aime et mange la merde: il est merdivore, comme écrit le traducteur
latin; Prave dieu, comme Sganarelle, qui a dit ce mot sacramentel et
profond,—‘La matière est-elle louable?’ Il trouve dans les excréments
le secret des souffrances humaines. Son trépied prophétique et médical,
c’est une chaise percée.—(Idem, p. 66.)
“Sterculius. (Myth.) surnom donné à Saturne, parcequ’il fut le
premier qui apprit aux hommes à fumer les terres pour les rendre
fertiles.”—(“Encyc. Raisonnée des Sciences,” etc., Neufchatel, 1765, tome
quinzième, art. “Sterculius.”)
The Romans “had a god of ordure named Stercutius; one for
other conveniences, Crepitus; a goddess for the common sewers,
Cloacina.”—(Banier, “Mythology,” vol. i. p. 199.)
“Sterculius was one of the surnames given to Saturn because he was the
first that had laid dung upon lands to make them fertile.”—(Idem, vol.
ii. p. 540.)
THE ASSYRIAN VENUS HAD OFFERINGS OF DUNG PLACED UPON HER ALTARS.
Another authority states that “the zealous adorers of Siva rub the
forehead, breast, and shoulders with ashes of cow-dung,” and, further,
he adds: “It is very remarkable that the Assyrian Venus, according to
Lucian, had also offerings of dung placed upon her altars.”—(Maurice,
“Indian Antiquities,” London, 1800, vol. i. pp. 172, 173.)[46]
THE MEXICAN GODDESS SUCHIQUECAL EATS ORDURE.
The Mexicans had a goddess, of whom we read the following:—Father
Fabreya says, in his commentary on the Codex Borgianus, that the mother
of the human race is there represented in a state of humiliation,
eating _cuitlatl_ (_kopros_, Greek). The vessel in the left hand of
Suchiquecal contains “_mierda_,” according to the interpreter of these
paintings.—(See note to p. 120, Kingsborough’s “Mexican Antiquities,”
vol. iv.)
The Spanish _mierda_, like the Greek _kopros_, means _ordure_.
Besides Suchiquecal, the mother of the gods, who has been represented
as eating excrement in token of humiliation, the Mexicans had other
deities whose functions were more or less clearly complicated with
alvine dejections. The most prominent of these was Ixcuina called, also,
Tlaçolteotl, of whom Brasseur de Bourbourg speaks in these terms: The
goddess of ordure, or Tlaçolquani, the _eater of ordure_, because she
presided over loves and carnal pleasures.[47]
Mendieta mentions her as masculine, and in these terms: The god of vices
and dirtinesses, whom they called Tlazulteotl.[48]
Bancroft speaks of “the Mexican goddess of carnal love, called
Tlazoltecotl, Ixcuina, Tlacloquani,” etc., and says that she “had in
her service a crowd of dwarfs, buffoons, and hunchbacks, who diverted
her with their songs and dances and acted as messengers to such gods
as she took a fancy to. The last name of this goddess means “eater of
filthy things,” referring, it is said, to her function of hearing and
pardoning the confessions of men and women guilty of unclean and carnal
crimes.—(Bancroft, H. H. “Native Races of the Pacific Slope,” vol. iii.
p. 380.)
In the manuscript explaining the Codex Telleriano, given in
Kingsborough’s “Mexican Antiquities,” vol. v. p. 131, occurs the name
of the goddess Ochpaniztli, whose feast fell on the 12th of September
of our calendar. She was described as “the one who sinned by eating the
fruit of the tree.” The Spanish monks styled her, as well as another
goddess, Tlaçolteotl,—“La diosa de basura ó pecado.” But “basura” is
not the alternative of sin (pecado); it means “dung, manure, ordure,
excrement.”[49] It is possible that, in their zeal to discover analogies
between the Aztec and Christian religions, the early missionaries passed
over a number of points now left to conjecture.
In the same volume of Kingsborough, p. 136, there is an allusion to the
offerings or sacrifices made Tepeololtec, “que, en romance, quiere decir
sacrificios de mierda,” which, “in plain language, signifies sacrifices
of excrement.” Nothing further can be adduced upon the subject, although
a note at the foot of this page, in Kingsborough, says that here several
pages of the Codex Talleriano had been obliterated or mutilated, probably
by some over-zealous expurgator.
Deities, created in the ignorance or superstitious fears of devotees,
are essentially man-like in their attributes; where they are depicted
as cruel and sanguinary toward their enemies, the nation adoring them,
no matter how pacific to-day, was once cruel and sanguinary likewise.
Anthropophagous gods are worshipped only by the descendants of
cannibals, and excrement-eaters only by the progeny of those who were not
unacquainted with human ordure as an article of food.
ISRAELITISH DUNG GODS.
Dulaure quotes from a number of authorities to show that the Israelites
and Moabites had the same ridiculous and disgusting ceremonial in their
worship of Bel-phegor. The devotee presented his naked posterior before
the altar and relieved his entrails, making an offering to the idol of
the foul emanations.[50] Dung gods are also mentioned as having been
known to the chosen people during the time of their idolatry.[51]
Mr. John Frazer, LL.D., describing the ceremony of initiation, known
to the Australians as the “Bora,” and which he defines to be “certain
ceremonies of initiation through which a youth passes when he reaches
the age of puberty to qualify him for a place among the men of the
tribe and for the privileges of manhood. By these ceremonies he is made
acquainted with his father’s gods, the mythical lore of the tribe
and the duties required of him as a man.... The whole is under the
tutelage of a high spirit called ‘Dharamoolun.’ ... But, present at
these ceremonies, although having no share in them, is an evil spirit
called ‘Gunungdhukhya,’ ‘eater of excrement,’ whom the blacks greatly
dread.” Compare this word “Gunungdhukhya,” with the Sanskrit root-word
“Gu,” “excrement;” “Dhuk” is the Australian “to eat.”—(Personal letter
from John Frazer, Esq., LL.D., dated Sydney, New South Wales, Dec.
24, 1889. Continuing his remarks upon the subject of the evil spirit
“Gunungdhukhya,” he says: “This being is certainly supposed to eat
ordure; and such is the meaning of his name.”)
King James gravely informs us that “Witches ofttimes confesse that in
their worship of the Devil.... Their form of adoration to be the kissing
of his hinder parts.”—(“Dæmonologie,” London, 1616, p. 113.) This book
appeared with a commendatory preface from Hinton, one of the bishops of
the English Church.
“Witches paid homage to the devil who was present, usually in the form of
a goat, dog, or ape. To him they offered themselves, body and soul, and
kissed him under the tail, holding a lighted candle.”—(“History of the
Inquisition,” Henry C. Lea, New York, 1888, vol. iii., p. 500.)
Knowing of the existence of “dung gods” among Romans, Egyptians, Hebrews,
and Moabites, it is not unreasonable to insist, in the present case, upon
a rigid adherence to the text, and to assert that, where it speaks of a
sacrifice as a sacrifice of excrement and designates a deity as an eater
of excrement, it means what it says, and should not be distorted, under
the plea of symbolism, into a perversion of facts and ideas.
Some writers made out the name of the god “Belzebul” to be identical
with “Beelzebub,” and to mean “Lord of Dung,” but this interpretation is
disputed by Schaff-Herzog.—(“Encyclopædia of Religious Knowledge,” New
York, article “Beelzebub.”)
XX.
LATRINES.
The mention of the Roman goddess Cloacina suggests an inquiry into the
general history of latrines and urinals. Their introduction cannot
be ascribed to purely hygienic considerations, since many nations of
comparatively high development have managed to get along without them;
while, on the other hand, tribes in low stages of culture have resorted
to them.
In the chapter treating upon witchcraft and incantation enough testimony
has been accumulated to convince the most sceptical that the belief was
once widely diffused of the power possessed by sorcerers, _et id omne
genus_, over the unfortunate wretches whose excreta, solid or liquid,
fell into their hands; terror may, therefore, have been the impelling
motive for scattering, secreting, or preserving in suitable receptacles
the alvine dejections of a community. Afterwards, as experience taught
men that in these egestæ were valuable fertilizers for the fields and
vineyards, or fluids for bleaching and tanning, the political authorities
made their preservation a matter of legal obligation.
The Trojans defecated in the full light of day, if we can credit the
statement made to that effect in the “Bibliotheca Scatalogica,” p. 8, in
which it is shown that a French author (name not given) wrote a facetious
but erudite treatise upon this subject.
Captain Cook tells us that the New Zealanders had privies to every three
or four of their houses; he also takes occasion to say that there were
no privies in Madrid until 1760; that the determination of the king
to introduce them and sewers, and to prohibit the throwing of human
ordure out of windows after nightfall, as had been the custom, nearly
precipitated a revolution.—(See in Hawkesworth’s “Voyages,” London, 1773,
vol. ii. p. 314.)
“These were more cleanly than most savages about excrements. Every house
had a concealed (if possible) privy near, and in large ‘Pas’ a pole was
run out over the cliff to sit on sailor-fashion.”—(“The Maoris of New
Zealand,” E. Tregear, in “Journal of the Anthropological Institute,”
London, November, 1889.)
Marquesas Islands. “They are peculiarly cleanly in regard to the egestæ.
At the Society Islands the wanderer’s eyes and nose are offended every
morning in the midst of a path with the natural effects of a sound
digestion; but the natives of the Marquesas are accustomed, after
the manner of our cats, to bury the offensive objects in the earth.
At Taheite, indeed, they depend on the friendly assistance of rats,
who greedily devour these odoriferous dainties; nay, they seem to be
convinced that their custom is the most proper in the world; for their
witty countryman, Tupaya, found fault with our want of delicacy when he
saw a small building appropriated to the rites of Cloacina, in every
house at Batavia.”—(Forster, “Voyage round the World,” London, 1777, vol.
ii. p. 28.)
Forster speaks of the traffic between the English sailors and the women
of Tahiti, in which the latter parted with their personal favors in
return for red feathers and fresh pork; in consequence of a too free
indulgence in this heavy food, the ladies suffered from indigestion.
“The goodness of their appetites and digestion, exposed them, however,
to inconveniences of restlessness, and often disturbed those who wished
to sleep after the fatigues of the day. On certain urgent occasions
they always required the attendance of their lovers; but, as they were
frequently refused, the decks were made to resemble the paths in the
islands.”—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 83.)
In ancient Rome there were public latrines, but no privies attached to
houses. There were basins and tubs, which were emptied daily by servants
detailed for the purpose. No closet-paper was in use, as may be imagined,
none having yet been invented or introduced in Europe, but in each public
latrine, there was a bucket filled with salt water, and a stick having a
sponge tied to one end, with which the passer-by cleansed his person, and
then replaced the stick in the tub.[52] Seneca, in his Epistle No. 70,
describes the suicide of a German slave who rammed one of these sticks
down his throat.
The warning “Commit no nuisance,” or in French “Il est défendu de faire
ici des ordures,” is traceable back to the time of the Romans, who
devoted to the wrath of the twelve great gods, “and of Jupiter and Diana
as well, all who did any indecency in the neighborhood of the temples or
monuments.” “On nous saura gré de rapporter ici une inscription qui se
lisait autrefois sur les thermes de Titus; ‘Duodecim Dios et Dianam et
Jovem Optimum Maximum habeat iratos quisquis hic minxerit aut cacarit.’”
In Genoa, excommunication was threatened against all who infringed upon
this same prohibition.
Privies were ordered for each house in Paris in 1513, whence we may
infer that some house-builders had previously of their own impulse added
such conveniences; as early as 1372, and again in 1395, there were royal
ordinances forbidding the throwing of ordures out of the windows in
Paris, which gives us the right to conclude that the custom must have
been general and offensive; the same dispositions were taken for the city
of Bordeaux in 1585.
Obscene poetry was known in latrines in Rome as in our own day, and some
of the compositions have come down to us.—(See “Bibliotheca Scatalogica,”
pp. 13-17.)
The Romans protected their walls “against such as commit nuisances ...
by consecrating the walls so exposed with the picture of a deity or some
other hallowed emblem, and by denouncing the wrath of heaven against
those who should be impious enough to pollute what it was their duty to
reverence. The figure of a snake, it appears, was sometimes employed for
this purpose.... The snake, it is well known, was reckoned among the gods
of the heathens.”—(“Vestiges of Ancient Manners and Customs,” Rev. John
James Blunt, London, 1823, p. 43.)
Herodotus informs his readers that the Egyptians “ease themselves in
their houses, but eat out of doors, alleging that whatever is indecent,
though necessary, ought to be done in private, but what is not indecent
openly.”—(“Euterpe,” p. 35.)
Herodotus also speaks of the Egyptian king Amasis having made an idol
out of a gold foot-pan, “in which the Egyptians formerly vomited,
made water, and washed their feet” (“Euterpe”). Minutius Felix, in his
“Octavius,” refers to this, and takes umbrage that heathen idols made of
such foul materials should be adored (see his chapter xxv.).
Tournefort mentions latrines in Marseilles. “They make advantage of the
very excrements of the Gally-Slaves by placing at one end of the Gallies
proper vessels for receiving a manure so necessary to the country.”—(“A
Voyage to the Levant,” edition of London, 1718, vol. i. pp. 13-14.)
There must have been latrines in Scotland, because James I. of that
kingdom was killed in one in the Monastery of the Black Friars, in Perth,
in A.D. 1437; yet for many years later pedestrians in the streets of
Edinburgh, after night-fall, took their own risks of the filthy deluge
which house-maids were wont to pour down from the windows of the lofty
houses.
“As in modern Edinburgh so in ancient Rome, night was the time observed
by the careful housekeeper for throwing her slops from the upper windows
into the open drain that ran through the street beneath.”—(Footnote to
page 146 of Edward Walford’s (M.A. of Baliol, Oxford) ed. of Juvenal, in
“Ancient Classics for English Readers,” Philadelphia, 1872, quoting from
Juvenal the line, “Clattering the storm descends from heights unknown,”
Satire III., line 274.)
“’Tis want of sense to sup abroad too late
Unless thou first hast settled thy estate;
As many fates attend thy steps to meet
As there are waking windows in the street:
Bless the good gods and think thy chance is rare
To have a piss-pot only for thy share.”
(Dryden’s translation of the Third Satire of Juvenal.)
“And behold, there is nurra goaks in the whole kingdom (Scotland), nor
anything for pore servants, but a barrel with a pair of tongs thrown
across, and all the chairs of the family are emptied into this here
barrel once a day; and at ten o’clock at night the whole cargo is
flung out of a back windere that looks into some street or lane, and
the maid calls, ‘Gardy loo!’ to the passengers, which signifies, ‘Lord
have mercy upon you!’ and this is done every night in every house in
Hadinborough.”—(“Humphrey Clinker,” Tobias Smollett, edition of London,
1872, p. 542.)
The above seems to have been a French expression,—“Gare de l’eau.”
“The cry of all the South was that the public offices, the army,
the navy, were filled with high-cheeked Drummonds and Erskines and
McGillvrays.... All the old jokes on hills without trees, girls without
stockings, men eating the food of horses, pails emptied from the
fourteenth story, were pointed against these lucky adventurers.”—(T. B.
Macaulay, “The Earl of Chatham,” American edition, Appleton and Co., New
York, 1874, p. 720.)
The addition of privies to the homes of the gentry would appear to have
been an innovation in the time of Queen Elizabeth, else there would not
have been so much comment made upon the action of Sir John Harington,
her distant cousin, who erected one as a fitting convenience to his
new house, near Bath, and published a very Rabelaisian volume upon the
subject in London in 1596. The title of the book, being quite long,—“A
Discourse on a Stale Subject, called the Metamorphosis of Ajax,”—will
in subsequent citations be given simply as Harington’s “Ajax.” From the
description of the latrine in question there is no doubt that Harington
anticipated nearly all the mechanism of modern days.
Richard III. is represented as having been seated in a latrine, “sitting
on a draught,” when he was “devising with Terril how to have his nephews
privily murdered.”—(Harington, “Ajax,” p. 46.)
There is little reason to doubt that all houses in England, and all
Continental Europe as well, were provided with receptacles for urine
in the bed-chambers, even if no regular latrines existed outside of
the monasteries and other community-houses. Dr. Robert Fletcher, U. S.
Army, who has contributed the following, is of the opinion that these
conveniences were provided for ladies only, and submits the following
passages in support of his conclusions:—
“Hamjo, in the ‘Wanderer,’ part 2, by Sir Thomas Killigrew, describing to
Senilia the probable manners of a rude husband, says that, on retiring
to bed, ‘the gyant stretches himself, yawns, and sighs a belch or two,
stales in your pot, farts as loud as a musket for a jest,’” etc.
In Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakspeare” is a curious print of a bishop
blessing a newly married pair in the bridal bed; on the lady’s side a
chamber-pot is ostentatiously displayed.
Douce quotes the following from a rare “Morality,” entitled, “Le
Condemnation des Banquets:” “Pause pour pisser le fol. Il prengt un
coffinet en lieu de orinal et pisse dedans et tout coule par bas.”
Hobbs, the Tanner of Tamworth, introduced by Heywood in his play of
“King Edward the Fourth,” the hero of the old ballad, furnished his
rooms with urinals suited to his trade. He says to his guests, the King
and Sellinger: “Come, take away, and let’s to bed. Ye shall have clean
sheets, Ned; but they be coarse, good strong hemp, of my daughter’s own
spinning. And I tell thee your chamber-pot must be a fair horn, a badge
of our occupation; for we buy no bending pewter nor breaking earth.”—(“1
King Edward the Fourth,” iii. 2, Heywood, 1600.)
Additional references of the same tenor are to be found in the
“Pilgrims,” Beaumont and Fletcher, ii. 1: “The Scourge of Villanie,”
Marston, 1599, satire 2; and in the following, which does not accord with
Dr. Fletcher’s opinion that such utensils were provided solely for the
female members of the household.
“_Host._ Hostlers, you knaves and commanders, take the horses of
the knights and competitors; your honorable hulks have put into
harbor; they’ll take in fresh water here, and I have provided clean
chamber-pots.”—(“The Merry Devil of Edmonton,” 1608.)
Such vessels were in use in Ireland, where they were called “omar-fuail,”
from _omar_, a vessel, and _fuail_, urine. They must have been employed
from the earliest centuries. “And they (the Sybarites) were the
first people who introduced the custom of bringing chamber-pots into
entertainments” (Athenaus, book xii. cap. 17).
It is not easy to detect any essential difference between the manners of
the people of Iceland, as described by Bleekmans on another page, and
those of the more polished Romans.
Bed-pans were used in France in the earliest days of the fifteenth
century. They are noted in “The Farce of Master Pathelin” (A.D.
1480).—(See “Le Moyen Age Médical,” Dupouy, Paris, 1888, p. 280 _et
seq._, and the translation of the same by Minor, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1890,
p. 82.)
“Maids need no more their silver pisse-pots scour,
...
Presumptuous pisse-pot, how did’st thou offend?
Compelling females on their hams to bend?
To kings and queens we humbly bend the knee,
But queens themselves are forced to stoop to thee.”
(“On Melting down the Plate, or the Piss-Pot’s Farewell,”
State Poems, vol. i. part 2, p. 215, A.D. 1697.)
“What need hath Nature of silver dishes or gold chamber-pots?”
(“The Staple of News,” Ben Jonson, iii. 2; London, 1628.)
“In the ‘Chronicle of London,’ written in the fifteenth century, a
curious anecdote is related, to the effect that in A.D. 1258-60, a Jew,
on Saturday, fell into a ‘privy’ at Tewksbury, but out of reverence for
his Sabbath, would not allow himself to be drawn out. The next day being
Sunday, the Earl of Gloucester would not let any one draw him out;”
and so, says the Chronicle, “the Jew died in the privy.”—(“A Chronicle
of London from 1089 to 1483,” London, 1827, p. 20, quoted by Buckle in
“Commonplace Book,” p. 507, in vol. ii. of his Works, London, 1872.)
“Heliogabalus’ body was thrown into a jakes, as writeth
Suetonius.”—(Harington’s “Ajax,” p. 46.)
Heliogabalus was killed in one (latrine); Arius, the great heresiarch,
and Pope Leo, his antagonist, had the same fate. Charles the Fifth,
Emperor of Germany and Spain, was born in one in the palace of Ghent, of
Jeanne of Aragon, in 1500; hence, they must have been introduced in the
localities named.—(See Biblioth. Scatal. p. 17.)
“Urinary reservoirs were erected in the streets of Rome, either for the
purpose of public cleanliness, or for the use of the fullers, who were
accustomed to purchase their contents of the Roman government during
the reign of Vespasian, and perhaps other emperors, at a certain annual
impost, and which, prior to the invention or general use of soap, was the
substance employed principally in their mills for cleansing cloths and
stuffs previous to their being dyed.”—(John Mason Good, translation of
Lucretius’ “De Natura Rerum,” London, 1805, vol. ii. p. 154, footnote.)
“Vases, called Gastra, for the relief of passengers, were placed by the
Romans upon the edges of roads and streets.”—(Fosbroke, “Encyc. of Ant.,”
London, vol. i. p. 526, article “Urine.”)
“Les Chinois semblent manquer d’engrais, car on trouve de tous côtés des
lieux d’aisance pour les besoins des voyageurs.”—(“Voyage à Pékin,” De
Guignes, Paris, 1808, vol. i. p. 284; and again, vol. iii. p. 322.)
“Large vases of stone-ware are sunk in the ground at convenient places
for the use of passing travellers.”—(“Chinese Repository,” Canton, 1835,
vol. iii. p. 134.)
“A traveller who lately returned from Pekin asserts that there is plenty
to smell in that city, but very little to see.... The houses are all very
low and mean, the streets are wholly unpaved, and are always very muddy
and very dusty, and as there are no sewers or cess-pools, the filthiness
of the town is indescribable.”—(“Chicago News,” copied in the “Press,”
Philadelphia, Penn., May 14, 1889.)