man and also that of some animals,
notably the dog, sheep, etc., were employed in mania, delirium, cancer,
etc. The method of transfusion was preferred. Epileptics would sometimes
drink a draught of the warm blood caught gushing from the neck of a
decapitated criminal; the blood of a man, just decapitated, drunk warm,
cured epilepsy and restrained uterine hemorrhage.—(Etmuller, vol. ii. p.
272.)
Grimm alludes to the fact that the blood of innocent maids and boys was
used as a remedy for leprosy; that of malefactors, in epilepsy.—(“Teut.
Mythol.” vol. iii. p. 1173.)
See the discussion of this matter under the caption of “Human Skulls.”
Consult the work “Blood-Covenant,” by Dr. H. C. Trumbull.
In regard to the conduct of the empress Faustina, see “History of the
Inquisition,” Henry C. Lea, N. Y. 1889, vol. iii. p. 391.
HUMAN SKIN, FLESH, AND TALLOW.
Girdles of human skin were regarded as efficacious in helping women in
labor; Etmuller, in his “Comment. Ludovic.” disapproves of their use,
but, in another part of his works, describes how and for what purposes
they were to be employed.
“Corium humanum et ex inde paratum cingulum magni est usu in suffocatione
uterina arcenda, uti etiam in pellendo fœto mortuo, item in partu
difficile” (vol. ii. p. 272).
References to such girdles or belts, called “cingulæ” or “chirothecæ”
are to be found in the writings of Samuel Augustus Flemming and others.
Human flesh, of corpses, was administered under the name of “Mummy.” (See
Beckherius, “Med. Microcos.” p. 263 _et seq._) He enumerates no less than
fifty prescriptions for all sorts of ailments. The “mummy” should be from
a malefactor, hanged on a gibbet, never buried, and the age should have
been between 25 and 40, of good constitution, without organic or other
diseases, and gathered in clear weather.
Human flesh occurs in recipes in “The Chyrurgeon’s Closet,” London, 1632,
pp. 6, 53.
Andrew Lang refers to the use of “mummy powder” by the physicians of the
Court of Charles II.—(“Myth,” etc. vol. i. p. 96.)
Human tallow was employed in medicine, rendered from the skin and
other parts. It was regarded as efficacious in eradicating small-pox
pustules, while an “oleum Philosophorum” was distilled from it and held
in high repute for tumors, catarrhal troubles, affections of the ear,
etc.—(Flemming, “De Remediis,” p. 9.)
Human flesh “mumia,” was recommended in the preparation of the best
“Paracelsus salve.... Recommended for cure of bruises and against
congealed blood.... Most excellent and most approved medicines.”
HUMAN SKULL.—BRAIN.—MOSS GROWING ON HUMAN SKULL.—MOSS GROWING ON
STATUE.—LICE.
Democritus thought, in his Memoirs, quoted by Pliny, that “the skull of
a malefactor is most efficacious.... While, for the treatment of others,
that of one who has been a friend or guest is required.” (Pliny, lib.
xxviii. c. 2.) ... “Skull of a man who has been slain,” and “whose body
remains unburnt.... Skull of a man who has been hanged.”—(Idem.)
“Xenocrates, who, says Galen, flourished two generations or sixty years
before him, writes with an air of confidence on the good effects to be
obtained by eating of the human brain, flesh, or liver; by swallowing in
drink the burnt or unburnt bones of the head, shin, or fingers of a man,
or the blood.”—(“Saxon Leechdoms,” lib. i. p. 18.)
“Against a boring worm ... burn to ashes a man’s head-bone or skull; put
it on with a pipe.”—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 127, article “Leech Book.”)
Paracelsus gives the recipe for distilling “The Oyle of the Skull of
a Man.... Take the skull of a man that was never buried, and beate it
into powder.” (“The Secrets of Physicke,” Theophrastus Paracelsus, Eng.
transl. London, 1633, p. 97.) “The dose is three grains against the
falling sickness.”—(Idem.)
Schurig notes that the human skull is a remedy for the falling
sickness.—(See “Chylologia.”)
The skull of a man was used for diseases of men; that of a woman, for
diseases of women.—(See “Rare Secrets in Physicke,” collected by the
Comtesse of Kent, London, 1654, p. 3.)
Beckherius prescribed it in cephalic affections, epilepsy, paralysis,
apoplexy, vertigo, etc., taken in powder, or raw, simply or in
combination.—(“Medicus Microcosmus,” p. 199 _et seq._)
But the skull was, preferentially, “Cranii humani nunquam sepulti” (p.
217); or, “Cranii humani violenter mortui” (p. 266). Moss from such a
skull was also used medicinally (idem, p. 237). If possible, it should be
that of a man who had been executed on a scaffold, “patibula.”
“Powder of a man’s bones, burnt, chiefly of the skull that is found in
the earth, given, cureth the epilepsy. The bones of a man cureth a man,
the bones of a woman, cureth a woman.” But the patient had to abstain
from wine for nine days.—(“The Poor Man’s Physician,” John Moncrief,
Edin. 1716, p. 70.)
“Os hominis adustum,” a cure for epilepsy (Avicenna, vol. i. p. 330 a
18); “Mumia” (idem, vol. i. p. 357, a 55); “Ossa hominis in potu data”
(idem, vol. i. p. 371, a 6).
Epilepsie. “Take pilles made of the skull of one that is hanged.”—(Reg.
Scot. “Discoverie,” p. 175.)
The skulls of ancestors were used as drinking cups by the Tibetans,
according to Rubruquis, in Purchas (vol. i. p. 23).
“Among primitive people the head is peculiarly sacred.”—(“The Golden
Bough,” Frazer, vol. i. p. 187.)
Dr. Bernard Schaff gives the following formula for the cure of fevers:
“Take a human skull from among those not enclosed in tombs, and calcine
it in a crucible or in the open fire; administer in doses of from one
scruple to half a dram an hour or two before the paroxysm of the fever.”
He adds that among the common people the belief prevailed that the skull
should be obtained at the early dawn of day, about the time of the winter
solstice, and with the ceremonies (_sacris_) peculiar to that season,
that it should be picked up in silence; but for his part he does not
believe in such things.
“Recipitur cranium humanum ex ipsis quoque sepulchrorum claustris
depromptum (vulgus addit tempore matutino ante Solis ortum sub sacris
angeronæ, hoc est, ore tacito, aufferatur, quod tamen, cum aliquam sapere
videatur superstitionem, imitari nolui) et vel igne aperto, vel in
crucibulo, calcinatur, usquedem colorem acquirat cineritium pulverisatum
hocce cranium adhibetur a ℈ i. ad ʒ; i. vel ii. horas ante paroxysmi
principio.”—(“Ephem. Phys. Medic.,” Leipzig, 1694, vol. ii. p. 93.)
The skull of a malefactor who had died on the scaffold or wheel, and
which had been exposed in the open air long enough to make it perfectly
dry and white, was considered a specific in epilepsy, being much superior
for that purpose to the skulls obtained from graveyards.
Soldiers thought that if they drank from a human skull before going into
battle they would secure immunity from the weapons of the enemy. This
belief undoubtedly came into Europe with the Scythians.
“Milites putant, si quis ex cranio humano hauriat potum fore ut sit
immunis ab insultis armorum.”—(Etmuller, vol. ii. p. 268, 269.)
Etmuller also shows that these skulls were ground up and administered to
epileptic patients, many modes of preparation and administration being
given.
Flemming wrote that human skull was considered a potent remedy in all
ailments for which practitioners would administer human brain,—that is,
in nerve troubles and in epilepsy. Preferably, the skull should be taken
from a corpse which had died a violent death,—“Quæ e cadavere violenta
morte extincto est desumta.” It was an ingredient in many preparations
bearing the high-sounding titles of “majesterium epilepticum,”
“specificum cephalicum,” etc. As a powder, ground raw or calcined, it was
sometimes administered as a febrifuge and in paralysis.—(“De Remediis,”
p. 10.)
Mr. W. W. Rockhill states that the Lamas of Thibet use skulls in their
religious ceremonies, but reject those which smell like human urine.
“Blood of a dead man’s skull” used to check hemorrhage.—(Pettigrew, “Med.
Superst.,” p. 113.)
“There is a divination-bowl,—an uncanny object, made of the inverted
cranium of a Buddhist priest.”—(“Tidbits from Tibet,” in the “Evening
Star,” Washington, D. C., Nov. 3, 1888, describing the W. W. Rockhill
collection in the National Museum.)
Before the coming of the whites the savages of Australia employed human
skulls as drinking-vessels,—“human skulls with the sutures stopped up
with a resinous gum.”—(“Native Tribes of S. Australia,” Adelaide, 1879,
received through the kindness of the Royal Society, Sydney, New South
Wales, F. B. Kyngdon, Secretary.)
“The powder of a man’s bones, and particularly that made from a skull
found in the earth, was esteemed in Scotland as a cure for epilepsy. As
usual, the form runs that the bones of a man will cure a man, and the
bones of a woman will cure a woman. Grose notes the merits of the moss
found growing upon a human skull, if dried and powdered and taken as
snuff, in cases of headache.” (Black, “Folk-Medicine,” p. 96.) He also
informs us that the same beliefs and the same remedy obtained in England
and Ireland.
“Among the articles which may be regarded more as household furniture ...
are the dried human skulls, which are found wrapped in banana-leaves in
the habitation of nearly every well-regulated Dyak family. They are hung
up on the wall, or depend from the roof. The lower jaw is always wanting,
as the Dyak finds it more convenient to decapitate his victim below the
occiput, leaving the lower jaw attached to his body.”—(“Head-Hunters of
Borneo,” Carl Bock, London, 1881, p. 199.)
The careful manner in which the Mandans preserved the skulls of their
dead, as narrated by Catlin, is recalled to mind.
MOSS GROWING ON HUMAN SKULLS.
The medicinal use of the moss growing on the skulls of those who had died
violent deaths is mentioned by Von Helmont.—(“Oritrika,” p. 768.)
Etmuller speaks of the _usnea_, or moss, growing on the skull of a
malefactor, which was given in cases of epilepsy (vol. ii. p. 273).
Flemming regarded such moss, if taken from the skull of a malefactor, who
had been hanged or broken on the wheel, as of great efficacy in epilepsy,
in brain troubles, and as a styptic for hemorrhages (p. 11).
“Such a moss, if dried, powdered, and taken as snuff, will cure the
headache.”—(Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” vol. iii. p. 277, article
“Physical Charms,” quoting Grose. The same reference is given by
Pettigrew, “Medical Superstitions,” p. 86.)
HUMAN BRAIN.
The human brain, dissolved or distilled in spirits of wine, was employed
in nerve troubles and as an anti-epileptic.—(Flemming, “De Remediis ex
Corpore Humano desumtis,” p. 10.)
LICE.
One might infer that habits of personal cleanliness did not prevail
in England two centuries ago, judging from the terms of the following
prescription, which seemingly takes as a matter of course that the
patient could at any time obtain the insects needed:—
“For the cure of sore eyes ... take two or three lice out of one’s head;
put them under the lid.”—(“Rare Secrets in Physicke,” collected by the
Comtesse of Kent, London, 1654, p. 75.)
The author of this work knows, from disagreeable personal experience
and observation, that the Indians of North America very generally were
addicted to the disgusting practice of cleaning each other’s heads and
putting all captured prey in their mouths. Such an office was considered
a very delicate attention to be paid by a woman to her husband or lover,
or from male friend to male friend, while on a campaign. No instance was
noted of the use in a medical sense of these troublesome parasites.
MOSS GROWING ON THE HEAD OF A STATUE.
“It is asserted that a plant growing on the head of a statue gathered
in the lappet of any one of the garments, and then attached with a red
string to the neck, is an instantaneous cure for the headache.” (Pliny,
lib. xxiv. c. 106.) This would seem to be germane to the idea of moss
growing on the human skull.
WOOL.
“The ancient Romans attributed to wool a degree of religious importance
even; and it was in this spirit that they enjoined that the bride should
touch the door-posts of her husband’s house with wool.”—(Pliny, lib.
xxix. cap. 10.)
In Cumberland, England, a reputed cure for earache is the application of
a bit of wool from a black sheep, moistened in cow’s urine. Possibly it
is a modified form of this latter notion that is found at Mount Desert,
where it is said that the wool must be wet in new milk; while in Vermont,
to be efficacious, it is thought that the wool must be gathered from the
left side of the neck of a perfectly black sheep. In other localities,
negro’s wool is a reputed cure for the same pain.
It seems almost incredible, whatever their origin, that remedies of so
offensive a character as many of those above given can still retain a
place even in the rudest traditional pharmacopœia; but there seems to be
in the uneducated human mind a sort of reverence for or faith in that
which is in itself disagreeable or repulsive. This idea apparently rules
instead of rational judgment in the selection of many popular remedies in
the shape of oils of the most loathsome description, such as “skunk-oil,”
“angle-worm oil” (made by slowly rendering earth-worms in the sun),
“snake-oil” of various kinds, etc.—(“Animal and Plant Lore,” Mrs. Fanny
D. Bergen, in “Popular Science Monthly,” New York, September, 1888, p.
658.)
* * * * *
In the application of human blood and human skulls just presented, one
feature must be patent to the most superficial student; in the treatment
of epilepsy, the blood or the skull was, preferentially, to be that of
a dying gladiator or a criminal. There was evidently a reason for this,
beyond mere expediency.
Gladiatorial games were instituted as sacred games, in which the victims
to be offered in sacrifice were determined by the destiny of the combat.
Long after man’s better reason and better nature had revolted against the
loathsome rites of human sacrifice, religion and custom still held him in
their clutches. He would not offer up his own progeny, as of yore, but he
still continued to immolate captives taken in war, as so many gladiators
had been, or offenders against the laws.
The victim generally shared with the sacrificing priest the honor
of representing the deity in whose name his life was to be taken.
Consequently he became holy; everything belonging to him became
“medicine,” and in no disease could it be administered more efficaciously
than in epilepsy,—the essentially “sacred disease” (morbus sacer) sent
direct from the gods.
Moreover, criminals executed for violations of the laws of conquering
nations, or for infractions of the discipline, or contempt of the
doctrines of a triumphant religion, might, by the conquered rustics,
who still cherished a half-concealed veneration for the old rulers and
supplanted rites, be looked upon as martyrs, whose bones, blood, and
crania would relieve disease and drive away misfortune.
The idea of sanctity, too, attached to “innocent maids and boys,” whose
undefiled blood might rectify the polluted fluid that coursed languidly
through the veins of the leper.
The belief that the gods are to be gratified and propitiated by the
spectacle of human suffering, especially when self-inflicted, has been
current from the first ages of the world, and will most probably last, in
one form or another, as long as the world shall last. It has cropped out
in every shape, from the rigorous abstinence of the ascetic to the brutal
flagellation of the fanatical devotee, and from that to the emasculation
of the Galli, the Khlysthi, and the Hottentot, and the self-immolation
of the servant of Juggernath. Maurice enumerates five different kinds of
meritorious suicide yet recognized in Hindostan, and we have no reason
for refusing to believe that our own ancestors were saturated with the
same false notions, which, retaining their hold upon the minds of an
illiterate peasantry, would surround with the mystery of holiness any act
of self-destruction attributable to mania or other impulse supposed to be
from on high.
BONES AND TEETH.—MARROW.
“If a circle is traced round an ulcer with a human bone, it will be
effectually prevented from spreading.”—(Pliny, lib. xxviii. c. 11.)
Etmuller believed that by the use of an unbroken human bone it was
possible to induce as copious a purgation as might be desired. “Beneficio
ossis humani integri potest fieri purgatio artificialis tanta quantum
volumus,” etc.—(Etmuller, vol. ii. p. 273.)
“‘Holy oyle of dead men’s bones,’ good for the ‘falling sickness.’”—(“The
Newe Jewell of Health,” George Baker, Chirurgeon, London, 1576, black
letter, p. 170.)
Beckherius prescribed human bones in medicine.—(See “Med. Microcos.,” p.
252 _et seq._)
Etmuller, not content with prescribing the bones ground into powder, also
directed the administration of human marrow (vol. ii. p. 268).
HUMAN TEETH.
“A tooth taken from a body before burial,” worn as an amulet, cured
toothache.—(Pliny, lib. xxviii. c. 12.)
“The first tooth that a child has shed,” worn as an amulet, protects from
pain in the uterus.—(Idem, lib. xxviii. c. 7.)
Pounded dead men’s teeth were used in fumigating the genitalia of persons
“ligated” by witchcraft.—(See Frommann, “Tract. de Fascin.,” p. 965.)
Etmuller taught that the teeth were similar to the bones, and used in
the alleviation of the same infirmities. Those drawn from the jaws
of a man who had died a violent death were highly commended for all
sickness brought on by witchcraft, as well as for loss of virility.
“Ossibus similes sunt dentes, qui ipsi ex homine imprimis violenta morte
interempto commendatur ad morbos per veneficium, si nimium et illis fiat
suffitus; item in impotentia” (vol. ii. p. 273).
“Si dentes pueri, imprimis cum cadunt, suspendantur antequam ad terram
deveniant et ponantur in lamina argenti et suspendantur supra mulieres
eas prohibent impregnari et parere” (idem, p. 263).
Teeth are worn as amulets by pregnant women or ground into powder, and
taken in a potion; in both forms, believed to be useful in averting the
plague. Powdered teeth, drunk in wine, cured epilepsy, and restored
impaired virility.—(Flemming, “De Remediis,” p. 13.)
“Knock a tooth that is pulled out into the bark of a young tree.”—(Grimm,
“Teutonic Mythology,” vol. iii. p. 1173.)
Human teeth, bones, and other parts of dead bodies are still used by
the negroes in our Southern States in their “voudoo” ceremonies, and
as charms, in the old-time belief that their possession secures a man
invisibility. See an article on this subject in the “Evening Star,” of
Washington, D. C., January 1, 1889.
“In North Hants, a tooth taken from the mouth of a corpse is often
enveloped in a little bag and worn around the neck to secure the
wearer against headache.... In the northeast of Scotland, the
sufferer was required to pull with his own teeth a tooth from the
skull.”—(“Folk-Medicine,” Black, p. 98.)
The use of human teeth and fingers as “charms,” “amulets,” and
“medicine,” will be treated of in another work, at greater length. At
present it will be sufficient to call attention to the great potency
associated in the minds of the American aborigines with such relics. The
author obtained, in one of General Crook’s campaigns, in a battle with
the Northern Cheyennes, in northern Wyoming, in the winter of 1876, a
necklace of human fingers, the prized adornment and “medicine” of the
chief medicine-man. This curious link between the savagery of America and
the superstitions of Europe is now in the National Museum, Washington, D.
C.
Flemming prescribed the ground bones of criminals (raw or burnt), as an
internal medicine for gout, dysentery, etc.; but he did not limit himself
to human bones, as he expressly states that, as a substitute, the bones
of horses, asses, or other beasts could be employed. (“De Remediis,” p.
12.)
TARTAR IMPURITIES FROM THE TEETH.
Paullini goes so far as to recommend the use of the tartar impurities
from the teeth, and the dirt from soiled stockings, as a remedy for
nose-bleed. (Paullini, p. 52.)
In this he most probably follows an ancient line of practice, of which
other authors have neglected to give a detailed account. Galen and others
have shown that the scrapings from the body, and all other “sordes” were
used medicinally, and there was no reason why dental tartar should not be
added to the materia medica.
RENAL AND BILIARY CALCULI.—HUMAN BILE.
Calculi were used in the treatment of calculary troubles and in
childbirth.—(Pliny, lib. xxvii. cap. 9. See also Galen.)
Prescribed for stone in the bladder or kidneys by Beckherius.—(“Med.
Microcosmus,” pp. 167-170.)
Flemming advocates the same use of them.—(“De Remediis,” p. 23.)
“A man’s stone, drunk fasting, is most powerful of any to break the stone
and expel it with the urine.”—(“The Poor Man’s Physician,” Moncrief, p.
131.)
Flemming also used biliary calculi in the cure of yellow jaundice.—(“De
Remediis,” p. 14.)
Human bile was used internally in epilepsy, and externally in deafness
and ulcerations of the ear.—(Idem.)
BEZOAR STONES.—LYNCURIUS.
From the most ancient times there were used in the medical practice of
Europe certain stones, known as belemnites, thunder-stones, lyncurius,
etc., believed to be efficacious in treatment of stone in the bladder.
This lyncurius was regarded as the coagulated urine of the lynx, and
under that phase of the case properly comes within the scope of this
volume.—(See “Pomet on Drugs,” English translation, London, 1738, p. 408.)
The “bezoar” stone, so frequently alluded to by old writers, was simply
excrementitious matter hardened in an animal’s stomach.
COSMETICS.
Pigeon’s dung was applied externally for all spots and blemishes on the
face. (Pliny, lib. xxx. cap. 9.) Mouse-dung, externally, for lichens.
(Idem.) “Brand Marks” (stigmata) were removed by using pigeon’s dung
diluted in vinegar. (Idem, lib. xxx. cap 10.) Crocodile-dung, or
“crocodilea,” removed blemishes from the face. (Idem, lib. xxxviii. caps.
29, 50.) It also removed freckles.
“An application of bull-dung, they say, will impart a rosy tint to the
cheeks, and not even crocodilea is better for the purpose.”—(Idem, lib.
xxviii. cap. 50.)
Galen alludes to the extensive use as a cosmetic, by the Greek and Roman
ladies, of the dung of the crocodile; in the same manner, the dung of
starlings that had been fed on rice alone was employed.—(Galen, “Opera
Omnia,” Kuhn’s edition, lib. xxx. p. 308.)
Dioscorides prescribed crocodile-dung as a beautifier of the faces of
women.—(“Mat. Med.,” vol. i. p. 222 _et seq._)
Bull-dung was used by women as a cosmetic to remove all facial
blemishes.—(Sextus Placitus, “De Med. ex Animal.,” article “De Tauro.”)
The urine of a boy took away freckles from a face washed with it. “Ad
profluvium mulieris, si locum sæpe lotio viri laverit.” For birthmarks on
children take the crust which gathers on urine standing in chamber-pots,
break up and bake; place the child in the bath, and rub the marks well.
“Ad maculas infantium, matellæ quæ crustem ex lotio duxerint, fractæ
et coctæ, in balneo infantem, si ex eo unxeris omnia supra-scripta
emendat.”—(Idem, “De Puello et Puella Virgine.”)
Beckherius approved of the use of the meconium of infants to erase
birthmarks.—(“Med. Microcos.,” p. 113.)
Etmuller states that from cow-dung, as well as from human ordure, by
repeated digestion and distillation and sublimation, was prepared
“Zibethum Occidentale,” so named by Paracelsus. From this was distilled
the “water of all flowers,” so termed because the cattle had eaten so
many flowers in their pasturage. This was passing good as a cosmetic to
remove pimples and all kinds of blotches.
Human ordure itself was made use of for the same purpose (vol. ii. p.
171).
“’Tis stale to have a coxcomb kiss your hands
While yet the chamber-lye is scarce wiped off.”
(“Ram Alley,” Ludowick Barry, London, 1611, edition of
London, 1825.)
Dog-urine was prescribed to restore the color of the hair.—(Avicenna,
vol. ii. p. 333, a 50.)
“Alopecia” (baldness) was cured by mouse-dung (idem, vol. i. p. 360, b
50), and by “stercus caprarum.”—(Idem, vol. i. p. 389, b 53.)
“Urina canis putrefacta conservat nigredinem capillorum.”—(Idem, vol. ii.
p. 333, a 50.)
Réclus says that even now, in Paris, many people who have within reach
the best of toilet waters prefer to use urine as a detersive.—(See “Les
Primitifs,” p. 72, “Les Inoits Occidentaux.”)
The Ove-herero, living south of Angola, West Africa, rub their bodies
with dry cow-dung to impart lustre.—(“Muhongo,” interpreted by Rev. Mr.
Chatelain.)
“Aqua omnium florum” was distilled from the dung of cows dropped in the
month of May. “Verno seu Maiali tempore ... ex stercore recenti vaccæ
herbas depascentis.” (Etmuller, vol. ii. p. 249.) “Ex hoc ipso stercore,
eodem modo atque ex stercore humano per digestionem et sublimationem,
repetitam potest preparari Zibethum Occidentale, sic dictum a Paracelso,
quoniam suavem spirat instar Zibethi. Destillatur aqua ex hoc stercore
quæ vocatur aqua omnium florum, quia bos innumeris floribus vescitur; hæc
aqua omnium florum est singulare cosmeticum applicatum externe delendis
nævis et maculis in facie.”—(Etmuller, vol. ii. pp. 249, 250.)
Some people added to this a “water distilled from the sperm of
frogs.”—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 171, 172.)
Catamenial blood was supposed to be a remedy for pimples on the face.
(Idem, p. 265.) In portions of Northern Mexico the women apply it to
their faces as a beautifier.
Cow-dung was very generally relied upon in this sense. The dung of a
black cow entered into the composition of the celebrated “Eau de Mille
Fleurs.” The ordure of small lizards was also used to smooth out the
wrinkles from the faces of old women.
Fox-dung and the dung of sparrows and starlings were in use for softening
the hands. Arabian women use as a cosmetic a mixture of saffron and
chicken-dung. Cow-dung is sometimes as aromatic as musk. It used to be
employed to restore the odor to old and faded musk, or to hang the latter
in a privy, where it would re-acquire its former strength; but would not
retain it long (see under “Latrines”).
To improve the complexion Paullini recommended a water distilled from
human excrements; also the worms that grow therein distilled to a water.
The cosmetic of country wenches is their own urine.
Human excrements have peculiar salts more strengthening and useful than
soap. A young girl improved her complexion wonderfully by washing her
face in cow-dung and drinking her brother’s urine fresh and warm, while
fasting (pp. 263, 264).
Other cosmetics commended by Paullini were human ordure, externally; the
ordure of a young boy, internally; “Eau de Millefleurs,” the excreta of
lizards, crocodiles, foxes, sparrows, starlings, chickens, or of cows
gathered in May, externally.
See also pages 172, 207.
For the eradication of freckles Paullini also recommended the external
application of the excrement of donkeys, dogs, chickens, crocodiles,
foxes, or pigeons.
Schurig was a champion of “Aqua ex stercore distillata,” for all facial
embellishment.—(“Chylologia,” p. 762.)
“Il y a plus; les femmes les plus belles s’en sont barbouillé le
visage, et Saint Jérome le reproche durement aux dames de son temps.”
In a footnote is added this explanation: “On a employé des excrémens
de quelques lézards d’Egypte comme cosmétique, à cause de leur odeur
musquée.” (“Bib. Scat.,” p. 21.) “Merde de Lézard c’est le cordilea,
excrément du stellion du Levant, employé comme cosmétique.”—(Idem, p.
123.)
“Wash the face with the diaper on which a new-born babe has urinated for
the first time, it will remove freckles.”—(Cape Breton, Mrs. Fanny D.
Bergen, Cambridge, Mass.)
This belief in the cosmetic power of the first renal discharge of a child
is generally diffused all over the United States.
“Enfin, les nourrices entre nous, ont l’habitude de frotter la figure
de leurs nourrissons avec les langes imbibés de leur urine. Cela les
fait venir beau, disent-elles, cela combat en tout cas, certaines
efflorescences cutanées chez les enfants, par l’ammoniaque.”—(Personal
letter from Doctor Bernard, Cannes, France.)
Prof. Patrice de Janon states that the ladies of his native place,
Carthagena, South America, to his personal knowledge, were in the habit
of using their own urine as a face lotion, and to beautify and soften the
skin.
Horse-dung was another face lotion.—(“A Rich Storehouse or Treasurie for
the Diseased,” Ralph Blower, London, 1616, p. 106.)
Goose-dung is in repute in the State of Indiana for removing
pimples.—(Mrs. Bergen.)
Mr. Sylvester Baxter says that young women in Massachusetts, at least
until very recently, have employed human urine as a wash for the
preservation of the complexion.
“Water that stands in the concavity of a patch of cow-dung” is the
belief in Walden, Mass., according to Mrs. Bergen, who thus shows a
transplantation of the same belief which has lingered in Europe from
remote ages.
XLII.
AMULETS AND TALISMANS.
As a connecting link between pharmacy proper and the antidotes to the
effects of witchcraft, and at the same time fully deserving of a separate
place on its own merits, may be inserted a chapter upon talismans and
amulets made of excrementitious materials.
“From the cradle, modern Englishmen are taught to fight an angry battle
against superstition, and they treat a talisman or charm with some
disdain and contempt. But let us reflect that those playthings tended
to quiet and reassure the patient, to calm his temper, and soothe his
nerves,—objects, which, if we are not misinformed, the best practitioners
of our own day willingly obtain by such means as are left them.
“Whether a wise physician will deprive a humble patient of his roll of
magic words or take from his neck the fairy stone, I do not know; but
this is certain, that the Christian church of that early day, and the
medical science of the empire by no means refused the employment of these
arts of healing, these balms of superstitious origin.
“The reader may enjoy his laugh at such devices, but let him remember
that dread of death and wakeful anxiety must be hushed by some means, for
they are very unfriendly to recovery from disease.”—(“Saxon Leechdoms,”
vol. i. p. 11.)
Cat-dung, “to be attached to the body with the toe of a horned owl” and
“not to be removed until the seventh paroxysm is passed,” was the amulet
recommended by Pliny for the cure of the quartan fever.—(Lib. xxviii. c.
66.)
Sextus Placitus, “De Puello et Puella Virgine,” recommends the use of
calculi to aid in the expulsion of calculi, either ground into a powder
or hung about the patient’s neck as an amulet; in the latter case, he
says, the cure is more gradual.
Roman matrons used a small stone found in the excrement of a
hind “attached to the body as an amulet,” as “a preventive of
abortion.”—(Pliny, lib. xxviii. c. 77.)
In retarded dentition, there was a bag suspended from the infant’s neck,
in which was a powder, made of equal parts of the dung of hares, wolves,
and crows.—(Schurig, “Chylologia,” p. 820).
“Wolf’s dung, borne with one, helps the colic.”—(Burton, “Anatomy of
Melancholy,” vol. ii. p. 134.)
Burton, in his “Anatomy of Melancholy,” 1621, p. 476, has the following
passage on this subject: “Amulets I find prescribed; taxed by some,
approved by others.”—(Quoted by Brand, “Pop. Ant.” vol. ii. p. 324,
article “Amulets.”)
No explanation can be ventured upon for the following charm, which had a
very extended dissemination throughout Europe, and can be traced back to
“Saxon Leechdoms,” vol. x. p. 33.
“Many magic writings are simply invocations of the devil.... A woman
obtained an amulet to cure sore eyes. She refrained from shedding tears
and her eyes recovered. On a zealous friend opening the paper, these
words were found: “Der teufel kratze dir die augen aus, und scheisse dir
in die löcher,” and, naturally, when the woman saw that it was in this
she had trusted, she lost faith, began to weep again, and in due time
found her eyes as bad as ever. (“Folk Medicine,” Black, p. 171.) The
same charm was also, in other places, written in Latin, in this form:
“Diabolus effodiat tibi oculos, impleat foramina stercoribus.” It is
quoted by Pettigrew, in ”Medical Superstitions,” p. 102; also by Brand,
“Pop. Ant.” vol. iii. p. 324, article “Characts.”
Translated into English it is thus rendered by Reginald Scot:—
“The devil pull out both thine eyes,
And etihs in the holes likewise.”
“Spell the word backward and you shall see this charm.”—(“Discoverie of
witchcraft,” London, 1651, p. 178.)
“For diphtheria, a poultice consisting of the fresh excrement of the hog,
is worn about the neck for one night.” (Fayette County.)—(“Folk-Lore of
the Penn’a Germans,” in “Journal of American Folk-Lore,” 1889, p. 29, W.
J. Hoffman, M. D.)
For diseases in the kidneys, as an amulet χαραβραωθ, which means
“viscera” in Hebrew: “In cubili canis urinam faciat qui urinam non
potest continere, dicatque dum facit, ne in cubili suo urinam ut canis
faciat.”—(“Saxon Leechdoms,” vol. i. p. 31. See also under Grand Lama,
love-philters, mistletoe, witchcraft.)
Each and every one of the remedies inserted here under the title of
“Witchcraft,” might with perfect propriety have been comprehended under
the caption of “Pharmacy,” but the intention was to differentiate
the two in the hope of attaining greater clearness in treatment.
Under “Pharmacy,” therefore, have been retained all remedies for the
alleviation of known disorders, while under “Witchcraft” are tabulated
all that were to be administered or applied for the amelioration of
ailments of an obscure type, the origin of which the ignorant sufferer
would unhesitatingly seek in the malevolence of supernatural beings or
in the machinations of human foes possessed of occult influences. Side
by side with these, very properly go all such aids as were believed to
insure better fortune in money-making, travelling, etc.
“A mixture of ape’s-dung and chameleon-dung was applied to the doors
of one’s enemy.... He will, through its agency, become the object of
universal hatred.”—(Pliny, lib. xxviii. c. 29.)
“The excrements (i. e. of the hyena) which have been voided by the animal
at the moment when killed, are looked upon as counter-charms to magic
spells.”—(Idem, c. 27.)
“For young girls they (i. e. the magicians) prescribe nine pellets of
hare’s dung to ensure a durable firmness to the breasts.”—(Idem, c. 77.)
Doctor Dupouy believes that when the Druids “were forced to take refuge
in dense forests far removed from the people, persecuted by the Romans,
barbarians, and Christians, they progressively became magicians,
enchanters, prophets, and charmers, condemned by the Councils and
banished by the civil authority. It is at this epoch that evil spirits
were noticed prowling around in the shadows of night and indulging
in acts of obscene depravity.... In the seventh century Druidism
disappeared, but the practice of magic, occult art, and the mysterious
science of spirits were transmitted from generation to generation but
lessened in losing the philosophical character of ancient times.”—(“Le
Moyen Age Médical,” or its translation, “Physicians in the Middle Ages,”
T. C. Minor, M. D., Cincinnati, Ohio, p. 38.)
XLIII.
WITCHCRAFT.—SORCERY.—CHARMS.—SPELLS.—INCANTATIONS.—MAGIC.
There is but one method of arriving at a correct understanding of what
witchcraft was, as known to civilized communities, and that is by placing
it under the lens of investigation as a mutilated and distorted survival
of a displaced religion.
The very earliest records of man’s thought, the alabaster and earthen
tablets of Chaldea and Assyria, allude to the evil eye, to incantations,
and to the fear of evil spirits, witches, and sorcerers.
“Nevertheless, the Chaldean tablets do not leave us without any insight
into witchcraft, as their formulæ were destined to counteract the effects
of the sorceries of this impious art, as well as the spontaneous action
of demons.”—(“Chaldean Magic,” François Lenormant, London, 1877, p. 59;
for the Chaldean’s dread of the Evil Eye, see the same work, p. 61.)
“One fine series (i. e. of Chaldean tablets) deals with remedies against
witchcraft.”—(“The Chaldean Account of Genesis,” George Smith, New York,
1880, p. 28.)
“There is finally a third species of magic, thoroughly diabolical in
character, and openly acknowledging itself as such. This kind helps
to perpetuate ... by still believing in their power and transforming
them into dark practices, the rites of adoration of the ancient gods,
considered as demons after the triumph of the new religion, the exclusive
spirit of which repudiates all association with the remains of the
old worship. The enchanter in this case, far from considering himself
an inspired and divine personage, consents, provided he reaps all the
benefit of his magic practices, to be nothing more than the tool of the
bad and infernal powers. He himself sees devils in the ancient gods
evoked by his spells, but he nevertheless remains confident of their
protection; he engages himself in their service by compacts, and fancies
himself going to a witch-dance in their company. The greater part
of the magic of the Middle Ages bears this character and perpetuates
the popular and superstitious rites of paganism in the mysterious and
diabolical operations of sorcery. It is the same with the magic of most
Mussulman countries. In Ceylon, since the complete conversion of the
island to Buddhism, the ancient gods of Sivaism have become demons, and
their worship a guilty sorcery practised only by enchanters.”—(“Chaldean
Magic,” Lenormant, p. 77.)
Human and animal filth are mentioned in nearly every treatise upon
witchcraft, under three different heads:—
Firstly, as the means by which the sorcery is accomplished.
Secondly, as the antidote by which such machinations are frustrated.
Thirdly, as the means of detecting the witch’s personality.
Much that might have been included within this chapter has been arranged
under the caption of “Love-Philters” and “Child-Birth,” and should be
examined under those heads.
The subject of amulets and talismans is another that is so closely
connected with the matter of which we are now treating, that it must be
included in any investigation made in reference to it.
Exactly where the science of medicine ended, and the science of
witchcraft began, there is no means of knowing; like Astrology and
Astronomy, they were twin sisters, issuing from the same womb, and
travelling amicably hand in hand for many years down the trail of
civilization’s development; long after medicine had won for herself a
proud position in the world of thought and felt compelled through shame
to repudiate her less-favored comrade in public, the strictest and
closest relations were maintained in the seclusion of private life.
“Among the counter-charms too are reckoned the practice of spitting into
the urine the moment it is voided.”—(Pliny, lib, xxviii. cap. 7.)
“Goat’s dung attached to infants, in a piece of cloth, prevents them
from being restless, female infants in particular.” (Idem, cap. 78.)
This was probably a survival from times still more ancient, when infants
were sometimes suckled by goats, and it was a good plan to have them
thoroughly familiarized with the smell,—the hircine or caprine odor.
“In cases of fire, if some of the dung can be brought away from the
stalls, both sheep and oxen may be got out all the more easily, and will
make no attempt to return.”—(Idem, cap. 81.)
The adepts in magic expressly forbid a person, when about to make water,
to uncover the body in the face of the sun or moon, or to sprinkle
with his urine the shadow of any object whatsoever. Hesiod gives a
precept recommending persons to make water against an object standing
full before them, that no divinity may be offended by their nakedness
being uncovered. Osthanes maintains that every one who drops some
urine upon his foot in the morning will be proof against all noxious
medicaments.—(Idem, lib. xxviii. cap. 19.)
The adepts in the magical art also believed that “it is improper to spit
into the sea, or to profane that element by any other of the evacuations
that are inseparable from the infirmities of human nature.”—(Idem, lib.
xxx. cap. 6, speaking of the disinclination of the Armenian magician,
Tiridates, to visit the Emperor Nero by sea.)
The Thibetans share these scruples. Among the things prohibited to their
“Bhikshuni,” or monks and nuns, are: “Ne pas se soulager dans de l’eau
quand on n’est pas malade, n’y cracher, n’y moucher, y vomir, ni y
jeter quoi que soit de sale.”—(“Pratimoksha Sutra,” translated by W. W.
Rockhill, Paris, 1884, Soc. Asiatique.)
It was believed that a dog would not bark at a man who carried hare’s
dung about his person.—(See Pliny, lib. xxx. cap. 53.)
“The therionaca ... has the effect of striking wild beasts of all kinds
with a torpor which can only be dispelled by sprinkling them with the
urine of the hyena.” (Idem, lib. xxiv. cap. 102.) The hyena was regarded
as an especially “magical” animal.—(Idem, lib. xxviii.)
“The magicians tell us that, after taking the ashes of a wild-boar’s
genitals in urine, the patient must make water in a dog-kennel, and
repeat the following formula: ‘This I do that I may not wet my bed, as a
dog does.’”—(Idem, lib. xxviii. cap. 60.)
Some of these ideas would appear to have crossed the Atlantic. In the
United States, a generation or less ago, boys were wont to urinate
“criss-cross” for good luck, and were careful not to let any of their
urine fall on their own shadows.—(Col. F. A. Seelye, Anthropological
Society, and others, Washington, D. C.)
In Minden, Westphalia, Germany, boys will urinate criss-cross, and
say, “Kreuspissen, morgenstirbstein-Jude” (“Let us piss criss-cross, a
Jew will die to-morrow”).—(Personal letter from Dr. Franz Boas, Clark
University, Worcester, Mass.)
“Nor ever defile the currents of rivers flowing seaward, nor fountains,
but specially avoid it.”—(“Opera et Dies,” Rev. J. Banks, London, 1856,
p. 115.)
“Sorcerers try to procure some of a man’s excrement, and put it in his
food in order to kill him.”—(“Muhongo,” a boy from Angola, Africa,
personal interview, interpretation by Rev. Mr. Chatelain.)
“Muhongo” also said that to “add one’s urine, even unintentionally, to
the food of another bewitches that other, and does him grievous harm.”
Democritus says of the stone “aspisatis:” “Patients should wear it
attached to the body with camel’s dung.” (Quoted in Pliny, lib. xxvii.
cap. 54.) The same book tells us that stones of this kind were worn
generally by gladiators, Milo of Crotona being mentioned as one. What
“aspisatis” was cannot be learned.
“Another thing universally acknowledged, and one which I am ready to
believe with the greatest pleasure, is the fact that if the door-posts
are only touched with the menstruous fluid, all spells of the magicians
will be neutralized.”—(Pliny, lib. xxviii. cap. 24.)
“Osthanes, who accompanied Xerxes, the Persian king, in his expedition
against Greece, ... the first person, so far as I can ascertain, who
wrote upon magic.” (Idem, lib. xxx. cap. 3.) He adds, speaking of magic:
“Britannia still cultivates this art, and that with ceremonials so august
that she might almost seem to have been the first to communicate them to
Persia.”—(Idem, lib. xxx. cap. 4.)
For the relief of infants from phantasm, wrap some goat-dung in a cloth
and hang it about the child’s neck. “Ad infantes qui fantasmatibus
vexantur, capræ stercus in panno involutum, et collo suspensum remedium
est infantibus qui fantasmata patiuntur.”—(Sextus Placitus, “De Capro.”)
“With Plinius was contemporary Joseph or Josephus. The tales about the
mandrake, much later on, and found in the Saxon herbarium, are traceable
to what he says of the Baaras,—an herb that runs away from the man that
wants to gather it, and won’t stop until one throws on it οὖρον γυναικὸς
ἢ τὸ ἔμμηνον αἷμα, for nastiness is often an element of mysteries; and
even then it kills the dog that draws it out. It is not certain that
mandrake berries are meant in Genesis, xxx. 14.”—(“Saxon Leechdoms,” vol.
i. p. 16.)
Dulaure says that the repute in which mandrake was held was due to its
resemblance to the human form, and to the lies told to the superstitious
about it, one being that “ils disent qu’il est engendré dessous un gibet
de l’urine d’un larron pendu.”—(“Des Différens Cultes,” Paris, 1825, vol.
ii. p. 255, footnote.)
“For a man haunted by apparitions work a drink of a white hound’s thost
or dung in bitter ley; wonderfully it healeth.” (“Saxon Leechdoms,” vol.
i. p. 365.) This same “thost,” or dung, was recommended in the treatment
of nits and other insects on children, for dropsy (internally), and
to drive away the “Dwarves,” who were believed to have seized upon the
patient afflicted with convulsions.
“Doors of houses are smeared with cow-dung and nimba-leaves, as a
preservative from poisonous reptiles.”—(Moor’s “Hindu Pantheon,” London,
1810, p. 23.)
“In some parts of Western Africa, when a man returns home after a
long absence, before he is allowed to visit his wife he must wash his
person with a particular fluid, and receive from the sorcerer a certain
mark on his forehead, in order to counteract any magic spell which a
stranger woman may have cast upon him in his absence, and which might
be communicated through him to the women of his village.”—(“The Golden
Bough,” Frazer, vol. i. p. 157.)
We are not informed what this “particular fluid” was, but enough has been
adduced concerning the African’s belief in the potency of human urine in
cases similar to the above to warrant the insertion at this point.
“On returning from an attempted ascent of the great African mountain,
Kilimanjaro, which is believed by the neighboring tribes to be tenanted
by dangerous demons, Mr. New and his party, as soon as they reached the
borders of the inhabited country, were disenchanted by the inhabitants,
being sprinkled with ‘a professionally prepared liquor, supposed to
possess the potency of neutralizing evil influences, and removing the
spell of wicked spirits.’”—(Idem, vol. i. p. 151, quoting Charles New,
“Life, Wanderings, and Labors in Eastern Africa.”)
That the Eskimo believed in the power of human ordure to baffle
witchcraft would seem to be intimated in the following from Boas: “Though
the Angekok understood the schemes of the old hag, he followed the boy,
and sat down with her. She feigned to be very glad to see him and gave
him a dishful of soup, which he began to eat. But by the help of his
tornaq [that is, the magical influence which aided him] the food fell
right through him into a vessel which he had put between his feet on
the floor of the hut. This he gave to the old witch, and compelled her
to eat it. She died as soon as she had brought the first spoonful to
her mouth.”—(“The Central Eskimo,” Franz Boas, in “Sixth Annual Report”
Bureau of Ethnology, Washington.)
“Osthanes, the magician, prescribed the dipping of our feet, in the
morning, in human urine, as a preventative against charms.”—(Brand, “Pop.
Ant.,” vol. iii. p. 286.)
Frommann writes that human ordure, menses, and semen were mixed in the
food of the person to be bewitched.—(“Tractatus de Fascinatione,” p. 683.)
On another page this list is increased to read that human ordure,
urine, blood, hair, nails, bones, skulls, and the moss growing on the
last-named, as well as animal excrement, were among the materials
employed in witchcraft.—(Idem, p. 684.)
If fried beans be thrown into excrement, for each bean thus wasted a
pustule will appear on the fundament of the thrower. “Pisa frixa injecta
excrementis tot pustulas in podice excitant quot pisa.” (Idem, p. 1023.)
The following passage is not fully understood: “Vesicatorio excrementis
adhuc calentibus imposito intestina corrosione afficiuntur.” It seems to
mean that the entrails will be affected with corrosion when hot excrement
is placed in a bladder, probably after the manner of some of the sausages
of which we have elsewhere taken notes. Hot ashes or cinders thrown upon
recently voided excrement will cause inflammation and pustules in ano.
For the same reason we can cause those who are absent to purge without
using medicine upon them. “Cineres calidi, vel prunæ candentes scybalis
recentibus injecta inflammationem et pustulas in ano excitant.... Eadem
ratione absentes sine medicamentis purgari posse, scribit Tilemannus
de Mater. Medic. p. 251. (Idem, p. 1623.) Frommann also adds that
this fact was well known to the English and French, as well as to the
Germans.”—(Idem, p. 1037.)
Human ordure and urine were burned with live coals as a potent charm. The
person whose excreta had been burned would suffer terrible pains in the
rectum. But this could be used in two ways, for love as well as hatred
could be induced by this means, between married people and between old
friends.—(Paullini, pp. 264, 265.)
For the use of urine by the Eskimo to ward off the maleficence of
witches, turn back to citations taken from Rink’s “Tales and Traditions
of the Eskimo,” where it is shown that they still use it with this object
in cases of childbirth. See, also, the notes taken from the writings of
Dr. Franz Boas.
A bone from the leg or thigh of a man who had died a violent death,
emptied of its marrow, and then filled with human ordure, closed up with
wax, and placed in boiling water, compelled the unfortunate ejector of
the excrement to evacuate just as long as the bone was kept in the water,
and it could even be so used that he would be compelled to defile his
bed every night. “Os ex pede, vel brachio, vel femore hominis violenta
morte interempti, et hoc exempta medulla impletur cum stercore alicujus
hominis, foramina obturantur cum cera et sic in aquam calidam immittitur,
hoc quamdiu jacet in aqua calida, tamdiu expurgatur iste, cujus stercus
fuit inclusum, adeo ut sic aliquem usque ad mortem purgare possimus,
potest etiam fieri alio modo ut quis omni nocte lectum suum maculet, sed
est ludicrum.”—(Etmuller, vol. ii. pp. 272, 273.)
The small bones of the human leg are used in the sorcery of the
Australians. (See “Native Tribes of South Australia,” Adelaide, 1879,
p. 276; received through the kindness of the Royal Society, Sydney, New
South Wales, F. B. Kyngdon, Secretary.)
“In order to produce a flux in the belly, it was only necessary to put
a patient’s excrement into a human bone, and throw it into a stream
of water.” The above is quoted from the medical writings of “Peter of
Spain, who was archbishop, and afterwards pope, under the name of John
XXI.”—(“Physicians of the Middle Ages,” T. C. Minor, p. 6.)
Schurig names many authors to show that in cases of “incivility,” such
as the placing of excrement at the door of one’s neighbor, the person
offended had a sure remedy in his own hands. He was to take some of
the excrement of the offending party, mix it with live coals or hot
ashes, and throw it out in the street; or he could burn pepper and wine
together, with such fecal matter; or he could heat an iron to white
heat, insert it in the excrement, and as fast as it cooled repeat the
operation; as often as this was done, so often would the guilty one
suffer pains in the anus. Other remedies were, to mix spirits of wine and
salt together, sprinkle upon the offensive matter, then place a red-hot
iron above it, and confer the same pains, which would not leave the
offending person’s anus during the whole of that day, unless he cured
himself with new milk. Or small peas could be heated in a frying-pan,
and then thrown out with fresh excrement; as many as there were peas,
so many would be the pains endured by the delinquent. The following
are some of the paragraphs in the original from Schurig: “Contra
incivilitatem quorundam qui loca consueta et fores aliorum stercoribus
suis commaculant, pro correctione inservire potest, si fimus eorundem
simpliciter prunis aut cineribus calidis injectus vel etiam vino adusto
et pipere simul insperso uratur vel cremetur; aut si vero vel aliud
ferrum in ignem ut ignescat, immittatur, ac dein ferrum illud candens
in excrementa illa infigatur; frigefactum denuom calefiat eademque
opera sæpe repetatur; tunc tantis cruciatibus nates depositoris illius
incivilito vexabit, quantas vix prunæ ipsæ partibus iisdem admotæ
inussissent.... Excrementis hominis recentibus prunas candentes vel
cineres calidos injectos inflammationem, tenesimum, et pustulas excitare,
non Anglis et Gallis tantum sed et Germanis atque ex his nostratibus
etiam est notissimum,” etc. The names of the authorities cited by Schurig
are not repeated.—(“Chylologia,” pp. 790, 791.)
“The Australians believe that their magicians ‘possess the power’ to
create disease and death by burning what is called ‘nahak.’ Nahak means
rubbish, but principally, refuse of food. Everything of the kind they
bury or throw into the sea, lest the disease-makers should get hold
of it.” (“Native Tribes of South Australia,” Adelaide, 1879, p. 23.)
Reference to “Nahak” is to be found in “Samoa,” Turner, p. 320.
The old home of the Cheyennes of Dakota was in the Black Hills; and there
the Sioux believed that the Cheyennes were invincible, because their
medicine-men could make everything out of buffalo manure.—(Personal Notes
of Captain Bourke.)
Although Livingston’s “Zambesi” is filled with allusions to witchcraft,
there is no instance given of the employment of any of the remedies
herein described.
“The belief in witchcraft, and in the efficacy of charms and
incantations, was strong among the middle and lower classes of Germany
about forty years ago.... In the winter of 1845-46, I attended a
night-school in my native town, Schorndorf, in the little kingdom of
Wurtemburg. There was a blacksmith-shop in the near neighborhood of
the school, where work was kept up until a late hour of the night. The
miniature fireworks created by the sparks flying from the blows of the
immense hammers wielded by the dusky and weird-like forms of the sons
of Vulcan, were one of the principal amusements of the schoolboys,
and we used to stand at a distance in the dark, before school opened,
gazing with awe and wonderment at the brilliant and noisy scene before
us. The master blacksmith, on account of his irascible disposition, was
not much in favor with us, and it was agreed upon to play him a trick.
So one evening while the smiths were at their supper and the smithy
unattended, two of the boys smeared the hammer-handles with excrement.
The indignation of the smiths was of course great, and with curses
and imprecations on the guilty parties they commenced to clean their
implements, when suddenly stopped by the master, who, with a fiendish
smile on his face, declared that he had concluded to make an example
of the offenders. He bade the apprentice to work at the bellows, and
then, one after the other, he held the smeared hammer-handles over the
forge fire, turning and twisting them the while, and uttering some
unintelligible incantations in a low and solemn voice, the workmen
standing round him with awe and terror on their sooty countenances. When
the ceremony was over, the master declared that it was rather hard on
the culprits, whose rectums must be in a frightful condition, but that,
unless an example were made, such dirty tricks might be repeated, and
this would serve as a warning to the boys in general. We boys had been
tremblingly watching the whole proceedings, expecting that some fearful
catastrophe would befall us, and I need not state that we were somewhat
disappointed when we found ourselves unscathed, although it upset our
belief in humbugs of this kind.”—(Personal letter from Mr. Charles Smith,
Washington, D. C.)
“Amongst some of the Brazilian Indians, when a girl attains puberty, ...
if she have a call of nature, a female relative takes the girl on her
back and carries her out, taking with her a live coal, to prevent evil
influences from entering the girl’s body.”—(“The Golden Bough,” Frazer,
vol. ii. p. 231.)
“To unbewitch the bewitched, you must spit into the pisse-pot where you
have made water.”—(Reg. Scot, “Disc. of Witchcraft,” p. 62.)
“The Shamans of the Thlinkeets of Alaska keep their urine until its smell
is so strong that the spirits cannot endure it.”—(Franz Boas, in “Journal
of American Folk-Lore,” vol. i. p. 218.)
In the third volume of the “History of the Inquisition,” by Henry C.
Lea, New York, 1888, there is a chapter on “Sorcery and Occult Arts,”
but there is no allusion to the use of excrement in any form. Neither
is there anything to be found in Dalyell’s “Superstitions of Scotland,”
Edinburgh, 1834.
The sacred drink, “hum,” of the Parsis, has “the urine of a young, pure
cow” as one of the ingredients. (See Max Müller’s “Biographies of Words,”
London, 1888, p. 237.) This sacred drink is also used “as an offering
during incantations.”—(Idem.)
Schurig (“Chylologia,” p. 815) states that horse-dung was sometimes used
in “sympathetic magic:” “Interdum etiam ad Sympathiam magicam adhibetur;”
and he recites an instance wherein a certain farmer, whose meadows were
overrun by the horses of his neighbors, was enabled by taking a portion
of the dung they had dropped and hanging it up in his chimney, to drive
them all into a consumption. The following seems to have been in the
nature of an incantation closely allied to the above. “Two Yakut chiefs
contended for supremacy; one, named Onagai, defeated and banished his
rival, who escaped with only his wife and two mares. This second chief,
Aley, collected carefully the dung of his mares, and when the wind blew
towards Onagai’s dwelling, made fires of the dung, the smell of which
allured the strayed cattle to his dwelling.”—(Sauer, “Exped. to the N.
parts of Russia,” London, 1802, p. 133. This “Aley,” according to Tartar
tradition, was skilled in magic art. See idem, p. 135.)
“He who wishes to revenge himself by witchcraft endeavors to procure
either the saliva, urine, or excrements of his enemy, and after mixing
them with a powder, and putting them into a bag woven in a particular
form, he buries them.”—(Krusenstern’s “Voy. round the World,” Eng.
trans., London, 1813, vol. i. p. 174, speaking of the island of Nukahiva.)
Langsdorff says that in the Washington islands, when a man desires to
bewitch an enemy, he endeavors to procure “some of his hair, the remains
of something he has been eating, and some earth on which he has spit or
made water.”—(“Voyages,” London, 1813, p. 156.)
The Rev. W. Ellis, speaking of the Tahitians, says: “The parings of
nails, a lock of the hair, the saliva from the mouth, or other secretions
from the body, or else a portion of the food which the person was to eat,
this was considered as the vehicle by which the demon entered the person
who afterwards became possessed.... The sorcerer took the hair, saliva,
or other substance, which had belonged to his victim, to his house, or
marae, performed his incantations over it, and offered his prayers; the
demon was then supposed to enter the substance (called tubu), and through
it to the individual who had suffered from the enchantment.”—(“Polynesian
Researches,” vol. ii. p. 228, quoted in “The Nat. Trib. of S. Australia,”
p. 25.)
“If the death of any obnoxious person is desired to be procured by
sorcery, the malevolent native secures a portion of his enemy’s hair,
refuse of food, or excrement; these substances are carried in a bag
specially reserved for the artillery of witchcraft, a little wallet which
is slung over the shoulders. The refuse of food is subjected to special
treatment, part of which is scorching and melting before a fire; but,
in the case of excrement, my information is to the effect that it is
just allowed to moulder away, and as it decays the health and strength
of the enemy is supposed to decline contemporaneously. Excrement is
thus employed in the south of Queensland.”—(Personal letter from John
Matthew, Esq., M. A., dated “The Manse,” Coburg, Victoria, Nov. 29, 1889.
This correspondent has had a great deal of experience with the savages of
Australia.)
The Patagonians have the belief that their witches can do harm to those
from whom they obtain any exuviæ or excrement,—“if they can possess
themselves of some part of their intended victim’s body, or that which
has proceeded from it, such as hair, pieces of nails, etc.; and this
superstition is the more curious from its exact accordance with that so
prevalent in Polynesia.”—(“Voyage of the Adventure and Beagle,” quoting
the Jesuit Falkner, vol. ii. p. 163.)
There was some ill-defined relation between the power of urination and
virginity. Burton speaks of “such strange, absurd trials in Albertus
Magnus ... by stones, perfumes, to make them piss and confess I know not
what in their sleep.”—(“Anat. of Melancholy,” vol. ii. p. 451.)
Speaking of the Australians, Smith says: “The only remarkable custom
(differing from other savages) in their fighting expeditions, is the
adoption of the custom commanded to the Israelites on going out to war.
(Deut. c. 23, ver. 12-14,—about hiding excrement.) The natives believe
that if the enemy discovered it, they would burn it in the fire, and thus
ensure their collective destruction, or that, individually, they would
pine away and die.”—(“Aborigines of Victoria,” vol. i. p. 165.)
“In the middle of the hall ... was a vase, of which the contents were
at least as varied as those of the caldron of Macbeth; a mixture, in
part, composed of nameless ingredients.”—(“Dictionnaire Universel du
XIXme Siècle,” by P. Larousse, quoted in “Reports of Voudoo Worship in
Hayti and Louisiana,” by W. W. Newell, in “Jour. of Amer. Folk-Lore,”
Jan.-March, 1889, p. 43.)
There is on record the confession of a young French witch, Jeanne
Bosdean, at Bordeaux, 1594, wherein is described a witches’ mass, at
which the devil appeared in the disguise of a black buck, with a candle
between his horns. When holy water was needed, the buck urinated in
a hole in the ground and the officiating witch aspersed it upon the
congregation with a black sprinkler. Jeanne Bosdean adhered to her story
even when in the flames.[80]
One of the ceremonies of the initiation of the neophytes into witchcraft
was “kissing the devil’s bare buttocks.” (Reg. Scot. “Discoverie,” pp.
36, 37.) Pope Gregory IX., in a letter addressed to several German
bishops in 1234, describes the initiation of sorcerers as follows: The
novices, on being introduced into the assembly, “see a toad of enormous
size.... Some kiss its mouth, others its rear.” Next, “a black cat is
presented.... The novice kisses the rear anatomy of the cat, after which
he salutes in a similar manner those who preside at the feast, and others
worthy of the honor.” (“Med. in Middle Ages,” Minor, p. 41.) Again, “At
witches’ reunions, the possessed kissed the devil’s rear, kissing it goat
fashion, in a butting attitude.” (Idem, p. 50.) “Le baiser d’hommage est
donné au derrière du Diable parce qu’il n’a été permis à Moïse, selon
l’Exode, de voir que le derrière de Dieu.”—(Mélusine, Paris, July-August,
1890, p. 90, art. “La Fascination,” by J. Tuchmann.)
The devil hates nothing more than human ordure. (On this point, see
Luther’s Table Talk.) The devil cannot be more completely frustrated than
by placing upon some of his works human ordure, or hanging it in the
smoke of the chimney. The Laplanders were reputed to be able to detain
a ship in full sail; yet when such a vessel had been besmeared along
its seams in the interior with the ordure of virgins, then the efforts
of the witches were of no avail. (Paullini, p. 260.) “A certain man
bewitched a boy, nine years old, by placing the boy’s ordure in a hog’s
bladder and hanging the ‘sausage’ in the chimney. (Idem, p. 261.) But
some believed that by this smoking of ordure the evil often became worse;
that the diseased person gradually dried up until at last he died, as he
experienced in the case of his own father-in-law.... Farmers’ wives, to
make the butter come in spite of the witches, poured fresh cow’s milk
upon human ordure, or down into the privy, and the witches were thereupon
rendered powerless.”—(Idem, p. 263. See also citation from Schurig,
“Chylologia.”)
The Magi also taught to drink the ashes of a pig’s pizzle in sweet
wine, and so to make water into a dog’s kennel, adding the words, “Lest
he, like a hound, should make urine in his own bed.” If a man, in the
morning, made water a little on his own foot, it would be a preservative
against mala medicamenta, doses meant to do him harm.—(“Saxon Leechdoms,”
lib. i. p. 12, quoting Pliny. See citations already made from that
author.)
Beckherius (Med. Microcosmus, p. 114) tells the story of the Lapland
witches being able to hold a ship in its course, except when the inner
seams of the vessel had been calked with the ordure of a virgin; see
extract already entered.
Again, Beckherius quotes Josephus as narrating that a certain lake,
near Jericho, ejected asphalt which adhered so tenaciously to a ship
that it was in danger of wreck, had not the asphalt been loosened by an
application of menstrual blood and human urine.—(Idem, p. 43, quoting
Josephus, “De Bello Judaico,” lib. iv. c. 47.)
Beckherius, “Med. Microcosmus,” p. 43, cites Josephus in regard to a
certain plant to which magical properties were ascribed, but only to
be brought out by watering it with menstrual blood and the urine of a
woman.—(Josephus, “De Bell. Jud.” lib. vii. c. 23, p. 146.)
Dittmar Bleekens, speaking of the “Islanders” (Icelanders), says: “And
truly, it is a wonder that Satan so sporteth with them, for hee hath
shewed them a remedie in staying of their ships, to wit, the excrements
of a maide being a Virgin; if they anoynt the Prow and certaine plancks
of the ship hee hath taught them that the spirit is put to flight and
driven away with this stinke.”—(In Purchas, vol. i. p. 646.)
Josephus says (his remarks have already been given in quotation, but
are repeated to show exactly what he did say): The bitumen of Lake
Asphaltites “is so tenacious as to make the ship hang upon the clods
till they set it loose with blood and with urine, to which alone it
yields.”—(“Wars of the Jews,” Eng. trans., New York, 1821, book 4, c. 7.)
The people of the Island of Mota, or Banks Island, “have a kind of
individual totem, called tamaniu. It is some object, generally an animal,
as a lizard or snake, but sometimes a stone, with which the person
imagines that his life is bound up; if it dies or is broken or lost, he
will die. Fancy dictates the choice of a tamaniu; or it may be found by
drinking an infusion of certain kinds of herbs and heaping together the
dregs. Whatever living thing is first seen in or upon the heap is the
tamaniu. It is watched, but not fed or worshipped.”—(Frazer, “Totemism,”
Edinburgh, 1887, p. 56.)
Compare the preceding paragraph with the practice, elsewhere noted,
of determining whether or not a woman is pregnant by pouring some of
her urine upon bran and allowing it to ferment and then watching the
appearance of animal life. Also, the method of determining whether or not
a man was stricken with leprosy.
To determine whether a woman be pregnant of a boy or a girl, make two
small holes in the ground; in one, put wheat; in the other, barley; let
her urinate on both; if the wheat sprout first, she will have a boy;
if the barley, a girl. To determine whether a man had been attacked by
leprosy (elephantiasis), the ashes of burnt lead (plumbi usti cineres)
were thrown into his urine; if they fell to the bottom, he was well; if
they floated on top, he was in danger.
To tell whether a man had been bewitched, “Coque in olla nova, ad ignem,
urinam hominis quæ si ebullierit, liber erit a veneficio.”—(Beckherius,
“Med. Microcosmus,” pp. 61, 62.)
To determine whether a sick man was to die during the current month,
some of his urine was shaken up in a glass vessel until it foamed; then
the observer took some of his own earwax (cerumen) and placed it in this
foam; if it separated, the man was to recover; if not, not.—(Idem, p. 62.)
“It is said that King Louis Philippe before mounting on horseback never
failed to urinate against the left hind leg of his horse, according to
an old tradition in cavalry that such a proceeding had the effect of
strengthening the leg of the beast and rendering the animal more apt to
sustain the effort made by the rider when jumping upon the saddle. I tell
you the fact as I heard it reported by one of the king’s sons, Prince of
Joinville, forty-five years ago when I was sailing in a frigate—‘La Belle
Poule’—under his command.”—(Personal letter from Captain Henri Jouan,
French Navy.)
The people of Lake Ubidjwi, near Lake Tanganyika, are thus described:
“Both sexes of all classes carry little carved images round their
necks or tied to the upper part of their arms as a charm against
evil spirits. They are usually hollow, and filled with filth by the
medicine-men.”—(“Across Africa,” Cameron, London, 1877, vol. i. p. 336.)
In the incantations made by the medicine-men to avert disaster from fire
and preserve his expedition, Cameron notes, among other features, “a ball
made of shreds of bark, mud, and filth.” (Idem, vol. ii. p. 118.) The
term “filth,” as here employed, can have but one meaning.
“Poor Robin, in his Almanac for 1695 ... ridicules the following
indelicate fooleries then in use, which must surely have been either of
Dutch or Flemish extraction. They who when they make water go streaking
the walls with their urine, as if they were planning some antic figures
or making some curious delineations, or shall piss in the dust, making
I know not what scattering angles and circles, or some chink in a
wall, or a little hole in the ground, to be brought in, after two or
three admonitions, as incurable fools.” (Brand, “Popular Antiquities,”
vol. iii. p. 175, article “Nose and Mouth Omens.”) This was possibly a
survival from some old method of divining.
Cameron, describing the dance of a medicine-man in the village of
Kwinhata, near the head of the Congo, and the humble deference shown to
these Mganga by the women, says of one of the women: “She soon went away
quite happy, the chief Mganga having honored her by spitting in her face
and giving her a ball of beastliness as a charm. This she hastened to
place in safety in her hut.”—(“Across Africa,” vol. ii. p. 82.)
An article in “Table Talk,” copied in the “Evening Star,” Washington, D.
C., of Dec. 17, 1888, entitled “Christmas under the Polar Star,” says
that “in Southern Lapland, should the householder neglect to provide
an ample store of fuel for the season’s needs, in popular belief, the
disgusted Yule-swains or Christmas goblins would so befoul the wood-pile
that there would be no getting at its contents.”
Frommann devotes a long article to a refutation of the popular idea of
his day that from the urine or seed of a man innocently hanged for theft,
could be generated “homunculi.” “Anile istud placitum, ex urina vel
semine hominis innocenter ad suspendium furti crimine damnati homunculum
generari.”—(“Tract. de Fascinat.,” p. 672.)
“Butler’s description in his ‘Hudibras’ of ‘a cunning man or
fortune-teller,’ is fraught with a great deal of his usual pleasantry,—
“‘To him, with questions and with urine,
They for discovery flock, or curing.’”
—(Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” vol. iii. p. 62, article “Sorcerer.”)
“There were Etruscan wizards who made rain or discovered springs of
water, it is not certain which. They were thought to bring the rain or
water out of their bellies.”—(“The Golden Bough,” Frazer, vol. i. p. 22.)
The bed-chamber of Munza, King of the Mombottoes, was “painted
with many geometrical designs ... the white from dog’s dung (album
Græcum).”—(“Heart of Africa,” Schweinfurth, London, 1878, vol. ii. p. 36.)
It is quite safe to assert that these “geometrical designs” were
“magical.”
“Witches are supposed to acquire influence over any one by becoming
possessed of anything belonging to the intended victim,—such as a hair, a
piece of wearing apparel, or a pin. The influence acquired by the witch
is greater if such an article be voluntarily or unconsciously handed to
her by the person asked for it.... A witch can be disabled by securing
a hair of her head, wrapping it in a piece of paper, and placing it
against a tree as a target into which a silver bullet is to be fired from
a gun.... When the patient reaches the age of adolescence, the alleged
relief (from incontinence of urine) is obtained by urinating into a
newly-made grave; the corpse must be of the opposite sex to that of the
experimenter.”—(“Folk-Lore of the Pennsylvania Germans,” Hoffman, in
“Journal of American Folk-Lore,” January-March, 1889, pp. 28-32.)
Black alludes to the same ideas. See his “Folk-Medicine,” p. 16.
To frustrate the effects of witchcraft, Dr. Rosinus Lentilius recommended
that the patient take a quantity of his own ordure, the size of a
filbert, and drink it in oil. (See “Ephem. Medic.,” Leipsig, 1694, p.
170.) According to Paullini, the antidotes were to take human ordure
both internally and externally, and human urine externally. Schurig, for
the same purpose, recommended the human urine and ordure, but both to be
taken internally, mixed with hyoscyamus.—(“Chylologia,” pp. 765, 766.)
In France witches were transformed into animals, and vice versa, “by
washing their hands in a certain water which they kept in a pot.”
Reference is also made to “a basin of anything but holy water with which
the initiated were sprinkled.”—(“Sorcery and Magic,” Thomas Wright,
London, 1851, vol. i. pp. 310, 311, 328, 329.)
Reginald Scot tells the story of “a mass-priest” who was tormented by
an incubus; after all other remedies had failed, he was advised by “a
cunning witch ... that the next morning, about the dawning of the day, I
should pisse, and immediately should cover the pisse-pot, or stop it with
my right nether-stock.”—(“Discoverie,” p. 65.)
The Thlinkeet of the northwest coast of America believe that a drowned
man can be restored to life by cutting his skin and applying a medicine
made of certain roots infused in the urine of a child, which has been
kept for three moons. Drowned men, according to their medicine-men, are
turned into otters.—(See Franz Boas, in “Journal of American Folk-Lore,”
vol. i. p. 218.)
“It was a supposed remedy against witchcraft to put some of the bewitched
person’s water, with a quantity of pins, needles, and nails, into a
bottle, cork them up, and set them before the fire, in order to confine
the spirit; but this sometimes did not prove sufficient, as it would
often force the cork out with a loud noise, like that of a pistol,
and cast the contents to a considerable height.”—(Brand, “Popular
Antiquities,” vol. iii. p. 13, article “Sorcerers.”)
Where the limbs of a man had been bewitched, he should bathe them
with his own urine; some recommended an addition of garlic or
assafœtida.—(Frommann, “Tract. de Fascinat.,” pp. 961, 962.)
“Jorden, in his curious treatise, ‘Of the Suffocation of the Mother,’
1603, p. 24, says: ‘Another policie Marcellus Donatus tells us of, which
a physitian used toward the Countesse of Mantua, who, being in that
disease which we call melancholia hypochondriaca, did verily believe
that she was bewitched, and was cured by conveying of nayles, needles,
feathers, and such like things, into her close-stool when she took
physicke, making her believe that they came out of her bodie.’”—(Brand,
“Popular Antiquities,” vol. iii. p. 13, article “Sorcerers.”)
Schurig prescribed hen and dove dung for the cure of the
bewitched.—(“Chylologia,” p. 817.)
Beckherius highly extolled human ordure for the same purpose.—(“Med.
Microcosmus,” p. 113.)
“The catamenial blood of women was looked upon as efficacious in chasing
away demons.”—(Black, “Folk-Medicine,” p. 154, quoting Sinistrari.)
In Scotland, “they put a small quantity of salt into the first milk of
a cow, after calving, that is given to any person to drink. This is
done with a view to prevent skaith (harm), if it should happen that
the person is not canny.”—(Brand, “Pop. Ant.,” vol. iii. p. 165, art.
“Salt-Falling.” Compare the foregoing with what Sir Samuel Baker tells us
about African superstitions on the same subject.)
“On line 160, Reinerstein’s and Retz’s edition of Lucian’s ‘Dea Syra,’
4vo, vol. iii. p. 654, you will find human dung mentioned as a medicine
or charm, and urine some lines lower.”—(Personal letter from Prof. W.
Robertson Smith, dated Christ College, Cambridge, England, August 11,
1888.)
One of the most curious features about Grimm’s “Teutonic Mythology”
(Stallybrass’ translation, London, 1882), is the absence of any mention
of the use of human or animal ordure or urine in any manner, either
medicinally or religiously, or to baffle witchcraft. He may have issued a
supplement, in which all this may have been corrected; but if he did not,
then his work is most singularly defective.
Mr. Sylvester Baxter states that in a recent conversation with Mr. Frank
H. Cushing, near Tempe, Arizona, he learned that in Mr. Cushing’s youth,
people in Central and Western New York were still using charms against
witchcraft, and that Mr. Cushing was personally acquainted with a family
which had prepared a decoction, one of whose ingredients was human urine;
this as a preventive of witchcraft. The locality referred to was about
eighteen miles from Rochester, N. Y.
“Spitting into recently voided urine prevents one from getting ‘warrle’
on his eyes.” (Mrs. Fanny D. Bergen, Cambridge, Mass.) This remedy goes
back to Pliny.
“To unbewitch the bewitched, you must spit in the pot where you have made
water.”—(Brand, “Pop. Ant.,” vol. iii. p. 263, art. “Saliva,” quoting
from Reginald Scot’s “Discoverie.”)
“Several fetid and stinking matters, such as old urine, are excellent
means for keeping away all kinds of evil-intentioned spirits and
ghosts.”—(Rink, “Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo,” Edinburgh, 1875,
pp. 50, 452.)
“The Manxmen still place a vessel full of water outside their doors at
night, to enable the fairies (who, they say, were the first inhabitants
of their island,) to wash themselves, and prevent them from doing
harm.”—(Brand, “Pop. Ant.” vol. ii. p. 494, art. “Fairy Mythology.”)
It is certainly singular to find here a trace of the custom noted as
existing among the Laplanders and the people of Siberia, who placed tubs
of urine for the same purpose, urine being used in ordinary ablutions.
In England, there was a superstition that the woman who made water upon
nettles would be “peevish for a whole day.”—(Brand, “Pop. Ant.,” vol.
iii. p. 359, art. “Divination by Flowers.”)
Fosbroke (“Encyclopædia of Antiquities,” vol. ii.) says that this proverb
is ancient. “Nettles were in ancient times regarded as an aphrodisiac.”
Schurig (“Chylologia,” p. 795) repeats the story to the effect that
the Laplanders calked the inner seams of their ships with the ordure
of virgins to increase their speed. The Laplanders, when any of their
reindeer die of disease, abandon their camp, being careful “to burn all
the excrement of the animal before they depart.”—(Leem’s “Account of
Danish Lapland,” in Pinkerton, vol. i. p. 484. See previous citations
from Sauer in regard to the Yakuts of Siberia.)
The story was current in California, about twenty years since, that the
immigrants to that state from Missouri and Arkansas, in the gold-mining
days, had the custom of depositing their evacuations, before starting
on the march of the day, in the camp-fires of the preceding night.
Nothing was learned of the meaning, if any, of the custom. Nursing
women sprinkled a few drops of their milk on the burning coals in the
fireplace, to ensure an abundant flow.—(Etmuller, vol. i. p. 68.)
The author has been fortunate in obtaining a copy of the address of Mr.
James Mooney, of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, D. C., upon the
“Medical Mythology of Ireland.”
This interesting and extremely valuable contribution, which can be found
in the “Transactions of the American Philosophical Society for 1887,”
leaves no uncertainty in regard to the mystic powers ascribed by the
Celtic peasantry to both urine and ordure. Urine and chicken-dung are
shown to be potent in frustrating the mischief of fairies; “fire, iron,
and dung” are spoken of as the “three great safeguards against the
influence of fairies and the infernal spirits.” Dung is carried about the
person, as part of the contents of amulets; and children suffering from
convulsions are, as a last resort, bathed from head to foot in urine, to
rescue them from the clutches of their fairy persecutors. See also p.
377, in regard to the “dwarves,” who, in England, seem to be the same as
fairies.
Du Chaillu, in his “Land of the Midnight Sun,” makes no reference to the
use, in any manner, by the inhabitants of that region, of excrementitious
materials for any purposes. His stay was of such an extremely short
duration, that his observations cannot be compared with those made by
Leems and others, from whom information has already been extracted.
A curious survival, in France, of the Parsi custom of the “Nirang” is
demonstrated in the May number of “Mélusine,” Paris, 1888, entitled “Le
Nirang des Parsis, en Basse Bretagne.”
“J’ai passé mon enfance, jusqu’à l’âge de quatorze ans, dans un vieux
manoir breton, du nom de Keramborgne, dans la commune de Plouarte,
arrondissement de Lannion. Le manoir paternel était bien connu des
malheureux et des mendiants errants ... qui venaient demander le vivre
et le couvert pour la nuit.... Parmi les pauvres errants qui étaient les
hôtes les plus assidus de Keramborgne ... se trouvait une vieille femme
nommée Gillette Kerlohiou, qui connaissait toutes les nouvelles du pays
... et, de plus, avait la réputation d’être quelque peu sorcière, et de
guérir certaines maladies par des oraisons et des herbes dont elle seule
avait le secret.... Un matin que Gillette avait passé la nuit à l’étable
... elle marmottait des prières.... Une vache s’étant mise à uriner,
la vieille mendiante se précipita vers elle, reçut de l’urine dans le
creux de sa main et s’en frotta la figure à plusieurs reprises.... Ce
que voyant le vacher, il la traita de salope et de vieille folle. Mais
Gillette lui dit, sans s’émouvoir: ‘Rien n’est meilleur, mon fils, que
de se laver la figure, le matin, en se levant, avec de l’urine de la
vache, et même avec sa propre urine si l’on ne peut se procurer de celle
de vache. Quand vous avez fait cette ablution, le matin, vous êtes, pour
toute la journée, à l’abri des embûches et des méchancetés du diable, car
vous devenez invisible pour lui.’”
The writer of the above, M. F.-M. Luzel, learned from the other peasants
and beggars standing about that the belief expressed by the old woman was
fully concurred in by her comrades.
“Nos paysannes de France se lavaient les mains dans leur urine ou dans
celle de leurs maris, ou de leurs enfants, pour détourner les maléfices
ou en empêcher l’effet.”—(Réclus, “Les Primitifs,” p. 98.)
Father Le Jeune must have been on the track of something corresponding to
an ur-orgy among the Hurons when he learned that the devil imposed upon
the sick, in dreams, the duty of wallowing in ordure if they hoped for
restoration to health.[81]
This penitential wallowing was retained by nations of a high order of
advancement, the ordure of primitive times being generally superseded by
clay and other less filthy matter.
“Let it suffice to display the points where Greek found itself in harmony
with Australian and American and African practice.... 3. The habit of
daubing persons about to be initiated with clay, ... or anything else
that is sordid, and of washing this off, apparently by way of showing
that old guilt is removed, and a new life entered upon.”—(“Myth, Ritual,
and Religion,” Andrew Lang, London, 1887, vol. ii. p. 282.)
“Plutarch, in his essay on superstition, represents the guilty man who
would be purified actually rolling in clay.”—(Idem, p. 286.)
The following is described as the Abyssinian method of exorcising a
woman: The exorcist “lays an amulet on the patient’s heaving bosom, makes
her smell of some vile compound, and the moment her madness is somewhat
abated begins a dialogue with the Bouda (demon), who answers in a woman’s
voice. The devil is invited to come out in the name of all the saints;
but a threat to treat him with some red-hot coals is usually more
potent, and after he has promised to obey, he seeks to delay his exit
by asking for something to eat. _Filth and dirt_ are mixed and hidden
under a bush, when the woman crawls to the sickening repast and gulps it
down with avidity.”—(From an article entitled “Abyssinian Women,” in the
“Evening Star,” Washington, D. C., October 17, 1885.)
“A Pretty Charme or Conclusion for one Possessed.... The possessed body
must go upon his or her knees to church, ... and so must creep without
going out of the way, being the common highway, in that sort how foul and
dirty soever the same may be, or whatsoever lie in the way, not shunning
anything whatsoever, untill he come to the church, where he must heare
masse devoutly.”—(Scot, “Discoverie,” p. 178.)
By the Irish peasantry urine was sprinkled upon sick children.[82]
American boys urinate upon their legs to prevent cramp while swimming.
In Stirling, Scotland, “a certain quantity of cow-dung is forced into
the mouth of a calf immediately after it is calved, or at least before
it has received any meat; owing to this, the vulgar believe that witches
and fairies can have no power ever after to injure the calf.”—(Brand,
“Popular Antiquities,” vol. iii. p. 257, article “Rural Charms.”)
Frommann gives a preparation of twenty-five ingredients for freeing
infants from witchcraft (fascinatio); but neither human nor animal egestæ
are mentioned.—(“Tract. de Fascinat.,” p. 449, 450.)
Cox, in his history of Ireland, gives a description of the trial of Lady
Alice Kettle, of Ossory, charged with being a witch, and with sacrificing
to a familiar spirit at night, at cross-roads, nine red cocks and nine
peacock’s eyes, and with sweeping the streets of Kilkenny, “raking all
the filth towards the doors of her son, William Outlaw, murmuring and
muttering secretly with herself these words:—
“‘To the House of William, my son,
Hie all the Wealth of Kilkenny town.’”
—(“History of Ireland,” London, 1639, vol. i. p. 102. The date of the
above was about 1325.)
This story is quoted by Vallencey, “Collect. de Rebus Hibernicis,”
Dublin, 1774, vol. ii. p. 369, and by Henry C. Lea, “History of the
Inquisition,” New York, 1888, vol. iii. p. 457; it is originally to be
found in Camden.
In the Island of Guernsey, within the present generation, “John Lane,
of Anneville, Lane Parish,” has been tried on the charge of “having
practised necromancy,” and “induced many persons in the country parishes
to believe that they were bewitched,” and that he could drive away the
devil and other bad spirits “by boiling herbs to produce a certain
perfume not at all grateful to the olfactory nerves of demons, ... and
the sprinkling of celestial water.”—(Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” vol.
iii. p. 66, article “Sorcerers.”)
In the valuable compilation of superstitious practices interdicted by
Roman Catholic councils Thiers includes the persons who bathe their hands
with urine in the morning to avert witchcraft or nullify its effect. He
says, too, that Saint Lucy was reputed to be a witch, for which reason
the Roman Judge, Paschasius, at her trial sprinkled her with urine.[83]
See the extract just quoted from “Mélusine.”
The Romans had a feast to the mother of all the gods, Berecinthia, in
which the matrons took their idol and sprinkled it with their urine.[84]
Berecinthia was one of the names under which Cybele or Rhea, the primal
earth goddess, was worshipped by the Romans and by many nations in the
East. Her priests, the Galli, emasculated themselves in orgies whose
frenzy was of the same general type as the Omophagi of the Greeks,
previously described.
The emasculation of the priests of Cybele was performed with a piece of
Samian pottery.—(See footnote to Rev. Lewis Evans’ translation of the
Satires of Lucilius, lib. vii., edition of New York, 1860.)
The priests of Cybele were by some supposed to have received the name of
Galli from the River Gallus, “near which these priests inflicted upon
themselves the punishment we are speaking of.... The effect of the water
of that river was to throw them into fits of enthusiasm,—‘qui bibit, inde
furit,’ as Ovid has it.”—(Abbé Banier, “Mythology,” English translation,
London, 1740, vol. ii. p. 563.)
“Here they set down their litters at night and bedew the very image of
the goddess with copious irrigations, while the chaste moon witnesses
their abominations.”—(Juvenal, Sixth Satire, describing the rites of Bona
Dea, translated by Rev. Lewis Evans, M.A., Wadhams College, Oxford, New
York, 1860.)
Father Baudin speaks of the secret society called the “Ogbuni:” “From
what I have been able to learn, this society is simply an institution
similar to the secret societies of the pagan people of ancient times,
where the members were initiated into the infamous mysteries of the great
goddess.” (Negroes of Guinea.)—(“Fetichism and Fetich-worshippers,”
Baudin, New York, 1885, p. 64.)
The Eskimo living near Point Barrow have a yearly ceremony for driving
out an evil spirit which they call Tuna. Among the ceremonies incident to
the occasion is this: One of the performers “brought a vessel of urine
and flung it on the fire.”—(“The Golden Bough,” Frazer, vol. ii. p. 164,
quoting “Report of the International Polar Expedition to Point Barrow,”
Washington, 1885, p. 42.)
It is strange to encounter in races so diverse apparently as the Greeks
and the Hottentots the same rites of emasculation and urine sprinkling.
The sect of the “Skoptsi” or the “Eunuchs,” in Russia, “base their
peculiar tenets on Christ’s saying, ‘There are some eunuchs which were
born so from their mother’s womb, and there are some eunuchs which were
made eunuchs of men, and there be eunuchs which have made themselves
eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it
let him receive it’ (Matt. xix. 12).”—(Heard, “Russian Creed and Russian
Dissent,” p. 265.)
“This heresy, which is the most modern of all, probably owes its origin
to influences from the East slowly filtering through the lower ranks of
the population.”—(Idem, p. 267.)
Reginald Scot tells the story of a quack who preyed upon the fears of
patients suffering from tympanitis, telling them they had vipers in their
bellies, which vipers he would try to smuggle into the patient’s “ordure
or excrement, after his purgations.”—(“Discoverie,” p. 198.)
Schurig relates that the countrywomen in Germany, if after milking their
cows for a long time they were unable to bring the proper quantity of
butter, suspected that they were under the spell of a witch; to undo this
spell it was only necessary to mix some fresh milk with human ordure and
throw the mixture down the privy; or human ordure was applied to the
teats of the cows, much as Sir Samuel Baker has shown the Africans will
do in our day. “Quippe quæ, siquando in conficiendo butyro, per tempus
frustra laborarunt, suspicione veneficii cujusdam seductæ lac vaccinum
recens emulsum stercori humano commixtum cloacæ simul infundunt, atque
sic illico a Veneficio liberantur.... Si ferrum ignitum una stercore
humano lacte vaccino consperso inseras, veneficæ pustulas inducet....
Contra magicam lactis vaccarum ablationem, ipsarum ubera stercore humano
aliquamdiu inungi solent.” And he ends his paragraph by quoting the
dictum of Johannis Michaelis, “Sine omni fascinatione et superstitione
proprio stercore efficere possit.”—(Schurig, “Chylologia,” pp. 788, 789,
par. 62.)
Compare with the information derived from Paullini.
The above practice seems to have been transplanted to Pennsylvania, with
its more objectionable features omitted.
“The housewife sometimes finds difficulty in butter-making, the spell
being believed to be the work of a witch.... The remedy was to plunge a
red-hot poker into the contents of the churn, when the spell was broken,
and the butter immediately began to form.”—(“Folk-Lore of the Penn’a
Germans.”)—(Hoffman, in “Jour. of Amer. Folk-Lore,” 1889.)
From all this it would appear plausible to assume that the “ripening of
cheese” in human urine was originally induced by a desire to avert the
evils of witchcraft. Refer also to the notes from Sir Samuel Baker.
In “South Mountain Magic,” Mrs. M. V. Dahlgren, Boston, Mass., 1882,
may be found references to the bewitching of milk and cream, and to the
remedy employed of putting in hot stones or “a wedge of hot iron” (pp.
165-167). In this partial “survival,” we see the disappearance of the
more objectionable features of the practices of the old country. Mrs.
Dahlgren’s book treats of the superstitions of the Pennsylvania Germans
living close to the Maryland border.
“The urine casters, a set of quacks almost within our own recollection,
had a peculiar jargon, which it is not necessary to attend to.”—(“Medical
Dictionary,” Bartholomew Parr, M. D., Philadelphia, Penn’a, 1819, art.
“Urine.”)
When cattle had been killed by witchcraft, Reginald Scot gave a long
formula for detecting the culprit; among other things, the farmer was
directed to “traile the bowels of the beast unto your house ... into the
kitchen, and there make a fire, and set ouer the same a grediron, and
thereupon lay the inwards or bowels, and as they wax hot, so shall the
witches’ entrails be molested with extreme heat and pain.”—(“Discoverie,”
p. 198. It should be observed that there are no directions about
“cleaning” the bowels of the animal.)
Among the modes of detecting witches in England, were “by shaving off
every hair of the witch’s body. They were also detected by putting
hair, parings of the nails, and urine of any person bewitched into a
stone bottle, and hanging it up in the chimney.”—(Cotta, in his “Short
Discovery of the Unobserved Dangers,” p. 54, speaks of “the burning of
the dung or urine of such as are bewitched.”) In “A Pleasant Grove of New
Fancies,” by H. R. 8vo, London, 1857, p. 76, we have:—
“A charm to bring in the witch,
To house the hag you must do this:
Commix with meal, a little p—
Of him bewitched; then forthwith make
A little wafer or a cake;
And this rarely baked, will bring
The old hag in; no surer thing.”
Among other methods given for baffling witches and making their evil
deeds turn upon themselves, we find: “taking some of the thatch from over
the door; or a tyle, if the house be tyled ... sprinkle it over with the
patient’s water.... Put salt into the patient’s water and dash it upon
the red hot tyle.” Another: heat a horse-shoe red hot and “quench him
in the patient’s urine.... Having the patient’s urine, set it over the
fire.... Put into it three horse-nails and a little salt.... Or, heat a
horse-shoe red hot” and “quench him several times in the urine.” Still
another: “stop the urine of the patient close up in a bottle, and put
into it three nails, pins, or needles, with a little white salt, keeping
the urine always warm.”—(Brand, “Pop. Ant.” vol. iii. pp. 170 _et seq._,
art. “Sorcery and Witchcraft.”)
“To ascertain if one be bewitched, take his urine and boil it in a
new, unused pot; if it foam up, he is not bewitched; if not, it is
uncertain. Or, take clean ashes, put them in a new pot, let the patient
urinate thereon. Tie up the pot, and let it stand in the sun; then
break the ashes apart; if the person be bewitched, hairs will be found
therein.”—(Paullini, pp. 260, 261.)
“Neither can I belieue (I speak it with reuerence unto graue judgments)
that ... the burning of the dung or vrine of such as are bewitched,
or floating bodies aboue the water, or the like, are any trial of a
witch.”—(“A Short Discouerie of the Unobserued Dangers of Seuerall sorts
of Ignorant and Vnconsiderate Practisers of Physicke in England,” John
Cotta, London, 1612, p. 54.)
Beckherius inclined to believe that human teeth, taken medicinally,
would break down witchcraft: “Contra maleficia et veneficia prodesse
scribit.”—(“Med. Microcosmus,” p. 265.)
“On New Year’s Day they (the Highlanders) burn juniper before their
cattle, and on the first Monday in every quarter, sprinkle them with
urine.”—(“Pennant’s Tour in Scotland,” in Pinkerton, vol. iii. p. 90.)
“Les rustres slaves secouaient sur leur bétail des herbes de la
Saint Jean, bouillies dans de l’urine pour le préserver des mauvais
sorts.”—(“Les Primitifs,” Réclus, p. 98.)
We should not forget that from the earliest recorded times the cedar and
juniper have been devoted to sacred offices. “The god of the cedar, to
which tree was ascribed a peculiar power to avert fatal influences and
sorcery.” (This, among the Accadians, the earliest known inhabitants of
Mesopotamia.)—(See “Chaldean Magic,” Lenormant, p. 178.)
From a very early date, urine seems to have been symbolized or superseded
by holy water, salt and water, “celestial water,” “fore-spoken water,”
juniper water, or wine or water, according to circumstances. “For lung
disorders in cattle ... take fennel and hassock, etc.... make five
crosses of hassuck-grass, set them on four sides of the cattle, and one
in the middle; sing about the cattle Benedicam, etc.... Sprinkle holy
water upon them, burn about them incense.”—(“Saxon Leechdoms,” vol. iii.
p. 57; the same remedy for diseased sheep, idem, p. 57.)
“If a horse or other beast be shot (elf-shot) take seed of dock and
Scotch wax, let a mass priest sing twelve masses over them, and put holy
water on the horse.”—(Idem, vol. iii. p. 47; again, vol. iii. p. 157.)
“When a contagious disease enters among cattle, the fire is extinguished
in some villages round; then they force fire with a wheel, or by
rubbing a piece of dry wood upon another, and therewith burn juniper
in the stalls of the cattle that the smoke may purify the air about
them; they likewise boil juniper in water which they sprinkle upon the
cattle.”—(Brand, “Pop. Ant.” vol. iii. p. 286, art. “Physical Charms,”
quoting Shaw’s “History of the Province of Moray in Scotland.” Brand
thinks that “this is, no doubt, a Druid custom.”)
Scot, in his “Discoverie” (p. 157), says: “Men are preserved from
witchcraft by sprinkling of holy water,” etc. (Idem, vol. i. p. 19, art.
“Sorcery.”) “For the devils are observed to have delicate nostrils,
abominating and flying some kind of stinks; witness the flight of the
evil spirit into the remote parts of Egypt, driven by the smell of the
fish’s liver, burnt by Tobit.” Conjurors are reported as always careful
to “first exorcise the wine and water which they sprinkle on their
circle.”—(Idem, vol. iii. pp. 55, 57, art. “Sorcery.”)
The foul condition of the atmosphere of sleeping-apartments was supposed
to be rectified by the burning of juniper, sometimes of rosemary. “He
doth sacrifice two pence in juniper to her every morning.” (“Every Man
out of his Humor,” Ben Jonson) “Then put fresh water into both the
bough-pots, and burn a little juniper in the hall chimney. Like a beast,
as I was, I pissed out the fire last night.” (“Mayor of Tumborough,”
Beaumont and Fletcher.) “Burn a little juniper in my murrin; the maid
made it in her chamber-pot.”—(“Cupid’s Rev.” Beaumont and Fletcher, iv.
3; contributed by Dr. Fletcher.)
The diuretic effects of juniper berries are well known; we may conjecture
that the “water of juniper” superseded another fluid induced by the use
of the berries.
The “fore-spoken water” with which sick cattle are sprinkled in the
Orkneys, is still to be noted in places in the Highlands.—(See Brand,
“Pop. Ant.” vol. iii. p. 274, art. “Physical Charms.”)
The following spell is from Herrick’s “Hesperides,” p. 304:—
“Holy water come and bring;
Cast in salt for seasoning;
Set the brush for sprinkling.”
(Idem, vol. iii. p. 58, art. “Sorcerer.”)
“The charmer muttered some words over water, in imitation of Catholic
priests consecrating holy water.”—(“Phil. of Magic,” Salverte, p. 52.
Shetland Islands.)
According to Dalyell, this “fore-spoken water” was made of water, salt,
and the saliva of the conjurer.—(See “Superstitions of Scotland,” p. 98.)
“For information of a cherished relative and his fate, in the other
world, they apply to the fetich-priest, who takes a little child and
bathes his face with lustral-water.”—(“Fetichism,” Baudin, p. 65.)
The “lustral water” of the foregoing paragraph, is made of “snails and
vegetable butter.”—(Idem, p. 88.)
Reginald Scot gives a “cure” for one “possessed,” one point of which is
that the victim “must mingle holy water with his meate and his drink, and
holy salt also must be a portion of the mixture.” (“Discoverie,” p. 178.)
Witches were required to drink holy water at their trials.—(Idem, p. 21.)
Salt was called “divine” by the ancients.—(See “Morals,” Plutarch,
Goodwin’s English edit., Boston, 1870, vol. iii. p. 338.)
“Both Greeks and Romans mixed salt with their sacrificial cakes; in their
lustrations, also, they made use of salt and water, which gave rise, in
after times, to the superstition of holy water.”—(Brand, “Pop. Ant.” vol.
iii. p. 161, art. “Salt Falling.”)
The Scottish use of salt and water, as already noted, is described by
Black (“Folk Medicine,” p. 23); and by Napier (“Folk-Lore,” pp. 36, 37.)
Salt is put in the cradle of a new-born babe in Holland.—(“Times,”
New York, Nov. 10, 1889.) “No one will go out on any material affairs
without putting some salt in their pockets; much less remove from one
house to another, marry, put out a child, or take one to nurse, without
salt being interchanged.” (Dalyell, “Superst. of Scotland,” p. 96.)
Salt is not used by the Eastern Inuit: “Le sel leur répugne, peut-être
parceque l’atmosphère et les poissons crus en sont déjà saturés.”—(“Les
Primitifs,” Réclus, p. 33.)
Having shown that witches were exorcised in France, England, Scotland,
etc., by sprinkling with urine, we have reason to claim the following
treatment to be at least cousin-german to our subject. In the west of
Scotland, a peasant suffering from a mysterious and obstinate disease,
was reputed to be under the influence of the “evil eye.” The following
remedy was then resorted to: “An old sixpence is borrowed from some
neighbor, without telling the object to which it is to be applied; as
much salt as can be lifted upon the sixpence is put into a tablespoonful
of water and melted; the sixpence is then put into the solution, and the
soles of the feet and palms of the hands of the patient are moistened
three times with the salt water; it is then tasted three times, and the
patient ‘scored aboun the breath,’ that is, by the operator dipping the
fore finger into the salt water and drawing it along the brow. When this
is done, the contents of the spoon are thrown behind and right over
the fire, the throwers at the same time saying: ‘Lord preserve us from
all scathe.’”—(Brand, “Pop. Ant.” vol. iii. p. 47, art. “Fascination of
Witches.”)
Wright calls attention to the fact that at the meetings of witches, “at
times, every article of luxury was placed before them, and they feasted
in the most sumptuous manner. Often, however, the meats served on the
table were nothing but toads and rats, and other articles of a revolting
nature. In general they had no salt, and but seldom bread.” After these
feasts came “wild and uproarious dancing and revelry.... Their backs,
instead of their faces, were turned inwards.... It may be observed, as
a curious circumstance, that the modern waltz is first traced among the
meetings of the witches and their imps.... The songs were generally
obscene or vulgar, or ridiculous.”—(“Sorcery and Magic,” Thomas Wright,
London, 1851, pp. 310, 311, 328, 329.)
Reginald Scot also states that the waltz was derived from the dance of
the witches.—(See “Discoverie,” p. 36.)
The presents which the devil gave to witches all turned into filth the
next morning.—(See Grimm, “Teut. Mythol.,” vol. iii. p. 1070.)
For a specimen of the filthy in literature, read the dream of Zador of
Vera Cruz, who wished to sell his soul to the devil, in “El Bachiller de
Salamanca,” Le Sage, Paris, 1847, part iv. cap. 2, p. 129.
The best explanation of the above story—which represents Zador as making
a compact with his satanic majesty whereby in exchange for Zador’s soul
the devil discloses a gold mine in a graveyard, from which the poor dupe
extracts enough for his present needs, and then marks the locality by an
ingenious method, only to be awakened by his angry wife to the mortifying
consciousness that he has defiled his own bed—is that it reflects the
current opinion of the Spaniards of Le Sage’s era in regard to the
transmutability of the gifts received from the evil one. See the story of
the god “Kutka.”
“Popular tales, which most frequently arise from traditions ... are
remnants of olden times, and illustrate them.... When a vicious or evil
spirit is mentioned in any tale or popular tradition, I consider it
always implies a reminiscence of some being who formerly, during the
supremacy of a religion now rejected, was worshipped as a god. He is
considered to benefit his worshippers, but to molest those who hold
another belief. Mankind, when in a rude state, often attribute their own
intolerance to their gods. Thus mankind creates his own god after his own
image.”—(Sven Nilson, “The Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia,” edited
by Sir John Lubbock, London, 1868, Preface, liii.)
Speculation would lead to no profitable result were we to endeavor by its
aid—the only means now left us—to fathom the obscurity surrounding the
rites and dances, and especially the foods of those witches’ gatherings.
Doctor Dupouy, in “Le Moyen Age Médical,” to which special attention
is due, advances an opinion which seems to cover much of the ground
in a logical manner. This in one word, amounts to the belief that the
witches’ gatherings of Europe were not figments of the imagination, but
really existed, and were the conventions of votaries of the cults stamped
out of existence, and only traceable in the distorted and outlandish
features which would most naturally commend themselves to an ignorant
peasantry. “Among these sorcerers there were old panderers, who knew from
personal experience all practices of debauchery, and who gave the name
of ‘vigils’ to the saturnalia indulged in among villagers on certain
nights,—gatherings composed of bawds and pimps, to which were invited
numerous novices in libidinousness. These sorcerers and witches also knew
the remedies that young girls must take when they wish to destroy the
physiological results of their own imprudence, and what old men needed
to restore their virility. They knew the medicinal qualities of plants,
especially those that stupefied.”—(Translated by T. C. Minor, M.D., under
title of “Medicine in the Middle Ages,” p. 40.)
The initiates in witchcraft may have been compelled to adopt loathsome
foods as a test of the sincerity of their purposes, or they may have
taken them to induce an intoxication such as that of the Zuñis of New
Mexico and the wild tribes of Siberia. There is still another hypothesis
to be considered before relinquishing this topic. The best food, we
know, was always offered to the deities of the ruling sect, and the use
of any of the appurtenants of the rites of the ruling religion in the
ceremonial of a superseded cult was looked upon as the veriest sacrilege
and blasphemy. For example, the use of holy water at the witches’ sabbath
was considered a worse crime than that of being a witch. Therefore
we may conclude that, as the votaries of the superseded religion did
not dare to employ the best, they necessarily had to fall back upon
inferior material out of which to construct their oblations; and as they
assembled generally in mountain recesses, in caves, etc., where nothing
better could be had, they offered themselves in sacrifice,—that is, they
recurred to the old practices of human sacrifice, if indeed they had
ever abandoned them, and gave the pledges of their own hair, saliva,
urine, and egestæ.
“Pure prayer ascends to Him that High doth sit,
Down falls the filth for fiends of Hell more fit.”
Such was the answer made to the father of lies by a venerable monk,—
“A godly father sitting on a draught,
To do as need and nature hath us taught.”
The devil had reproached him for saying his prayers at such a
moment.—(Harington, “Ajax,” pp. 33, 34.)
Mooney relates an instance of the abduction of an Irishwoman by fairies.
She managed to impart to her husband the knowledge of the means by which
her rescue could be accomplished: “He must be ready with some urine and
some chicken-dung, which he must throw upon her, and then seize her....
Soon he heard the fairies approaching, and when the noise came in front
of him he threw the dung and urine in the direction of the sound, and
saw his wife fall from her horse.” (“The Medical Mythology of Ireland,”
James Mooney, Amer. Phil. Society, 1887.) The Irish peasantry firmly
believe in the power of the fairies to carry off their children; to
effect a restoration, “a wise woman” is summoned, whose method is to
“heat the shovel in the fireplace, place the changeling upon it, and put
it out upon the dung-hill.” (Idem.) “Fire, iron, and dung, the three
great safeguards against the influence of fairies and the infernal
spirits.”—(Idem.)
The peasantry of Ireland carry about the person “medicine bags” very much
like those in use among the North American Indians. Among the contents
of these bags “are usually found tobacco, garlic, salt, chicken-dung,
lus-crea, and some dust from the roadside.” (Idem.) This is “carried as
a protection against the fairies; ... also as a protection against the
evil eye; and something of the same nature is sewed into the clothing
of the bride when her friends are preparing her for the marriage
ceremony.”—(Idem.)
“A charm to be said each morning by a witch fasting, or at least before
she goes abroad: ‘The fire bite, the fire bite; hog’s turd over it, hog’s
turd over it, hog’s turd over it! The Father with thee; the Son with
thee; the Holy Ghost between us both to be!’ This last refrain three
times; then spit over one shoulder, and then over the other, and then
three times right forward.”—(Scot, “Discoverie,” p. 177.)
“Item. They hang ... garlicke in the roof of the house for to keep away
witches and spirits, ... and so they do alicium likewise.”—(Idem, p. 192.)
Garlic was put in the cradle of a new-born babe in Holland.—(“Times,” New
York, Nov. 10, 1889.)
Garlic could not be eaten by the monks or nuns of Thibet (Bhikshuni);
to eat it was considered a sin. “140. Si une Bhikshuni mange de l’ail,”
etc. But in a footnote it is stated that it might be eaten when it was
the only remedy for some disease or infirmity; but even then the patient
should not enter a dormitory, a latrine, could not expound the law,
mingle with brahmins, enter a park, a market, or a temple until he had
undergone a three days’ purification, been bathed and fumigated.—(See
“Pratimoksha Sutra,” translated by W. W. Rockhill, Paris, 1885, Société
Asiatique.)
XLIV.
A FEW REMARKS UPON TEMPLE OR SACRED PROSTITUTION, AND UPON THE HORNS OF
CUCKOLDS.
“The bawds of Amsterdam believed (in 1637) that horse’s dung dropped
before the house and put fresh behind the door ... would bring good luck
to their houses.”—(“Le Putanisme d’Amsterdam,” p. 56, quoted in Brand,
“Popular Antiquities,” vol. iii. p. 18, article “Sorcery.”)
While a sacred origin cannot be claimed for prostitution in general,
all, or nearly all, temples must in the early ages of mankind have
been provided with prostitutes. The necessity for such a provision is
obvious. Man’s superstition and ignorance invested certain localities,
or the guardian spirits of those localities, with the power to work him
weal or woe, unless kept in good humor by oblations and sacrifices.
Temples were erected on such foundations, tended by priests, who waxed
fat and enriched themselves, because the right of asylum attached to
their position, although such a right did not absolutely attach to
the little communities which insensibly grew up around these temples.
The necessities of national administration and of international or
inter-tribal arbitration, would naturally attract periodically to those
temples the law-makers, the great chiefs and their followers, perhaps to
settle their disputes or arrange their treaties by personal discussion,
perhaps by the decision of the arch-priest.
At such gatherings, no inconsiderable amount of barter and traffic would
spring up, and many, of a mercantile turn of mind, would realize the
advantages of a permanent residence. The sailors and merchants from
foreign parts could not always be expected to behave with propriety;
they might, at times, be as anxious to “paint the town red” as the
western cowboy is whenever he is paid off. The women of the city would
be in constant danger of insult; hence, as a wise precaution, a certain
class of young and attractive females were reserved for the service of
the temples,—that is, for the gratification of the sexual passions of
strangers and the enrichment of the priests.
Indeed, until some such mode of detail had been devised and carried into
effect, and perhaps long after that, it seems to have been the custom for
all the women of the city to share in this duty; we read that, at the
temple of Mylitta, it was incumbent upon each woman to prostitute herself
with a stranger at least once in her life, at the temple of that goddess.
The priests would impart to the prostitutes a knowledge of charms
intended to secure good fortune; these charms would, in course of time,
be adopted by prostitutes in general, who had no connection with the
temple at all. Similar survivals can be traced among gamblers. Gambling
was at one time a sacred method of divination. Those who cast omens were
always on the lookout for good signs and bad. One of the best signs was
to meet a man with a hump-back. Gamblers to-day consider themselves
fortunate when they can rub the hump of a cripple.
This sacred prostitution was by no means confined to the Babylonians. The
Hebrews had, attached to their temples, a class of persons of both sexes
termed “Kadeshim,” to whom the opprobrious office of public prostitution
has been attributed; and in numerous other parts of the world the same
sort of personal degradation has been reported. The women devoted to this
service wore a certain uniform. (See Dulaure, “Des Différents Cultes,”
vol. ii. p. 75, speaking of the “Kadeshoth.” See also Smith’s “Dictionary
of the Bible,” New York, 1871, articles, “Harlot” and “Sodomite.”)
“The sons of Eli lay with the women that assembled at the door of the
tabernacle of the congregation.”—(1 Samuel ii. 22.)
“Throughout India, and also through the densely inhabited parts of Asia
and modern Turkey, there is a class of females who dedicate themselves
to the service of the Deity whom they adore, and the rewards accruing
from their prostitution are devoted to the service of the temple and
the priests officiating therein. The temples of the Hindus in the
Dekkan possessed these establishments. They had bands of consecrated
dancing-girls, called “women of the idol,” selected in their infancy
by the priests for the beauty of their persons, and trained up with
every elegant accomplishment that could render them attractive.”—(“The
Masculine Cross,” privately printed, 1886, p. 31.)
Réclus has a dissertation upon this subject, which concludes in these
words: “Aussi Juvénal se permettait de demander, ... Quel est le temple
où les femmes ne se prostituent pas?”—(“Les Primitifs,” p. 79.)
Lenormant speaks of “the sacred prostitution, which was imposed
once, at least, in a lifetime, upon all women, even those who were
free.”—(“Chaldean Magic,” François Lenormant, p. 386.)
“Caindu is an heathenish nation, where, in honor of their idols,
they prostitute their wives, sisters, and daughters to the lust of
travellers.”—(Purchas, vol. v. p. 430. Caindu seems to have been a
territory adjacent to Thibet.)
“Sometimes, at the command of a wizard, a man orders his wife to go to
an appointed place, usually a wood, and abandon herself to the first
person she meets. Yet there are women who refuse to comply with such
orders.”—(Patagonia, “Voyage of Adventure and Beagle,” vol. ii. p. 154.)
“The people of Khasrowan, a Christian province in the Libanus,
inhabited by a peculiarly prurient race, also hold high festival under
the far-famed cedars, and their women sacrifice to Venus, like the
‘Kadeshah’ of the Phœnicians. This survival of old superstition is
unknown to missionary ‘hand-books,’ but amply deserves the study of the
anthropologist.”—(Burton, “Arabian Nights,” terminal essay, vol. x. 230.)
The religious prostitution of the ancient Babylonians seems also to
survive, in a small degree, in the petty hamlets of Kesfin and Martaouan,
near Aleppo, in Syria. “The women carry their hospitality as far as those
of Babylon of old. This authorized prostitution seems to be a remnant of
the old Asiatic superstitions.”—(Maltebrun, “Universal Geography,” vol.
i. p. 353, lib. 28.) Dulaure cites the case of Martaouan, and also quotes
Marco Polo in evidence of the existence of the same practices in Kamul,
near Tanguth.—(“Des Dif. Cultes,” vol. ii. pp. 598, 599.)
“Most eastern temples, and especially those connected with the solar
cult, had, and for the most part still have, ‘Deva-Dasis’ temple, or
‘God’s women,’ the followers of Mylitta, though generally not seated
so confessedly nor so prominently as those whom Herodotus describes.
They were doubtless the women with mirrors (Ezek. viii. 14) who wept
for Tamuz, the sun-god.” (“Rivers of Life,” Forlong, vol. i. p. 329.)
The African goddess Odudua promised protection “to all those who would
establish themselves in this place, and erect to her a temple in place
of the cabin. Many persons came and established themselves here,
and thus was founded Ado, which means prostitution in memory of the
goddess.”—(“Fetichism,” Baudin, p. 17.) “The temple erected in this city
is celebrated among the blacks. The neighboring kings offer an ox to
the goddess on her feast-day, and, in accordance with the legend, impure
games are celebrated in her honor.”—(Idem.)
“In the Babylonian worship of the goddess Mylitta, the women who offered
themselves for a price to the stranger at the door of the temple were
distinguished by a peculiar apparel, according to Baruch.... The women
sit in the ways, girded with cordes of rushes and burnt straw,” and
“their resting-places distinguished with cords.”—(Purchas’s “Pilgrims,”
vol. v. p. 56, art. “Hondius’ Babylonia.”)
In Ireland, at the present day, the peasantry make use, in divination and
witchcraft, of “Saint Bridget’s cord,” made of rushes, and corresponding
closely to the cord of the goddess Mylitta.
We are not informed that horns were assumed as a distinctive feature of
such uniform, but we are constantly kept in mind of the fact that many,
if not all, of the deities of the countries adjacent to the Mediterranean
were at one time or another represented with horns as symbols of power.
What, therefore, is more reasonable than to suppose that the woman thus
employed was decked with a head-dress of horns? Or that her husband,
without whose permission such prostitution would have been impossible,
and for whom it must have been an act of equal religious importance, was
similarly decorated?
When new religions had succeeded in trampling into the dust the sacred
usages of the past, the fierce intolerance of the fanatic would have had
no greater delight than in ridiculing that which had been the distinctive
feature, perhaps, of the cult so recently overthrown. Therefore the
association of horns, formerly the typical attribute of the heathen
gods, would be transferred to the betrayed husband, and what had been
the outward sign of the most devout self-negation would be turned into
ridicule and opprobrium.
Brand, “Pop. Ant.,” vol. ii. pp. 181 _et seq._ gives a perfect flood
of information on this subject, but nothing very satisfactory or
definite,—art. “Cornutes.”
“Actæon, a cuckold; from the horns placed on the head of Actæon by
Diana.” (Grose, “Dict. of Buckish Slang,” London, 1811.) This myth may
conceal the story of the intrusion of Actæon upon sacred ceremonies of
prostitution or his personal association therewith.
“Highgate; sworn at Highgate. A ridiculous custom formerly prevailed at
the public houses in Highgate, to administer a ludicrous oath to all
travellers of the middling class who stopped there. The party was sworn
on a pair of horns, fastened on a stick; the substance of the oath was
never to kiss the maid when he could kiss the mistress; never to drink
small beer when he could get strong; with many other injunctions of the
same kind, to all of which was added the saving clause,—‘unless you like
it best.’ The person administering the oath was always to be called
father by the juror, and he, in return, was to style him son, under
penalty of a bottle.”—(Grose, “Dictionary of Buckish Slang.”)
“Horn Fair; an annual fair, held at Carlton, in Kent, on Saint Luke’s
day, the 18th of October. It consists of a riotous mob, who, after a
printed summons, dispersed through the adjacent towns, meet at Cuckold’s
Point, near Deptford, and march from thence in procession through that
town and Greenwich to Charlton, with horns of different kinds upon their
heads; and at the fair there are sold rams’ horns and every sort of
toy made of horn; even the gingerbread figures have horns. The vulgar
tradition gives the following history of the origin of this fair. King
John, or some other of our ancient kings, being at the palace of Eltham
in this neighborhood, and having been out hunting one day, rambled from
his company to this place, then a mean hamlet, when, entering a cottage
to inquire his way, he was struck with the beauty of the mistress, whom
he found alone; and having prevailed over her modesty, the husband,
returning suddenly, surprised them together, and threatening to kill them
both, the king was obliged to discover himself, and to compound for his
safety with a purse of gold, and a grant of the land from this place to
Cuckold’s Point, besides making the husband master of the hamlet. It is
added that, in memory of this, the fair was established for the sale of
horns, and all sorts of goods made of that material.”—(Grose, idem.)
“In Minorca, the inhabitants have as much hatred of the word ‘cuerno’ as
they have of ‘diablo.’” (See Brand, “Pop. Ant.,” vol. ii. p. 186, art.
“Cornutes.”) Possibly we have here an example of the influence of the
early Christian church exerted to make detestable everything connected
with the deposed religion of the Mediterranean.
The horn still figures among the African tribes. Whenever one of the
petty kings at the head of the Nile “wishes to communicate with another,
he sends on the messenger’s neck a horn, ... which serves both for
credentials and security.... No one dare touch a Mbakka with one of these
horns upon his neck.”—(Speke, “Nile,” London, 1863, vol. ii. pp. 509,
521.)
Bruce says that, after a victory, the Abyssinian commanders wear a
head-dress, surmounted by a horn,—a conical piece of silver,—gilt, about
four inches long, much in the shape of our common candle-extinguishers.
This is called kern, or horn, and is only worn in parades or reviews
after victory. This, I apprehend, like all other of their usages, is
taken from the Hebrews, and the several allusions made in Scripture to
arise from this practice. “I said unto fools, Deal not foolishly, and to
the wicked, Lift not up the horn.” And so in many other places throughout
the Psalms.—(Bruce, “Nile,” Dublin, 1791, vol. iii. p. 551. See also
“Encyclopædia of Geography,” Philadelphia, 1845, vol. ii. p. 588, art.
“Abyssinia.” See also under “Mistletoe;” “Milk,” and “Semen,” under
“Pharmacy;” extract from Pliny; extract from Lentilius; extract from
Etmuller; “Perspiration,” under “Pharmacy,” and others.)
A “black letter” copy of “Malleus Maleficarum,” one of the “incunabula”
from the press of Peter Schœffer, Mayence, 1487, was carefully examined;
but besides being very dim and extremely hard to decipher, it contained
nothing not already given from other authorities.
XLV.
CURES BY TRANSPLANTATION.
The most curious method of alleviating physical and mental disorders
was that termed by various writers: “Cures by Transplantation,” by
“Translation,” by “Sympathy,” and by “Magnetic Transference.”
There is a perfect embarrassment of riches on this division of our
subject, and the difficulty has been not to select, but to know what to
reject.
Etmuller enumerates five different kinds of cures by transplantation: 1.
Insemenation, wherein “magnes mumia” (the spirit distilled from mummy
flesh) was used to water the rich earth in which certain seed had been
planted; but care must be taken in the selection of the plant, some
being beneficial, others noxious; 2. Implantatio, where a plant, already
growing, or the root only of such a plant is selected, and watered as
above described; 3. Impositio, where some of the skin of the diseased
member, or some of the patient’s excrement, or anything else intimately
connected with him, “aut ejus excrementum aut utrumque,” is inserted
between the bark and body of a tree, and the opening then tamped with
mud. But in every case bear in mind that if a slow, gradual cure is to
be brought about, a slow-growing tree must be selected; but for a speedy
recovery, a quick-growing tree; 4. Inoratio, in which daily certain
trees or plants, until cure results, are to be watered with the “urina,
sudore, fecibus alvi vel lotura membri aut totius corporis;” but it is
recommended that each irrigation be covered up with earth, to keep out
the air; 5. Inescatio, where “mummy” is given to an animal to eat; the
animal will die, the patient recover.
Human ordure was a frequent addition to the “spiritus mumiæ.”
Frommann opens the way to a clearer understanding of the principles upon
which these cures depended. He states that not all diseases were thus
curable; only those which in themselves were “movable.” Poison could
not be so cured, because its lethal action was effected too quickly for
the slow-moving remedial agency of transplantation. Injuries to the
“vital faculties,” such as “aneurisms of the aorta,” etc., were not
transplantable. Worms ditto, although they were able to move of their own
will. “Lipothymia” or syncope, was not transferable. All “transplantable”
diseases were called “saline” diseases, because, according to the medical
theories prevailing in those days, they originated in some defect of the
“salts” of the body.—(See Frommann, “Tract. de Fascinatione,” pp. 1017,
1018.)
Among the strongest “magnetic” medicines, according to Paracelsus, was
the one “ex stercore humano.”—(See Etmuller, vol. i. p. 69.)
There was another: “Take a sufficient quantity of the ordure of a healthy
man, and make it into a poultice with human urine, to which add sweat
gathered from the body with a sponge; place this in a clean place in
the shade until it dries, and when needed for use, moisten with human
blood.” “Recipe copiosum stercus hominis sani, et hoc cum urina ejusdem
misce, redige in consistentiam pultis, adde quantum habere potes sudoris
ex hominibus sanis a linteo aut spongia collecti, ponantur simul in loco
mundo in umbra donec siccentur, hinc adde sanguinem recentem, misce,
sicca, et ad usum reserva.”
Etmuller also mentions a “sympathetic” cure for quartan ague, in which
the hair of the patient was to be mixed with food and thrown to birds,
which, swallowing the food, took away the fever.
Another method was to take the clippings of the toe and finger nails of
the sick person, place them in an egg and throw them to the birds; others
again wrap them up in wax and early in the morning, before the rising
of the sun, affix the parcel to the door of a neighbor’s house, or else
tie it to the back of a living crab, and throw the crab back into the
stream: “Sunt cui ad curandam febrem segmenta e manibus et pedibus ovo
includunt, avibusque devoranda objiciunt; alii eadem ceræ involvunt,
matutinoque tempore ante solis ortum januæ affigunt, aliii dorso cancri
vivi alligant, cancrumque fluenti committunt.”—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 265.)
The first excrement of a man sick with dysentery was mixed with salt as
a “magnetic” cure; to this, some people added the powder of eel-skins
(Frommann, “Tractatus,” p. 1012, _et seq._). Yellow jaundice patients
urinated upon clean linen sheets; if they succeeded in dyeing them yellow
they would recover soon; if not, not (p. 1012); roots wet with the
patient’s urine were burned as a cure for the yellow jaundice (p. 1013);
all the clothing of an epileptic patient was burned, and the ashes
thrown in a stream, down-stream (p. 1013); especially was this the case
if any of it had been defiled by alvine dejections voided in one of the
paroxysms; and the same care was taken to burn this excrement (p. 1013).
(Note that epilepsy was always regarded as the sacred disease; here we
have a suggestion of human sacrifice.)
The method of curing by digging up the ground, depositing some plant
and enriching the surrounding soil with the patient’s egestæ is given
by Frommann (p. 1016); but the trees or plants to be selected for this
purpose were to be those of forests or those which bore edible fruits,
“ut fraxinus, quercus, betula, tilia, fagus, alnus,” etc. (Ash, oak,
birch, linden, beech, alder, etc.) The animals had to be such as did not
eat human flesh, as “canes, feles, equi, lupi, vulpes;” others could be
used on occasion, but the results were not so sure (idem, p. 1017). There
were two general methods: one, in which the “sanguis, pili, excrementa”
of the patient himself were offered; the other, in which crabs, meat,
eggs, lard, apples, and other things, were rubbed to the affected parts
and then offered (idem.)
Beckherius gives the recipe for effecting a “sympathetic cure” of fever
by clipping the finger and toe-nails of the patient and tying these
clippings in a rag to the door of a neighbor’s house. “Si resegmine
unguium e manibus et pedibus deprompta, cera involvantur, matutininoque
tempore ante solis exortum alienæ januæ affiguntur.” And wicked people
were in the habit of preparing a draught composed of equal parts of
their dirty finger-nails and cantharides, and whoever drank that in his
liquor fell into a condition of atrophy (Med. mic. pp. 15, 16). When the
patient’s own hair was used in these cures, it was placed in an egg and
thrown to chickens.—(Idem, p. 8.)
Frommann speaks of enclosing fragments of the patient’s nails and
clippings of his hair in knots and throwing these in the road to be
untied by some curious person who would catch the disease.—(“Tract. de
Fascinatione,” p. 1003.)
The blood, urine, or excrement of the patient was to be placed in an
egg-shell and fed to barn-yard fowl.—(Idem.)
“Id quod alio modo per urinam ægri quoque fieri valet; qua ratione cum
sanguine, urina, excrementis, ægrotantis multæ sympatheticæ curæ fieri
possunt;” and to this class belong such remedies as cutting an apple or a
piece of bacon in half, then hanging the piece up in the chimney to melt
or rot; as fast as this was effected, the disease disappeared. Speaking
of transplantation, he says: “Prioris exemplum est dum applicato stercore
humano ad certam aliquam partem transplantatur eo ipso morbo in plantam
cujus semen in terram hoc stercore mistam inferitur.” The first example
is where the ordure of the patient is applied to a certain plant, and
thus transfers the disease from the patient to the plant.—(Etmuller,
“Opera Omnia,” vol. i. p. 69, Lyons, 1696.)
Etmuller teaches that clippings of the toe and finger nails tied to the
back of a living crab, which was then to be thrown into a stream by a
man who would perform the duty and return home without speaking would
effect cures; similarly, for the alleviation of gout, he recommends
that these clippings be buried in a hole made in the bark of an oak
which should then be closed with a wedge: “Abscinduntur ungues manuum
et pedum, alligantur dorso cancri viventis, et cancer istis unguibus
oneratus, immittitur in flumen retrofaciem redeundo sine loquela, donec
in domum facta fuerit reversio. Instituuntur qq. transplantationes pro
viribus recuperandis per ungues. Sic in podagræ.... R.; Ungues pedis,
atque immittuntur in foramen excavatum in quercum et super foramen ponunt
cuneum ex quo subito fit, ut remittat dolor ac desinat Podagra” (vol. ii.
p. 270.)
Etmuller mentions the cure by tying the fragments of finger and toe nails
to a crab, in another place in his works. For the recovery of impaired
strength, these clippings should be buried in the bark of a cherry-tree,
which should then be closed with ordure: “Ad recuperandos vires abscissos
ungues et capillos cerasi radici incisæ imponunt, vulnusque fimo
co-operiunt.”—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 265.)
“Denique si quid aliud singulare est si quis accipiat ovum recens, hoc
coquat cum urina propria ad assumptionem medietatis, quo facto urina
superstes projiciatur in flumen secundum ejusdem cursum, ovum vel ita
coctum leviter apertur immittatur in acervum formicarum. Unde quando
formicæ assumpserunt ovum solutem erit fascinum” (idem, vol. i. p. 462).
“Finally, there is this singular method of taking a fresh egg and putting
it in some of the patient’s own urine, which is boiled down one half; the
supernatant urine is then to be thrown into a stream (down current) and
the egg itself buried in an ant-heap; as fast as the ants consume the
egg, the effects of the witchcraft vanish.”
Again, for the cure of gout, toe and finger nails were to be cut and
placed in an aperture in the bark of an oak-tree: “Vel dum ungues pedum
abscissi et in quercum terebratam inclusi, hominem liberum reddunt a
podagra.”—(Idem, p. 69, vol. i.)
Urine was of great use in curing people bitten by serpents. “Per
urinam solent fieri curationes magico-magneticæ morborum, si scillicet
lardum vel potius caro porcina coquatur ter in urina ægri et caro ista
incoctionis urinæ postmodum propinetur cani vel porco devoranda, sic enim
sit, ut quam plurimi morbi curentur per transplantationem in animalia quæ
devorant carnem et urinam.”—(Etmuller, p. 271.)
Hog-lard or a lardy hog-skin, rubbed on warts and then suspended in
the chimney or buried in horse-dung, caused the warts to disappear as
fast as it decayed. “Suspendatur in camino furni, vel in fimo equino
sepeliatur.... Sicut exsiccatur in fumo, vel putrescit in fimo lardum
ita exsiccetur et putrescat verruca.” (Idem.) Half a dozen methods of
employing hog-dung are given.
Frommann quotes Ratray as saying from his own observation that there
was a “sympathy” between the patient’s urine when enclosed in a glass
vial and the condition of the patient himself,—a sort of “barometrical”
sympathy, as we would term it. At an earlier period of culture the urine
would have been placed in the horn of a goat, or in the bladder of a hog.
The methods of effecting these cures by placing the patient’s urine in
an ants’ nest, in any manner, are all given by Johannes Christianus
Frommann (“Tract. de Fascinat.,” pp. 1004 _et seq._); also the method
by boiling an egg in the urine and placing the egg in the nest of ants
(p. 1005); also the method of making bread with the patient’s urine, and
giving the bread to a dog to eat (p. 1005). In Italy there was a variant
of this custom, consisting in giving bread made with the urine of a male
patient to a male dog, and that made with the urine of a sick woman to
a bitch (idem). Yellow jaundice was cured by boiling a piece of meat in
the patient’s urine and giving said meat to a dog (idem); for the cure
of rupture the patient should soak some barley in his urine, and then
bury the barley in the bark of a tree (p. 1007). Another mode of cure
by transplantation was for the patient to urinate in a vial of glass,
stop it up with a linen rag or a paper wad, and bury it in the earth (p.
1010). For the cure of yellow jaundice, the patient dug a hole in the
ground and urinated therein before sunrise (pp. 1010, 1011); for the cure
of dysentery the patient deposited his excrement on a piece of ash and
left it in a hole (p. 1011); fever patients threw their excrement in a
stream (idem). Other modes were to make a mixture of the urine of the
sick man, mixed with ashes, let the mass dry in the sun, and then put it
by the embers of the kitchen fire to bake (p. 1012); the ordure of a man
sick from “incantation” was applied to the place of the spell, and then
hung up (enclosed in a hog’s bladder) for three days in the smoke of the
chimney (idem).
In his long and most interesting chapter upon the cure of diseases by
the use of human ordure, “magically or sympathetically,” Schurig relates
many quaint and curious methods of employment of the alvine dejections
of those supposed to be almost _in articulo mortis_. For example, the
ordure of the patient was taken, placed in the hollow of a dead man’s
bone, which was then thrown into boiling water. This remedy, if we can
trust Schurig, seems to have been of the highest efficacy. Another mode
was to mix the ordure with the lees of wine and the pounce of cherries,
and let the mass ferment together; or the ordure was collected and thrown
into running water.—(See Schurig, “Chylologia,” pp. 783, 784. The whole
chapter “De Stercoris Humani Usu Magico seu Sympathetico,” No. xiii.
should be read.)
Goat-urine was applied to sore eyes; but a more certain cure in grave
cases was additionally effected by hanging some of it in a goat’s horn
for twenty days. “Si cum cornu capræ suspenditur diebus viginti.”—(Sextus
Placitus, “De Med. ex Animal.,” article “De Capro.”)
Beckherius has a “sympathetic” cure for the yellow jaundice. Make a
poultice of horse-dung and the patient’s own urine, and hang it up in
the chimney. “Fimum equinum cum urina ægri sic misce, ut pultis referat
consistentiam, hæc linteolo excipe, et in camino suspende ut fumo semper
sunt exposita.” (“Med. Microcos.,” p. 65.) Another was to hang the urine
of the patient in a bladder in the chimney; as the urine evaporated the
patient was to recover. “Propriam urinam vesica suilla excerpisse et hanc
in fumo exposuisse seque observasse ad exsiccationem. Urina in vesica
ipsum quoque icteritiam evanuisse.” (Idem, p. 65.) Another cure of yellow
jaundice was a dose, morning and evening, of a mixture of human urine and
horse-radish. (Idem, p. 66.) There was still another “sympathetic” cure:
the patient urinated in a vessel, which was allowed to evaporate by the
fire, and this was continued for nine days.—(Idem, p. 66.)
For consumption Beckherius gives a “sympathetic” cure (already noted from
other sources) of boiling an egg in the patient’s urine until it hardens,
and then burying it in an ant-hill. (Idem, p. 75.) The same cure was
employed in fevers. (Idem.)
A pinch of salt, the size of a big bean, was wrapped in a linen rag,
and dipped in the urine of the patient for a whole day; then heated in
the fire until it became reddish in color; some of this was sprinkled
on bread, and the patient rubbed with it morning and evening.—(“Medicus
Microcosmus,” pp. 75, 76.)
A fresh egg was boiled in the sick person’s urine, and then thrown to
the fishes. “Recens ovum in urina ægri quod in piscinam ubi pisces sunt
conjiciatur, et momento febrem cessare dicunt.”—(Idem, p. 78.)
Still another was to make a cake out of flour moistened with the urine
of the sick; throw this to the fishes. The fishes who ate it would take
the disease, and the patient recover. “Subige farinam cum urina ægri ad
formam placentulæ; coque hæc in forno, instar panis objice piscibus, ut
ab iis devoretur; abit febris, maxime quartana.”—(Idem.)
Frommann devotes a long chapter to cures by “transplantation.” He cites
from Pliny the method of curing a bad cough by spitting into the mouth of
a toad (tree-toad; see notes already taken), and also gives another in
which the urine of the patient made into a dough with flour, was given to
a dog or hog.—(“Tract. de Fascinat.” p. 1002.)
Frommann believed with Von Helmont that there was nothing superstitious
about such cures, because there were no rites and no incantations used.
(Idem, p. 1033.) But later on, he mentions having heard a woman (who was
trying one of these cures by rolling some of her son’s hair in wax and
burying the wax ball in an incision in an apple-tree) recite certain
words, which she declined to repeat for him when asked; hence he was in
some doubt about her particular case (p. 1034). He quotes the English
Count of Digby as stating that he knew of a nurse who carelessly allowed
some of a baby’s excrement to be burned up in a fire; the result was the
child suffered terribly from excoriation of the fundament (p. 1038). The
way in which a cure was effected in this case was the “sympathetic” one
of placing the baby’s excrements for three days in a basin filled with
cold water, and exposing in a cold place (p. 1039).
Dropsy was cured by hanging the patient’s urine (enclosed in a pig’s
bladder) up in a chimney, and neglecting all other remedies. “Urinam
ejus recentem vesica suilla conclusam in camino suspendi, curavi.”
(Idem, p. 1047.) A young virgin was cured of a tertian fever by giving
to a hen bread made with the urine voided during the paroxysms. The girl
recovered; the hen died. “Virginis cujusdam febre intermittente tertiana
laborantis urinam calidam in paroxysmo redditam gallinæ familicæ cum
pane mistam exhiberi curavi” (p. 1047).
See also notes from Samuel Augustus Flemming, under “Perspiration.”
Dr. Joseph Lanzoni did not believe that any good results followed the
suspension above the earth, in a sow’s bladder, of human urine in cases
of suppression of urine, as was often to be noticed among Jews and some
of the religious orders. “Urinæ suppressionem minime referare vesicam
suis suspensam, quæ non tetigit terram, quod nonnulli volunt, observavi
in quodam Religioso et Hebræo.”—(“Phemer. Physic-Medic.,” Leipsig, 1694,
vol. i. p. 49.)
Paullini taught that fevers of all kinds could be cured by pouring the
patient’s urine into a fish-pond. “Such of the fish as drink of that
water,” he says, “will receive the fever, which will leave the sick man.”
For the “sympathetic” cure of epilepsy, all the clothing worn by the
patient during the paroxysm, even his shoes, were to be carefully burned,
and the ashes cast into flowing water. More than this; if, during
the attack, the patient had defecated, the ordure was collected, and
with everything touched by it, burned up with the same care. “Hominis
epilepticum insultum primum patientis sive junior sit, sive senior
indumenta omnia et vestes indusium, calcei, tibialis, et similia sub dio
comburantur, et in cinerem redigantur; cinis vero in aquam fluvialem
secundum flumen projiciatur. Si autem jam ante homo epilepsia laboravit,
ad alvi excrementa in ipso paroxysmo reddita attendatur; quæ si adest res
commaculata cum ipsis excrementis modo jam dicto comburatur.”—(Schurig,
“Chylologia,” p. 1013, quoting Frommann.)
Schurig gives the recipe of Johannes Philippus ab Hertodt for the
preparation of a “sympathetic” powder, which serves to inform us as to
the incoherent ideas of the practitioners of a couple of centuries ago.
Freely translated, it reads, “Take of a healthy human mummy, moistened
with a little urine; let it be dried in a place exposed to an east wind,
but not to the sun, until it shall be reduced to powder; this is to be
mixed with an equal weight of cream of tartar, and the ‘sympathetic
powder of vitriol,’ prepared according to formula, in the dog-days; or of
the salt of Hungarian vitriol, heated to whiteness in a furnace.” A pinch
of this sympathetic powder should be sprinkled upon the feces of the sick
person, or upon a cloth dipped in his urine, and then preserved in a cool
place. Its efficacy was vouched for in the highest terms: “Effective
curat omnia vulnera, ulcera, febres petechiales, et urina fabulum,
periculosissimas hæmorrhagias puerperarum, arthriditem quamcunque,
podagram et illam vagam dictam, pulmonis apostemata, hæmorrhoides nimias,
narium fluxus immodicos, capitis dolores, catarrhos, fluxos albos
mulierum, menstrua copiosa, morsus canis rabidi, vel alterium cujuscunque
animalis, item mammas ulceratas.”—(Schurig, pp. 775, 776.)
Schurig adds a number of these cures for dysentery, such as placing
the dejecta in the retort used for the distillation of vitriol, ...
sprinkling such dejecta with salt, or with vitriol, or mixing them with
hot ashes and live coals; preferably, the excrement to be thus employed
should be the first ejected having a bloody tinge.
“The various modes of application of these remedies are too long
for insertion here, but are valuable to the student as showing how
deep-seated was the belief in the occult properties of the excreta
themselves.”—(“Chylologia,” pp. 785, 786.)
The following is an old French “sympathetic” recipe for the cure of all
kinds of colic: “Pour la colique ce sera ici la recette d’un vilain
remède, mais pourtant sympathique en ceux qui sont tourmentés de la
colique, car s’ils mettent sous la selle percée bien fermée de la
fiente de vache fraichement recueillie, et qu’ils pissent et déchargent
les excréments de leur ventre dessus, par sympathie sans difficulté
ils auront du soulagement.”—(Lazarus Neyssonier, quoted by Schurig,
“Chylologia,” pp. 784, 785.)
For the “sympathetic” cure of hernia, the root of the herb “wall-wort”
was smeared with the ordure of the patient, and then buried in
the ground. “Radicem Symphti Oleto Proprio delibutam et in terram
defossam.”—(Idem, p. 787.)
To stop hemorrhage “sympathetically,” whether from wounds or other
injuries, some of the flowing blood was taken, and mixed with the ordure
of the patient, and the mixture then exposed in a jar to the action
of the air. “Contra hæmorrhagias, sive in læsonibus et vulneribus, ut
sanguis sistatur, misce sanguinem ex sanguine profluentem cum proprio
stercore et in olla ad desiccandum æri libero expone.”—(Idem, p. 787.)
A patient suffering from yellow jaundice should urinate upon horse-dung
while warm. This same remedy seems to have been in vogue in helping women
in the expulsion of the placenta. One of the prescriptions given by
Schurig states that the horse-dung must be from an animal that was not
tired at the time of the evacuation,—“non defatigati.”—(Idem, p. 812 _et
seq._)
A “sympathetic” cure by the use of the dung of horses seems to be implied
in the case of infants’ small-pox, where we find it suspended in beer;
“pendatur in cerevisiam ... propterea ne fauces affligantur a variolis
quod alias solet esse casus periculosissimus.”—(Etmuller, vol. ii. p.
264.)
“There is no doubt that the practice was at one time very general, but
it would now be a waste of time to go into particulars respecting the
various compositions of the sympathetical curers; the manner in which
their vitriol was to be prepared by exposure for three hundred and
sixty-five days to the sun, the unguents of human fat and blood, mummy,
moss of dead man’s skull, bull’s blood and fat, and other disgusting
ingredients.”—(“Medical Superstitions,” Pettigrew, Philadelphia, 1844, p.
206.)
For ague, “let the urine of the sick body, made early in the morning,
be softly heated nine daies continually untill all be consumed into
vapour.”—(Reginald Scot, “Discoverie,” p. 196.)
In Great Britain and Ireland, “ague in a boy is cured by a cake made of
barley-meal and his urine, and given to a dog to eat; the dog, in the
case cited, had a shaking fit, and the boy was cured.” (“Folk-Medicine,”
Black, p. 35. In a footnote there is added, “Pettigrew, ‘Superstitions
connected with the practice of Medicine and Surgery,’ p. 77.”) Madame
de Scudery mentions a similar cure for fever in a letter of date 20th
of October, 1677, to the Comte de Bussy. Speaking of an abbé of fame,
“On dit qu’il ne fait que prendre pour toutes les fièvres de l’urine des
malades dans laquelle il fait durcir un œuf hors de sa coque, après quoi
il le donne à manger à un chien qui prend en même temps la fièvre du
malade qui par ce moien en guérit. C’est une question de fait que je n’ay
pas éprouvée.”—(“Notes and Queries,” 5th series, vol. viii. p. 126.)
The following are given as cures by “transplantation.” “Seven or nine—it
must be an odd number—cakes, made of the newly emitted urine of the
patient, with the ashes of ash wood, and buried for some days in a
dunghill, will, according to Paracelsus, cure the yellow jaundice.” In
the journal of Dr. Edward Browne, transmitted to his father, Sir Thomas
Browne, we read of “a magical cure for the jaundice: Burn wood under a
laden vessel filled with water; take the ashes of that wood, and boyle
it with the patient’s urine; then lay nine long heaps of the boyld
ashes upon a board in a rank, and upon every heap lay nine spears of
crocus.”—(“Medical Superstitions,” Pettigrew, Philadelphia, Penn., 1844,
p. 103.)
We are likewise informed of “the cure of jaundice by the burying in a
dunghill a cake made of ashes and the patient’s urine. Ague in a boy was
cured by a similar cake made of barley-meal and his urine, and given to a
dog to eat; the dog had a shaking fit, and the boy was cured.”
“Boys were cured of warts by taking an elder-stick and cutting as many
notches in it as there were warts, and then rubbing it upon the warts,
and burying it in a dunghill.”—(Idem, p. 104.)
“Blisters on the tongue are caused by telling fibs. When they show no
disposition to leave, the following process is adopted. Three small
sticks are cut from a tree, each about the length of a finger, and as
thick as a pencil; these are inserted in the mouth, and buried in a
dung-hill; the next day the operation is repeated, as well as on the
third day; after which the three sets of sticks are allowed to remain in
the manure, and as they decay the complaint will disappear.”—(“Folk-Lore
of the Pennsylvania Germans,” Hoffman, p. 28.)
“The following procedure for the cure of bronchitis is still practised in
Berks County. Make a gimlet hole in the door-frame, at the exact height
of the patient’s head, into which insert a small tuft of his hair, and
close the hole with a peg of wood; then cut off the projecting portion
of the peg. As the patient grows in height beyond the peg, so will the
disease be outgrown.”—(Idem, p. 28.)
“Gout may be transferred from a man to a tree, thus: Pare the nails of
the sufferer’s fingers, and clip some hair from his legs. Bore a hole in
an oak, stuff the nails and hair in the hole, stop up the hole again, and
smear it with cow’s dung.”—(“The Golden Bough,” Frazer, vol. ii. p. 153,
quoting Grimm. Bavaria.)
A curious method of relieving and eradicating all kinds of colic by
“transplantation” is related and described by Schurig. The excrement
voided during one of the paroxysms should be buried in an unfrequented
spot. The grass growing on the soil where the ordure had been deposited
would be eaten by domestic cattle, which would acquire the disease,
relieving the sufferer. “Excrementa tempore paroxysmi reddita sepeliantur
in locum a viatorum frequentia separatum. Gramen quod enascitur super
terram cui stercora commissa fuerint, bovi vel agno pabuli loco offertur,
quod ubi comederit, colica transplantatur ab homine in brutum, et nunquam
ipsum reaffliget.” (Schurig, “Chylologia,” p. 785.) Other people took the
patient’s excrement, dried it in the open air, mixed it with sweet wine,
and gave it to the sick man to drink. “Sunt qui illud idem exceptum in
ære exsiccant, cum vino edulcorant et patienti propinant.”—(Idem, p. 785.)
Nurses were cautioned not to let the excrement of the babies under their
care touch the hot coals or cinders of the fire; they should throw all
the excrement in at once, or not at all. If we are to understand that
this excrement was to be habitually thrown into the kitchen fire, a most
charming idea is conveyed of the Arcadian simplicity of European life
several centuries back.
“Hoc loco monendæ quoque sunt nutrices vel aliæ mulierculæ infantulis
administrantes ne infantum excrementibus contegat, aut post modum omnia
simul in ignem projiciunt. Exinde enim plurima symptomata exoriri
solent.”—(Schurig, p. 995.)
The case is cited of a physician suffering from marasmus, or emaciation.
“He took an egg and boiled it hard in his own urine; he then with a
bodkin perforated the shell in many places and buried it in an ant-hill,
where it was to be kept to be devoured by the emmets; and as they
wasted the egg he found his distemper to abate.”—(Pettigrew, “Med.
Superstitions,” p. 102.)
“Among medical men ... the Galenist of much repute, of whom Boyle writes,
was induced, when other means of cure failed, to boil an egg in his own
urine. The egg was afterwards buried in an ant-hill, and as the egg
wasted the physician found his distemper go and his strength increase.
In Staffordshire a correspondent says that to cure jaundice a bladder is
often filled with the patient’s urine and placed near the fire; as the
water dries up the jaundice goes, and, were it necessary, other instances
could be given of this superstition.”—(Black, “Folk-Medicine,” p. 56.)
The following “sympathetic” cure is from Steller’s “Kamtchatka” (pp. 362
and 367): When a man is suffering from incontinence of urine, a wreath is
made of the soft herb “eheu;” in the centre of this some fish-spawn is
placed, and then the sufferer makes his water upon it.—(Translated by Mr.
Bunnemeyer.)
Ordure alone or mixed with urine, made into a sausage by being put
into a hog’s bladder, and hung up in the chimney, was of “magical
use” in the treatment of yellow jaundice. Christian Franz Paullini’s
own son was cured by mixing his own ordure with asses’ urine in this
manner. The following are some of the extracts from Schurig referred
to in this paragraph: “Ab Incantatione introductis doloribus externe
impositum sulphur hoc occidentale magni usus esse dicitur.... Alii
addunt allium, atque elapsis post impositionem viginti quatuor horis
fumo culinari hæc committunt.... Contra ejusmodi dolores a veneficio
alliis placent cataplasmata ex stercore maleficiati in vesicam porcinam
injecto et in Caminum ad suffumigandum suspenso.... In veneficio arcendo
notum est, quod stercus humanum sit magni usus si scilicet parti ex
veneficio dolenti applicetur stercus humanum vel solum, vel cum allio,
vel asafœtida; sic enim est ut alii qui perpetravit veneficium sapiant
omnia stercus humanum et allium, adeo ut necessum habeant solvere
veneficium.... Pro icteri cura magica stercus, vel perse, vel cum urina
mixtum, vesicæ suillæ indunt atque in camino suspendunt, Christianus
Franciscus Paullini cujusdam meminit, qui filii sui icterici stercus cum
urina asini commixtum modo tractavit.”—(Schurig, “Chylologia,” pp. 787,
788.)
When cures were to be effected by the method called by some authors
“insemination” each disease seemed to require its special plant. Thus
yellow jaundice required swallow-wort and juniper berries; dropsy,
absinthe (worm-wood) and box-elder; pleurisy, the poppy; the plague, the
plant known as scordium (this plant smells like garlic), etc.—(Frommann,
“Tract. de Fascinat.,” p. 1030.)
The following problem is presented for solution or for such explanation
as competent scholars may find it possible to give.
We know that every disease was looked upon as an infliction from some
angry god; on the other hand, we know also that for each disease
there was some god, in later days some saint, to whom the afflicted
might appeal; we know also that certain plants were sacred to certain
divinities. Therefore the question to be answered is, Were the plants
hereinbefore specified those which were sacred to those gods who had
charge of those diseases respectively? The examination to be complete
should include all that may now survive among European peasantry of
the worship of Roman, Phœnician, Celtic, Teutonic, or even Egyptian or
Etruscan, deities.
Grimm recites the names of the trees employed for the cure of different
diseases,—epilepsy, peach-blossoms; ague, elder-tree; gout, fir-tree;
ague, willow; gout, young pine-tree.—(“Teut. Mythology.”)
Why was Apollo supposed to love the laurel and the cornel cherry, “Pluto
the cypress and the maiden-hair,—a moisture-loving fern, which we may
take for granted could not be very plentiful in his chosen realm,—Luna
the dittany, Ceres the daffodil, Jupiter the oak, Minerva the olive,
Bacchus the vine, and Venus the myrtle-shade?”—(Extract from an article
entitled “Flowers as Emblems,” in “Standard,” London, copied in “Sun,”
New York, May 12, 1889.)
“A sick man’s perspiration from the brow wiped off with bread, and given
to a dog, will cure the patient.”—(Sagen-Märchen, “Volksaberglauben aus
Schwaben,” Freiburg, 1861, p. 494.)
As a certain cure for witchcraft take the excrement of the patient, put
it in a pig’s bladder, and hang it up in the chimney; or let him take
some of his own excrement, inwardly, dissolved in vinegar; or apply
human excrement to the bewitched part, then put that excrement in a
pig’s bladder, and hang it up in the chimney to smoke for three or four
days.—(Paullini, pp. 260, 261.)
By the French, urine was considered a certain cure for fever. Such an
amount of superstition attached to the panacea that the prescription may
well be given in full:—
“Knead a small loaf with urine voided in the worst stage of his fever by
a person having the quaternary ague. Bake the loaf, let it cool, and give
it to be eaten by another person. Repeat the same during three different
attacks, and the fever will leave the patient and go to the person who
has eaten the bread.”
Another one runs in these terms:—
“Take an egg, boil it hard, and break off the shell. Prick the egg
in different places with a needle, steep it in the urine of a person
afflicted with fever, and then give it to a man if the patient be a man,
to a woman if a woman, and the recipient will acquire the fever, which
will abandon the patient.”[85]
This remedy Thiers traces back to the Romans, quoting from Horace in
support of his assertion.
The second recipe finds its parallel in the “Chinook olives,” described
in the first pages of this work.
The fact that human ordure was the panacea by which all the effects of
witchcraft could be undone, and all charms and incantations frustrated,
can easily be shown from the citations to be found in Schurig.
“Occidental sulphur,” applied externally to the pains occasioned by
incantations was said to be very efficacious. Others added garlic,
and twenty-four hours after exposed the mixture to the smoke of the
kitchen-fire. Others again took the ordure of the bewitched person, made
sausage of it, and hung it up to be smoked in the kitchen-fire.
Various instances are given of the efficacy of human ordure in undoing
the work of witches; it was to be applied alone or mixed with garlic or
assafœtida.
Take a liver, cut in pieces, and secretly place in the urinal of the
patient; if the patient unconsciously use the chamber for defecation he
will recover—(“Sagen-Märchen, Volksaberglauben,” etc., Drs. Birlinger and
Buck, p. 481.)
The method of curing fevers by imbedding clippings of the finger and toe
nails of the patient in wax and affixing to another person’s door-post,
is mentioned by Pliny (lib. xxxviii. c. 24).
The same are given, with the others already noted, by
Frommann.—(“Tractatus de Fascinatione,” p. 1003 _et seq._)
Etmuller says that the oak was the tree most highly commended; to secure
a good set of teeth, one of the milk teeth was buried in an oak; to
restore falling hair, some of the patient’s hair; to cure gout, some of
his toe-nail clippings, etc.—(Etmuller, vol. i. p. 127.)
“In Donegal, the sufferer should seek a straw with nine knees, and cut
the knots that form the joints of every one of them, any superfluous
knots being thrown away; then bury the knot in a midden or dung-heap; and
as the joints rot, so will the warts.”—(“Folk-Medicine,” p. 57.)
Grose says, “To cure warts, steal a piece of beef from a butcher’s shop
and rub your warts with it; then throw it down the necessary-house, or
bury it; and as the beef rots, your warts will decay.”—(Brand, “Pop.
Ant.” vol. iii. p. 276, art. “Physical Charms.”)
The American cures for warts in which the sufferer is enjoined to steal a
piece of meat, etc., are a perfect “survival” from the above, while the
“cure” given by Mark Twain, in his story of “Huckleberry Finn”—
“Barley-corn, barley-corn, Indian meal shorts,
Spunk water, spunk water, swallow these warts,”
may be classed as a “distorted survival.”
“A piece of meat is cut from one of the arms of the menaced man (i. e.
menaced with death), and a lock of hair from the opposite side of his
head, and cast into the fire; and he is rubbed with artemisia, dipped
in water, as this plant is the food of the ghosts. These rites, omitting
the cutting of the flesh and hair, must be performed on four successive
nights.”—(“Death and Funeral Customs among the Omahas,” Francis La
Flesche, in “Jour. of Amer. Folk-Lore,” Jan.-March, 1889, p. 4.)
“The Orkney islanders will wash a sick person and then throw the water
down a gateway in the belief that the sickness will leave the patient and
be transferred to the first person who passes through the gate.”—(“The
Golden Bough,” Frazer, vol. ii. p. 153.)
These cures by “transplantation” are still to be found in full vigor
among the descendants of the immigrants from Westphalia and the
Palatinate who made their homes in the State of Pennsylvania.
For the cure of jaundice: “Hollow out a carrot, fill it with the
patient’s urine, and hang it, by means of a string, in the fireplace.
As the urine is evaporated, and the carrot becomes shrivelled, the
disease will leave the patient. In this there is an evident belief in the
connection between the properties and color of the carrot and the yellow
skin of the patient having jaundice. To this class may belong the belief
respecting the use of a band of red flannel for diphtheria, and yellow or
amber beads for purulent discharges from the ears.”—(“Folk-Med. of the
Penn’a Germans,” Hoffman, Amer. Phil. Society, 1889.)
Reference should be had to Black’s notes upon a similar custom
in Staffordshire, where, instead of a carrot, a bladder is
filled.—(“Folk-Medicine,” p. 56.)
“Convulsions in a child are sometimes due to the influence of the
fairies.” Mooney describes a cure effected by a mother who “picked
from the roadside ten small white pebbles, known as ‘fairy stones.’
On reaching home, she put nine of these stones into a vessel of urine
and threw the tenth into the fire. She also put into the vessel some
chicken-dung and three sprigs of a plant (probably ivy or garlic) which
grew on the roof above the door. She then stripped the child and threw
into the fire the shirt and other garments which were worn next the skin.
The child was then washed from head to foot, wrapped in a blanket and put
to bed. There were nine hens and a rooster on the rafters above the door.
In a short time the child had a violent fit and the nine hens dropped
dead upon the floor. The rooster dropped down from his perch, crew three
times, and then flew again to the rafters. If the woman had put the tenth
stone with the others, he would have dropped dead with the hens. The
child was cured.”—(“Med. Mythol. of Ireland,” James Mooney, “Amer. Phil.
Soc.” 1887.)
Mooney remarks upon the above: “This single instance combines in itself
a number of important features in connection with the popular mythology;
the dung, the urine, the plant above the door, the chickens, the fire
and the garment worn next the skin, and introduces also a new element
into the popular theory of disease, viz.: the idea of vicarious cure,
or rather of vicarious sacrifice. This belief, which is general, is
that no one can be cured of a dangerous illness, unless, as the people
express it, ‘something is left in its place’ to suffer the sickness and
death.”—(Idem.)
In the case of a “changeling child,” the mother was ordered to leave
it “on the dung-hill to cry and not to pity it.”—(Hazlitt’s edition of
“Fairy Tales,” London, 1875, p. 372.)
“At Sucla-Tirtha, in India, an earthen pot containing the accumulated
sins of the people, is annually set adrift on the river.”—(“The Golden
Bough,” Frazer, p. 192, vol. ii.)
See notes under “Catamenial Fluid,” from Etmuller.
XLVI.
THE USE OF THE LINGAM IN INDIA.
In connection with the Lingamic ritual in India, there remain usages now
degenerated into symbolism, which cannot be interpreted in any other
sense than as “survivals” of very obscene and disgusting practices in the
primitive life of that region. In describing the sacrifice called Poojah,
Maurice says: “The Abichegam makes a part of the Poojah. This ceremony
consists in pouring milk upon the lingam. This liquor is afterwards kept
with great care, and some drops are given to dying people that they may
merit the delights of the Calaison.” The “salagram of the Vishnuites
is the same as the lingam of the Seevites.” “Happy are those favored
devotees who can quaff the sanctified water in which either has been
bathed.”—(“Ind. Ant.” vol. v. pp. 146, 179.)
Dulaure describes the rites of the Cochi-couris, in which the sacred
water of the Ganges is first poured upon the lingam; it is then preserved
to be dealt out in drops to the faithful; it is specially serviceable in
soothing the last hours of the dying. The Lingam is the Phallic symbol.
The water or milk sanctified by it may represent a former employment of
urine, such, as will be shown, as prevailed all over Europe. The use of
lingam water is perhaps analogous to that of mistletoe water, previously
noted.
In speaking of the “mysteries” of the goddess “Cotitta,” a popular Venus
of the isle of Chios, Dulaure says: “Les initiés, qui se livraient à
tous les excès de la débauche, y employaient le Phallus d’une manière
particulière; ils étaient de verre et servaient de vases à boire.” He
quotes Juvenal, satire 2, verse 95, as saying of the extreme license
of these mysteries: “vitreo bibit ille Priapo.”—(“Des Divinités
Génératrices.”)
Does not the preceding paragraph, in the lines from the Roman satirist,
conceal under a very gauzy veil, a dirty proceeding akin to the urine
dance of the Zuñis?
Frommann quotes the above lines from Juvenal, without attempting to enter
upon an explanation of them. (See “Tract. de Fascinatione,” p. 333.) Rev.
Lewis Evans, a Fellow of Wadham’s College, Oxford, translates them as
follows in his edition of “Juvenal:”—
“Another drains a Priapus-shaped glass.”
But Gifford renders it:—
“Swill from huge glasses of immodest mould.”
Montfaucon says that in the Festivals of Priapus “celebrated by the
women ... the priestess sprinkles Priapus with water.”—(“l’Antiquité
expliquée,” lib. i. part 2, c. xxviii.; in the first volume is a
representation of a phallic vase with human ears attached.)
“Verser quelques gouttes sur la tête dans la bouche des
agonisants.”—(Dulaure, “Des. Div. Generat.,” Paris, 1825, pp. 105, 106,
111.)
“In a manuscript of the church of Beauvais about the year 500, it is said
that the chanter and canons shall stand before the gates of the church,
which were shut, holding each of them urns full of wine with glass
cups, of whom one canon shall begin the Kalends of January.”—(Fosbroke,
“British Monachism,” p. 81.)
In out of the way nooks and corners in Europe, intelligent observers may
still stumble upon traces of the religious observances alluded to in
Juvenal; Mr. Macaulay, of Philadelphia, Penn’a, who lived for a time near
Monaco, in the Riviera, imparts the information that, in that section of
Italy he had personally noticed such a peculiar custom; i. e. that of
assembling each family on Christmas eve, in a semicircle, round the fire;
the youngest boy urinated on the blazing log; then the father took a
glass goblet, filled with white wine, and sprinkled the log with an olive
branch; finally, all sipped from the goblet, the contents of which Mr.
Macaulay said he had been told were undoubtedly symbolical of urine.
Among people farther to the north, the same worship of fire by offering
food and drinking a libation still obtains without any offensive features.
In Sweden and Norway “early in the morning, the good wife has been
up, making her fire and baking; she now assembles her servants in a
half-circle before the oven door, they all bend the knee, take one bit of
cake, and drink the fire’s health; what is left of cake or drink is cast
into the flame.”—(Grimm, “Teut. Mythol.” vol. ii. p. 629.)
“Our German sagen and märchen have retained the feature of kneeling
before the oven and praying to it.... The unfortunate, the persecuted,
resort to the oven and bewail their woe, they reveal to it some secret
which they dare not confess to the world.”—(Idem, p. 629.)
“A leur Coleda, les Serbes font brûler une bûche de chêne, l’arrosent
de vin, la frappent en faisant voler les étincelles, et crient: ‘Autant
d’étincelles, autant de chèvres et de brebis.’”—(“Les Primitifs,” Réclus,
p. 111.)
The resemblance to the customs of the East Indies was, in places, even
closer than as above indicated.
Inman tells of sterile women who drank “priapic wine,” i. e. wine poured
upon an upright conical stone representing the lingam, and then collected
and allowed to turn sour.—(Inman, “Ancient Faiths,” etc., vol. i. p. 305,
article “Asher.”)
The same statement is to be found in Hargrave Jennings’ work,
“Phallicism,” London, 1884, p. 256, but it seems to be repeated from
Inman and Dulaure. Campbell reports that “among the principal relics of
the Church at Embrun was the statue of Saint Foutin. The worshippers of
this idol poured libations of wine upon its extremity, which was reddened
by the practice. This wine was caught in a jar and allowed to turn sour.
It was then called ‘holy vinegar,’ and was used by the women as a lotion
to anoint the yoni.”—(“Phallic Worship,” Robert Allen Campbell, St.
Louis, Mo., 1888, p. 197.)
Among the Apache Indians of Arizona, the Zuñis, Moquis, and Pueblos, the
author has seen large arrow or spear shaped pieces of flint which had
been obtained under peculiar circumstances, were regarded as possessed
of great virtues, and were worn round the necks by the women, generally
by those who professed “medicine” powers. Fragments of these flints
were ground to fine powder, and administered to women while pregnant,
to ensure safe delivery; all that was learned of these stones will be
presented in another work; the veneration paid them seems to be closely
associated with the worship of lightning. Vallencey, in his “Collectanea
de Rebus Hibernicis,” No. xiii. 17, says: “In the Highlands of Scotland,
a large chrystal, of a figure somewhat oval, was kept by the priests
to work charms by; water poured upon it at this day is given to cattle
against diseases; these stones are now preserved by the oldest and most
superstitious in the country.”—(Brand, “Pop. Antiq.” vol. iii. p. 60,
art. “Sorcerer.”)
XLVII.
PHALLIC SUPERSTITIONS IN FRANCE AND OTHER PARTS OF EUROPE.
Among the peasantry of Ireland there are in use certain prehistoric
arrow-heads, believed by them to be fairy darts. “When an illness is
supposed to be due to the influence of the fairies, ... this ‘fairy dart’
... is put into a tumbler and covered with water, which the patient then
drinks, and if the fairies are responsible for his sickness, he at once
recovers.”—(“Medical Mythology of Ireland,” Mooney, Amer. Phil. Soc.,
1887.)
And in like manner,—as has already been shown of the sacred character
attaching, among the people of the far East, to water, wine, or milk
which had been poured over the lingam,—the women of France solaced
themselves with the hope that children would come to those who drank
an infusion containing scrapings from the phalli, existing until the
outbreak of the French revolution, at Puy en Velay, in the church of
Saint Foutin, in the shrine of Saint Guerlichon, near Bruges, in the
shrine of Guignolles, near Brest; and in that of an ancient statue of
Priapus, at Antwerp.[86]
XLVIII.
BURLESQUE SURVIVALS.
A new task now presents itself, the examination into burlesque survivals
of rites and usages no longer countenanced as matters of religious
importance.
Religion is not content with being tenacious of its ceremonial; it often
goes so far as to sanctify reversions to usages and modes of thought
which have passed out of the recollection of the people; in doing this,
it is frequently necessary that some explanation be invented, as the
hierophants themselves are generally ignorant of the true reasons for
their conduct; but more ordinarily mankind accepts and complies with
ritualistic precepts without inquiry, and even with a vague belief that
the more archaic a practice may be, the more efficacy it must necessarily
have in securing protection and good fortune.
The Hindu festival of Holi, Huli, or Hulica, familiar to most readers,
has thus been outlined by a recent witness as celebrated in the provinces
near Oudeypore.[87] The proceedings are characterized as saturnalia,
attended with much freedom and excessive drunkenness:
“The importance of the study of popular traditions, though recognized
by men of science, is not yet understood by the general public. It is
evident, however, that the mental tokens which belong to one intellectual
stock, which bear the stamp of successive ages, which connect the
intelligence of our day with all periods of human activity, are worthy
of serious consideration. Much of this time-honored currency is rude
and shapeless, it may be ore scarcely marked by the die; but among the
treasures silver and gold are not wanting. An American superstition
may require for its explanation reference to Teutonic mythology, or
may be directly associated with the philosophy, monuments, and arts of
Hellas.... It is, however, now a recognized principle that higher forms
can only be comprehended by the help of the lower forms out of which
they grew.... The only truly scientific habit of mind is that wide and
generous spirit of modern research which, without disdain and without
indifference, embraces all aspects of human thought, and endeavors in
all to find a whole.”—(Prof. W. W. Newell, in “Journal of American
Folk-Lore,” Jan.-March, 1889.)
“It is not too much to assert, once for all, that meaningless customs
must be survivals; that they had a practical, or at least ceremonial
intention when and where they first arose; but are now fallen into
absurdity from having been carried on in a new state of society, where
their original sense has been discarded.”—(“Primitive Culture,” E. B.
Tylor, New York, 1874, vol. i. p. 85.)
“I believe that no custom which we find among early races was initiated
without some very good reason why, though those who practise it may long
have lost it, and even have been obliged to invent a new one, utterly
different from the original, to explain the rite which they ignorantly
practise.”—(Personal letter from J. W. Kingsley, Esq., M. D., Brome Hall,
Scole, England.)
“The serious business of ancient society may be seen to sink into
the sport of later generations, and its serious belief to linger
on in nursery folk-lore, while superseded habits of old-world life
may be modified into new-world forms, still powerful for good and
evil.”—(“Primitive Culture,” E. B. Tylor, London, 1871, vol. i. p. 15.)
And again: “Religion holds on, with the tenacity of superstition, to all
that has ever been practised.”—(“Custom and Myth,” Andrew Lang, New York,
1885, p. 241.)
A brighter light will be thrown upon future investigations by regarding
folk-lore and folk-usage, especially folk-medicine, as the crystalization
of primordial religious thought and practice.
“It can hardly be too often repeated, since it is not yet generally
recognized, that, in spite of their fragmentary character, the popular
superstitions and customs of the peasantry are by far the fullest and
most trustworthy evidence we possess as to the primitive religion of
the Aryans. Indeed, the primitive Aryan, in all that regards his
mental fibre and texture, is not extinct. He is amongst us to this
day. The great intellectual and moral forces which have revolutionized
the educated world, have scarcely affected the peasant. In his inmost
beliefs, he is what his forefathers were in the days when forest trees
still grew, and squirrels played on the ground where Rome and London now
stand.
“Hence every inquiry into the primitive religion of the Aryans should
either start from the superstitious beliefs and observances of the
peasantry, or should at least be constantly checked and controlled
by reference to them. Compared with the evidence afforded by living
tradition, the testimony of ancient books on the subject of ancient
religion is worth very little. For literature accelerates the advance of
thought at a rate which leaves the slow progress of opinion by word of
mouth at an immeasurable distance behind. Two or three generations of
literature may do more to change thought than two or three thousand years
of traditional life. But the mass of the people, who do not read books,
remain unaffected by the mental revolution wrought by literature; and so
it has come about that in Europe, at the present day, the superstitious
beliefs and practices which have been handed down by word of mouth are
generally of a far more archaic type than the religion depicted in the
most ancient literature of the Aryan race.”—(“The Golden Bough,” James G.
Frazer, M. A., London, 1890, Preface, viii, ix.)
The people of Rangoon, Siam, observe a peculiar usage at the time
of their New Year. Every man, woman, boy, or girl is armed with a
“squirt-gun,” with which all people on the street are drenched.[88]
Elliott, apparently quoting from Zagoskin (a Russian explorer, _temp._
1843), says that the Alaskans have “entertainments” in the “kashga.”
“It sometimes happens, on these occasions, that lovers of fun sprinkle
the women with oil, or with that fluid which they use in place of soap,
squirted from small bladders concealed about their persons, and such
jokes are never resented.”—(“Our Arctic Province,” Henry W. Elliott, New
York, 1887, p. 392.)
“From the very beginning effigies of the most revolting indecency are set
up in the gates of the town and in the principal thoroughfares.
“Troops of men and women, wreathed with flowers and drunk with bang,
crowd the streets, carrying sacks full of a bright red vegetable powder.
With this they assail the passers-by, covering them with clouds of
dust, which soon dyes their clothes a startling color. Groups of people
standing at the windows retaliate with the same projectile, or squirt
with _wooden syringes red and yellow streams of water into the streets
below_.”
The Nautch dances reach the acme of voluptuousness, and the accompanying
chants are filled with suggestiveness. The author here quoted says that
Holica was the Indian Venus.
An eminent authority says that “this red powder (_gulàl_) is a sign of
a bad design of an adulterous character. During the holi holidays the
Maharaj throws _gulàl_ on the breasts of female and male devotees, and
directs the current of some water of a yellow color from a syringe upon
the breasts of females.”—(Inman, “Ancient Faiths embodied in Ancient
Names,” p. 393.)
This “yellow water” may be a survival of and a refinement upon urine.
The Apaches and Navajoes, close neighbors of the Zuñis, have had until
very recently (and may still celebrate) the dance of the Joshkân, in
which clowns scatter upon the spectators, from bladders wound round their
bodies, water, said to be representative of urine.
Among the Aztecs there was a festival allowing the fullest license to
clowns, armed with bladders filled with red powder or fine pieces of
maguey paper attached by strings to short poles. With these bladders
all persons caught in the streets, especially women and girls, were
mercilessly buffeted.—(Sahagun, vol. ii. in Kingsborough’s “Mexican
Antiquities,” vol. vi. p. 33, and again vol. vii. p. 83.)
His account says that in the seventeenth month, which was called
“Tititl,” and corresponded almost to our winter solstice, the
Mexican year being divided into eighteen months of twenty days each,
beginning with our February, the Aztec populace played a game called
“nechichiquavilo.”
All the men and boys who wished to play this game made little bags or
nets, filled with the pollen of the rush, called “espadaña,” or with
paper cut in fine pieces. These were attached to cords or ribbons half a
yard long, in such a manner that a blow could be struck with them. Others
made these bags like gloves, which they stuffed as above stated, or with
leaves of green maize. No one was allowed, under penalty, to put into
these bags any stones, or anything else which could hurt.
The boys at once began to play this game, in the way of a sham-battle,
hitting each other on the head, or wherever else they could. As the
fun increased the more mischievous of the boys began to beat the young
maidens passing along the street. At times three or four young boys
would attack one girl, and beat her so hard as to weary her and make
her cry. The more prudent of the young girls, in going from point to
point, carried a club with which to defend themselves. Some of the
boys concealed the bag, and when any old women carelessly approached
they would suddenly begin to beat them, crying out, “Chichiquatzinte
mantze!”—which means, “Our mother, this is the bag of the game!”[89]
The following is Torquemada’s description:—
“In the festival in honor of the goddess Yamatecuhtli, or “principal old
woman,” in the seventeenth month of the Mexican calendar, all the people
of the city made bags after the manner of purses, and stuffed them full
of hay and straw and other things, which would have no weight and do no
harm, and, attaching them to a cord, carried them hidden under their
cloaks. With these bags they buffeted all the women they met on the
street.”[90]—(Torquemada, “Monarchia Indiana,” lib. x. cap. 29.)
He recognizes the similarity between this and the blind-man’s-buff games
of other countries.
A contributor to “Asiatic Researches” calls this powder of the Huli
festival a “purple powder,” and claims that the idea is to represent the
return of spring, which the Romans call “purple.”[91]
In some parts of North America the 1st of April is observed like Saint
Valentine’s Day, with this difference, that the boys are allowed
to chastise the girls, if they think fit, either with words or
blows.—(Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” vol. i. p. 141, article “April
Fool’s Day.”)
A FEW REMARKS UPON THE USE OF BLADDERS IN RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES.
Whether or not primitive man, excited by his insatiate, omnivorous
appetite for gods, under the impulses of which he deified winds, waters,
trees, and stones, and looked with a veneration not far removed from
devotion itself, upon the holy graals, chalices, and other paraphernalia
of his ritual, should have associated a mysterious power with the
bladders he employed to hold his urine and ordure is a question which no
one can to-day determine.
For our own cow-worshipping Aryan ancestry bladders were a natural means
of transporting liquids, exactly as they remain among the Apaches and
other Indian tribes of America.
Introduced of necessity into religious ceremonial, they would, with the
advance of years, and in spite of the improvement which might be brought
about in the domestic comfort of the people at large, gain a certain
“medicine” value, strictly parallel to that which we know has been gained
by the gourd-rattle, which, in not a few cases, has been consulted as an
oracle, and adored as a god.[92]
The author has observed a number of instances of the use by Sioux,
Apache, and other Indians, of bladders tied in the hair as an “ornament”
long after traders had placed within reach glass beads, feathers, and
other means of decoration. The Hottentots kept drinking-water in “the
intestines of animals.”—(Thurnberg, in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. pp. 38, 73,
141.)
Of the Patagonians we are informed that “the only vessels they use for
carrying water are bladders.”—(“Adventure and Beagle,” vol. i. p. 93.)
We are informed that the Shamans of Alaska throw into the sea inflated
bladders and watch them sink, as a means of divination.—(“Our Arctic
Province,” Elliott, p. 393.)
In some parts of rural England there were kept up even to our own day
certain feasts or ceremonies, connected with the ploughing of the land.
These “fool-plough” days varied in different sections from early in
January to Shrove Tuesday. They partook of the nature of a frolic, the
plough being driven by a clown armed with a bladder, with which he urged
his team. There were certain peculiarities connected with this custom
indicative of a Pagan origin. The clown was attired as a woman, there
was music, the plough was drawn three times round a fire, the blacksmith
received “sharping corn” for sharpening the plough-irons, and the whole
ended with feasting, in which the cock figured as one of the articles
of food. All this suggested to the writer in Brand a relationship with
the “Compitalia” of the Romans and “the three sacred ploughings” of the
Athenians; also the sacred ceremonial ploughing of the Chinese.—(Brand,
“Popular Antiquities,” vol. i. pp. 505 _et seq._, article “Fool-Ploughs.”)
Bruce describes the commander-in-chief of the Abyssinian army on an
expedition against the Gallas while in the act of making his toilet. “A
man was then finishing his head-dress by plaiting it with some of the
long and small guts of an ox, which I did not perceive had ever been
cleaned.”—(Bruce, “Nile,” vol. iv. p. 212.)
The Gallas of Abyssinia, upon slaughtering an ox, “hang the entrails
round their necks, or interweave them with their hair.”—(Maltebrun, “Un.
Geography,” Boston, 1847, vol. ii. p. 47, article “Abyssinia.”)
Bruce describes a chief of the Gallas as having “his long hair plaited
and interwoven with the bowels of oxen, and so knotted and twisted
together as to render it impossible to distinguish the hair from the
bowels.... He had likewise a wreath of guts hung about his neck, and
several rounds of the same about his middle.”—(“Nile,” vol. iv. p. 560.)
“Their favorite ornament is composed of the entrails of their oxen,
which, without superfluous care in cleansing them, are plaited in
the hair and tied as girdles round the waist.”—(“Encyc. of Geog.,”
Philadelphia, 1855, vol. ii. p. 588, article “Abyssinia.”)
“A Norwegian witch has boasted of sinking a ship by opening a bag in
which she had shut up a wind. Ulysses received the winds in a leather bag
from Æolus, king of the winds.”—(“The Golden Bough,” Frazer, vol. i. p.
27.)
An examination of the examples just adduced, as well as of those
introduced under “Cures by Transplantation,” would seem to show that
bladders were used in preference to material just as available and
convenient, and that when a substitution was made it was always by a
horn or a glass, clear as the entrail which it no doubt was supposed to
resemble. The god Crepitus, as we have shown, was symbolized as a swollen
paunch. The clowns of the circuses of the present day are armed with
bladders; but why no antiquarian has yet arisen to explain to us.
Brand (“Popular Antiquities,” vol. i. p. 261 _et seq._, article “Fools”)
contains no information on this point.
The use of the bladder is to be noted in the festivals of the Inuits.
“Après un superbe vacarme, ils suspendent à des cordes une centaine
des vessies, prises à des animaux tous tués à coups de flèche.”—(“Les
Primitifs,” Réclus, p. 110, “Les Inoits Occidentaux.”)
The explanation given by Réclus is as follows: “Faut-il expliquer que
les vessies, échauffées par la flamme, symbolisent les souffles du
printemps?... Qu’elles symbolisent l’esprit de vie qui entre dans les
narines?”—(Idem.)
It may be enough to point out the care with which these bladders must be
selected; not every bladder will do,—only those from animals killed with
arrows.
XLIX.
THE WORSHIP OF COCKS AND HENS.
Only such matter has been admitted into this volume as could _prima
facie_ be considered as having the right of entry; the greatest care has
been taken to avoid distortion or mutilation of authorities, and much has
been excluded that might have been presented without running a risk of
being accused of unfairness.
For example, as old an authority as John de Laet calls attention to
the great prevalence of intoxication and debauchery among the Indians
of Vextipa, near Mexico, who on feast days had the ancient custom of
becoming drunk as beasts and committing enormous excesses.[93] And in
like manner the first missionaries in Canada complained of the brutal
orgies of the natives, in which, under cover of darkness and the cloak
of their superstitions, deeds were committed which the pen dared not
describe. Ample reference to these has been preserved in the Jesuit
relations, and in the exact and interesting American treatises dependent
so largely upon them.[94] It is more likely, however, that the Huron
and Algonkin saturnalia were, in general terms, scenes of promiscuous
licentiousness.
Only two authorities can be cited, Fathers Le Jeune and Sagard, who
instance the use of human urine or ordure under spiritual direction; all
others leave the inference that the bacchanalia of which they were the
reluctant and disgusted observers had no other peculiarity than that of
unrestrained sexual intercourse.
It would be hard to find a better example of the tenacity of superstition
than that which the subjoined extract from the “Evening Star,” of
Washington, D. C., shows as existing under our own noses.
“A CURIOUS HUNGARIAN SUPERSTITION.
“A correspondent of the ‘Philadelphia Press,’ at Pottsville,
Pa., tells of a curious scene he witnessed in the Hungarian
quarter. A number of children were running round barefooted,
beating tin pans and boxes. In the midst of the circle they
were describing was a live baby buried up to the neck in the
cold ground with a shawl wound round its throat for protection.
It was learned that the object of putting the baby in this
peculiar position was to cure it of a skin disease, the Huns
having the same faith in the curative properties of mother
earth that is characteristic of many savage tribes.
“While the child was thus experiencing the medicinal virtues of
the earth packed round its body, the boys beat upon the pans
in order to frighten away the evil spirit that had caused the
disease.”
A retrospective glance at the long list of excrementitious remedies
collected shows that both the disease to be treated and the remedy by
which the cure was to be effected were regarded as entirely beyond the
domain of human science. Even in these cases, where medicines, pure and
simple, as we should now recognize them, were to be administered, there
was a complication of mysterious mummery and ceremony, the first vestige
of the former power of the medicine-man. Thus felons could be treated by
tracing a circle round them with a dead man’s bone; but the circle, we
should remember, was pre-eminently the line of magic.[95]
Teeth were worn as amulets, or given as medicine in disease, but it was
essential that they should be drawn from the jaw before the burial of the
body; or that they should be the first shed by a child; that they should
be those of a man who had died a violent death; or that they should be
caught before they touched the ground.
If they were not to be used immediately, they were not to be carried
about, but were to be buried in the bark of a tree.
The skull of a man was a remedy for the diseases of men only; that of a
woman, for those of the female sex.
There were combinations of numbers; no medicine was to be administered
an even number of times; of color[96] based upon the doctrine of
signatures which taught among other things, that red medicines cured red
diseases, and saffron-tinted ones, those of the jaundice type. There
were iron-clad formulæ for gathering medicinal plants in which the hour
of the day, the season of the year, the age of the moon, the position of
the planets, the hand to be used in plucking, the silence to be observed,
were all sedulously inculcated and enjoined.
There were charms and counter-charms, such as the Dea-soil and the
Badershin of the Druids, in which the same magical incantation, used in
different manners, i. e. going with or against the sun, induced contrary
results.
Traces of all these superstitious ideas are to be looked for in[97]
close association with the administration of excrementitious remedial
agents, or the incantations in which such agents appear.
The method of curing incontinence of urine by micturating into a dog
kennel probably belongs to the class of the Druidic Badershin or
Widershin, to which also we might be able to refer, did we know more
about it, the very ancient and widely-disseminated charact or charm,
“Diabolus effodiat,” etc.
Thus, in making use of lion-dung, it was recommended that it should be
that of a lioness which had brought forth young; and, to continue the
subject, we find the dung of black cows, the dung of bulls and cows
“collected in the month of May,” “water of cow-dung collected in May and
June,” etc., specially enjoined in the compounding of prescriptions.
Questions of the deepest interest spring up like weeds as we re-examine
our text. Of these, it is impossible to enumerate all, or to elaborate
these remarks into a disquisition upon religio-medical botany; one or
two, however, will be named. Why was hyoscyamus (henbane) added to human
ordure and human urine for the frustration of witchcraft? Was it because
this plant was able to kill the chicken-god sacred to so many European
peoples, and still to be detected upon the spires of our churches? Was
the chicken-god, or to adopt modern language, was the god of whom the
chicken was the symbol, friendly to witches? Being one of the principal
deities of a supplanted cultus, he must necessarily have been the
power, or one of the powers, invoked by the witches who were the secret
adherents of the old order of things spiritual.
Again, we read that in treating the bewitched, their limbs were bathed
in their own urine; to which, Frommann says, some added assafœtida and
others garlic; but assafœtida was called “merde du Diable.” (“Bib. Scat.”
p. 128.) Was this fetid gum sacred to some god, and was this dung-god,
or were dung-gods in general, the powers to be invoked for rendering
nugatory the assaults of witches?
In our quotations we have shown that, in the opinion of old authors
nothing equalled human ordure for baffling witches, and Luther has been
cited as expressing the belief that Satan fled in dismay from human
flatulence.
This belief has been transplanted to American soil with the German
immigrants settled in the State of Pennsylvania.
Hoffman speaks of a “quack” who gave a credulous dupe “some charms and
vile-smelling herbs, which he was directed to burn in his house so as to
drive out the evil and remove the visitor” (i. e. the spirit which was
troubling the dupe).—(“Folk-Med. of the Penn’a Germans,” in Trans. Amer.
Phil. Soc. 1889.)
A marked peculiarity of the list of animals is the absence of those
belonging to the fauna of the New World; there is no reference to the
excrement of the turkey, a bird unknown to the nations migrating into
Europe; but there are to be found the names of nearly all the birds and
beasts known to Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Celtic, or Teutonic races, with,
however, some notable exceptions; there is no mention of the excreta of
the bear, the swan, the wren, the parrot, and a few others; the complete
list contained in this work is repeated for convenience: Hare, camel,
goat, wild goat, bull, cow and calf, wolf, hen, chickens and cock, boar,
wild and tame, horse, ass, hippopotamus, lynx, badger, cuckoo, swallow,
cat, hawk, mouse, peacock, pigeon, domestic, wood-pigeon, turtle dove,
raven, sparrow, hedge-hog, dog, ring-dove, mule, weasel, stork, vulture,
crocodile, starling, eagle, owl, elephant, goose, lizard, rat, duck, kid,
chameleon, quail, kite, rabbit, deer, magpie, crow, ape, hyena, reindeer,
fox, lion, leopard.
A closer examination will discover that the ordure and urine so
prescribed were not to be taken indiscriminately from each and every
animal, but that each was assigned as a remedy appropriate for some
special physical disturbance.
Unfortunately, modern knowledge of the medical lore, of the botanical,
mineralogical, and chemical attainments and hagiology of the ancients
is not so thorough that we can venture, with the positiveness warranted
by the suspicion to which a close study of this subject gives rise, to
assert that the dung or urine of a given animal was most suitable to
palliate the pangs of the disease traceable to the offended dignity
of the deity of which the particular animal was the representative or
symbol; but it is a fact deserving of scrutiny that such an association
is unmistakably indicated in a number of cases.
Pliny says that goat-dung could be applied with benefit to ulcers upon
the generative organs. Was not the goat sacred to Pan (i. e., was not Pan
himself, in primitive days, the deified goat)? And was not Pan the god
to whose care the generative organs were, under certain circumstances,
confided?
When the feet of travellers became blistered, they were bathed with
the urine of asses. Was the ass, the burden-bearer, at any time, or in
any place under the domination of the Romans, regarded as the god of
travellers? Fosbroke says, “An ass carried the utensils and statues in
the sacrifices of Cybele and at the birth of Bacchus, the god newly
born, but he was only sacrificed to Mars or Priapus.”—(“Encyclopædia of
Antiquities,” London, 1843, vol. ii. p. 1009.)
Pliny also prescribed asses’ dung for uterine troubles,—a clear
recognition of the animal’s priapic association.
Hippopotamus-dung was given as a remedy for fever and ague. This monster
pachyderm lives in swamps, which are the hotbeds of malaria. By a
mistaken analogy, the animal would have been credited with the origin of
the disease always to be dreaded by intruders upon its lair.
Without desiring to enter into unnecessary controversy upon the meaning
of terms, it would seem to be perfectly reasonable to assert that the
majority of the deities of paganism had been zoömorphic before man’s
increasing intellectuality anthropomorphized them, and relegated the
animal first to the subordinate position of being the head or limbs of
the god, and then to the still more ancillary one of being simply the
companion or symbol.
To consider an animal a god, the messenger, attendant, companion, or
representative of that god; to offer it up as the most delectable
sacrifice to that deity, and afterwards restrict the oblation to a part
only of the animal, such as its horns, hoofs, excreta,—are all links in
the same psycho-religious chain of reasoning.
Mrs. Fanny D. Bergen shrewdly observes, “There seems to be the best of
reason for believing that, to seek the origin of the popular delusion
concerning the curative properties of certain animal excreta, we must
study the mythology of our long-ago Aryan ancestors.” And again: “It has
often happened that substances, as well as ceremonies, which originally
had a religious signification, in later ages degenerated into fancied
cures for diseases; so it is more than probable that the employment of
animal excreta as remedies among the less intelligent classes of Europe,
in both earlier and later times, as well as in our own newest offshoot
from the Indo-European stem, is a survival of early Aryan religious
observance.”—(“Animal and Plant Lore,” in Popular Science Monthly, New
York, September, 1888.)
“Car, dans la conception vraiment orthodoxe du sacrifice, l’hostie,
qu’elle soit homme, femme ou vierge, agneau ou génisse, coq ou colombe,
représente la divinité elle-même.”—(“Les Primitifs,” Réclus, p. 366.)
“Our general ignorance of the popular superstitions and customs of the
ancients has already been confessed.”—(“The Golden Bough,” Frazer, vol.
i. p. 363.)
“Frazer’s remarks make very interesting reading in support of the theory
of Zoötheistic pharmacy. He not only shows that the animals enumerated
in this chapter were the deities in charge of the corn, rye, and other
cereals, but that to them recourse was had for the cure of wounds, hurts,
and aches happening to the reapers during harvest. In one example the
cat which is introduced into the field is made to lick the laborer’s
wounds; in another, the goat—which is decked with ribbons, and afterwards
killed with much ceremony, and eaten at the end of the harvest—has its
skin converted into a cloak, which the farmer is required to put over his
shoulders during the coming harvest ... but if a reaper gets pains in his
back, the farmer gives him the goat-skin to wear.”—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 16.)
“Amongst the animals whose forms the corn-spirit is supposed to take,
are the wolf, dog, hare, cock, goose, cat, goat, cow (ox), bull, pig,
and horse.” (Idem, vol. ii. p. 1.) “Other animal forms assumed by the
corn-spirit are the stag, roe, sheep, bear, ass, fox, mouse, stork, swan,
and kite.”—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 33.)
Here we have pretty nearly all our list of animals, and the excrement of
every one here mentioned has been and is used in the prescriptions of
folk-medicine, excepting the excreta of the bear and swan.
“Remembering that in European folk-lore the pig is a common embodiment of
the corn-spirit, we may now ask, May not the pig, which was so closely
associated with Demeter, be nothing but the goddess herself in animal
form? The pig was sacred to her; in art she was represented carrying
or accompanied by a pig; and the pig was regularly sacrificed in her
mysteries, the reason assigned being that the pig injures the corn,
and is therefore an enemy of the goddess. But after an animal has been
conceived as a god, or a god as an animal, it sometimes happens, as we
have seen, that the god sloughs off his animal form, and becomes purely
anthropomorphic; and that then the animal, which at first had been slain
in the character of the god, comes to be the victim offered to the god,
on the ground of its hostility to the deity; in short, that the god is
sacrificed to himself, on the ground that he is his own enemy.... As men
emerge from savagery, the tendency to anthropomorphize or humanize their
divinities gains strength.”—(“The Golden Bough,” Frazer, vol. i. p. 360.)
“A man would eat freely of what was regarded as the incarnation of the
god of another man, but the incarnation of his own particular god he
would consider it death to injure or eat. The god was supposed to avenge
the insult by taking up his abode in that person’s body, and causing
to generate there the very thing which he had eaten, until it produced
death.”—(“Samoa,” Turner, p. 17.)
“The ram was Ammon himself. On the monuments, it is true, Ammon appears
in semi-human form, with the body of a man, and the head of a ram.
But this only shows that he was in the usual chrysalis state through
which beast-gods regularly pass before they emerge as full-fledged
anthropomorphic gods.”—(“The Golden Bough,” Frazer, vol. ii. p. 93.)
“Each god has his favorite animal, which is dedicated to him, and serves
him as messenger.”—(“Fetichism,” Baudin, p. 68.)
To write what may be designated the hagiology of animal life, as known to
the ancients, would be impossible. Our knowledge is too fragmentary and
too confused, from the inextricable blending of the ideas of different
races and cults, due to the conquests by and the subversion of the Roman
empire, when victor and vanquished reciprocally exchanged gods, or added
to the attributes of the victorious deities those of the defeated.
Religion, in the last years of the Roman empire, was a kaleidoscopic
jumble of the tenets and rituals of many races, adopting without caring
to fully understand, whatever struck the fancy in the religion of their
neighbors.
Hence it is impossible to demonstrate, what at first sight seemed to
be an easy task, that the excreta of any particular animal was applied
in the treatment of the diseases over which the god to whom the animal
was assigned stood guard. We are not absolutely without light upon the
subject,—just enough to discover that no animal was insignificant enough
to be absolutely without adoration, but not sufficiently clear to define
exactly what functions each quadruped or bird god exercised.
“The representation of the devil in the shape of a he-goat goes back
to a remote antiquity. What can have given it such a vigorous growth
among heretics and witches? The witches all imagine their master as a
black he-goat, to whom, at festival-gatherings, they pay divine honors;
conversely, the white goat atoned for and defeated diabolic influence....
In oaths and curses of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the he-goat
apes the true god.” (Grimm, “Teutonic Mythology,” vol. iii. p. 395.)
“The devil, in retiring, is compelled unawares to let his foot be seen.”
(Idem, p. 994.) “A kobold (horse-sprite) is also horse-footed.... To the
water-sprite, the whole or half of a horse’s figure is attributed....
That is why horses are sacrificed to rivers.... A British demon, Grant,
... shewed himself as a foal.... Loki changed himself into a mare.... The
devil appears as a horse in the stories of Zeno and Brother Rausch....
In legends, black steeds fetch away the damned.... Next to the goat, ...
the boar is a devil’s animal.” (Idem, pp. 994-996.) “A soul-snatching
wolf, the devil was already to the fathers.” (Idem, p. 996.) “A canine
conformation of the devil is supported by many authorities.” (Idem, p.
996.) “Foremost among birds comes the raven, whose form the devil is fond
of assuming.” (Idem, p. 997.) “Within the last few centuries only I find
the vulture put for the devil.... Still more frequently the cuckoo.”
(Idem, p. 997.) “Another bird whose figure is assumed is the cock.”
(Idem, p. 997), “When stag-beetles and dung-beetles are taken as devils,
... it gives assurance of a heathen point of view.”—(p. 999.)
“In Norway, lambs and kids, mostly black ones, were offered to the
water-sprite.”—(Idem, p. 1009.)
“It is a natural and well-known fact, that the gods of one nation become
the devils of their conquerors or successors.”—(Black, “Folk-Medicine,”
p. 12.)
Gladiators wore camel’s dung as a charm; it is not at all unlikely that
to the Bedouin nomad the “ship of the desert” was the god of fortitude.
Fosbroke says that it was the “symbol of Arabia.”—(“Antiquities,” p.
1011.)
The sacredness of the domestic cattle in India and elsewhere is too well
known to require remark; so is that of the crocodile in parts of ancient
Egypt.
The hare was sacred in China, and is as sacred to-day to certain tribes
of American Indians as it was to the Britons when Boadicea drew one from
her bosom to consult as an omen before joining battle with the Roman
legions.
The rabbit and hare figured upon ancient Spanish coins.—(Fosbroke,
“Antiquities,” vol. ii. p. 1022.)
The dung of hawks, eagles, and vultures was administered to expel the
fœtus from the womb. This may have been on the principle of _similia
similibus_, because these rapacious birds tore the young of other birds
from their nests and devoured them. However, the eagle was worshipped
by the Romans, Persians, and Babylonians, upon whose standards it
perched.—(See Fosbroke, “Antiquities,” vol. ii. pp. 1024, 1025, article
“Eagle.”)
“It was the common symbol of Jupiter.”—(Idem.)
The cat was a moon-goddess symbol to the Egyptians, as well as to many
others.—(Idem, p. 1011.)
The dog was sacred to Mercury as being the protector of shepherds.—(Idem,
p. 1012.)
The dove, as well known, was one of the symbols of Venus.
The dove was also worshipped by the Assyrians.—(Idem, p. 1024.)
The stork “accompanies filial piety ... upon coins.”—(Idem, vol. i. p.
215.)
The swallow was the emblem of Isis.—(Idem, p. 216.)
The ancient Britons, the English down to modern days, the ancient Romans,
the Hungarians, the Scotch, and many other nations, drew omens from the
crossing of a man’s path by a hare. It is related of Queen Boadicea that
before joining battle with the Romans she drew from her bosom a hare,
which she released, and from its gambols the priests drew the augury that
success was to rest with her.—(See in Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” vol.
iii. pp. 201 _et seq._, article “Hare, Wolf, or Sow.”)
Says Plinius: “There must be something in the general persuasion that
after seeing a hare a man is good-looking for nine days.”—(“Saxon
Leechdoms,” vol. i. p. 14.)
“The sun was represented by the Persians under the form of a lion,
which they called Mithra; and his priests were called lions, and the
priestesses hyenas.”—(Fosbroke, “Antiquities,” vol. ii. p. 1020.)
The hyena, according to Pliny, was an especially “magic” animal.—(Lib.
xxviii.)
The ape was “worshipped in Egypt, and is now in India.”—(Fosbroke,
“Antiquities,” vol. ii. p. 1008.)
“The Greeks of Pythsecusa worshipped this animal” (monkey).—(Idem, p.
1020.)
The wolf. “The Hebrews venerated this animal.”—(Idem, p. 1023.)
The wolf was “consecrated to Apollo.”—(Idem.)
The ancient belief all over Europe was that it was lucky to have one’s
path crossed by a wolf. This corresponds to the idea of the Apache in
regard to the bear.—(See Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” vol. iii. p. 202,
article “Hare, Wolf, or Sow.”)
The Irish veneration for the wolf is well known.
The lynx “accompanied Bacchus.”—(Fosbroke, “Antiquities,” vol. ii. p.
1020.)
The pig was “sacrificed in the Eleusinian mysteries.”—(Idem, p. 1021.)
The cow, among the Egyptians, “was the symbol of Venus.”—(Idem, p. 1011.)
The elephant was “peculiar to the cars of Bacchus.”—(Idem, p. 1014.)
The goat. “Maimonides says ... that the Zabii worshipped demons under the
figure of goats.”—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 1015.)
“Steeds were consecrated to the sun.”—(Idem, p. 1016.)
The crow, “anciently the symbol of Venus,” was “superseded by the
owl.”—(Idem, p. 1024.)
The cock was “the symbol of courage, ... consecrated to Mars; also to
Minerva, to Bellona, to Mercury, to Esculapius.”—(Idem, p. 1029.)
A flock of geese was kept on the Capitoline Hill in memory of the
story that they had saved Rome,—a story which it is safe to say had no
foundation in fact.
The raven “was the ensign of the Danes.”—(Idem, p. 1030.)
“So revered is he (the fox) that no place in a Mantchurian temple is too
high for him.”—(H. E. M. James, “The Long White Mountain,” London, 1888,
p. 190.)
“The serpent also is greatly feared and worshipped; so is the
hare.”—(Idem, p. 192.)
The peacock was sacred to Juno, whose car was drawn by those birds. Pliny
says that the peacock was reported to swallow its own excrement, as if
envying man the possession of a treasure so precious. When the dung of
the peacock was administered in epilepsy, vertigo, etc., the medicine was
to be taken from the new moon to the full. Juno was a lunar deity.
“It was an ancient and wide-spread custom in Europe to bestow names
of honor on these three” (bear, wolf, and fox).—(Grimm, “Teutonic
Mythology,” vol. ii. p. 667.)
“The Gypsies call the bear ‘vieux,’ or ‘grand-père.’”—(Idem, foot-note,
quoting Victor Hugo’s “Notre Dame de Paris.”)
The blood of a hare was regarded as one of the finest remedies for
erysipelas and bloody flux, and this by a certain “sympathetic power.” A
towel dipped in hare’s blood and allowed to dry was kept to be touched to
an epileptic patient.—(See Von Helmont, “Orotrika,” English translation,
London, 1662, pp. 114, 475.)
The Ostaiks of Siberia “regardent comme sacré l’arbre où un aigle a fait
sa ponte plusieurs années de suite; et ils ont aussi beaucoup d’égards
pour cette aigle. On ne peut les offenser plus cruellement qu’en tuant
cette aigle ou en détruisant son nid.”—(“Voyages de Pallas,” vol. iv. pp.
81, 82.)
The very name of owl (_googue_) was considered unlucky by the Abyssinians
for use as the watchword, although we are told that it was so used.—(See
Bruce, “Nile,” vol. iv. p. 698.)
That a belief in the sinister character of the hooting of the owl
by night prevailed all over Europe, especially among the Romans, in
the period of their greatest civilization, and that this credulity
was transmitted down almost to our own times, see in Brand, “Popular
Antiquities,” vol. iii. p. 206 _et seq._, article “Owl.” He quotes
from Suetonius, Pliny, Ovid, Lucan, Claudia, and from various old
English authors,—“The cryinge of the owle by night betokeneth deathe, as
divinours conjecte and deme,” and
“Then screech-owls croak upon the chimney-tops
It’s certain then you of a corse shall hear.”
In Egypt, “it is said that in whatever house a cat died all the family
shaved the eyebrows.”—(Idem, vol. iii. p. 38, article “Sorcery.”)
“In the earliest period the horse seems to have been the favorite animal
for sacrifice.”—(“Teut. Mythol.,” Grimm, vol. i. p. 47.)
The crow was always a bird of bad omen among the Romans.—(See Brand,
“Popular Antiquities,” vol. iii. p. 213, article “The Crow.”)
Roman magicians asserted “that the heart of a horned owl applied to the
left breast of a woman, while asleep, will make her disclose all her
secret thoughts.... Persons who have it about them in battle will be sure
to display valor;” but “it was ominous to see the bird itself.”—(Pliny,
lib. xxix, c. 26.)
The crocodile seems to take in Borneo the place occupied so generally
elsewhere by the serpent; although we know that in Central America
the alligator was revered, and along the Nile in many districts the
crocodile.—(See Bock’s “Head-Hunters of Borneo,” London, 1881, passim.)
“The hare, which shares with the cat the reputation of being the familiar
of witches, has naturally some virtues attributed to it. Thus that the
right forefoot worn in the pocket will infallibly ward off rheumatism
is a common belief in Northamptonshire, and generally over England.”
(“Folk-Medicine,” Black, p. 154.) The Chinese say that a hare sits at the
foot of the cassia-tree in the moon pounding out the drugs of which the
elixir of immortality is compounded. In a poem of Tu-fu, a bard of the
T’ang dynasty, the fame of this hare is sung,—
“The frog is not drowned in the river;
The medicine hare lives forever.”
“The devil’s mark was said to sometimes resemble the impression of
a hare’s foot.... Seeing a hare was thought in Ireland to produce
a hare-lip in the child to be born; and, as a charm, the woman who
unfortunately saw the hare was recommended to make a small rent
immediately in some part of her dress.”—(Idem, p. 155.)
“It is held extremely unlucky, says Grose, to kill a cricket, a
ladybug, a swallow, martin, robin red-breast, or wren,—perhaps from
the idea of its being a breach of hospitality, all these birds and
insects alike taking refuge in our houses.... Persons killing any of
the above-mentioned birds or insects, or destroying their nests, will
infallibly, within the course of the year, break a bone, or meet with
some other dreadful misfortune.... On the contrary, it was deemed lucky
to have martins or swallows build their nests in the eaves of a house or
in the chimneys.... Its being accounted unlucky to destroy swallows is
probably a pagan relic. We read in Ælian that these birds were sacred
to the penates or household gods of the ancients, and therefore were
preserved. They were honored anciently as the nuncios of the spring. The
Rhodians are said to have had a solemn anniversary song to welcome in the
swallow. Anacreon’s ode to that bird is well known.” Brand also alludes
to the still surviving omens attaching to the swallow,—such as “the
swallow falling down the chimney,” and others.—(“Popular Antiquities,”
vol. iii. p. 193.)
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN SPORT OF “CORRER EL GALLO” AND THE ENGLISH PASTIME
OF “THROWING AT ‘SHROVE-COCKS.’”
The Spaniards brought with them to the New World a cruel form of sport,
which consisted in burying a cock or hen in the earth up to its neck, and
then allowing the young men of the village to mount their horses, and
charging down at full speed upon the hapless bird, reach down from their
saddles and endeavor to seize it and wring its neck. This sport (as seen
by the author in the Indian Pueblo of Santo Domingo, New Mexico, in 1881,
and described by him in “The Snake Dance of the Moquis”) is evidently
a distorted form of the sacrifice of the chicken deity, which is to be
discovered in many parts of Europe, always under the guise of brutal
sport.
In England there was a modification. A goose was hung up by the feet, and
then the villagers ran and attempted to seize its head, which was finally
pulled off. There was still another of the same series in which a cat was
put in a barrel, and the barrel was then beaten to pieces.—(See Brand,
“Popular Antiquities,” vol. iii. p. 40, article “Sorcery.”)
There was another English pastime, “Throwing at Shrove-Cocks,” much of
the same nature.—(See idem, vol. i. p. 101, article “Ash-Wednesday,” and
p. 72, article “Shrove-Tuesday.”)
Grimm describes the “heathen custom of tying cocks to the tops of
holy-trees,” which prevailed very generally over Europe in Pagan times.
“The Wends erected cross-trees, but still secretly heathen at heart, they
contrived to fix at the very top of the poles a weather-cock.”—(Grimm,
“Teutonic Mythology,” London, vol. ii. p. 672.)
“In parts of Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Picardy, the reapers place
a live cock in the corn which is to be cut last, and chase it over
the field, or bury it up to the neck in the ground; afterwards they
strike off its neck with a sickle or a scythe.”—(“The Golden Bough,”
Frazer, vol. ii. p. 9. He gives still other examples from Westphalia,
Transylvania, etc.)
See also Grose, “Dictionary of Buckish Slang,” London, 1811, article
“Goose Riding,” in which it is stated that this game was practised “in
Derbyshire within the memory of persons now living.”
THE SCARABÆUS OF EGYPT.
The radical divergence of opinion among scholars as to the basis of the
veneration accorded by the inhabitants of the Nile delta to the scarabæus
has been an occasion of much perplexity; no two authors can be found to
agree upon the subject.
In the absence of anything which can be considered conclusive, it is not
worth while to more than allude to the fact that it was the dung-beetle
to which this adoration was manifested, and possibly because it
associated itself with material so intimately connected with the living
organism.
The dung-beetle “scarabæus ... worn as an amulet for the cure of
fever.”—(Pliny, lib. xxx. cap. 30.)
See also “Saxon Leechdoms,” vol. i. p. 16, in which the preceding
paragraph from Pliny is quoted.
“To the Egyptians the beetle (scarabæus) was sacred, being an emblem
of inmost life and mysterious self-generation. They believed that he
proceeded out of matter which he rolled into globules and buried in
manure.”—(Grimm, “Teut. Mythol.,” vol. ii. p. 692.)
“The Thebaic beetle, the first animal that is seen alive after the Nile
retires from the land.” Bruce thinks that the scarabæus was the symbol
of “the land which had been overflowed and from which the water had soon
retired, and has nothing to do with the resurrection or immortality,
neither of which were at that time in contemplation.”—(“Nile,” Bruce,
Dublin, 1790, vol. i. p. 129.)
Sir Samuel Baker says: “It appears shortly after the commencement of the
wet season, its labors continuing until the cessation of the rains, at
which time it disappears. Was it not worshipped by the ancients as the
harbinger of the high Nile?”—(“The Albert Nyanza,” pp. 240, 241.)
“On sait que l’escarbot ou fouille-merde, qui nait dedans et qui s’en
nourrit, était pour les Égyptiens l’image du monde, du soleil, d’Isis,
d’Osiris.”—(“Bib. Scat.,” pp. 1 and 2, quoting Pliny, lib. xxx. cap. 11;
lib. ii. cap. 30; Kircher, Prodrom. Egypt. cap. ult.)
The beetle was not killed by the peasantry of Ireland, according to Lady
Wilde. See her book, page 175.
Scholars will understand that the remarks submitted upon the veneration
attaching to all these animals have been introduced merely as aids
to memory in the consideration of this matter, and not as completely
covering all that could be advanced on the subject.
L.
THE PERSISTENCE OF FILTH REMEDIES
Another feature deserving of attention is the persistence with which
the same remedies have been perpetuated through the centuries; from
Hippocrates, perhaps, certainly from Pliny to Sextus Placitus, then to
“Saxon Leechdoms,” and thence to the authorities prepared immediately
after the discovery of printing, there is a transmittal of the same
prescriptions for the same diseases.
Avicenna, the Arabian, has unmistakably drawn the inspiration of his
knowledge from the broken fountains of Latin-Christian civilization.
EPILEPSY.
The dung of the peacock was one of the favorite prescriptions for the
alleviation of epilepsy, the disease so pre-eminently of divine origin
that by the Romans it was termed the Divine Disease[98] (Morbus sacer).
Epilepsy was likewise called the “comitial disease,” because, according
to the different authorities consulted upon the subject, the moment a
Roman was attacked by it, the “comitia,” if in session, were dissolved.
The “comitia ... were the assemblies of the clans for deliberating upon
such important matters as the appointment of judges, etc.”[99] Of exactly
what transpired afterwards we have no knowledge; it is most likely that
the assembled clans devoted themselves to supplicating the gods to take
mercy upon an afflicted kinsman. It is not at all beyond the limits of
probability that the patient was, in early days, sacrificed to appease
the wrath of the deity inflicting the punishment, or disease as we should
designate it. This, at least, is the only rational inference to be drawn
from the action taken with the clothing worn during the fit, and the
excrement voided at the same time, both of which, as we have seen, were
burned,—a reminiscence of the earlier practice when such a fate was meted
out to the victim himself.
But we do find that the belief in transference or transplantation was
one of the underlying principles of all medical practice in ancient and
mediæval times; and, by a reference to the examples cited, it will be
noted that special stress was laid upon the employment of clippings of
the hair or nails of the patient, or his urine, ordure, or, in rarer
instances, his saliva or perspiration; these were to be placed in
egg-shells and then buried in ant-hills, thrown into fish-ponds, given to
dogs or chickens, or thrown out in the cross-roads, in the hope that some
traveller, impelled by curiosity, would pick up the strange package and
with it take the disease from the original sufferer.
All diseases were believed to be punishments inflicted by angry gods;
therefore, all medicines were originally charms, i. e. oblations
or sacrifices to propitiate the offended spirits or to secure the
interposition of still more powerful gods who should render nugatory the
malevolent work of the minor. Sometimes, the charms employed suggest
unmistakably the prior existence of human sacrifice; the trembling victim
was ordered to sacrifice himself or one of his household. But, on the
principle that the part represents the whole, in other words, that the
actual sacrifice could be deferred in consideration of the presentation
of a pledge, such a pledge was offered in the shape of hair, nails,
skin, blood, excrements, saliva, or shreds of the clothing belonging
to the interested devotee, the supposition, of course, being that the
propitiated Deity could, at a future time, insist upon the execution of
the contract, or the consummation of the sacrifice the pledge guaranteed.
Therefore, when we find in “sympathetic” cures, that human exuviæ,
excrements, etc., are thrown into ponds, we may without difficulty infer
that the fishes or water gods, in accepting the oblation, accepted the
sacrifice as symbolized, and, being appeased, took back to themselves the
disease they had in their wrath inflicted.
The same is the underlying principle when such “charms,” as we very
properly call them, were hung upon trees, or stones, or around holy
wells; it was the guardian spirits of those localities which had been
offended and must be mollified by the “carmen” or ode of incantation
which was an inseparable adjunct of all such votive offerings,—from which
comes our own word “charm.”[100]
When the “charm” was thrown to a dog, or placed in a field, where cattle,
horses, or sheep, or wild beasts might pasture upon it, an animal god had
to be propitiated; and where it was simply thrown out on the road, or,
better still, at a cross-roads, the “earth-spirits,” or some goblins not
definitely determined upon, in the mind of the sacrificer, were believed
to be the authors of his infirmity.
Hanging these charms up in the chimney of one’s own house was clearly
an invocation to clan or family spirits to withdraw their wrath from an
afflicted kinsman, or hasten to his assistance. Viewed in this light, the
“charms” that to us seem so trivial, the rags, tufts of hair, etc., may,
in the mind of the person offering them, have been oblations of the most
sacred character.
LI.
AN EXPLANATION OF THE REASON WHY HUMAN ORDURE AND HUMAN URINE WERE
EMPLOYED IN MEDICINE AND RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES.
ANCESTOR-WORSHIP.—MAN-WORSHIP.—THE GRAND LAMA.
“Homo est medicus, et ex homine medicina paratur,” said Flemming, in his
“De Remediis ex corpore humano desumtis,” that is to say, man being a
doctor, from man medicine is prepared.
The savage, with all his fear of the vague and indefinable, had still
a wonderful belief in himself as the greatest of nature’s works; all
his great gods he created in his own image and likeness; he went even
further, and ascribed to the priests or representatives of the gods,
the same respect and veneration as were supposed to be due to the gods
themselves; hence arose man-worship, still existing in Thibet in its most
pronounced form, and surviving in Europe down to the present generation
almost, in the modification known as “touching for the king’s evil,”
which touching derived its efficacy from the double belief that all
ailments were sent from some supernatural, and, generally, maleficent,
source, and could, therefore, best be cured by the imposition of the
hands of an individual whom the inunction of a little consecrated fat had
bound more closely to the Omnipotent.[101]
This belief cropped out in charms and talismans, which were nothing
more nor less than medicines to avert bad luck and remedy disease,
itself a manifestation of bad luck; or, to express the idea still more
clearly, medicines themselves were nothing but charms originally,
in the application of which our forefathers paid less attention to
pharmaceutical properties than they did to those of an occult or
“sympathetic” nature which their own ignorance attributed to them.
Animals and plants and stones, being objects of worship, were naturally
enough called upon to furnish remedies for all ailments, and palliatives
for every misfortune. The grandest animal of all, man, could not well be
omitted from the Materia Medica; every thing that pertains to either sex,
either in structure or in function, must have impressed the untutored
mind with a sense of awe; all excretions, solid or fluid, were invested
with mystic properties, and called into requisition upon occasions of
special import.
On the subject of man-worship, consult Frazer, “The Golden Bough,” vol.
i. c. 2, pp. 8, 9.
“Among the negroes, royalty is deified; kings are supposed to be of the
race of gods, and, after death, become demi-gods.”—(“Fetichism,” Baudin,
p. 24.)
Saliva, the ordure, urine, catamenial fluid, blood, bile, calculi, bones,
skulls,—all were mysterious, and therefore were “medicine,” especially
when obtained from a saint or lama.
This belief subsisted among tribes and communities long after
civilization of a high type had been attained, and is probably what Saint
Mark alludes to in an ambiguous passage, when he says, “It is not the
things which enter a man’s body, but those which come out of it, which
defile him.”
Again, it is not from the bodies of the living alone, but from the
corpses of the dead likewise, that medicinal preparations were derived;
but in the latter case there enters into the question another expression
of thought, shared by primitive man in all countries and in all ages;
i. e., that the part is ever the representative of the whole, and that
when the whole cannot be obtained, the part will be equally efficacious.
Hence the precious care with which, in all communities in a low state
of culture, the bones, teeth, rags of clothing, and other exuviæ of the
sacred dead have been treasured.
LII.
EASTER EGGS.
The constant use of the egg in effecting these cures by transplantation
awakens a suspicion that the origin of the pretty custom of giving away
Easter eggs, beautifully colored, was induced by something more than
charitable impulse. Nearly every usage that remains among us as a game
or a play derives from a serious ancestry. Easter was pre-eminently the
festival of the Christian church which most tenaciously preserved the
rites of paganism. It was, for some reason, looked upon as the season
when the human body, as well as the house occupied by that body, should
undergo a thorough cleansing, and get rid of all its ailments. The
coloring of the eggs suggests color-symbolism, an essentially heathen
idea, still retained among ourselves in full vigor, under many Protean
disguises.
When the Puritans gained control of the government of Great Britain, the
coloring of eggs, as we may imagine, was temporarily discontinued. The
“picking” of the eggs is a survival from one of the innumerable forms of
divination by lot in which the pagan mind of Rome and elsewhere delighted.
Therefore we may reasonably conclude that the custom, as transmitted
to us, is a “survival” from a religious usage intended to effect the
transference by lot of the diseases with which the egg-players were
afflicted.
“The oldest, most familiar, and most universal of all Easter customs
are those associated with eggs. Hundreds of years before Christ, eggs
held an important place in the theology and philosophy of the Egyptians,
Persians, Gauls, Greeks, and Romans, among all of whom an egg was the
emblem of the universe, and the art of coloring it was profoundly
studied. The sight of street boys striking their eggs together to see
which is the stronger and shall win the other, was as common in the
streets of Rome and Athens, two thousand years ago, if we are to believe
antiquarians, as it is in any of our American cities to-day. These eggs,
now called Easter eggs, were originally known as Pasche eggs, corrupted
to paste eggs, because connected with the Paschal or Passover feast.
One reason for associating the egg with the day on which our Saviour
rose from the dead may be, that the little chicks entombed, so to speak,
in the egg, rising from it into life, was regarded as typical of an
ascension from the grave.
“In the north of England it is customary to exchange presents of Easter
eggs among the children of families who are on intimate terms, a custom
which also prevailed largely among the ancients, and to which the sending
of Easter cards and other offerings, which has become so popular here of
late years, may be traced.”—(From the “Press,” Philadelphia, Penn., April
21, 1889.)
“Thirty years ago, it was a common practice for all elderly people to
be bled or cupped each spring.”—(“Folk-Medicine of the Pennsylvania
Germans,” Hoffman, in Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc., 1889.)
“To hang an egg laid on Ascension Day in the roof of the house,
preserveth the same from all hurt.”—(Scot, “Discoverie,” p. 193.)
“The modern custom, practised in Tripoli, of a widow transferring her
misfortunes from herself by delivering four eggs to the first stranger
she meets.”—(Dalyell, “Superstitions of Scotland,” p. 110.)
“It comes to be thought desirable to have a general riddance of evil
spirits at fixed times, usually once a year, in order that the people may
make a fresh start in life, freed from all the malign influences which
have been long accumulating among them.”—(“The Golden Bough,” Frazer,
vol. ii. p. 163.)
“Modern Jews sacrifice a white cock on the eve of the Festival of
Expiation, nine days after the beginning of their new year. The father of
the family knocks the cock thrice against his own head, saying, ‘Let this
cock be a substitute for me,’ etc.”—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 195.)
The negroes of Guinea seem to entertain notions on this subject worthy
of incorporation in this chapter: “The sending of the parrot’s egg
signifies, Choose the kind of death which would be easiest to you;
otherwise, we will choose for you.”—(“Fetichism,” Baudin, p. 23.)
In many portions of Europe there are still in existence rustic
observances which, under the mask of games, preserve to the mind of
the anthropologist the former rite of human sacrifice. Among these may
be mentioned one from Sweden, in which a boy—who in the past ages was
evidently the victim selected for sacrifice, and to bear to the gods the
messages of the community,—goes about from house to house, carrying a
basket, in which he collects gifts of eggs and the like. (Frazer, “The
Golden Bough,” vol. i. p. 78.) It seems to be logical to imagine that
these gifts, sent to the deities to propitiate them, also served the
purpose of carrying away from the donors any ailments with which they
were afflicted,—the same purpose for which Easter eggs were broken, and
the transfer of illness brought about by lot. The insignificance of the
egg as an offering, in comparison with the benefits to be expected,
offers no argument in rebuttal of the opinions just expressed. We should
bear in mind the proneness of the devotee to reduce the money value of
his sacrifice or oblations to the minimum. This is peculiar to no cultus,
confined to no latitude. The worship of the chicken-god was apparently
very widely ramified, especially among the divisions and subdivisions
of what we have chosen to call the Aryan family. To several of these
branches, notably the Wendish and the Celtic, the chicken was, perhaps,
the principal god; and he remains to this day in his proud position,
whence the first missionaries were unable to dislodge him, at the summit
of the sacred tree or spire of the village church.
Naturally enough, what we should expect to see upon the recurrence among
these tribes of a festival in which their principal spiritual powers were
to be invoked to expel all forms of disease and evil from among their
worshippers, would be the sacrifice of chickens; but the poverty or the
niggardliness of the suppliant in many cases suggested a substitution of
the cheaper offering, the egg, which may, in its turn, have been replaced
by the feathers of the bird.
In parts of India, to this day, the scapegoat of the community is a cock.
“In southern Konkan, on the appearance of cholera, the villagers went
in procession from the temple to the extreme boundaries of the village,
carrying a basket of cooked rice, covered with red powder, a wooden doll,
representing the pestilence, and a cock. The head of the cock was cut off
at the village boundary, and the body was thrown away. When cholera was
thus transferred from one village to another, the second village observed
the same ceremony, and passed the scourge on to its neighbors.”—(“The
Golden Bough,” Frazer, vol. ii. p. 191.)
“When spring comes,” said Pantagruel to Panurge, “I will take a purge.”
“Les œufs sont partout fatidiques.”—(“Les Primitifs,” Réclus, p. 356,
art. “Les Kolariens du Bengalou.”)
LIII.
THE USE OF BLADDERS IN MAKING EXCREMENT SAUSAGES.
It was believed to be peculiarly necessary that the urine or ordure of
those suffering from epilepsy, yellow jaundice, quartan fevers, etc.,
should be placed in a pig’s bladder, and hung up in the chimney; in other
words, they were made into an excrement sausage.
Traces of the employment of these sausages appear from the most remote
times. Galen has a paragraph which reads as if he had some such practice
in mind. Speaking of human ordure, he says: “Utitur non modo medicamenti
quæ focis imponuntur commiscens, sed iis quoque quæ intro in os
sumuntur.” It would seem that he was alluding to mixtures in domestic
medicine when some such preparations were placed on the hearths (focis).
For the potency of these excrement sausages in rescuing victims from the
clutches of witches, from the yellow jaundice, from fevers, and other
troubles we have the assurances of such grave and reputable writers as
Schurig, Paullini, Etmuller, Frommann, and others of ages past; while
Black certifies to their use in Staffordshire; and Hoffman tells us
of customs among the Germans of Pennsylvania which are distinctly and
undeniably modifications of those transmitted from the mother-country.
Reference to the words of these authorities, as herein quoted, is
recommended; among them the following may be found worthy of remark.
“The entrails will be affected with corrosion when hot excrement is
placed in a bladder.”—(Frommann, p. 1023.)
Schurig instances a farmer who by hanging up in his chimney the dung of
his neighbor’s horses drove them all into a consumption.—(“Chylologia,”
p. 815.)
In the Island of Nukahiva the witch wasn’t content with getting the
excrement of the victim; it had to be put in a “bag woven in a particular
manner,” and buried.—(Krusenstern.)
The devil cannot be more completely frustrated than by placing upon some
of his works human ordure, or by hanging human ordure in the smoke of the
chimney.—(Paullini, p. 260.)
“A certain man bewitched a boy nine years old by placing the boy’s ordure
in a hog’s bladder and hanging the sausage in a chimney.”—(Idem, p. 261.)
In Staffordshire, to cure the yellow jaundice, a bladder was often
filled with the urine of the patient and placed near the fire. (Black,
“Folk-Medicine.”) It is strange to encounter among the Australians the
very same ideas, expressed in identical terms, in regard to effecting
enchantments by means of the victim’s ordure, wrapped in a roll or bundle
not altogether unlike the sausages of European occult art.
“Should a Bangal in the course of his wanderings drop across an old
encampment of Bukeens, he searches about for some débris (such as bones)
of the food they have eaten; but should his search for bones or some
other kindred débris be unsuccessful, as frequently happens (from the
fact of its being a habit common to all the aboriginal tribes to consume
by fire the bones of the game upon which they have fed before they
abandon a camp), he anxiously scans the ground all round the abandoned
camp for feculent excrement; and should any of the Bukeens, from laziness
or other cause, have omitted to use his paddle, or to have used it
carelessly, the vigilant Bangal pounces upon the unhidden feces as a
miser would upon a treasure.
“After he has secured his savory find, he lubricates a piece of
opossum-skin with the kidney-fat of some of his victims, and carefully
wraps it round his treasure, after which yards of twine are wound round
and round, each wind being what sailors term a ‘half-hitch.’ ... At
night, when all in camp are quiet, the Bangal carefully takes his prize
from the bag, beginning a low, monotonous chant, while he thrusts one end
of the prepared roll into the fire (the fire is small by design); during
the process of gradual combustion the chant is continued.... Should it
be his wish to kill the Bukeen outright in one night, he keeps up the
chant, and pushes the burning roll forward into the glowing embers as
it consumes, and when the last vestige of it has dispersed in unsavory
smoke the life of the Bangal’s victim has ceased.... Should the Bangal,
however, wish to prolong the dying agonies of his foe, he merely burns a
small portion of the roll nightly, chanting his incantation during the
process, and should months pass before the roll is totally consumed so
long will the torture of his victim continue.”—(“The Aborig. of Vict.
and Riverina,” Beveridge, Adelaide, 1889, p. 169, received through the
kindness of the Royal Society, Sydney, New South Wales, F. B. Kyngdon,
secretary.)
“In Thuringia a sausage is stuck in the last sheaf at threshing,
and thrown with the sheaf on the threshing-floor. It is called the
“barrenwurst,” and is eaten by all the threshers. After they have eaten
it, a man is encased in pease straw, and thus attired is led through the
village.”—(“The Golden Bough,” Frazer, vol. i. p. 371.)
Attaching to this array of facts the value which properly belongs to each
and every one of them, and no more, it seems that the Feast of Fools
may be better understood by regarding it as the burlesque and distorted
“survival” of a sacred, comitial gathering of the gens or community, in
which the excrement sausage served a now completely forgotten purpose in
eliminating from the people the baleful curse of witchcraft, epilepsy,
jaundice, fevers, and other disorders which would not yield promptly to
the simple medicaments of primitive therapeutics.
LIV.
CONCLUSION.
Lastly, it may be urged that the thoughtful consideration of this subject
will not be without results of importance to science. It shows us, if we
may employ a mathematical expression, that by integrating the equation
of man’s development between the limits zero, in which these disgusting
practices had full sway, and the limit of A.D. 1891, the precise extent
of his advancement in all that we call civilization can better be
understood.
The biologist and psychologist may find material to demonstrate to what
extent primitive man, in corresponding environment in different regions
of the world, will display the same instincts and act under identical
impulses.
The student of comparative mythology will certainly discover much to
interest and instruct him.
The student of folk-lore should find here a field promising the most
prolific results. Folk-usage, especially in folk-medicine,—which is
simply the crystallization of the mythology and religious medicine of the
most primitive ages,—should respond most generously to any demands that
may be made upon this and other points which the ordinary writer believes
to be too unclean for his pen.
To the author it has been a work involving apparently endless research,
much of it barren of result, and a correspondence with scholars in all
countries, whose contributions have been of the first importance in
determining that the filthy rite of urine-drinking as seen among the
Zuñis of the United States was paralleled by the orgies of other savages,
and had its counterparts and imitations in the “survivals,” often
distorted into burlesque, of nations of high enlightenment.
Verily, it may be said in concluding, as in beginning this volume, the
proper study of mankind is man; the study of man is the study of man’s
religion.
FOOTNOTES.
[1] John Baptist Pellegrini, who wrote an “Apologia ... adversus
Philosophiæ et Medicinæ calumniatores,” at Bononiae (Bologna), 1582,
uses only this expression, “Quamvis humanis corporis excrementa
conspicienda considerandaque esse præcipiat non tamen propter hoc aliquid
suæ nobilitati et proestantiæ detrahitur,” p. 190. He means that the
nobility of the medical profession is in no manner impaired by the fact
that the good physician examines the egestæ of his patient. “However
disgusting the subject may appear to such readers who do not consider
it in the light of science, the article is a fair specimen of the maxim
that, for a scientific mind, nothing is too abject or insignificant
for consideration; and it also illustrates the other principle, that
to the pure everything is pure. Many of the rites described in these
pages show how deeply engraved in the human mind is the tendency of
symbolizing, anthromorphizing, and deifying abstract ideas and phenomena
of nature.”—(Extract from review by Dr. Alfred Gatchett, Bureau of
Ethnology, in “Folk-Lore Journal,” Boston, Mass.)
[2] Mr. Cushing’s reputation as an ethnologist is now so firmly
established in two continents that no further reference to his
self-sacrificing and invaluable labors in the cause of science seems to
be necessary.
[3] “There are three secret orders in Zuñi,—the “Zuñi,” the “Knife,”
and the “Nehue-Cue.” The object of the latter is said to be to teach
fortitude to its members, as well as to teach them the therapeutics of
stomachic disorders, etc. In their dances they resort to the horrible
practice of drinking human urine, eating human excrement, animal
excrement, and other nastiness which can only be believed by seeing
it.”—(Extract from the Personal Notes of Captain Bourke, November 16,
1881.)
[4] “There must, I think, be some mistake about the fanatical dance of
Arabian Bedouins; probably one of the wild practices of Moslem Dervishes
was described in the source you have mislaid. These practices are
Turkish or Persian, not Arabian, in origin. The Rifar Dervishes eat live
serpents and scorpions, and, I dare say, perform still more disgusting
acts.”—(Personal letter from Professor W. Robertson Smith, Christ’s
College, Cambridge, England.)
[5] See in Dictionary of French and English Language, by Ferdinand E. A.
Gasc, London, Bell and Daldy, York Street, Covent Garden, 1873.
Littré, whose work appeared in 1863, gives as one of his definitions,
“anything that is shaped like a sausage.”
Bescherelle, Spiers and Surenne, and Boyer, do not give Gasc’s definition.
[6] And very probably a phallic symbol also.
[7] Faber advances the opinion that the “mummers” or clowns who figured
in the pastimes of “the abbot of unreason,” etc., bear a strong
resemblance to the animal-headed Egyptian priests in the sacred dances
represented on the Bembine or Isiac table. (See Faber’s “Pagan Idolatry,”
London, 1816, vol. ii. p. 479.)
[8] “However horrible was this profanation, I could quote a passage
where in part of a curious penance actions most indecent were to be
publicly performed upon the altar-table; and therefore our ancestors had
plainly not the same ludicrous ideas of these mummeries as ourselves.
They were the mere coarse festivities of the age which delighted in low
humor.”—(Fosbroke, “British Monachism,” 2d edition, London, 1817, quoted
principally from Ducange.)
[9] “Ils mangent des araignées, des œufs de fourmis, des vers, des
lézards, des salamandres, des couleuvres, de la terre, du bois, de la
fiente de cerfs, et bien d’autres choses.”—(Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca,
in “Ternaux,” vol. vii. p. 144.)
[10] “Comen arañas, hormigas, gusanos, salamanquesas, lagartijas,
culebras, palos, tierra, y cagajones y cagarrutas.”—(Gómara, “Historia de
las Indias,” p. 182.) He derives his information from the narrative of
Vaca. The word “cagajon” means horse-dung, the dung of mules and asses;
“cagarruta,” the dung of sheep, goats, and mice.
[11] “Algunas veces se juntan varios Indios y á la redonda va corriendo
el bocado de uno en otro.”—(Orozco y Berra, “Geografia de las lenguas de
Mejico,” Mexico, 1854, p. 359.)
[12] “Peuplé de sauvages qui vont tous nus, et qui mangent leurs propres
ordures.”—(Castañeda, in Ternaux, vol. ix. p. 156.)
Castañeda de Nagera accompanied the expedition of Francisco Vasquez de
Coronado, which entered Arizona, New Mexico, and the buffalo country in
1540-1542. Part of this expedition, under Don Garcia Lope de Cardena,
went down the Colorado River, which separates California from Arizona;
while another detachment, under Melchior Diaz, struck the river closer to
its mouth, and crossed into what is now California.
[13] Harmon’s notes are of special interest at this point because he is
speaking of the Ta-cully or Carriers, who belong to the same Tinneh stock
as the Apaches and Navajoes of Arizona and New Mexico, Lipans of Texas,
Umpquas of Washington Territory, Hoopahs of California, and Slocuss of
the head-waters of the Columbia River.
[14] Lit. “de la maladie froide;” voy. O’Donovan, “Annals of the Four
Masters,” note à l’année 601, t. 1. p. 228.
[15] La mort subite est regardée comme le plus grand malheur, parce
qu’elle ne laisse pas le temps de se confesser et de recevoir
l’absolution de ses péchés.
[16] O’Donovan, “Three Fragments of Irish Annals,” Dublin, 1860, pp.
10-12. The bodies of Indian chiefs in Venezuela were incinerated, the
ashes drunk in native liquor. “Tuestanlo, muelenlo, y echado en vino lo
beben y esto es gran honra.”—Gómara, “Historia de las Indias,” p. 203.
[17] Nanacatl, que son los hongos malos que emborrachan tan bien como el
vino; y se juntaban en un llano despues de haberlo comido, donde bailaban
y cantaban de noche y de dia á su placer; y esto el primer dia porque al
dia siguiente lloraban todos mucho y decian que se limpiaban y lavaban
los ojos y caras con sus lágrimas.—(Sahagun, in Kingsborough’s “Mexican
Antiquities,” vol. vii. p. 308.)
[18] Hay unos honguillos en esta tierra que se llaman teo-nanacatl;
crianse debajo del heno en los campos ó páramos ... dañan la garganta y
emborrachan ... los que los comen ven visiones y sienten buscas en el
corazon; á los que comen muchos de ellos provocan á luxuria, y aunque
sean pocos.—(Sahagun, in Kingsborough’s “Mexican Antiquities,” vol. vii.
p. 369.)
[19] Tenian otra manera de embriaguez ... era con unos hongos ó setas
pequeñas ... que comidos crudos y por ser amargos, beben tras ellos ó
comen con ellos un poco de miel de abejas, y de alli á poco rato, veian
mil visiones y en especial culebras.—(By the author of “Ritos Antiguos,
Sacrificios é idolatrias de los Indios en Nueva España,” Kingsborough,
vol. ix. p. 17.)
This author seems to have been the Franciscan Fray Toribio de Benvento,
commonly called by his Aztec nickname of “Motolinia, the Beggar.” He is
designated by Kingsborough “the Unknown Franciscan,” because, through
motives of humility, he declined to subscribe his name to his valuable
writings.
[20] A los estranjeros, les diéron á comer hongos montesinos que se
embriagaban con ellos y con esto entráron á la danza.—(Tezozomoc,
“Crónica Mexicana,” in Kingsborough, “Mexican Antiquities,” vol. ix. p.
153.)
[21] Ivan todos á comer hongos crudos, con la cual comida salian
todos de juicio y quedaban peores que si hubieran bebido mucho vino;
tan embriagados y fuera de sentido que muchos de ellos se mataban
con propria mano; y con la fuerza de aquellos hongos vian visiones y
tenian rebelaciones de lo porvenir hablandoles el Demonio en aquella
embriaguez.—(Diego Duran, lib. 2, cap. 54, p. 564.)
[22] Rushton M. Dorman, “Primitive Superstitions,” New York, 1881, p. 295.
[23] The word “mattika” cannot be found in Forbes’ English-Hindustani
Dictionary (London, 1848). It may, perhaps, belong to an extinct dialect.
The word “matt,” meaning “drunk,” would serve a good purpose for this
article could a relationship be shown to exist between it and “mattika.”
This the author is of course unable to do, being totally ignorant of
Hindustani. Neither does “badrilata” occur in Forbes, who interprets
“mistletoe” as “banda.” The contributor to the Asiatic Researches, who
used the word, thought it meant “agaric.”
[24] Higgins believes that the ancient Egyptians had discovered a
similarity between the coats of an onion and the planetary spheres, and
says that “it was called (by the Greeks), from being sacred to the father
of ages, oionoon—onion.... The onion was adored (as the black stone in
Westminster Abbey is by us) by the Egyptians for this property as a type
of the eternal renewal of ages.... The onion is adored in India, and
forbidden to be eaten.”—(Quoting “Forster’s Sketches of Hindoos,” p. 35.
Higgins’ “Anacalypsis,” vol. ii. p. 427.)
[25] But on the sixth day of the moon’s age “women walk in the forests
with a fan in one hand, and eat _certain vegetables_, in hope of
beautiful children. See the account given by Pliny of the Druidical
mistletoe or viscum, which was to be gathered when the moon was six days
old, as a preservative from sterility.”—(Sir William Jones in “Asiatic
Researches,” Calcutta, 1790, vol. iii. art. 12, p. 284, quoted by Edward
Moor, “Hindu Pantheon,” London, 1810, p. 134.)
[26] As has already been shown on page 93, the sacrificial mistletoe was
gathered by the Druids when the moon was six days old, that day being the
first of the month, year, and cycle among the Druids.
[27] It was the only plant in the world which could harm Baldur, the son
of Odin and Friga. When a branch of it struck him he fell dead.—(See in
“Bulfinch’s Mythology,” revised by Rev. E. E. Hale, Boston, 1883, p. 428.)
[28] Lenormant speaks of “certain enchanted drinks, ... which doubtless
contained medicinal drugs, as a cure for diseases.”—(“Chaldean Magic,”
London, 1877, p. 41.)
[29] See also Ellen Russell Emerson, “Indian Myths,” Boston, 1884, p.
331, wherein Pidgeon is quoted.
[30] “Legends of the Sioux,” Eastman, New York, 1849, p. 210. Readers
interested in the subject of Indian altars will find descriptions, with
colored plates, in “The Snake Dance of the Moquis” (London and New York,
1884), by the author of this volume; and in the elaborate monograph
by Surgeon Washington Matthews, in the Annual Report of the Bureau of
Ethnology, Washington, D. C., 1888.
[31] “Neypachtly quiere decir ‘mal ojo;’ es una yerva que nace en
los arboles y cuelga de ellos, parda con la humedad de las aguas,
especialmente se cria en los encinales y robles.”—(Diego Duran, vol. iii.
cap. 16, p. 391½, manuscript copy in the Library of Congress, Washington,
D. C.)
[32] Après avoir donné du riz en pot, à manger aux vaches ils vont
fouiller dans la bouze et en retirent les grains qu’ils trouvent entiers.
Ils font sécher ces grains et les donnent à leurs malades, non seulement
comme un remède mais encore comme une chose sainte.—(Picart, “Coûtumes et
Cérémonies religieuses,” etc., Amsterdam, 1729, vol. vii. p. 18.)
This is neither better nor worse than the custom of the Indians of Texas,
Florida, and California, herein before described.
Chez les Indiens, la bouze de la vache est très-sainte.—(Picart, _idem_,
vol. vi. part 2, pp. 191-193.)
Picart also discloses that the Banians swear by a cow.—(_Idem_, vol. vii.
p. 16.)
A small quantity of the urine (of the cow) is daily sipped by some (of
the Hindus.)—(Asiatic Researches, Calcutta, 1805, vol. viii. p. 81.)
[33] “Les moines de Chivem sont nommés Pandarones. Ils se barbouillent
le visage, la poitrine, et les bras avec des cendres de bouse de vache;
ils parcourent les rues, demandent l’aumône et chantent les louanges de
Chivem, en portant un paquet de plumes de paon à la main et le lingam
pendu au cou.”—(Dulaure, “Des Divinités Génératrices,” Paris, 1825, p.
105.)
[34] “Les Hébreux sacrifiaient et faisaient brûler la vache rousse, dont
les cendres mêlées avec de l’eau servaient aux expiations.”—(_Idem_, cap.
i. pp. 23, 24.)
“They shall burn in the fire their dung.”—(Levit. xvi. 27.)
“Her blood with her dung shall he burn.”—(Numbers xix. 5.)
[35] After the publication of his original pamphlet, the author became
acquainted with the views of Mr. Lang upon this subject. An examination
of them, as given in his “Myth, Ritual, and Religion,” vol. ii. p. 137,
will show that he perceives the defect in the explanation given by De
Gubernatis in much the same manner as here expressed.
“The clouds in the atmosphere being often viewed as a herd of
cows.”—(Introduction to vol. iv. of “Zendavesta,” p. 64, James
Darmesteter, edition of Oxford, 1880: “Sacred Books of the East,” edited
by Max Müller.)
A personal letter received from W. S. Wyndham, Esq., Boyne Island,
Queensland, Australia, relates that the tribes of Australia “have the
stars laid out the same as we have, only, instead of the Great Bear,
etc., they have the Emu, Kangaroo, Dog, and other things and men
introduced.”
[36] Disons un mot de la manière dont les Proselytes des Banians sont
obligés de vivre les premiers mois de leur conversion. Les Brahmines
leur ordonnent de mêler de la fiente de la vache dans tout ce qu’ils
mangent pendant ce tems de régéneration.... Que ne diroit pas ici un
commentateur subtil qui voudrait comparer la nourriture de ces proselytes
avec les ordres que Dieu donna autrefois à Ezechiel de mêler de la fiente
de vache dans ses alimens. Ezekiel iv.—(Picart, “Coûtumes et cérémonies
religieuses,” etc., Amsterdam, 1729, vol. vii. p. 15.)
[37] “Il doit manger du pain, de froment, d’orge, de fèves, de millet, et
de couvrir d’excrémens humains,” etc.—(Voltaire, “Essais sur les Mœurs,”
vol. i. p. 195, Paris, 1795).
“And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung
that cometh out of man in their sight.”—(Ezekiel iv. 12.)
[38] Such an economic tendency in the sacrificial practices of the Parsis
is shown by Tylor. The Vedic sacrifice, Agnishtoma, required that animals
should be slain and their flesh partly committed to the gods by fire,
partly eaten by sacrificers and priests. The Parsi ceremony, Izeshne,
formal successor of this bloody rite, requires no animal to be killed,
but it suffices to place the hair of an ox in a vessel, and show it to
the fire.—(“Primitive Culture,” E. B. Tylor, New York, 1874, vol. ii. p.
400.)
[39] Dubois declares that in the Atharvana Veda “bloody sacrifices of
victims (human not excepted) are there prescribed.” (“People of India,”
London, 1817, p. 341.) And in those parts of India where human sacrifice
had been abolished a substitutive ceremony was practised “by forming a
human figure of flour paste or clay, which they carry into the temple,
and there cut off its head and mutilate it in various ways, in presence
of the idols.”—(Idem, p. 490.)
[40] After the Jews had been humbled by the Lord, and made to mingle
_human_ ordure with their bread, the punishment was mitigated by
substitution. “Then he said unto me, Lo! I have given thee cow’s dung for
man’s dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith.”—(Ezekiel iv. 15.)
[41] Pallas believed “que le lamaisme des Kalmouks Mongols est originaire
des Indes.”—(Voy. de Pallas, vol. i. p. 535.)
[42] Previous notes upon the Grand Lama of Thibet, and upon the
abominable practices of the Agozis and Gurus seem to be pertinent in this
connection. See pp. 40-42.
[43] Digo que adoraban (segun San Clemente escrive á Santiago el menor),
las hediondas y sucias necesarias y latrinas; y lo que es peor y mas
abominable y digno de llorar y no de sufrir, ni nombrarle por su nombre,
que adoraban, el estruendo y crugimiento, que hace el vientre quando
despide de si alguna frialdad ó ventosidad y otras semejantes, que segun
el mismo santo es verguënza nombrarlas y decirlas.—(Torquemada, Monarchia
Indiana, lib. vi. chap. 13, Madrid, 1723.)
[44] Los Romanos ... constituieron Diosa á los hediondas necesarias ó
latrinas y la adoraban y consagraban y ofrecian sacrificios.—(Idem, lib.
vi. chap. 16, Madrid, 1723.)
[45] There is another opinion concerning Cloacina—that she was one of
the names given to a statue of Venus found in the Cloaca Maxima. Smith,
in his Dictionary of Antiquities, London, 1850, expresses this view,
and seems to be followed by the American and Britannic Encyclopædias.
Lemprière defines Cloacina: “A goddess of Rome, who presided over the
Cloacæ—some suppose her to be Venus—whose statue was found in the Cloacæ,
whence the name.”—(See, also, in Anthon’s Classical Dictionary.)
Higgins says that “the famous statue of Venus Cloacina was found in
them (the Cloacæ Maximæ) by Romulus.”—(Anacalypsis, footnote to p. 624,
London, 1836.)
Torquemada insists that the Romans borrowed this goddess from the
Egyptians: “A esta diosa llamaron Cloacina, Diosa que presidia en sus
albanares y los guardaba, que son los lugares donde van á parar todas las
suciedades, inmundicias, y vascosidades de una Republica.”—(Torquemada,
lib. vi. chap. 17.)
Torquemada, who makes manifest in his writings an intimate acquaintance
with Greek and Roman mythology, fortifies his position by references
from St. Clement, Itinerar., lib. 5; Lactantius, Divinas Ejus, lib. 1,
chap. 20; Epistle of St. Clement to St. James the Less, Eusebius, de
Preparatione Evangel., chap. 1; St. Augustine, Civ. Dei, lib. 2, chap.
22; Diod. Sic., lib. 1, chap. 2, and lib. 2, chap. 4; Lucian, Dialogues,
Cicero, de Nat. Deorum, Pliny, lib. 10, chap. 27, and lib. 11, chap. 21;
Theodoret, lib. 3, de Evangelii veritatis cognitione.
[46] “Is Maurice’s reference to Lucian correct? There is nothing of the
kind in the Deâ Syrâ, nor can I find it elsewhere in his works, though
the Index by Rentz is practically a Concordance. Still, I do not affirm
that it is not there.”—(Personal letter from Professor W. Robertson
Smith, Christ College, Cambridge, England.)
By a reference to page 36, it will be seen that Sakya-muni eats his own
excrement, and one of the Bourkans or gods of the Kalmucks is represented
as addicted to the same filthy habit.
[47] Tlaçolteotl, la déesse de l’ordure, ou Tlaçolquani, la mangeuse
d’ordure, parcequ’elle présidait aux amours et aux plaisirs
lubriques.—(Brasseur de Bourbourg, introduction to Landa, French edition,
Paris, 1864, p. 87.)
[48] El dios de los vicios y suciedades que le decian
Tlazulteotl.—(Mendieta, in Icazbalceta, Mexico, 1870, vol. i. p. 81.)
[49] According to Neumann and Baretti’s Velasquez, while, according to
the Dictionary of the Spanish Academy, the meaning is “the dirt and
refuse collected in sweeping,—the sweepings and dung of stables.” The
same idea has since been found in an extract from an ancient writer,
given in “Mélusine,” May 5, 1888.—(Paris, Gaidoz.)
“Les Esprits forts de l’Antiquité Classique. Eusèbe, dans sa ‘Préparation
Évangélique’ (XIII. 13), cite quelques vers de Xénophane de Colophone sur
l’unité et l’immortalité de Dieu qui ne peut ressembler aux hommes ni en
forme ni en esprit. Ces vers se terminent ainsi:
“‘Mais si les bœufs et les lions avaient des mains,—s’ils savaient
dessiner avec ces mains, et produire les mêmes œuvres que les hommes,—ils
(les dieux) seraient semblables aux bœufs pour les bœufs et semblables
aux chevaux pour les chevaux. Et ceux-ci dessineraient les figures
des dieux et ils leur feraient des corps semblables à ceux qu’ils ont
eux-mêmes.’—Patrologie Grecque de Migne, t. xxi. col. 1121, H. G.—Voir
aussi J. Bizouard, “Rapports de l’homme avec le démon,” Paris, 1864,
conçus dans le même esprit.”
Andrew Lang regards Tlazolteotl as the “Aphrodite of Mexico.”—(“Myth,
Rit., and Relig.” vol. ii. p. 42.)
[50] L’adorateur présentait devant l’autel son postérieur nu, soulageait
ses entrailles et faisait à l’idole une offrande de sa puante
déjection.—(Dulaure, “Des Divinités Génératrices,” Paris, 1825, p. 76.)
Philo says the devotee of Baal-Peor presented to the idol all the outward
orifices of the body. Another authority says that the worshipper not only
presented all these to the idol, but that the emanations or excretions
were also presented,—tears from the eyes, wax from the ears, pus from
the nose, saliva from the mouth, and urine and dejecta from the lower
openings. This was the god to which the Jews joined themselves; and
these, in all probability, were the ceremonies they practised in his
worship.—(Robert Allen Campbell, Phallic Worship, St. Louis, 1888, p.
171.)
Still another authority says the worshipper, presenting his bare
posterior to the altar, relieved his bowels, and offered the result to
the idol: “Eo quod distendebant coram illo foramen podicis et stercus
offerebant.”—(Hargrave Jennings, Phallicism, London, 1884, quoting Rabbi
Solomon Jarchi, in his Commentary on Numbers xxv.)
These two citations go to show that the worshipper intended making not
a merely ceremonial offering of flatulence, but an actual oblation of
excrement, such as has been stated, was placed upon the altars of their
near neighbors, the Assyrians, in the devotions tendered their Venus.
[51] Ye have seen dung gods, wood and stone.—(Deut. xxix. 17. See
Cruden’s Concordance, Articles “Dung” and “Dungy,” but no light is thrown
upon the expression.)
And ye have seen their abominations and their idols (detestable things),
wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them.—(Lange’s
Commentary on Deuteronomy, edited by Dr. Philip Schaff, New York, 1879.
But in footnote one reads: “Margin—dungy gods from the shape of the
ordure, literally thin clods or balls, or that which can be rolled
about.—A. G.”)
[52] There is a reference in Martial to this use of the sponge and stick
(see Epigram XLVIII., in English translation, edition of London, 1871).
Martial also speaks of a Roman lady whose close-stool was of gold, but
her drinking-cup of glass,—
“Ventris onus puro, nec te pudet excipis auro;
Sed bibis in vitreo, chareus, ergo cacas.”—
(Epigram XXXVI., quoted by Harington, “Ajax,” p. 37.)
High officials of Corea urinate in public into brass bowls, which are
carried by attendants in a sort of net or fillet and presented when
required.—(Mr. W. W. Rockhill.)
The monasteries and nunneries of Thibet were provided with latrines.
Among the sins against which the nuns (Bhikshuni) were warned were, “Si
une bhikshuni va seule aux lieux, et est,” etc.—(“Pratimoksha Sutra,”
Thibetan version, translated by W. W. Rockhill, Paris, 1884, p. 44,
“École des langues Orientales vivantes.”)
[53] This recalls the repugnance of the Mahometans to the spray of urine
touching their persons or clothing, as already indicated.
[54] Bel-Peor. “Very little is really known of the nature of his worship,
but it is an almost universal opinion, which appears to be sustained by
Numbers xxv., that it was licentious in its character. Human sacrifice
appears to have been offered to him; and it is conjectured, from Psalms
cvi. 28, that the worshippers ate of the victims that had been offered to
him.”—(“Dictionary of Religious Knowledge,” Abbott and Conant, New York,
1875, article “Baal and Baal-Peor.”)
“In a story of Armagnac, Joan lou Pec runs after a man whom he believes
to be a sage, and asks him when he will die. The man answers: ‘Joan lou
Pec mouriras au troisième pet de toun ase,’—The ass breaks wind twice,
and the fool endeavors to prevent the third flatus. ‘Cop sec s’en angone
cerca un pau (stake) bien pounchut et l’enfouncee das un martet dans lou
cou de l’ase. Mes l’ase s’enflee tant, e hasconc tant gran effort que lou
pau sourtisconc commo no balo e tuec lou praube Joan lou Pec.’”—(“Contes
et Proverbes Populaires,” recueillis en Armagnac, par J. F. Bladé, Paris,
quoted by Angelo de Gubernatis, “Zoöl. Mythol.,” vol. i. pp. 397, 398.)
The reader will please look under the heading of “Myths” in this volume,
and will there see a similar adventure related of the Eskimo, or rather
the Kamtchatkan, god Kutka.
“Wherefore my bowels shall sound like a harp for Moab, and mine inward
parts for Kir-haresh.”—(Isaiah xvi. 11.)
[55] “The Eskimo call the better being ‘Torngarsuk.’ They don’t all
agree about his form or aspect. Some say he has no form at all; others
describe him as a great bear, or as a great man with one arm, or as small
as a finger. He is immortal, but might be killed by the intervention of
the god Crepitus.”—(“Myth, Ritual, and Religion,” Andrew Lang, London,
1887, vol. ii. p. 48.) A footnote to the above adds, “The circumstances
in which this is possible may be sought for in Crantz, ‘History of
Greenland,’ London, 1767, vol. i. p. 206.”
Crantz says of Torngarsuk: “He is immortal, and yet might be killed, if
any one breaks wind in a house where witchcraft is carrying on.”—(Crantz,
as above.)
[56] Among the Chinese and Hindus an identical partition of
responsibility will be found ascribed to the deities. It would require a
special disquisition to enumerate these gods and their functions, so far
as known to us, but such an enumeration would do no good, because the
accuracy of the statement will be admitted without dispute.
A clipping from the “Times,” of India, copied in the “Sunday Herald,” of
Washington, D. C., June 2, 1889, bears upon this point:
“The general public are not aware of a ludicrous custom still followed
in Hindu households of Bengal. The last day of Falgoon, that fell on
the 12th ultimo, was observed in worshipping Ghantoo, the god of itches
and the diseases of the skin which afflict the natives. Very early in
the morning of the day the mistresses of the families, changing their
nocturnal attire, put a useless, black earthen vessel outside the
threshold of their back doors, with a handful of rice and masoor dal,
four cowries, with a piece of rag smeared with turmeric. Wild flowers
appearing in this season are offered in worship. (These flowers are
called Ghantoo fool.) The young boys of the family stand in a semicircle
before the mistress, with cudgels in their hands. When the conches are
sounded by the female worshippers, as the signal of the poojah being
over, the boys break the vessels into atoms. The mirthful children, in
their anxiety to strike the first blow, sometimes break the fingers and
hands of the matrons. The piece of rag is preserved over the doors of
houses in the zenana. In the evening of the day, the boys of the lower
order of the villages sing the songs of the occasion from door to door
for pice.”
Although the adoration of Flatulence cannot be found among the Chinese,
religious customs equally revolting have been ascribed to them. “The
Chinese are addicted to the abominable vice of Sodomy, and the filthy
practice of it they number among the indifferent things they perform in
honor of their idols.”—(“The Travels of Two Mahomedans through India and
China,” in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p. 195.) These Mahomedans travelled in
the ninth century.
“The negroes of Guinea have a god of the small-pox.” See “Fetichism,” by
Father P. Baudin, New York, 1885, p. 74.
According to the Guinea negroes, “Every man has three genii, or
protecting spirits. The first is Eleda, who dwells in the head, which he
guides.... This second genius (Ojehun) has his habitation in the region
of the stomach.... Ipori, the third protecting genius, takes up his abode
in the great toe.”—(Idem, p. 43.)
“The Samoans supposed disease to be occasioned by the wrath of some
particular deity.... The friends of the sick went to the high priest of
the village.... Each disease had its particular physician.”—(Turner,
“Samoa,” London, 1884, p. 140.) See, in this connection, Banier’s
“Mythology,” English translation, vol. i. p. 196, _et seq._
“They (the ancients) had gods and goddesses for all the necessaries
of our life, from our cradles to our graves; viz., 1. for sucking;
2. for swathing; 3. for eating; 4. for drinking; 5. for sleeping; 6.
for husbandry; 7. for venery; 8. for fighting; 9. for physic; 10. for
marriage; 11. for child-bed; 12. for fire; 13. for water; 14. for the
thresholds; 15. for the chimneys.”—(Harington, “Ajax,” p. 27.)
Consult, for the Chaldeans, “The Chaldean Account of Genesis,” George
Smith, New York, 1880, pages 11 and 125. Dibbara, the god of pestilence,
has the title of “The Darkening One,” which recalls the passage in Psalm
xci. 6, “The pestilence that walketh in darkness.” ... “Each of the
Babylonian gods had a particular city.” (Idem, p. 46.) “The Chaldeans
had twelve great gods.” (Idem, p. 47.) See, also, “Chaldean Magic,”
Lenormant, 35. It was written of the deceased (Egyptian), “There is not
a limb of him without a god.” (“Ritual of the Dead,” cap. xliii., idem.)
See “Le Moyen Age Médical,” Dupouy, for the list of saints and shrines
to cure all afflictions, in Europe, Minor’s translation, p. 83. Those
possessed claimed to be in the power of a demon, who entered their body
by one of the natural passages, sporting with their persons. (Idem, p.
50.) The Church recognized the truth of these beliefs (idem, p. 40); see,
also, notes taken from Turner’s “Samoa.”
[57] These ideas remained among the early Christians: “an odor of a sweet
smell; a sacrifice, acceptable, well-pleasing to God.”—(Phil. iv. 18.)
So, among the Chaldeans: “The gods smelt the savor, the gods smelt the
good savor.”—(“Chaldean Account of Genesis,” Smith, p. 286.)
[58] They also keep urine in tubs in their huts for use in dressing deer
and seal skins. (Hans Egede; also quoted in Richardson’s “Polar Regions,”
Edinburgh, 1861, p. 304.) The same custom has been noted in Alaska.
The same thing mentioned by Egede’s grand-nephew, Hans Egede Saabye.
(“Greenland,” London, 1816, p. 6.)
[59] The whole process was carefully observed by Captain Robert G.
Carter, 4th Cavalry, U. S. Army.
[60] “Todas estas cosas que digo y muchas que no sé y otras que callo
se venden en este mercado destos de Mejico.”—(Gómara, “Historia de la
Conquista de Mejico,” p. 349.)
[61] See Graah, “Greenland,” London, 1837, p. 111, and Hans Egede Saabye,
“Greenland,” London, 1818, p. 256.
[62] Contra la caspa será necesario cortar muy á raiz los cabellos y
lavarse la cabeza con orinas y despues tomar las hojas de ciertas yerbas
que en indio se llaman coioxochitl y amolli ó iztahuatl que es el agenjo
de esta tierra, y con el cuesco del aguacate molido y mezclado con el
cisco que está dicho arriba; y sobre esto se ha de poner, el barro negro
que está referido, con cantidad de la corteza de lo dicho.—(Sahagun, in
Kingsborough, vol. vii. p. 294.)
[63] Father De Smet, “Oregon Missions,” New York, 1847, p. 383.
[64] “Le maléfice amoureux ou le philtre” is defined as follows: “Telle
est la pratique de certaines femmes et de certaines filles, qui, pour
obliger leurs galans ... de les aimer comme auparavant ... les font
manger du gâteau où elles out mis des ordures que je ne veux pas
nommer.”—(Jean Baptiste Thiers, “Traité des Superstitions,” Paris, 1741,
p. 150.)
[65] Quâ occasione vel potius execrabilis superstitionis quadam
necessitate coguntur electi eorum velut eucharistiam conspersam cum
semine humano sumere.—(Saint Augustine, quoted by Bayle, “Philosophical
Dictionary,” English edition, London, 1737, article “Manicheans.”)
[66] Les Catharistes qui étoient une espèce choisie de Manichéens,
pétrissoient le pain Eucharistique avec la semence humaine.—(Thiers,
“Superstitions,” etc., Paris, 1741, vol. ii. lib. 2, chap. i. p. 216; and
Picart, “Coutumes et Cérémonies,” etc., Amsterdam, 1729, vol. viii. p.
79.)
E. B. Tylor says that “about A.D. 700 John of Osun, patriarch of Armenia,
wrote a diatribe against the sect of Paulicians” (who were believed to be
the descendants of the Manicheans, and in turn to have transmitted their
doctrines to the Albigenses). In the course of the diatribe the patriarch
declares that “they mix wheaten flour with the blood of infants, and
therewith celebrate their communion.”—(E. B. Tylor, “Primitive Culture,”
London, 1871, vol. i. p. 69.)
[67] See in Picart, Coutumes et Cérémonies Religieuses, vol. vii. p. 47.
[68] Au Coromandel, ils mettent le visage du mourant sur le derrière
d’une vache, lèvent la queue de l’animal et l’excitent à lacher son urine
sur le visage ... si l’urine coule sur la face du malade, l’assemblée
s’écrie de joye et le compte parmi les bienheureux, mais ... si la vache
n’est pas d’humeur d’uriner, on s’en afflige.—(Picart, “Coutumes et
cérémonies religieuses,” etc., Amsterdam, 1729, vol. vii. p. 28.)
[69] Picart, Coutumes et cérémonies religieuses, etc., Amsterdam, 1729,
vol. vii., pp. 52, 57.
[70] Eloise seems here to allude to the well-known Greek inscription on
an ancient marble, still to be seen in the Medicean gardens: “θεμῶρ εὐχρὶ
θέλες εὐπὶς.” Above it is an elegant figure in alto-relievo, supposed to
be the representation of the melting Niobe,—Eloise, _en déshabillé_.
[71] “We have in the folk-medicine, which still exists, the unwritten
record of the beginning of the practice of medicine and surgery....
The early history of medical science, as of all other developments
of culture, can be studied more narrowly and more accurately in the
folk-lore of this and other countries than some students of modern
science and exact modern records may think possible.”—(“Folk-Medicine,”
William George Black, London, 1883, pp. 2, 3.)
[72] Bull-urine was given to men, cow-urine to women.
[73] Garrett, Myths in Medicine, New York, 1884, pp. 148, 149.
[74] El remedio mas usual y eficaz es el de la triaca humana, así
llamada, para mayor decencia, el excremento humano, fresco y disuelto
en agua que hacen beber al mordido.—(Clavigero, “Historia de la Baja
California,” Mexico, 1852.)
[75] Decian que era el antidoto de esta ponçona el Fuego i el agua del
mar, la dieta y continencia. Y otra dicen que la hez del herido tomada en
pildoras o en otra forma. (Herrera, “Decades,” 2, lib. i. pp. 3, 9, 10.)
They used to say that the antidotes for this poison were fire, sea-water,
fasting, and continence. Another of which they speak was the excrement of
the wounded man, taken in form of pill or otherwise.
[76] Garcilasso de la Vega, “Comentarios Reales,” Markham’s translation,
Hakluyt Society, vol. xli. p. 186.
[77] Il se fit un jour une dance de tous les jeunes hommes, femmes et
filles toutes nues, en la présence d’une malade à la quelle il fallut
(traict que je ne sçay comment excuser ou passer sous silence), qu’un de
ces jeunes hommes luy pissast dans la bouche et qu’elle auallast et beust
cette eau, ce qu’elle fit avec un grand courage, esperant en receuoir
guérison.—(Sagard, “Histoire du Canada,” edition of Paris, 1885, p. 107.)
[78] “The urine of young children, mixed with lime and evaporated until a
solid is formed, cures general debility, and, made into a liquid, is most
usefully applied as a lotion for the eyes.” (China.)—(“Evening Star,”
Washington, D. C., Oct. 11, 1890.)
[79] This is confirmed by Mr. Frank G. Carpenter, who has visited Corea.
[80] Pour faire de l’eau bénite le Bouc pissoit dans un trou à terre et
celui qui faisoit l’office en arrosoit les assistants avec un asperge
noir.—(Thiers, Superstitions, etc., vol. ii. book 4, cap. 1, p. 367. See
the same story in Picart, vol. viii. p. 69.)
[81] Leur faisant voir en songe, qu’ils ne sçauroient guérir qu’en
se veautrant dans toutes sortes d’ordures.—(Père Le Jeune, “Jesuit
Relations,” 1636, published by Canadian Government, Quebec, 1858.)
[82] Brand quotes Camden as relating of the Irish that, “if a child is
at any time out of order, they sprinkle it with the stalest urine they
can get.”—(Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” article “Christening Customs,”
London, 1849, vol. ii. p. 86.)
[83] Ceux qui lavent leurs mains le matin avec de l’urine pour détourner
les maléfices ou pour en empêcher l’effet. C’est pour cela que le juge
Paschase fit arroser d’urine Sainte Luce, parce qu’il s’imaginoit qu’elle
étoit sorcière.—(Thiers, “Traité des Superstitions,” Paris, 1741, vol. i.
cap. 5, p. 471.)
This statement is repeated verbatim by Picart (“Coutumes et Cérémonies,”
etc., Amsterdam, 1729, p. 35), and he adds that the judge believed that
he would by this precaution disable her from evading the torments in
store for her. John of Saulsbury, bishop of Chartres, with good reason
cast ridicule upon this charm.
[84] La rociaba con sus orinas.—(Torquemada, “Monarchia Indiana,” lib. x.
cap. 23.)
[85] Pétrir un petit pain avec l’urine qu’une personne malade de la
fièvre quarte aura rendue dans le fort de son accès, le faire cuire,
le laisser froidir, le donner à manger à un ... et faire trois fois la
même chose pendant trois accès, le ... prendra la fièvre quarte et elle
quittera la personne malade.
Faire durcir un œuf, le peler, le piquer de divers coups d’aiguille, le
tremper dans l’urine d’une personne qui a la fièvre ... puis le donner
à un ... si le malade est un mâle, ou à une ... si le malade est une
femelle et la fièvre s’en ira.—(Thiers, “Traité des Superstitions,”
Paris, 1745, vol. i. lib. v. cap. iv. p. 386, copied in Picart, “Coutumes
et Cérémonies,” etc., Amsterdam, 1729, vol. x. p. 80.)
[86] See Dulaure’s “Des Divinités Génératrices,” Paris, 1825, pp. 271,
277, 278, 280, 283. He says that this vestige of phallic worship was
discernible in France “à une époque très-rapprochée de la nôtre,” and
that women “raclaient une énorme branche phallique que présentait la
statue du saint; elles croyaient que la raclure enfusée dans un boisson,
les rendrait fécondes.”
But Davenport, who has probed deeply into the question of phallic
worship, contends that such vestiges existed in some of the communities
of France, Sicily, and Belgium, not only down to the Reformation, but
even to the opening decades of the nineteenth century.—(See Davenport,
“On the Powers of Reproduction,” London (privately printed), 1869, pp.
10-20.)
E. Payne Knight speaks of this same instance of survival at Isernia, in
Sicily. It was known at that place as late as 1805.
See also “The Masculine Cross and ancient Sex Worship,” Sha Rocco, New
York, 1874, etc.
Dulaure, however, admits that he knew of no example in antiquity of
scraping the phallus and drinking an infusion of the powder. “L’usage de
racler le phallus et d’avaler de cette raclure avec de l’eau, usage dont
je ne connais point d’exemple dans l’antiquité.”
Dulaure, as above, p. 300.
[87] See, in Rousselet’s “India,” London, 1876, pp. 173, 343. It has
been identified as our April Fool’s Day. See in “Asiatic Researches,”
Calcutta, 1790, vol. ii. p. 334; also, in Moor’s “Hindu Pantheon,”
London, 1810, pp. 156, 157; also, the Encyclopædia Britannica, and
Appleton’s Encyclopædia, article “April.”
On the Sunday and Monday preceding Lent people are privileged at Lisbon
to play the fool; it is thought very jocose to _pour water_ on any
person who passes, or _throw powder_ in his face; but to do both is the
perfection of wit.—(Southey, quoted in Hone’s “Every-Day Book,” vol. i.
p. 206, London, 1825. See Brand’s “Popular Antiquities,” London, 1849,
vol. i., p. 131, article “April Fool’s Day.”)
[88] The authority for this statement will be found in “The Press,” of
Philadelphia, Penn., copied in the “Evening Star,” of Washington, July
26, 1890.
[89] Para este juego, todos los hombres y muchachos que querian jugar
hacian taleguillas ó redecillos llenos de flor de las espadañas ó de
algunos papeles rotos; ataban estos con unos cordelejos ó cintas de media
vara de largo, de tal manera que pudiese hacer golpe; otros hacian á
manera de guantes las taleguillas é hinchabanlos de lo arriba dicho ó de
ojas de maiz verde; ponian pena á todos estos que nadie echase piedra
ó cosa que pudiese lastimar dentro las taleguillos. Comenzaban luego
los muchachos á jugar este juego á manera de escaramuza y dabanse de
talegazos en la cabeza y por donde acertaban y de poco en poco se iban
multiplicando de los muchachos y los mas traviesos daban de talegazos á
las muchachas que pasaban por la calle; á las veces, se juntaban tres ó
quatro para dar á una de tal manera que la fatigaban y la hacian llorar.
Algunas muchachas que eran mas discretas, si habian de ir á alguna parte,
entonces llevaban un palo ú otra cosa que hiciese temer para defenderse.
Algunos muchachos escondian la talega y quando pasaba alguna mujer
descuidadamente, dabanla de talegazos y quando la daban un golpe, decian
Chichiquatzinte mantze, que quiere decir, “Madre Nuestra, és la talega
de este juego.” Las mugeres andaban muy recatadas quando ivan á alguna
parte.—(Sahagun, in “Kingsborough,” vol. vii. p. 83.)
At the feast of the goddess Tona the same game was played.—(See idem,
vol. vi. p. 33.)
[90] Hacia toda la gente de el Pueblo unas talegas, á manera de bolsas,
y henchianles de heno y paja y otras cosas que no hacen golpe ni tienen
peso y colgavanlas de un cordel y traianlas escondidas debajo de los
mantos que les servian de capas. Con estas talegas daban de Talegaços á
todas las mugeres que encontraban por las calles.
[91] R. Patterson, in “Asiatic Researches,” Calcutta, 1805, vol. viii. p.
78.
[92] The African deity, Obatala, is symbolized by a whitened gourd
provided with a cover, which is placed in the temples.—(“Fetichism,” Rev.
P. Baudin, New York, 1885, p. 14.)
[93] John de Laet, lib. vi. chap. vii. p. 202.
[94] See Francis Parkman’s “Jesuits in North America,” the works of John
Gilmary Shea, and Kipp’s “Jesuit Missions.”
[95] Pliny contains a number of references to plants to which mystic
properties were attached, which could only be dug up after a circle had
been traced about them with a sword, prayers recited in certain postures,
etc.—(See among others, the “Mandragora,” in lib. xxv. c. 94.)
[96] Copious references to color-symbolism will be found in the works
of Von Helmont (p. 1060); Frazer, “Totemism;” J. Owen Dorsey; Dr. W. J.
Hoffman; Black, “Folk-Medicine;” Pettigrew, “Medical Superstitions;”
Andrew Lang, “Myth, Ritual, and Religion;” Garrick Mallery, and many
others; also in an article entitled “Notes on the Cosmogony and Theogony
of the Mojaves of the Colorado River,” published in the “Journal of
American Folk-Lore,” July-September, 1889, by the author of this volume.
In the last it is shown that the idea in the aboriginal mind is that each
color is a medicine, and that the rainbow, being a combination of them
all, is a panacea; but it should be pointed out that, even in the days
of Dr. Joseph Lanzoni (1694) there were some bold medical scholars who
openly derided such notions as absurd and irrational.
[97] There can scarcely be a doubt that pharmacy was, in its incipiency,
distinctly and unequivocally religious in character. Grimm is full of
the matter. He tells us that “the culling and fetching of herbs had to
be done at particular times and according to long-established forms....
Shortly before sunrise when the day is young.... The viscum was gathered
at new moon, Prima Luna.... Some had to be gathered in darkness, others
plucked by the light of the moon, generally the new moon; others by a
person fasting; others before hearing thunder that year.... In digging
up an herb, the Roman custom was first to pour mead and honey round it,
as if to propitiate the earth, then cut round the root with a sword,
looking towards the east (or west), and the moment it is pulled out, to
lift it on high without letting it touch the ground.... A great point
was to guard against cold iron touching the root; hence gold or red-hot
iron was used in cutting.... In picking or pulling up, the operator used
the left hand in certain cases; he had to do it unbelted and unshod, and
to state for whom and for what purpose it was done.” Grimm complains of
the scantiness of German tradition on this point; yet, he finds that the
“hyoscyamus,” or henbane, had to be taken from the ground by a naked
virgin, using the little finger of the right hand and standing on the
right foot. The French formulæ for such purposes require: “Quelques uns
pour se garantir de maléfices ou de charmes vont cueillir de grand matin,
à jeun, sans avoir lavé leurs mains, sans avoir prié Dieu, sans parler à
personne, et sans saluer personne en leur chemin, une certaine plante, et
la mettent ensuite sur la personne maléficiée ou ensorcelée. Ils portent
sur eux une racine de chicorée, qu’ils ont touché à genoux avec de l’or
et de l’argent le jour de la Nativité de Saint Jean Baptiste un peu avant
le soleil levé, et qu’ils ont ensuite arrachée de terre avec un ferrement
et beaucoup de cérémonies, après l’avoir exorcisée avec l’épée de Judas
Machabée.” The herb was to be “neither fretted nor squashed.” “The
Romans had a strange custom of laying a sieve in the road, and using the
stalks of grass that grew up through it for medical purposes.” (Grimm,
“Teut. Mythol.” vol. iii. p. 1195 _et seq._) He fully describes the
ceremony for gathering the mandrake, and also refers to the mistletoe,
but adds nothing to the information in these pages. In many of the
prescriptions given by Marcellus, which prescriptions were generally of a
magical character (tempus, A.D. 380), there are injunctions to “observe
chastity.”—(See “Saxon Leechdoms,” lib. i. pp. 20, 29.)
Again, in “Saxon Leechdoms,” vol. i. p. 11, we learn that certain
medicinal plants were to be pulled in a prescribed manner, the name of
the patient to be murmured at the same moment (quoting from Pliny, lib.
xxi., xxii.; again, idem, vol. i. p. 14, quoting Pliny, lib. xii. c. 16.)
The herb mandrake could not be pulled for medicinal purposes except by a
pure man. “Its virtue is so mickle and famous that it will immediately
flee from an unclean man” (idem, vol. i. p. 245); again, in gathering the
periwinkle, “when thou shalt pluck this wort, thou shalt be free from
every uncleanness” (vol. i. p. 313).
The belief in regard to the manner of pulling the mandrake exists among
the Turks: “The pacha told me of a curiosity to be seen at Orfa....
This curiosity consisted of two small figures, made of a peculiar
shrub, partly trained and partly twisted and partly cut into the form
of a man and woman, very rudely done, and stained over to give them the
appearance of having grown in that shape.... The inhabitants, in order
to obtain them, tied a dog by a string to each figure, and then went a
long distance off. As soon as the dog pulled the string, and drew the
creature out of the ground, the noise it made killed the dog.”—(“Assyrian
Discoveries,” George Smith, New York, 1876, p. 161.)
[98] Hippocrates did not believe that epilepsy was a “divine” disease,
sent by the gods; such an idea was, in his opinion, fostered by quacks
for personal advantage.—(See the edition of his work by Francis Adams,
Sydenham Society, London, 1849.)
“Nothing could tend more to retard the progress of medicine, and paralyze
all efforts for its improvement, than the opinion, once so generally
entertained, of the celestial origin of disease, which, if admitted,
appears necessarily to demand divine interposition for its relief.
Religion and medicine were both brought into contempt by the adoption of
sacrifices and incantations and the mercenary practices of the priests to
insure intercession with the gods.”—(“Medic. Superstitions,” Pettigrew,
p. 45.)
[99] Epilepsy was called the comitial disease “because the
comitia were prorogued in the event of any ominous case of this
disorder.”—(White-Ridley, Latin-English Dict. See also Lemprière’s
“Classical Dictionary,” article “Comitia.”)
[100] The word “carmen” shown to be the origin of “charm,” by
Grimm.—(“Teut. Mythology,” vol. iii. p. 1035.)
The same derivation is given by Webster and other authorities.
In the Samoan islands “When offerings were eaten in the night by dogs or
rats, it was supposed that the god chose to become incarnate for the time
being in the form of such living creatures.”—(“Samoa,” G. Turner, London,
1884, p. 25.)
[101] The anointing of kings is a survival of Pagan usages; anointed
monarchs are alluded to in the sacred books of Thibet: “du monarque oint
... Pratimoksha Sutra.”—(W. W. Rockhill, Société Asiatique, Paris, 1885.)
ADDENDA.
Dr. Thomas G. Morton, of Philadelphia, imparts the information that not
only is the use of human urine still general among ignorant women during
pregnancy, but that it has been learned that female abortionists have
been in the habit of vending a nostrum for defeating pregnancy, one of
the components of which was the catamenial discharge.
* * * * *
Referring to previous remarks, on page 162, it may be noticed that a
curious instance of survival by contrariety is to be detected in what
Picart relates of the Hebrew ceremonial of the present day. He says of
the behavior of the Hebrew while praying, that he should carefully avoid
gaping, spitting, blowing his nose, or emitting any exhalations: “Il doit
éviter autant qu’il se peut de bailler, de cracher, de se moucher, de
laisser aller des vents.” (Picart, “Coutumes et Cérémonies,” &c., vol.
i. p. 126). All this information seems to be taken from the work of the
Rabbi Leon, of Modena.
In the above are seen the antipodes of the practices characteristic
of the worship of Baal-Peor which the prophets had so much trouble in
eradicating from the minds of the chosen people.
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Deuteronomy.
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Dictionaries quoted:—United States Dispensatory, Wood and Bache
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London Medical, edition of Bartholomew Parr, M. D. (Philadelphia,
1819);
Webster’s English; Worcester’s English;
of Antiquities (London, 1850), Smith;
Classical, Anthon’s;
Lemprière’s Classical;
Neumann and Baretti’s (Valasquez) Spanish-English;
of the Spanish Academy;
Stevens’ Spanish-English (1706);
Of Obsolete and Provincial English, Thomas Wright (London, 1869);
Medical, Dunglison (Philadelphia, 1860);
Dictionnaire National, Bescherelle (Paris, 1857);
Dictionnaire Universel du XIX. Siècle, P. Larousse;
White-Ridley, Latin-English;
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Diodorus Siculus.
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Dramatists, English. See Shakespeare, Jonson, Dryden, Beaumont and
Fletcher, Ludowick Barry, Middleton, Gifford.
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Encyclopædia Britannica, edition of 1841, and other editions.
Encyclopædias, in addition to the Britannica, examined during the
preparation of this work:—
Encyclopédie Raisonné des Sciences, etc., Neufchatel, 1765.
Encyclopædia, Philadelphia, 1797.
Encyclopédie, Diderot and D’Alembert, Geneva, 1779.
Encyclopædia, International.
Encyclopædia Metropolitana.
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Encyclopædia of Religious Knowledge, Schaff-Herzogg, New York.
Encyclopædia, Chambers’s, edition of Philadelphia, 1866.
Encyclopædia, Bradbury and Evans, London, 1854.
English History from Contemporary Writers, New York, 1839.
English Reformation, Francis Charles Massingberd.
Englishman’s Treasure, The (black letter), London, 1641 (in the Toner
collection, Library of Congress), written by Thomas Vicary,
Surgeon to King Henry VIII., Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth.
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Faber, Pagan Idolatry.
Fairy Tales, Hazlitt.
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Farce of Master Pathelin (A.D. 1480).
Fargards, of Zendavesta.
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Folk-Lore, American Journal of.
Folk-Lore, in Indo-Mahomedan Folk-Lore;
Folk-Lore of the Pennsylvania Germans, Hoffman, in Journal of
American Folk-Lore;
Folk-Medicine of the Pennsylvania Germans, American Philosophical
Society.
Folk-Lore Journal (of America).
Folk-Lore, Napier, London.
Folk-Lore Record, London.
Folk-Medicine, William George Black, London, 1883.
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Fraser’s Magazine, London.
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Genesis, Chaldean Account of, George Smith, New York, 1880.
Geografia de las Lenguas de Mejico, Orozco y Berra, Mexico, 1854.
Gerard of Cremona, edition of Avicenna. See Avicenna.
Gesnerus, Dr., Newe Jewell of Health, London, 1576 (black letter).
See also under Baker, George.
Gibbon, Edward, the historian.
Giesnein, De Mater. Medic., quoted.
Gifford’s translation of Juvenal. See Juvenal.
Gilder, William H., Schwatka’s Search, New York, 1881;
Ice-Pack and Tundra, New York, 1883;
Personal Letters from.
Gilmour, James, Rev., Among the Mongols, London, 1883.
Glossarium, Ducange.
Gmelin, Russian explorer.
Goclenius, Roderick, Physiol. Crepitus Ventris, Frankfort, 1607,
quoted.
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1854.
Gómara, Historia de las Indias.
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Googe, Barnaby, Translation of Naogeorgus, quoted.
Goreus, medical writer, quoted.
Gospel of the Infancy.
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Greenland, Hans Egede.
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Grieve, James, Journal.
Grimm, Jacob, Teutonic Mythology.
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Gufer, John, Medicin. Domestic, quoted.
Guida alla Chimica, quoted.
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Guinea, Bosman, in Pinkerton.
Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift.
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in Journal of Anthropological Institute of Great Britain.
Hagendormius, Ehrenfreid, quoted.
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London, 1887.
Heart of Africa, Schweinfurth, London, 1872.
Helvetius, John Freder., Diribitor, quoted.
Henshaw, H. C., Professor, Bureau of Ethnology, Smithsonian.
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Hermann, edition of Orphei Fragmenta.
Herodotus.
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Hershon, Paul Isaac, Talmudic Miscellany, Boston, 1880.
Hesiod, Opera et Dies, Rev. J. Banks, London, 1857.
Hibernicis, De Rebus, Vallencey.
Hidatsa, Surgeon Washington Matthews, U. S. Army.
Higgins, Godfrey, Anacalypsis, Celtic Druids.
Hindus, Mythology of the, Coleman, London, 1832.
Hippocrates, Adams’ edition, Sydenham Society, London, 1849;
Kuhn’s edition, Leipsig, 1825.
Histoire de Paris, Dulaure, 1825.
Histoire Médicale du Tatouage, Ernest Berchon, Paris, 1867.
Histoire Secrète du Prince Croq’ Étron, M’lle Laubert, Paris, 1790.
Historia de las Indias, Gómara.
Hittell, John S., San Francisco, Cal.
Hoffman, Dr. W. J., Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, D. C.
Hoffman, W. J., M. D., Folk-Lore of the Pennsylvania Germans,
Folk-Medicine of the Pennsylvania Germans, (American Phil.
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Homer.
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Homœopathic Journal.
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Every Day Book, London, 18—.
Honest Whore, The, Thomas Dekkar, London, 1605.
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Horace, Latin poet, Satires.
Horsford, E. N., Professor, Harvard University.
Hospinian, de Origine Festorum Christianorum, quoted.
Howard, John Eliot, The Druids and their Religion.
Huc, Abbé, Travels, etc.
Hudibras, Butler.
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Humphrey Clinker, Tobias Smollett.
Hunerwolf, Jacob Augustine, Doctor (1694).
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Inamma, Padre (S. J.), missionary to Lower California.
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by Clements C. Markham), Hakluyt Society Transactions.
India, Rousselet, London, 1876.
India, Modern, Monier Williams, London, 1878.
Indian Names of Places near the Great Lakes, Kelton.
Indias, Historia de las, Gómara.
Indo-Mahomedan Folk-Lore.
Ingoldsby Legends, American edition.
Inman, Ancient Faiths embodied in Ancient Names, London, 1878.
International Polar Expedition to Point Barrow, Report of, Washington.
Ireland, Ancient Legends and Superstitions of, Lady Wilde, Boston,
1888.
Ireland, History of, Sir Richard Cox.
Ireland, Medical Mythology of, James Mooney.
Irish, Manners and Customs of the Ancient, Eugene O’Curry, New York,
London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, 1873.
Irwin, B. J. D., Surgeon, U. S. Army.
Jack of Dover’s Quest of Inquiry, in Percy Soc. Publications.
Jaeger, Gustav, Doctor, Stuttgart, Germany.
Jahrbuch fur Erdkunde, Dresden, 1870.
James, H. E. M., The Long White Mountain, London, 1888.
Japan, History of, Kemper, in Pinkerton.
Jarchi, Solomon Ben, Rabbi, Commentaries, quoted.
Jennings, Hargrave, Phallicism, London, 1884.
Jesuit Missions, Bishop Kip.
Jesuit Relations.
Jesuits in North America, Francis Parkman, Boston, 1867.
Jews, Wars of the, Josephus.
Jex-Blake, Reverend, his account of Hindu temples.
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1887.
John XXI., Pope, medical writings of, quoted.
Johnson, Richard, Master, in Purchas.
Johnstonus, J., Thaum. admirand. homin., quoted.
Jones, Sir William.
Jonson, Ben, dramatist.
Jonson, Ben, Works of, Gifford’s edition;
The Staple of News.
Josephus, De Bello Judaico.
Josephus, Wars of the Jews.
Jouan, Henri, Captain, French Navy.
Journal of American Folk-Lore, Boston, Mass.
Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain, London.
Juvenal. The following editions have been examined:
Translation by Rev. Lewis Evans, Oxford, New York, 1860;
Gifford’s Translation;
Edward Walford, M. A., Baliol, Oxford.
Juvenal, Satires of, translations of Evans, Dryden, and Gifford.
Kalevala, Scandinavian saga.
Kamtchatka, Steller (Bunnemeyer’s translation.)
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Kolben, Peter, Voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, in Knox, Voyage,
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Krachenninikoff, a Russian explorer.
Krenitzin, Voyage, etc., quoted in Coxe’s Russian Discoveries.
Krusenstern, Voyage round the World (English translation), London,
1813.
Kubary, Religion of the Pelew Islands, quoted.
Kyngdon, F. B., Secretary of Royal Society, Sydney, New South Wales.
Lactantius, Divinarum Institutionum, Institutes, Divinas ejus, etc.,
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Lafitau, Père.
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Leechdoms, Saxon.
Leem, Danish Lapland, in Pinkerton.
Legge, Religions of China.
Le Jeune, Father, missionary.
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Lemprière, Classical Dictionary.
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Lenormant, François, Chaldean Magic.
Leo, John, Observations of Africa, in Purchas.
Leon of Modena, Rabbi, quoted.
Lerousse, P., Grand Dictionnaire Universel, Paris, 1875.
Le Roux de Lincy, Livres des Proverbes Français, Paris, 1848.
Le Sage, El Bachiller de Salamanca.
Leviticus.
Lewis and Clark, explorers.
Liebig’s Extract, Beef Tea, and Urine, Richard M. Neale, M. D., in
the Practitioner, London.
Linnæus.
Lippincott’s Magazine, Philadelphia, Penn.
Lisiansky, Voyages around the World, London, 1814.
Littré, French Dictionary.
Livingston, Zambesi, London, 1865.
Long, Chaillé, Central Africa, New York, 1877.
Long, Voyages;
Expedition, Philadelphia, 1823.
Lucian, Dialogues, quoted;
De Dea Syra, quoted;
Tragopodagra, quoted, (edition of William Tooke, F. R. S.), London,
1820.
Lucian, Tragopodagra, edition of William Tooke, F. R. S., London,
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Lucretius, De Natura Rerum, translation of John Mason Goode.
Lumholtz, Carl.
Lyon, G. F., Journal.
Macaulay, Mr., (of Philadelphia, Penn.), his description of a Phallic
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Macaulay, T. B., Essays.
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Mantegazza, Gli amori degli uomini.
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Marco Polo.
Markham, Clements C., translation of the Commentaries of Garcilasso
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Marston, Dutch Courtesan, London.
Martial, Epigrams, edition of, London, 1871.
Masculine Cross, 1886.
Masks and Labrets, Dall.
Massingberd, Francis Charles.
Matthew of Paris, Chronicles.
Matthews, John, Esq., Victoria, Australia.
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Matthews, Washington, Surgeon, U. S. Army, Hidatasa.
Maurice, Indian Antiquities, London, 1800.
Maximilian, Prince of Wied, Travels, etc., London, 1843.
Max Müller, Sacred Books of the East, Oxford, 1880.
Mayor of Tamborough, Beaumont and Fletcher.
Medical Journal, New York.
Medical Writings of Pope John XXI., quoted.
Medicines, Most Exalted and most Approved, London, 1652.
Meignan, Paris to Pekin, London, 1885.
Melusine (Gaidoz), Paris.
Melville, George W., Chief Engineer, U. S. Navy.
Mendieta, in Icazbalceta, Mexico, 1870.
Merolla, Father, Voyage to the Congo, in Pinkerton.
Mew, W. M., Surgeon, U. S. Army, Analysis of ordure pills.
Mexican Antiquities, Lord Kingsborough, London.
Mexico, Conquest of, Bernal Diaz, London, 1844.
Michaud, the historian.
Michluchs-Maclay.
Middle Ages, The Physicians of, T. C. Minor, M. D., Cincinnati, Ohio,
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Mindeleff, Victor.
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Minutius Felix, Octavius.
Miscellanea Antica Anglicana, quoted.
Miscellaneous Writings upon Drama and Fiction, Wharton.
Molina Don Juan Ignacio, Historia Civil de Chile, edition of Madrid,
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Molina, Padre Cristoval de, Fables and Rites of the Yncas
(translation by Clements C. Markham), Hakluyt Society
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Montaigne, Michel, Essays.
Montfaucon. L’Antiquité expliquée, Bernard Montfaucon, Benedictine
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Moore, John, Surgeon-General.
Moore, Sir John.
Moore, Sturtevant, Past Assistant Engineer, U. S. Navy.
Morals, Plutarch, Goodwin’s English translation, Boston.
More, Sir Thomas.
Mosheim, Ecclesiastical History.
Motolinia, Fray Toribio de Benvento, The unknown Franciscan.
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Middle Ages, Minor.
Moyen de Parvenir (A.D. 1610).
Müller, Max.
Musarum Deliciæ.
Museum, Army Medical, Washington, D. C.
Museum, National, Washington, D. C.
Muynier, Le, a Farce of the 14th century.
Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Andrew Lang, London, 1887.
Mythology, Banier. See Banier.
Mythology, Bryant, Jacob, London, 1775.
Mythology, Bulfinch (revised by the Rev. E. E. Hale), Boston, 1883.
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Nannoff, Victor, Alaska.
Nares, quoted.
National Museum, Washington, D. C.
Native Races of the Pacific Slope, H. H. Bancroft.
Native Tribes of South Australia.
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New South Wales, Royal Society, Sydney.
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Notes and Queries, London, 1850.
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O’Donovan, Three Fragments of Irish Annals, quoted.
Omahas, Death and Funeral Customs among the, Francis La Flesche, in
Journal of American Folk-Lore.
O’Reilly, Robert M.
Origen, early Christian writer.
Orinoco, Padre Gumilla, Madrid, 1741.
Oritrika, Von Helmont, London, 1662, English translation.
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Orphei Fragmenta, Hermann’s edition.
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Ovid, Fasti, quoted.
Ovid, quoted.
Pagan Idolatry, Faber, London, 1816.
Pallas, Voyages.
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Paris to Pekin, Meignan, London, 1885.
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Solomon Ben Jarchi.
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Wurtz, Mr., chargé d’affaires of the United States at Saint
Petersburg.
Xenocrates, born 396 B.C.; he employed human and animal ordure
and urine, as well as all human and animal secretions and
excretions in Medicine.
Zacutus Lusitanus, a medical writer, quoted.
Zagoskin, Russian explorer.
Zambesi, Livingston, London, 1865.
Zendavesta. See Fargards.
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INDEX.
Abbot of Unreason, 13.
Abnormal Appetite, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 233, 311, 314, 316.
Abortion, 105;
produced by mistletoe, 105.
See also under Parturition.
Aconite, used to poison panthers; human ordure the antidote, 244.
Afghans, flatulence regarded as a deadly insult by, 161.
After-birth, 216, 224, 226, 235, 236, 343, 354, 355;
a remedy for witchcraft, 215;
in philters, 224;
as an anti-philter, 354, 355.
See also Therapeutics.
Agaric, 71, 77, 81, 82, 83;
the cause of fairy circles, 82, 83;
excluded from Brahminical dietary, 92, 109.
See also Mushrooms.
Aghozis, a Hindu sect who eat human ordure, 40, 126.
Agnus Castus, 225.
Agriculture, 26, 80, 128, 129, 140, 180, 190, 191, 192, 193, 345,
350, 351, 353, 438;
taught to men by Saturn, 129;
urine and ordure in, 129;
cow dung used to make threshing-floors in France and Italy, 180;
religious rites in connection with, in China, 345;
catamenial women marched round the Roman fields, 450,—see also the
description from “Hiawatha;”
the touch of a catamenial woman ruined vines, fruit trees, etc.,
353;
“fool ploughs,” 438.
See also under Latrines.
“Aiguilette, nouer l’.” See Witchcraft, Ligatures.
Album Græcum. See Dog Dung.
Alcohol, 39;
mixed with urine in drink, 39;
abstained from by Lamas while making sacred pills, 50;
invented by the Chinese, 2197 B.C. 75, 76;
obtained from mushrooms, 81.
See Intoxicants, 379.
Alder. See Tree and Plant Worship; Cures by Transplantation.
Ale, 39, 232.
See Bride-ale, Intoxicants.
Amanita Muscaria. See Mushrooms.
Amber, 289;
believed to be whale’s dung, 271.
Ambergris, 48.
Ammonia, 39, 199, 201;
probably suggested by a prior use of urine, 199.
Ammonia, urate of, and guano, used in phthisis.
Amulets and talismans, 28, 42, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 51, 52, 225,
226, 237, 363, 364, 370, 371, 391, 403, 441, 454, 458;
mistletoe used as an amulet, in Sweden, 108;
in England, 108, 111;
cow ordure and urine, as, 112;
the first tooth dropped by a child an amulet, 363.
See Excrement, Grand Lama, Patriarch of Constantinople.
Amulets and talismans, 225, 245, 267.
Analysis of the mani or sacred pills of the Buddhists, 53.
Ancestor worship, 459, 460. See Spirits, Gods.
Ancestors, skulls of, used as drinking-cups, in Thibet, 250.
Animal Worship. See under Therapeutics, Philters, Aphrodisiacs,
Parturition, Ordeals and Punishments, Monasticism, Cosmetics,
Amulets and Talismans, Cures by Transplantation, Tattooing.
Anthropomancy. See Divination.
Anti-natural god of the Sioux, 267.
Aphrodisiacs, 78;
mushrooms regarded as, 78, 80, 90, 94;
onions and garlic regarded as, 93, 94;
mistletoe regarded as, 103, 104;
ordure and urine regarded as, 216, 217;
leopard’s dung regarded as, 217;
nettles regarded as, 216, 217, 390;
antiphrodisiacs, 224;
the testes of the fox used as an, 225.
April Fool’s Day, 432, 437.
See Festival of Huli.
Aqua ex stercore. See Excrement.
Aristophanes says that Esculapius ate excrement, 129;
calls thunder flatulence, 163;
calls doctors “excrement eaters,” 278, 279.
Arms and armor, 219.
Arms and armor, 241, 242, 312, 313, 323.
See War Customs.
Asclepius, surnamed Pharmacion (the druggist), believed to have been
the first writer who counselled the use of human excrement in
Therapeutics, 278.
Aspersions, 105 (see Mistletoe, Holy Water, Lustration, Courtship and
Marriage), 113, 220, 225, 236, 247, 261, 300, 393, 398, 399,
428;
urine of Hottentot priest used in aspersions at weddings, funerals,
etc., 229;
upon young warriors at time of initiation, 238, 239;
urine of Moorish bride at time of initiation, 229,—see Queen of
Madagascar;
the water in which Russian bride had been bathed at time of
initiation, 231,—see Bride-Ale.
Aspersions with urine in “Witches’ Mass,” 274, 383, 388;
urine used by the Highlanders for aspersing their cattle, 398, 390.
See Lingams.
Aspersions, 113, 225, 264. See Rue.
Aspersions, by the Queen of Madagascar, 60.
See Lustrations, Hottentot Marriages, Courtship and Marriage, Holy
Water.
Asphalt dissolved by the catamenial fluid, 350, 385;
also by human urine, 385.
Assafœtida, 322, 343, 389, 425, 444;
called “Merde du Diable,” 343, 444.
See under Garlic, Stench, Perfume.
Assyria, dung gods of, 130, 132.
Aztecs used poisonous mushrooms in their sacred dances, 89, 90.
Bacchanalia, 62, 63, 64, 75, 89, 90, 394, 440.
Bang. See Intoxicants.
Banians of India swear by cow dung, 112;
eat cow-dung, 119.
Baptism, 232;
mock baptism, 232.
Barrington, “Observations on the Statutes,” comments on tenures of
land by flatulence, 166.
Basilisk, eggs of, would hatch only in dung, or under a toad, 268.
Bathing. See Lustration.
Bedouins eructate as a matter of civility, 161;
consider flatulence a deadly insult, 161, 257, 258.
Beds and bedding, urination in bed, how prevented, 271, 375, 384;
defilement of, how occasioned, 379.
Beer, 232.
Beer. See Intoxicants.
Belgium, the mannikin of Brussels, 165.
Bel-phegor, filthy rites connected with his worship, 132, 154, 155,
156, 157, 158, 160, 161, 173;
interview between Moses and Jehovah, 160;
analogous rites among the Hebrews and Parsis, 161.
Bembino, or Isaic table, 13.
Benet, S. V., notes on urine as a dentrifice, 204.
Bhikshuni of Thibet, 147.
Bile, Human. See Therapeutics.
Bitumen. See Asphalt.
“Black drink” of Creeks and Seminoles, 242;
of Imbando, Africa, 240, 250.
Bladders, 239, 434.
Bladders, 239, 378, 384, 415, 416, 417, 422, 423, 424, 434, 437, 438,
439, 464, 465;
mark of distinction for gallantry among Hottentots, 239;
use by Apache and other American savages, 434.
See Sausage.
Bleaching.
See Industries.
Blood-covenant, 240.
Boletus, variety of mushroom, is worshipped in Africa, 80, 91.
“Bona Dea,” one of the names of the goddess Rhea or Cybele, had
urinal aspersions in her rites, 394.
Bones, in medicine. See Therapeutics, Cures by Transplantation.
“Bora.” See Initiation, 240, 241.
“Borgie Well,” near Glasgow, made mad all who drank of its waters, 76.
Borneo, Dyaks of, have the Hebrew custom in regard to the covering up
of the evacuations, 146.
Bourkans, or spirits of the Kalmucks,—one of them eats his own
excrement, 49.
Boutan, merchants of, strewed ordure over their food, 45.
Brahmins of India, use of cow ordure and urine in religion, 112, 113,
114, 115, 118, 119, 122, 124.
Brain, in Medicine. See Therapeutics, Marriage, Aspersions.
Bread, urine and excrement, in making, 32, 38.
“Bread of the Gods” (Mexicans), 89, 90, 91;
“Cockle Bread,” a Phallic game in England, 221, 222.
Bride, “Bride-Ale,” 232.
See Courtship.
Bridges, a toll of flatulence exacted from prostitutes crossing the
bridge of Montluc, in France, 166, 168, 169.
Brussels, the mannikin of, a Phallic idol, 165.
Buddhism, the god “Sakya-Muni” eats his own excrement, 49.
Buddhists, 147, 251.
Buddhists supposed to be related to the Druids, 99.
See Lamas, Grand Lama.
Bull of Ernulphus, bishop of Rochester, 251.
Burial. See Mortuary Ceremonies.
Calculus, in medicine. See Therapeutics.
Cape of Good Hope. See Hottentots, etc.
Capuchins, their beastly customs, 147, 148.
Castes of India, restoration to the, 113.
See also Clans.
Casting urine, 396.
Catamenia, 218, 219, 224, 296, 318, 392, 393, 394.
Catamenia, a catamenial woman could cure “King’s Evil,” 60;
mushrooms used as emmenagogues, 83, 108;
mistletoe used as an emmenagogue, especially that of the oak, 108;
seclusion during the duration of the catamenia, in Alaska, 104, 150;
catamenia used in making love-philters, 217, 218, 219, 224,—see
Philters;
to preserve chastity, 219;
in diseases, 219,—see Therapeutics;
in witchcraft, 210,—see also Witchcraft, 377 to 404;
philters made of catamenia were rendered abortive by hen-dung, 224,
225, 226;
asses’ dung restrained excessive catamenia, 278;
superstitions connected with the catamenia, 350,—see Cosmetics, 367;
catamenial fluid had to be sprinkled upon mandrake before it could
be pulled out of the ground, 271, 376, 385.
Cemetery, urinating through the wedding ring while in a cemetery
baffled witchcraft, 231.
See also under Mortuary Ceremonies.
Cerdier states that the Africans worship the mushroom, 80.
Ceremonial observances, 206, 207, 208, 211;
on Holy Thursday among Russian dissenters, 162;
urine drunk in the marriage ceremonies of the Siberians, 228.
See also Initiation.
Ceremonial, tenacity of. See Survivals.
Ceremonies in connection with agriculture in China, 345;
in pulling medicinal herbs, etc. See Mandrake, Therapeutics; see
also Weeping, Kissing, Spitting, Saliva, Shaving, Flatulence,
Urination, Oblations of Urine and Excrement.
_Chaise percée_ of the Grand Lama, 42;
the tripod of Esculapius a _chaise percée_, 129.
Chamber-pots, 175, 251.
Charlotte Elizabeth, Princess of Bavaria, a coarse letter from, 32.
Charms, 188, 230, 370, 371, 373, 405, 424, 430, 442, 443, 457, 458,
461, 462.
See also Magic, Amulets and Talismans, Witchcraft, Cures by
Transplantation.
Chastity. See Continence, Anti-Philters.
Cheese, curds, human urine used in making cheese in Germany, 181;
and in Switzerland, 181;
a “survival” of the preceding practice among the Pennsylvania
Germans, 396.
Childbirth. See Parturition.
“Chinook Olives,” 38, 424.
Chrysocollon, a cement made of urine, etc., 182, 183.
Clallums of B. North America, Orgies of, 63.
Clans, 185, 186, 187, 188, 456, 457, 466;
the Roman clans were convened upon the appearance of a case of
epilepsy, 456, 457, 466.
See Castes, Totemism, Tattooing.
Clemens Alexandrinus, his account of excrement gods, 127, 128.
Cloacina, Roman goddess of privies, 127, 134, 264.
Club-houses of secret orders, 9.
Cockatrice. See Basilisk.
“Cockle-Bread,” a Phallic game in England, 221, 222.
Collyrium. See Eye Troubles.
“Comitialia” (see under Epilepsy; also under Clans), 456, 457, 466.
Commodus, the Roman Emperor, ate excrement, 30.
Coral, 181, 216;
color of, restored by hanging in a privy, 181;
coral a remedy for witchcraft, 216.
Cord, sacred, 122.
See Initiation, Girdle.
Cosmetics, 88, 287, 306, 307, 314, 330, 352, 353, 366, 367, 368, 369;
the dung of pigeons, mice, crocodiles, bulls, starlings, cows,
men, lizards, foxes, dogs, sparrows, chickens, donkeys, geese,
etc., used as; also the meconium of infants, sperm of frogs,
catamenia, “Aqua Omnium Florum,” 369.
Courtship and marriage, 19, 48, 66, 67, 68, 96, 107, 185, 216 to 233;
brides fumigated with incense made from the excrement of the
Patriarch of Constantinople, according to Arabian writers, 48;
bride and groom sprinkled with the urine of the Hottentot shamans,
59, 221;
divination in regard to courtship and marriage, 96;
the maiden who was not kissed under the mistletoe would not be
married within the year, 103;
“ligatures,” 107, 221;
wives in Borneo tattooed on the thighs, 185;
Apache-Yuma matrons tattoo, 186;
urine drunk at marriages in Siberia, 228.
See Philters, Aphrodisiacs, Ligatures, Ring, Wedding, Bride, Wool.
Coprolite, 184.
“Cry, the more you, the less you piss,” 182.
Crepitus, the God of Flatulence. See Flatulence.
Crypto-Jews, 18.
Cures by transplantation, 349.
Cybele. See “Bona Dea,” 445.
Dandelion, superstitions in connection with, 248.
Dandruff, 304, 306, 328, 331.
Dandruff. See Hair.
Dentrifice, urine used as a, 203, 204, 205.
Devil’s posterior kissed, 384.
Devil’s presents all turned to filth and dross, 270.
Diseases, all cured by mistletoe, 99, 104, 105, 107;
catamenia, used in cure of,—see Catamenia, Therapeutics;
ordure and urine used in the cure of,—see Therapeutics,
Transference of;
see “Cures by Transplantation;”
sacred diseases,—see Epilepsy;
the heathen theory of disease, 423, 441, 442, 443, 444, 445, 446,
456, 458, 457, 462.
Divination, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 90, 96, 107, 126, 155, 233, 234, 246,
247, 248.
See “Cockle-Bread,” Urinoscopy, Gambling, Dice, Visions, Onions,
Omens, Courtship and Marriage, Parturition.
Dreams, 253.
“Drink of Oblivion” of the Druids, 106.
Drink, the “Mad Potion,” Wysoccan, 242.
Drinks, 380.
Drinks. See Foods, Urine as a Beverage, Intoxicants, Eau de Mille
Fleurs, Table Liqueurs.
Druidism, 372.
Druids. See Mistletoe.
Ducking-stool. See Ordeals and Punishments.
Dung, all earthly joys compared to, by the Apostle Paul, by Saint
Matthew, and by Thomas à Kempis, 271.
Dung, definition of, 52,—see Pedung, Excrement, Dung-carts, 11, 12,
13, 14, 15;
dung-heaps used in punishment, 87;
dung-gods, 127, 128, 130, 131, 132, 133,—see Excrement Gods;
dung thrown by Australian neophytes, 237,—see Parturition;
thrown at Guinea negresses in their first pregnancy, 237.
Dung of whales, amber was believed to be, 271.
Dung, the eggs of the basilisk would hatch only in, 269.
Dungi, king of Chaldea, B.C. 2,000, 52.
Dyaks of Borneo, cover up their evacuations, 146.
Dyeing. See Industries.
Dyeing of Hair. See Hair.
Ear-Wax. See Therapeutics.
Easter eggs, 323.
See Eggs.
Eau de Mille Fleurs, made of cow dung, 30, 330;
in medicine, see Therapeutics.
Eggs, in “Cures by Transplantation” (_q. v._); a plausible explanation
of the meaning of the custom of exchanging Easter eggs, 465.
Emetics. See Therapeutics.
Enchantment. See Magic.
Esculapius ate excrement, 129.
Eucharist, errors in connection with the doctrine of the, 54, 55, 56.
Eucharistic bread sprinkled with human semen by the Manicheans and
Albigenses, 220.
Eunuch, the urine of, used as an aphrodisiac, 224;
also as an antiphrodisiac, 224;
and as a remedy for sterility, 233, 281;
emasculation, a religious rite among Hottentots, 238, 239;
also among the Galli, priests of Cybele, 394.
Evergreens at Christmas. See Mistletoe.
Excrement, Animal. See Therapeutics, Ordeals, Myths, Insults,
Sacrifice, Industries, Agriculture, Commerce, Fuel, Hair,
Smoking, Philters, Witchcraft, Virility.
Excrement eaten, 240.
Excrement gods, of Romans, of Egyptians, of Assyrians, of Hebrews, of
Mexicans; Esculapius an excrement god; the excrement gods of the
Moabites; Bel-Phegor an excrement god, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131,
132.
Excrement, Human, see Grand Lama of Thibet;
in Medicine, see Therapeutics;
in Punishments, see Ordeals and Punishments;
in Initiation, see Initiation;
in Industries, see Industries;
in Witchcraft, see Witchcraft;
was believed to be the greatest panacea against Witchcraft;
see Cures by Transplantation.
See also Agriculture, Commerce, Fuel, Hair Dye, Hair, Philters,
Courtship and Marriage, Virility, Ligatures, War Customs,
Divination, Ordeals, Myths, Insults, Cosmetics, Amulets and
Talismans.
Excrement, in jewelry, 184.
Exorcism. See Incantation.
Ezekiel, Hebrew prophet, 119, 120, 121;
eats human ordure in his food; eats cow-dung in his food; lies for
390 days on one side and 40 days on the other, 120;
an explanation of his behavior, 241.
Fairies, 232.
Festivals, religious, their commemorative character, 24.
Fetiches. See Idols, Gods, Amulets, and Talismans.
Fingers, human, necklace of, deposited by the author in the National
Museum, Washington, D. C., 364.
Flap-Dragons. See “Healths in Urine,” 229.
Flattery, Cape (B. North America), Indians of, have an orgy induced
by poisonous mushrooms, 48, 65.
Flatulence, of fairies, 87;
flatulence would kill the Eskimo god “Torngarsuk,” if witchcraft
were going on in a house, 157;
the Devil put to flight by flatulence, 163, 444;
flatulence avoided by the Hebrews while at prayer, also by the
Parsis; considered a deadly insult by Bedouins and Afghans,
161, 257;
a contest for championship among the Arabs, 161;
adored by the Romans, by the Egyptians, by the Hebrews, by the
Moabites, by the Assyrians, in the worship of Bel-peor, 127 to
163;
the bibliography of the subject, 162;
tenures of land in England by flatulence, 165, 166, 167;
a toll of flatulence exacted of prostitutes who for the first
time crossed the bridge of Montluc in France, 168;
called “Sir Reverence,” by the Irish immigrants to the United
States, 169;
in games in England, 173;
Satan “lets a f—t,” in the old Moralities, 173;
the punishment for, among small boys in Philadelphia, Pa., 174,
175, 176;
in obscene tales, 119, 120.
Flesh, Human. See Mummy, Corpse, Therapeutics.
“Flowers as Emblems” (Standard, London), 298.
Fly Agaric. See Mushroom.
Fly Poison. See Mushroom, Amanita, Agaric, 58.
Fox, Charles James, the English orator, his essay upon flatulence;
essay upon wind, 112.
Fuel, human excrement said to have been used as, 120;
the excrement of animals known to have been used as, 120, 195, 196,
197, 198;
among Israelites, 120.
Fullers. See Industries, Bleaching.
Fungus. See Mushroom, Mistletoe.
Games, 252, 253, 254;
sailors’, 254;
harvest, 253.
Garlic, Lamas abstain from it while making mani pills, 60;
Chinese priests abstain from it while sacrificing, 95;
used by the Scandinavians to frustrate witchcraft, 96;
an article of diet from the earliest ages, 96;
the smell of garlic accounted a sign of vulgarity in the time of
Shakespeare, 96;
offered to the manes of the dead by the Greeks, 96;
invoked as a God by the Egyptians, 96;
not eaten by the Pelusians, 96;
Peruvian priests abstained from it while engaged in sacrifice, 95.
Gods believed to become incarnate in the medicine men, 59,—see Lamas;
children in the Samoan Islands are called the “excrement of such
and such a god,” 69;
Bacchus or Dionysius, 62;
Mithras, 62;
“Bread of the Gods” (Mexico), 90;
Egyptian gods, 94;
onions and garlic adored as gods, 94.
See also Mushrooms and Mistletoe, Dung-Gods, Cloacina, Crepitus.
Gods, heathen, idea of, 157.
Golden Bough, The, James G. Frazer, M. A., London, 1890. See Frazer.
Gomez. See Nirang.
Grace, Herb of, Rue so called.
Grand Lama of Thibet, his excrements made into amulets, 43, 44, 45,
46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52;
his urine mixed in food, 44;
the same ideas in Ireland, 57, 68, 60;
and in Uganda, Africa, 60;
the excrement of the Grand Lama made into snuff, 214.
Guerlichon, Saint, Phallic statue near Bruges, 430.
Hair, 240;
in medicine,—see Therapeutics, 343, 345.
See also “Cures by Transplantation,” 345, 412.
See Witchcraft.
Hair, urine used in eradicating dandruff from, 198, 199, 280, 314;
excrement of different kinds used as a dye for, 199;
camel’s dung and urine good for, 280;
bull’s urine good for, 280.
Ha-o-kah, the anti-Natural god of the Sioux, 106.
Harvest Games. See Games.
Haschish. See Intoxicants.
“Healths in urine,” 229.
See Flap-Dragons.
Helmont, Von. See Oritrika.
Herb of Grace, Rue so-called. See Rue, 224, 225.
Holi, huli, hulica, festival of, 432, 434.
Holy water, 51, 60, 61, 105, 108, 116, 211, 225, 228, 229, 247, 261,
264, 383, 388, 394, 398, 399, 428, 431;
sweet-scented water used in sacred rites by Lamas, 51;
the urine of the Hottentot medicine men was looked upon as holy
water, 60, 229;
the water of the mistletoe used as, 105, 108.
See also “Water of Immortality.”
Cow urine regarded as holy water by Parsees and Hindus, 116;
holy water superseded a former use of urine, 211, 261;
urine used instead of, in “Witches’ Mass,” 383, 388, 394, 397, 398;
the water of the river Ganges held to be holy, 428;
lingam, 304, 305, 431;
“yellow water,” 431.
Hom, the sacred plant of the Magi; its resemblance to mistletoe, 101.
“Hommes habillés en Femme,” 22, 23.
Horns, as symbols of power, 408;
in witchcraft, 245.
Hospitality. In Siberia, women are presented to distinguished guests
who must drink their urine, 228, 316.
Hugo, Victor, refers to the tax of flatulence imposed upon
prostitutes in France, 168.
“Hum,” the sacred drink of the Parsis, 380.
Hunting and fishing, mistletoe ensured success in, 109;
sacrifices offered to the god of, 161;
bladders worn by distinguished Hottentot hunters, 244.
Idols, 354;
women of the, 406.
“Impenetrability of Weapons,” 219.
Incantation. See under Witchcraft; see also Singing, Music.
Incantations, 218.
Industries, 177 to 195.
Initiation, 189, 240, 243, 383, 384;
Indians compelled to eat cow-dung before, 114, 119;
tattooing upon, 185;
Parsis drink bull urine, 238;
Hottentot young men emasculated and sprinkled with urine at time
of, 238, 239;
Eskimo candidate for the honor of medicine men, had to be
accustomed to the smell of urine from babyhood, 239;
initiation of witches, 402.
See also Confirmation.
Insanity. See Mania.
Insults, 87, 114, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257, 379;
ordure and urine in, 87;
the Hebrews revile each other’s temples, calling them “Houses of
Dung,” 114.
Intoxicants, sacred character of, 75, 89, 90, 91;
at weddings, 229.
See Mushrooms, Mistletoe, Haschish, Wine, Urine.
Intoxication, sacred, 380.
Ireland, called the “Urinal of the Planets,” 269.
Isaiah, Hebrew prophet, supposed to refer to the mistletoe, 101;
had attacks of mania, 121;
compared human justice “panno menstruatæ,” 253.
Jewelry, excrement as, 184.
Jews’ Ears. See Mushrooms.
Kadeshim, 406.
Kashima, 206, 207, 434.
Kempis, Thomas à, compared all human joys to dung, 271.
King’s Evil, could be cured by the touch of the king, 60, 61;
or by that of a menstruating woman, 60, 61:
the first of these beliefs is evidently a “survival” of man
worship, 60, 61;
could be cured by the urine of a male child, 300.
Kingsley, J. W., M.D., his views on Ur-orgies, 65, 70.
Kissing. See under Phallism, 103, 104, 173, 222;
under Mistletoe, 103, 104.
As a religious rite in the Christian church, 104;
kissing the post of Billingsgate, London, 173.
“Knife, The,” a secret order of the Zuñis, 6;
“Knife, the Winged,” a god of the Zuñis of New Mexico, 9.
Kutka, a god of the Kamtchatkans, falls in love with his own
excrement, 267.
Lajarde, his definition of “Cow’s Water,” 113.
Lamas, 42, 43, 44, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 58, 59, 82, 118, 126;
among the Irish, 58, 69, 82.
See Grand Lama of Thibet, Priests, Buddhists.
Lamas of Thibet, 358.
See Bhikshunis, Buddhists.
Latrines, 131-153.
Loretto, shrine of, tattooing practised at, 190.
Love-Philters, 223.
See Philters, Divination, Courtship and Marriage.
Lustral Water, 240, 400.
Lustration. See Aspersion, Baptism.
“Mad Potion,” Wysoccan, 243.
Magic, mistletoe believed to have magical powers, 100;
Osthanes, the Persian, the first writer upon magic, according to
Pliny, 376.
See under Eunuch, Aphrodisiacs, Witchcraft, Amulets and Talismans,
Charms, Incantations.
Magical Impenetrability. See under War Customs.
Mandrake, 376.
Mandrake, before pulling it out of the ground, it was anointed with
the urine of a woman and the catamenia of a virgin, 376.
“Mangeurs de Blanc,” 287.
Mania, induced by drinking the water of the “Borgie well” of Glasgow,
76;
induced by poisonous mushrooms, 79;
human ordure and urine a cure for, 314, 339;
Ezekiel and Isaiah had attacks of, 121.
Manicheans, bathed in urine, 211;
sprinkled the Eucharistic bread with semen, 229.
Man worship, 59, 60, 61, 459, 460,—
see Grand Lama of Thibet;
see Gurus;
see Patriarch of Constantinople, 36;
see Excrement, Pedung;
the same ideas in Ireland, 60;
and in Uganda, Africa, 60;
the existence of man worship in Europe, 61;
connected with the belief in the power of the king’s touch, to cure
the King’s Evil, 61.
Marriage. See Courtship and Marriage.
Marrow, human, in medicine, see Therapeutics;
in witchcraft, see Witchcraft.
Matthew, Saint, compares all human joys to dung, 271.
Meconium,—see Therapeutics;
a cosmetic, see Cosmetics.
Medicine-men of the Ove-hereros, Africa urinate on the sick in order
to effect cures, 339.
Menstruation. See Catamenia.
“Merde du Diable,” assafœtida so called, 444.
Merde, Holy. See Excrement.
Metals, transmutation of. See Potable Gold.
Human urine used in effecting, 183.
Milk vessels in Africa, washed out with human urine, 199;
a good flow of milk assured by washing the cow’s udders with
urine, 211;
a good flow of milk assured in a woman’s breasts, by washing them
with urine, 211;
in medicine,—see Therapeutics;
sprinkled by nursing women upon a fire, 391;
milk of cow sprinkled upon the lingam, 428, 431.
Mistletoe, 74, 75, 92, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 154,
301;
spoken of in Cingalese Myths, 92, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105,
106;
why venerated by the Druids, 99, 100, 101;
adored by the Massagetæ and the Persians, 101, 102;
and by the ancients generally, 100;
a cure for sterility, 101, 102;
Virgil called it “Branch of Gold,” 101;
Charon dumb in the presence of, 101;
a Phallic symbol, 101, 102;
a berry plucked off with every kiss, 103;
kissing under, 103;
dedicated to Mylitta, 103;
mistletoe of the oak, pear, and hazel, will produce abortion, 104;
alleged to have been held sacred by the mound-builders, 107.
Mistletoe, when found growing on the oak, represented man, 110.
Mock baptism, 232.
Mortuary ceremonies, 150, 152, 162, 261, 262, 263;
purification in, 150;
the vagina, urethra, nostrils, rectum, etc., of corpses closed by
the Pelew islanders, 162;
defilement from touching a corpse, 261.
Mound-builders, alleged to have held mistletoe sacred, 76.
Mourning, 262;
urine and ordure as signs of, 262;
Australians in mourning rub themselves with the moisture from the
corpse, 261.
See Mortuary Ceremonies.
Muhongo, an African boy from Angola.
Muk-a-Moor. See Mushrooms.
Mummy, in medicine, see Therapeutics;
in love-philters, see Philters.
Museum, National. See National Museum.
Museum, Washington, D.C., 364.
Mushrooms, poisonous mushrooms used in Ur-orgies, 65 to 91;
obeyed as a god by the Siberians, 70, 75;
at the “Holy Well of the Borgie,” Glasgow, 76;
adored as a god by the Africans, 79;
detested by Hindus, 92.
Musk, odor of, restored by hanging it in a privy, 181;
in medicine,—see Therapeutics;
human excrement was called musk by Paracelsus, 341.
Mylitta, Babylonian goddess of venery; prostitution in her temples,
101, 103, 404, 405, 406, 407, 408.
Myths, 151, 226, 256, 266-271.
Nails, in medicine,—see Therapeutics;
see Witchcraft; Cures by Transplantation.
Names, 59, 123, 124, 442;
in Samoa, children are named the “excrement of Tongo,” or some
other god, 59;
in India, and among the Parsis, children are sprinkled with cow
urine, when named, 153;
the name of the victim had to be invoked in a substitutive
sacrifice, 124;
the name of the patient had to be mentioned when medicinal herbs
were gathered, 442.
Nanacatl, the poisonous mushroom used in Mexican orgies, 89, 90.
Necklace of human fingers, deposited by the author in the National
Museum, Washington, D. C., 364.
Necromancy. See Witchcraft.
“Nehue-cue,” a secret order of the Zuñis, 7, 8, 9.
Nirang, 8, 122, 391.
See Urine, Gomez, Cow Urine, Lustrations.
Omens. See Divination.
Ordeals and Punishments, 249, 250, 251, 252, 253.
Ordure. See Excrement.
Origen, 108.
Osthanes, the magician, accompanied the army of Xerxes into Greece,
and, according to Pliny, was the first writer on magic; his
views on the magical effects of human urine, 376.
Ove-hereros, of Africa, their medicine-men urinate on the sick in
order to effect cures, 339.
Parsis, anoint themselves with the ordure and urine of the cow, 7, 8,
48;
drink cow urine, 7, 8, 48, 113, 122, 211;
asperse themselves with cow urine, 113, 122;
use of bull urine at time of confirmation, 238.
Parturition, mushrooms given to bring about pregnancy, 83;
the Hindu women’s method for aiding pregnancy, 93;
mistletoe given to aid childbirth, 100;
and to cure sterility, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104;
human ordure and urine drunk to remedy sterility, 126;
Apache-Yuma women tattoo themselves when anxious to become mothers,
186;
ceremonies connected with the first pregnancy of Guinea negresses,
210, 211;
the breasts of Scotch women bathed with human urine, 210, 211;
the breasts of the women of the French peasantry bathed with human
urine, 210, 211;
a pessary of meconium to cure sterility, 233;
English women drank the urine of husband to aid them in labor, 234;
idem, France, 235;
Germany, etc. 305;
teeth worn as amulets during pregnancy, 364;
in the Kala-Vala, it is narrated that a maiden became pregnant
after swallowing a berry, 108.
Paschasius, a Roman judge, sprinkled Saint Lucy with urine because
she was a witch, 394.
Pastimes. See Games.
Paul, the apostle, compares all human joys to dung, 271.
Pelusium, onion was worshipped as a god in, 96;
the people did not eat onions or garlic, 96;
they adored flatulence, 155.
Penance. See Ordeals and Punishments.
Perspiration, a component of love-philters; in medicine, 290, 412.
See Therapeutics, Cures by Transplantation.
Phallic dances, the Phallus fungus, 79;
a Phallic importance seems to have attached to the onion, 96;
likewise to the mistletoe, 103;
“Jack of Hilton,” apparently a Phallic idol, 165, 166;
the “Mannikin” of Brussels, another, 165, 166;
the Phallic game of “Cockle Bread,” 221, 222.
See under Lingam.
Phallism, 7, 12, 79, 103, 117, 165, 166, 221, 222, 261, 428, 429,
430, 431.
Pharmacy, among savages, is always a matter of religion, 277.
See Therapeutics.
Philosopher’s stone, 226, 304, 305.
See Transmutation of Metals;
see “Potable Gold.”
Philters, ordure and urine in, 216, 217, 218, 223;
death the punishment for making them of ordure and urine, 216;
philters were also made of perspiration, semen, and catamenia, 216,
217, 218, 219;
made by transfusion of blood, 219;
anti-philters, 224, 225, 226.
Phosphorus. See Industries.
“Piss, the more you, the less you cry,” 275.
Placenta, see After-Birth;
in philters, see Philters.
Plaster, see Industries.
Pledges, 228, 240, 427, 457, 458;
human urine drunk as a pledge of friendship in Siberia, 228.
See under Blood Covenant, 240;
see under Human Sacrifice, 457.
Poison, 58, 234,—see Mushrooms;
see “Imbando;” human ordure an antidote for, 311, 312, 313, 322,
323;
human ordure also used by the Japanese as a cure for the wounds of
poisonous weapons, 311, 312;
also for the same purpose by other nations, 312, 313;
the patient’s own urine an antidote for, 320, 322;
the bites of venomous animals, mad dogs, and snakes, cured by human
ordure, 312;
and by urine, 414;
but there was no “Cure by Transplantation” for poison, 412.
“Potable Gold,” 303, 305.
See Transmutation of Metals, 183.
Pregnancy. See Parturition.
Presents, those received from the devil always turned into filth, 401.
Priests, 10, 11, 12, 15, 19, 20, 25, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37,
38, 60, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 89, 109, 110, 115, 116, 128,
129, 135, 156;
the water in which they defecated, drunk by pious Irish kings, 58;
the Chinese priests have mushrooms as part of their diet, 81;
the chief priest of the Romans was called the greatest bridge
builder, 169, 170, 171;
priests tattooed the young men, 185, 186;
the priests of Jupiter Ammon made sal ammoniac, 195;
Hottentot priests sprinkled their urine upon wedding guests, young
warriors, and mourners, 229;
priests were the earthly representatives of their deities, 322, 362;
the skulls of Buddhist priests used in divination, 359.
Prostitution, sacred prostitution, 101, 103, 168, 404, 405, 406, 407;
a toll of flatulence exacted of prostitutes crossing bridge of
Montluc in France, 168, 169;
in the South Sea Islands, 135;
in Paris, 337;
prostitutes in Rome offered expiations of catamenia, 350;
the prostitutes of Amsterdam believed that horse-dung brought them
luck, 405;
the prostitutes of Babylon, 404, 405, 406;
of Patagonia, 407.
Purification. See Lustration, Mortuary Ceremonies, Aspersion, Holy
Water.
Queen of Madagascar asperses her subjects with the water in which she
has bathed, 60.
Rain, the urine of the gods, 270.
Rainbow, 180, 267, 442;
regarded generally by the savage mind as a panacea, 442,
and by the Africans as a serpent, 267.
Rattles, 6, 437;
sometimes consulted as oracles, 437;
and adored as a god, 437.
Raven talked to its own excrement, 270.
Reverence, Sir Reverence, 170, 247, 253.
Ring, urination through the wedding ring baffled witchcraft, 230, 231;
rings were formerly exchanged by bridal couple, 230.
See Amulets and Talismans, Courtship and Marriage, Circle.
Ritual of the Feast of the Ass, 15;
of the Lamas for making mani pills, 49, 50, 51;
of the Moslems for urinating, 141;
of bridge-builders in the Middle Ages, 169, 170, 171;
of Bel-Phegor, 173,—see under Bel-Phegor;
see also Kissing the Post of Billingsgate;
of the Manicheans and Albigenses, 220.
Ritualistic cannibalism, 64, 155;
among Hebrews, 155.
Roman Catholic Church, councils interdict the use of ordure and urine
in witchcraft, 216, 394;
also interdict love-philters, 220, 221;
used rue in exorcism, 225.
Rosemary, 399.
Rue, 225;
called “Herb of Grace,” 225;
an urino-genital irritant, 225;
used to asperse congregations, 225, 245;
died if touched by a menstruating woman, 350;
used in the manufacture of anti-philters, 225.
See Tree and Plant Worship.
Sacred intoxication, 381.
Sacrifice,—see also Oblations, Votive Offerings, see Human Sacrifice,
see Substitutive Sacrifice, Abstinence;
Chinese priests abstain from garlic while offering sacrifice, 95;
garlic was offered in sacrifice by Greeks and Egyptians, 95;
cow dung and urine in sacrifice in India and Thibet, 112, 113, 114,
115, 116, 117;
ashes of cow dung used by the Hindus and Hebrews, 113, 114;
of ordure placed on the altars of the Assyrian Venus, 129, 130;
ditto of Mexican dung gods, 131;
of ordure and urine on the altars of Bel-Phegor, 132, 133;
sacrifices of ear-wax, saliva, mucus, tears, 132, 133.
See Ceremonial Observances.
Sagard, Père, 234; Histoire du Canada, edition of Paris, 1885.
Sakya-Muni. See Buddha.
Salagram. See Lingam.
Sal Ammoniac. See Industries.
Saliva, 202, 417,—see also Spitting;
as an oblation to Bel-peor, 132, 133;
in medicine,—see Therapeutics;
see “Cures by Transplantation.”
Salt, urine employed as a substitute for, 118, 199, 204;
and in the manufacture of, 193;
salt and water as a substitute for urine, 211;
in witchcraft, 379, 403,—see Witchcraft;
not generally eaten by witches, 402;
used by the Irish to drive away witches, 404.
Saltpetre. See Industries.
Samoan Islands, filthy names given to children, as a matter of
religion, 59.
Santa Claus, his derivation from polar countries, 209.
Saturnalia. See Bacchanalia, Huli.
Scatomancy, or Divination by Excrement. See Divination.
Scatophagi (excrement eaters). See Excrement.
Scybalaophagi. See Scatophagi, Excrement.
Sectarial Marks of the Hindus. See Tattooing.
Secundines, an anti-philter, 226-235.
See After-Birth.
Semen in love-philters, 217, 219,—see Philters;
in medicine, see Therapeutics;
in witchcraft, see Witchcraft.
_Semen lini_, 297.
Shamrock. See Druids.
Shampooing. See Hair.
Signatures, Doctrine of. See Cures by Transplantation.
Silence, in ceremonial observances, 414, 442;
in gathering medicinal plants, 442.
Skin, 292.
Skin, Human, in Therapeutics. See Therapeutics.
Skull, human, in medicine.—see Therapeutics;
a remedy for witchcraft; moss growing on skull; in medicine; in the
religious ceremonies of the Lamas, 359.
Smoking, buffalo dung smoked, 182, 214;
hen dung smoked in adulterated opium, 182;
the excrement of the Grand Lama used as snuff, 214;
pig dung used as snuff, 214;
the people of Achaia smoked cow dung, 214.
See also Incense.
Smudges. See also Fuel.
Snake, 33;
as food, 33;
snake dances, 27.
Snuff, the excrement of the Grand Lama made into snuff, 214;
pig dung used as, 214, 329;
powdered skulls used as, 252;
moss growing on skull used as, 360.
See Smoking, Tobacco, Excrement, Grand Lama.
Soap, antedated by urine, 140, 202, 203.
Sorcery. See Witchcraft, Enchantment.
Spatalomancy, divination by Skin, Bones and Excrement. See
Divination, Scatomancy.
Spells. See Magic.
Stercoraceous chair of the Popes, 213.
“Stercoranistes,” or “Stercorarians,” a sect charged with believing
that the sacred elements in the Eucharist were subject to
digestion, 54, 55, 56.
“Stercoraire,—Chaise des Papes,” 213.
Stercus, Sterculius, Stercutus, Sterquilinus. See Dung Gods.
Sterility, 226, 236.
Sterility. See Therapeutics.
Substitutive sacrifice, Ezekiel substitutes cow dung for human ordure
in his food, 119, 120, 121;
the cow, a substitute for human sacrifice, 122;
ox, buffalo, and goat, ditto, 123, 124, 125, 126;
cock and chamois, ditto, 171;
wolf or goat, ditto, 171;
chicken, ditto, 252.
See Survivals.
Sulphur, “Occidental Sulphur,” a name for human ordure when
administered in medicine, 424.
Sun Dance, 27.
Superstition. See Survivals, Religion.
Survivals, burlesque survivals, 306, 307, 308, 432, 433, 434, 435,
436, 437.
See Substitutive Sacrifice.
Sweat-Bath. See Purification, Lustration.
Sympathetic Cures. See Cures by Transplantation, Color Symbolism,
Doctrine of Signatures.
Sympathies, the Doctrine of. See Color Symbolism, Cures by
Transplantation; Similia Similibus.
“Szombatiaks,” of Transylvania, 18, 19.
Tallow, Human, in medicine. See Therapeutics.
Tanning. See Industries.
Tartar, the impurities from human teeth, used in medicine. See
Therapeutics.
Tattooing, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190;
in Australia, 187;
among American Indians, 185, 186;
among Burmese, 186;
the sectarial marks of the Hindus, 186;
“Tattooed Face,” a god of the Mandans, 186;
tattooing of captives, 186.
Teeth,—see Dentrifice;
in medicine, 255,—see Therapeutics;
to frustrate witchcraft, 281,—see Witchcraft.
Tenacity of Ceremonial. See Survivals.
Tenures of land, 165, 166, 167;
obscene tenures in England, 165, 166, 167;
“Ancient” Blount, 165, 166, 167;
of land by flatulence, in England, 165, 166, 167;
the antiquity of these tenures, 167.
Testes, testicles, 230;
of bridegroom anointed with “Zibethum,” 230.
See, also, Eunuchs.
Testicles, 225, 230;
of goat and fox, used as aphrodisiacs, 225;
of bridegroom anointed, 230.
Therapeutic Hagiology, 157, 158, 159, 160, 423, 445, 446.
Therapeutics, 277 to 343 inclusive;
344 to 365 inclusive.—see Parturition, Courtship and Marriage,
Sterility, Virility, Ligatures, Amulets and Talismans, Cosmetics,
Witchcraft, etc.;
the Heathen theory of therapeutics, 423.
Thibetan doctors churn the patient’s urine before making a diagnosis
of disease, 273.
Toasts, urine drunk in, 229, 238.
Tobacco, cured by hanging in privies, 181;
mixed with buffalo or rhinoceros dung for smoking, 214;
used by the Irish to drive away fairies, 403.
Tolls, on bridges, roads, etc., 166, 167, 168, 169;
of flatulence, exacted from prostitutes, 166, 167, 168, 169.
“Torngarsuk,” an Eskimo god, could be killed by flatulence, 157.
Totem. See Clan, Tattooing.
“Transplantation, Cures by,” 378 to 427 inclusive, 439, 441, 442,
443, 444, 457, 458, 460.
See Animal Worship, Tree and Plant Worship.
Tree and plant worship, 427,—see Rue;
Mistletoe, 56, 57;
Aconite, 150;
Dandelion, 150;
Mushroom, 56.
See Oak.
Urinals. See Latrines.
Urination in bed, charm to prevent, 375.
Urination, posture in, 141, 151, 152;
Mahometans, 141;
Apaches, men and women, 151;
ancient Irish, 152;
Italians, 152;
Chinese, 152;
Greeks, Romans, etc., 375.
See Ceremonial Observances.
Urine, 236, 239, 240, 241;
used as a stimulant in South America, Malacca, Bavaria, and Central
Africa, 332, 333;
given to new-born babes in England, 239, 240, 241;
urine drinking, 239, 240, 241;
poured upon the head of a woman in labor by Eskimo, 236.
Urine of medicine men sprinkled upon Hottentot bride and groom, 59,
228, 229;
the Queen of Madagascar sprinkled her subjects with the water in
which she had bathed, 60;
a similar custom at Russian weddings, 231;
a remedy for witchcraft, 216,—see Witchcraft;
in conjunction with the lizard is an antiphrodisiac, 224,—see
Ligature, Virility, Wedding, Wedding Ring;
the Eskimo boy who aspires to become a medicine man must accustom
himself to the smell of urine from boyhood, 239;
urine in sacrifice,—see Sacrifice, Lustration, Aspersions,
Oblations, War Customs, Divination;
urine in cosmetics,—see Cosmetics;
urine in witchcraft,—see Witchcraft, Initiation;
urine in bread-making, 32, 39;
urine in industries,—see Agriculture, Industries, Tanning,
Bleaching, Dyeing;
urine as a dentrifrice, 203, 204, 205;
urine in medicine,—see Therapeutics;
in love-philters,—see Love-Philters;
“urine-casting,” 396;
urine as a beverage, 6, 7, 8, 9, 22, 30, 36, 38, 39, 40, 58, 65,
66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 86, 87;
probably used as such by the fairies, 86, 87, 88, 112, 113, 114,
115, 116, 117, 118;
also by Hindu and Hebrew fanatics, 119, 120, 126;
was drunk to ease the pains of pregnancy, 233;
English women in labor drank their husband’s urine, 234;
this seems to have been a very ancient practice, 235, 236;
urine in such cases among the Eskimo, 236;
Parsis drink bull’s urine at Confirmation, 238;
children, at birth, forced to drink urine, 239, 240;
water in which babe has just been bathed drunk by Indians of
California, midwives, 239;
the Ponca Indians made an Omaha calumet-bearer drink urine, 257;
urine in “cures by transplantation,”—see “Cures by
Transplantation,” Lingam;
the urine of the Grand Lama of Thibet mixed in food, 44.
See Insults, Myths, Tolls.
Urine formerly thrown out of windows in Paris, Bordeaux, Madrid,
Edinburgh, and many other cities of Europe, 136, 137, 138;
urine dances, 6, 7, 8, 9, 22, 30, 65, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73,
74, 75, 76, 87.
See also under Feast of Fools.
Urinoscopy, 272, 273, 274, 331, 385, 386, 415;
complicated with divination, (_q. v._) 272, 273, 274;
seems to have prevailed in all parts of the world, 272, 273, 274;
among the Romans, 272, 273;
Arabians, 272, 273;
in England, 272, 273, 274;
in Germany, 272, 273, 274;
France, 272, 273, 274;
among the Greeks, 272, 273, 274.
Virgil calls mistletoe the “Branch of Gold,” 72, 78.
Vitriol. See Cures by Transplantation.
Vodka. See Intoxicants.
Voudooism. See Witchcraft.
Waltz, 401.
War customs, 237, 242, 243, 256;
captive girls tattooed by the Mojaves, 130;
young Hottentot warriors emasculated, 238;
human ordure an antidote for poisoned weapons, 312, 323;
the custom of drinking from human skulls, 359.
See Sacrifice.
“Water, Alchymical,” made of urine, 183.
“Water, Bitter,” of the Hebrews, 255.
“Water, Celestial,” 394, 398.
“Water, Fore-spoken,” 398, 399.
“Water, Lustral,” 240, 400.
“Water of All Flowers,” 366, 367.
See Millefleurs.
“Water of Dung,” 199.
See Excrement.
“Water of Juniper,” 398, 399.
“Water of Immortality,” made of mistletoe, 108.
Water worship,—see Holy Water, Lustration;
water used ceremonially by Moslems for ablutions after evacuation,
141, 142, 143;
by the Romans,—see Latrines;
negresses of Guinea, pregnant for the first time, must bathe in the
sea, 210, 211;
water in which a baby had been bathed for the first time, was drunk
by the California Indian midwives, 239;
“yellow water” of the Feast of Holica, 432, 433, 434.
See also Religion.
Weaning of children in Guinea, 211, 236.
Weddings,—see Courtship and Marriage, 48;
Ur-orgies at Korak weddings, 65, 66, 67;
urine drunk at the weddings of the Tchuktchi, in Siberia, 228;
urine of the bride sprinkled upon guests at Moorish weddings, 228;
water in which the Russian bride has bathed, ditto, 231;
wine drunk at weddings may have superseded urine of the bride, in
England, Ireland, etc., 228;
wine glasses broken at Jewish weddings, 228;
the urine of the medicine men was sprinkled upon the wedded couple
among Hottentots, 228, 229;
urination through the wedding ring baffled witches, 230, 231.
Wells, Holy. See Water Worship.
Whale dung, amber believed to be, 271;
ambergris, ditto, 271.
Wine, that used by fairies seems to have been urine, 87;
possibly superseded urine at weddings, 229;
wine-glasses broken at Hebrew weddings, 229, 230;
in witchcraft, 398;
in “cures by transplantation,”—see Cures by Transplantation;
see under Lingam, 429, 430, 431;
“Priapic Wine,” 429.
Witchcraft, 146, 200, 373 to 434 inclusive.
Lapland witches used poisonous fungi, 81, 86,—see Fairies, “Fairy
Butter;”
garlic used by the Scandinavians to frustrate witches, 95;
and also by the Irish, 95;
mistletoe used for the same purpose, 107, 108;
witches could not hurt those who wore mistletoe or carried knives
with handles made of it, 108, 109;
sacred powder frustrates witchcraft, 116;
witchcraft in connection with the building of the bridge of
Respoden, 116;
Laps believe in the potency of human ordure and urine in, 184.
See Cures by Transplantation, Concluding Remarks, Amulets and
Talismans.
Wysoccan, the “Mad Potion,” 243.
Zoölatry. See Animal Worship.
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