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]