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.)