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]