their presence no one is able to ease nature without the protection of a
club for the purpose of keeping them at a distance. As soon as he leaves,
the dogs rush to the spot, and under much snarling and snapping each
seeks to grasp the deposit.”—(Steller, translated by Bunnemeyer.)
In the Eskimo myths there is the story of the Eskimo boy, an orphan, who
was abused by being made to carry out of the hut the large urine vessel.
This would indicate a certain antiquity for the employment of these
vessels.—(See “The Central Eskimo,” Franz Boas, in “Sixth Annual Report,”
Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, D. C., 1888, p. 631.)
In the city of Bogota, Colombia, South America, the lower classes urinate
openly in the streets; in the city of Mexico, the same practice prevailed
until recently.
In “The Snake Dance of the Moquis of Arizona,” the author had something
to say touching the practice of the Moquis, Zuñis, and others of the
Pueblo tribes, of collecting urine in vessels of earthenware; this was
for the purpose of saving the fluid for use in dyeing the wool of which
their blankets and other garments were to be made. It was noticed,
however, that a particular place was assigned for such emergencies as
might arise when the ordinary receptacles might not be within reach.
Thus, in the town of Hualpi (on the eastern mesa in the northeast corner
of the Territory of Arizona), one of the corners had been in such
constant use, and for so long a time that the stream percolating down
from the wall had eroded a channel for itself in the friable sandstone
flooring, which would serve to demonstrate that the place had been so
dedicated for a very extended number of years.
Latrines of some sort would seem to have been in use among the natives
of Australia, if we are to interpret literally the expression employed
by A. Brough Smyth, which see under “Myths” in this volume. The Tonga
Islanders, in the mortuary ceremonies of their great chiefs, are stated
to have had them (see under “Mortuary Ceremonies” in this volume).
Carl Lumholtz did not observe latrines of any kind among such of the
Australians as he visited.
Among the Chinese “it is usual for the princes, and even the people,
to make water standing. Persons of dignity, as well as the vice-kings,
and the principal officers, have gilded canes, a cubit long, which are
bored through, and these they use as often as they make water, standing
upright all the time; and by this means the tube carries the water to a
good distance from them.[53] They are of opinion that all pains in the
kidneys, the strangury, and even the stone, are caused by making water in
a sitting posture; and that the reins cannot free themselves absolutely
of these humors but by standing to evacuate; and that thus this posture
contributes exceedingly to the preservation of health.”—(“The Travels of
Two Mahometans through India and China,” in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p. 215.)
The Persian “must not pray before an overhanging wall, or in a room where
there is a pot de chambre.”—(Benjamin, “Persia,” London, 1887, p. 444,
quoting from the Shahr.)
In the Hawaiian Islands, if a man’s shadow fall on a chief, the man is
put to death.—(See “The Golden Bough,” Frazer, vol. i. p. 190.)
“These natives (East Siberia) always preserve for use in their
domesticity the urine of the whole family; it is preserved in a large tub
or half-barrel, procured from the whale-ships or found in the drift that
comes upon their shores. They use the warm water from their bodies for
cleansing their bodies; the rim that gathers round the high-water mark of
their cess-pool is used for smearing their bodies to kill the vermin....
The habits of these people are beastly in the extreme.... They seemed
to have no aversion whatever to close contact with the feces of men or
animals.”—(Personal letter of Chief Engineer Melville, U. S. Navy, to
Captain Bourke.)
Van Stralenberg says of the “Koræiki” (Koraks): “For their necessary
occasions they make use of a tub, which they have with them in the hut,
and when full they carry it out, and make use of the same tub to bring
in water for other occasions.”—(“Histori-Geographical Description of the
North and East Parts of Europe and Asia,” p. 397.)
By referring to page 390 of this volume, it will be seen that the Lapps,
upon breaking camp, made it a point to burn the dung of their reindeer
in cases where any of these animals had died of disease; while it is
also related that immigrants to California from the States of Missouri
and Arkansas, for some reason not understood, had the singular custom of
burning their own excrement in the camp-fire.
“When they ease themselves, they commonly go in the morning unto the
Towne’s end, where there is a place purposely made for them, that they
may not bee seene, so also because men passing by should not be molested
with the smell thereof. They also esteeme it a bad thing that men should
ease themselves upon the ground, and therefore they make houses which are
borne up above the ground, wherein they ease themselves upon the ground,
and every time they do it they wipe; or else they goe to the water’s side
to ease themselves in the sand; and when the Priuie houses are full, they
set fire to them, and let them burn to ashes; they pisse by jobs as dogs
doe, and not all at one time.”—(Master Richard Jobson, A.D. 1620, “Gold
Coast of Africa,” in Purchas, vol. ii. p. 932.)
XXI.
AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE OF THE RITES CONNECTED WITH THE WORSHIP OF
BEL-PHEGOR.
Precisely what ceremonial observances the ritual of Bel-Phegor demanded
of the suppliant at his shrine is not likely ever to be known. It would
be worse than useless to attempt in a treatise of this kind to affirm or
deny the existence of the obscene usages alleged to have formed part of
his worship; sufficient, at this moment, to lay before reflecting minds
testimony on both sides of the question, with reasons for the belief that
flatulence could be presented as an oblation, with examples of quaint
customs which may partake of the nature of “survivals” from religious
ceremonies of a nature not far removed from those supposed to have been
associated with the rites of Bel-Phegor.
Well has an old author remarked: “Men have lost their reason in nothing
so much as their religion, wherein stones and clouts make martyrs; and
since the religion of one seems madness to another, to afford an account
or rational of old rites requires no rigid reader.”—(Sir Thomas Browne,
“Religio Medici,” edition of Boston, 1868, p. 329, article “Urn-Burial.”)
“Le Pet était une divinité des anciens Égyptiens; elle était la
personnification d’une fonction naturelle. On la figurait par un enfant
accroupi qui semble faire effort, et on peut en voir la représentation
dans les ouvrages d’antiquité. Le poême Calotin, intitulé le Conseil de
Momus (voyez aux Polygraphes) donne, contre la page 19, deux figures de
ce dieu. L’une était en cornaline de trois couleurs; l’autre en terre
cuite, se trouvait dans le cabinet du Marquis de Cospy, et la figure
en a été donnée dans le Museum Cospianum. L’auteur de la Dissertation
sur un ancien Usage (voyez le numéro 18) conteste que ces figurines se
rapportent au Crepitus, et croit qu’elles ont été inventées dans un but
plus solide.
“C’est de Minutius Felix que nous vient la reconnaissance du Crepitus,
qui, lors même qu’il aurait été célébré réellement en Égypte, n’était
peut-être qu’une caricature imaginée par les plaisants du jour. Ménage
cependant affirme que les Pélusiens adoraient le Pet; il dit que Baudelot
en a donné la preuve dans les éditions de son premier vol., et qu’il en
possédait une figure. (Voy. Menagiana, 1693, no. 397. St. Jerome dit la
même chose sur Isaie, xiii. 46. Voy. encore Klotz, act. littér. t. v.,
première partie, 1, Elmenhorst sur l’Octavius de Minutius Felix; Mythol.
de Banier, t. 1; Montfaucon, ‘l’Antiquité expliquée,’ t. iii. part 2, p.
336.)
“Quelques antiquaires ont cru pouvoir identifier le dieu Crepitus des
Romains avec Bel-Phegor, Baal-Phegor ou Baal-Peor, dieu Syrien,—Phegor,
assure-t-on, ayant ce sens en Hebreu. (Origen contra Celsus; Minutius
Felix.) Mais, sur cette dernière divinité les savants sont fort peu
d’accord.
“Origène, St. Jerome, Salomon Ben Jarchi, lui donnent une signification
qui la rendrait tout à fait indigne de figurer dans notre catalogue;
mais Maimonide (Moge Nevoch, cap. 46) et Salom. Ben Jarchi (Comment. 3,
sur Nomb. ch. 25) prétendent que son culte était plus sale que obscène,
et les traducteurs de ces rabbins pour exprimer le principal détail des
cérémonies célébrées en l’honneur du dieu de Syrie, disent: ‘Distendere
coram eo foramen podicis et stercus offere.’
“Ajoutez que les pets étaient de bon augure chez les Grecs, de mauvais
augure chez les Romains.”—(Voy. Scaliger, Auson.)
“No one now supposes that the Rabbins had anything but their imaginations
to go on in what they say about Baal-Peor; they invented the story as
a fanciful etymology of the name.”[54]—(Personal letter from Prof. W.
Robertson Smith to Captain Bourke.)
Citations have already been made from the Bibliotheca Scatalogica, a
curious collection of learning, no name and no place of publication of
which can be found, but which seems to have been printed by Giraudet et
Jouaust, 315 Rue Saint Honoré, Paris, granting that this title be not
fictitious. In that work are to be seen the titles of no less than one
hundred and thirty-three treatises upon Flatulence, some grotesque, some
coarse, one or two of quaint erudition.
No. 88, entitled “Éloge du Pet, dissertation historique, anatomique et
philosophique sur son origine, son antiquité, ses vertus, sa figure, les
honneurs qu’on lui a rendus chez les peuples anciens, etc.; avec une
figure représentant le dieu Pet, et cette inscription: Crepitui ventris
conservatori deo propitio (p. 38),” the stupendous work of Sclopetarius,
No. 111, of the Bibliotheca (Frankfort, 1628) seems to have been a
monumental labor upon a subject not generally dissected. The same remark
may be applied to “Physiologia crepitus ventris” of Rod. Goclenius,
Frankfort and Leipsic, 1607, No. 123 of the Bibliotheca.
The earliest known work upon this curious topic is “Le plaisant deuis du
Pet,” Paris, 1540.
“Origen saith the name Baal-Peor signifieth filthiness, but what
filthiness he knew not; Salomon Ben Jarchi writeth they offered to him
ordure, placing before his mouth the likeness of that place which Nature
hath made for egestion.”—(Purchas, vol. v. p. 85.)
A reference to the work of Bel-Phegor is to be found in the following
couplet from a book entitled “Conseil de Momus:”—
“La deuxième moitié du premier chant est consacrée
‘A certains vents coulis
Jadis adorés à Memphis.’”—(Bib. Scat., p. 7.)
“The antient Pelusiéns, a people of lower Egypt, did (amongst other
whimsical, chimerical objects of veneration and worship) venerate a Fart,
which they worshipped under the symbol of a swelled paunch.”—(“A View of
the Levant,” Charles Perry, M. D., sm. fol., London, 1743, p. 419.)
“Time has preserved to us a figure of this ridiculous Divinity, which
represents a very young child in the posture of that indecent action
whence this god has his name.”—(Abbé Banier, “Mythology,” English
translation, 1740, vol. ii. pp. 52 _et seq._)[55]
“Their Beetle-gods out of their privies; yea, their Privies and Farts
had their unsavorie canonization and went for Egyptian deities.... So,
Hierome derideth their dreadfull deitie, the Onion, and a stinking Fart,
Crepitus ventris inflati que Pelusiaco religio est, which they worshipped
at Pelusium.”—(Purchas, vol. v. p. 641.)
It may be well to bear in mind that the heathen idea of the power of a
god was entirely different from our own. The deities of the heathen were
restricted in their powers and functions; they were assigned to the care
of certain countries, districts, valleys, rivers, fountains, etc. Not
only that, they were capable of aiding only certain trades, professions,
etc. They were not able to cure all diseases, only particular kinds, each
god being a specialist; consequently, each was supposed to take charge of
a section of the human body. This was the case with the Greeks, Romans,
Egyptians, and others. In mediæval times the same rule obtained, only
in place of gods, we find saints assigned to these functions. Brand,
Pop. Antiq. vol. i. p. 356, _et seq._, gives a list of the saints, and
the functions ascribed to each. On page 366 of the work just cited,
it will be seen that Saint Erasmus was in charge of “the belly, with
the entrayles.” Keeping this in view, we can better understand the
peculiar ceremonies connected with the worship of Bel-Phegor; he was,
no doubt, the deity to whom the devotee resorted for the alleviation
of ailments connected with the rectum and belly, much as he would, at
a later date in the history of religion, have invoked Saint Phiacre to
relieve him “of the phy or emeroids, of those especially which grow in
the fundament.” (See in Brand, loc. cit. p. 362.) On the same principle
that the worshipper was wont to hang up in the temples of Esculapius wax
and earthen representations of the sore arms, legs, and other members
which gave him pain, the worshipper of Bel-Phegor would offer him the
sacrifice of the flatulence and excrement, testimonies of the good health
for which gratitude was due to the older deity.
“The Egyptians divided the human body into thirty-six parts, each of
which they believed to be under the particular government of one of
the decans or aerial demons who presided over the triple divisions of
the twelve signs; and we have the authority of Origen for saying that
when any part of the body was diseased, a cure was effected by invoking
the demon to whose province it belonged.”—(“Medical Superstitions,”
Pettigrew, Philadelphia, 1844, p. 47.)
The ascription of particular signs of the Zodiac to the care of different
members of the human anatomy is in line with the same religious idea;
because the signs of the Zodiac, especially the Animal signs, were once
Animal Gods.
Hone, in his “Every-Day Book,” has a therapeutical hagiology, too long to
be here repeated.
“Melton says, ‘The saints of the Romanists have usurped the place
of the Zodiacal constellations in their governance of the parts of
man’s body,’ and that ‘for every limb they have a saint.’” Thus Saint
“Erasmus rules the belly with the entrayles in the place of Libra and
Scorpius.”—(“Medical Superstitions,” Pettigrew, Philadelphia, 1844, p.
54.) Next follows a long list of saints, with the particular functions
assigned to each, beginning first with the list to be found in Hone,
which Pettigrew extends.—(“Saint Giles and Saint Hyacinth against
Sterility,” idem, pp. 55, 56.)
“In later times, according to Herodotus, a particular and minute division
of labor characterized the Egyptians; the science of medicine was
distributed into different parts; every physician was for one disease,
not more; so that every place was full of physicians, for some were
doctors for the eyes, others for the head; some for the teeth, others for
the belly; and some for occult disorders. There were also physicians for
female disorders. The sons followed the professions of their fathers, so
that their numbers must necessarily have been very great.”—(Idem, p. 44.)
As the Egyptian priests were the doctors of that country, it is perfectly
in accord with the eternal fitness of things that we should find them,
even after they had been differentiated into different professions,
restricted to the treatment of special diseases, much as the gods whom
the priests once represented had been restricted.[56]
“The art of medicine is thus divided among them (Egyptians). Each
physician applies himself to one disease only and not more. All places
abound in physicians; some physicians are for the eyes, others for the
teeth, others for the parts about the belly, and others for internal
disorders.”—(Herodotus, “Euterpe,” p. 82.)
Hone shows that every joint of the fingers was dedicated to some
saint.—(See his “Every-Day Book,” vol. ii. p. 48.)
“But, under the venerated name of Hermes, were issued books of
astronomical forecasts of diseases, setting forth the evil influence of
malignant stars upon the unborn; telling how the right eye is under the
sun, the left under the moon, the hearing under Saturn, the brain under
Jupiter, the tongue and throat under Mercury, smelling and tasting under
Venus, the parts that have blood under Mars.... The early centuries next
after the Christian era produced a rank crop of literary forgeries.”—(See
“Saxon Leechdoms,” vol. iii. pp. 11, 12.)
“The New Zealanders gave a separate deity to each part of the
body.”—(“Folk-Medicine,” Black, p. 11.)
The interview between Moses and Jehovah, where the latter refused to
allow the prophet to see the glory of his face, but made him content
himself with a view of his posterior, indicates that the sacred
writers of the earlier periods were living in an atmosphere of thought
which accepted all such ideas as those surrounding the Bel-Phegorian
ceremonials.
The Hebrews believed that Jehovah should be propitiated with sweet
savors:[57] “Offer up a sweet savor unto the Lord.” Bel-Phegor and other
deities of the gentiles, who were the gods of particular parts of the
human body, would, in all probability, be pleased with oblations coming
especially from that particular part; thus, the god of Hunting had
offerings of game; the gods of the Seas had sacrifices of fish; babies
were offered to the deities of Childbirth; therefore the gods of the
fundament should, naturally, be regaled with excrement and flatulence.
Harington calls attention to David’s prophecy in the 77th Psalm:
“Percussit inimicos suos in posteriores, opprobrium sempiternum dedit
illis.” “He smote his enemies in the hinder parts and put them to a
perpetual shame.”—(“Ajax,” p. 25.)
The absence of unity is the characteristic of all primitive forms of
religious thought; hence, the various differentiations mentioned above
occur as a matter of religious necessity.
Among the practices prohibited by the Taoist religion: “A man must not
sing and dance on the last day of the moon.... Must not weep, spit, or
be guilty of other indecency towards the North.”—(Legge, “Religions of
China,” p. 187.)
The Parsis have a curious idea suggestive of the Hebrew antagonism to the
worship of Bel-Phegor: “14. The rule is that when one retains a prayer
inwardly and wind shall come from below, or wind shall come from the
mouth, it is all one.” (Shayast la Shayast, Max Müller’s edition, Oxford,
1880, cp. x. verse 14, p. 221. A footnote explains: “Literally, ‘both are
one,’ that is, in either case the spell of the vag or prayer is broken.”)
“The Bedawi, who eructates as a matter of civility, has a mortal hatred
to a crepitus ventris; and were a by-stander to laugh at its accidental
occurrence, he would be at once cut down as a ‘pundonor.’ The same is the
custom among the Highlanders of Afghanistan. And its artificial nature
suggests direct derivation; for the two regions are separated by a host
of tribes, Persians and Beloch, who utterly ignore the pundoner and
behave like Europeans. The raids of the pre-Ishmaelitish Arabs over the
lands lying to the northeast of them are almost forgotten; still, there
are traces, and this may be one of them.”—(Burton, “Arabian Nights,” vol.
v. p. 137.)
According to Niebuhr, the voiding of wind is considered to be the
gravest indecency among the Arabs; some tribes make a perpetual butt
of the offender once guilty of such an infraction of decorum; the
Belludjages, upon the frontiers of Persia, expel the culprit from the
tribe. Yet Niebuhr himself relates that a sheik of the tribe “Montesids”
once had a contest of this kind among his henchmen, “avoit autorisé un
défi dans ce genre entre ses domestiques et couronné le vainqueur.”
(Niebuhr, “Description de l’Arabie,” Amsterdam, 1774, p. 27.) Snoring and
Flatulence would seem to have been considered equally offensive by the
Tartars. See Marco Polo’s reference to the mode of selecting wives for
the Grand Khan (in Purchas, vol. i. p. 82). He says that the Grand Khan
puts those deemed to be eligible under the care of “his Barons’ wives,”
“to see if they snore not in their sleepe, if in smell or behaviour they
bee not offensive.”
“Yet it is holden a shame with them to let a fart, at which they wondered
in the Hollanders, esteeming it a contempt.”—(“Negroes of Guinea,”
Purchas, vol. v. p. 718.)
On the Gold Coast of Africa, the negroes “are very careful not to let a
fart, if anybody be by them; they wonder at our Netherlanders that use it
so commonly, for they cannot abide that a man should fart before them,
esteeming it to be a great shame and contempt done unto them.”—(Master
Richard Jobson, A.D. 1620, in Purchas, vol. ii. p. 936.) In the Russian
sect of dissenters called the “Bezpopovtsi,” “during the service of Holy
Thursday, certain of them, known as ‘gapers’ or ‘yawners,’ sit for hours
with their mouths wide open, waiting for ministering angels to quench
their spiritual thirst from invisible chalices.”—(Heard, “Russian Church
and Russian Dissent,” pp. 200, 201.)
Bastian, in “Allerlei aus Volks- und Menschenkunde” (vol. i. p. 9),
quotes from Kubary, “Religion of the Pelew Islands,” to the effect that
in cases of death, the vagina, urethra, rectum, nostrils, and all other
orifices of the body are tightly closed with the fibres of certain roots
or sponge, to prevent the escape of any of the liquids of the body, which
seem to be of some use to the spirit of the deceased.—(Contributed in a
Personal letter from Dr. Gatchett of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington,
D. C.)
In Wallachia, “No mode of execution is more disgraceful than the gallows.
The reason alleged is that the soul of a man with a rope round his neck,
cannot escape from his mouth.”—(Maltebrun, “Universal Geography,” Boston,
1847, vol. ii. p. 458, article “Hungary.”)
“The soul is commonly supposed to escape by the natural openings of the
body, especially the mouth and nostrils.”—(Frazer, “The Golden Bough,”
vol. i. p. 125.)
“Caton appliquait à l’objet d’un de nos chapitres; ‘Nullum mihi vitium
facit.’ ... C’est ce que disait Caton lorsqu’un de ses esclaves pétoit en
sa presence.”—(Bib. Scat., “Oratio pro Guano Humano,” p. 21.)
In Angola, West Coast of Africa, flatulence is freely permitted among the
natives, but any license of this kind, taken while strangers are in the
vicinity, is regarded as a most deadly insult.—(“Muhongo,” an African
boy from Angola; interpretation by Rev. Mr. Chatelain.)
The poet Horace “a consacré plusieurs vers au sujet qui nous occupe.
On peut voir particulièrement la Satire VIII. qui contient le passage
suivant:—
“‘Mentior, at si quid merdis caput inquiner albis
Corvorum, atque in me veniat mictum atque cacatum
Julius, et fragilis pedacia, furque Voranus.’”—(Bib. Scat. p. 76.)
The celebrated English orator, Charles James Fox, is credited with the
authorship of “An Essay upon Wind,” published anonymously in London, and
numbered 91 in the Bib. Scat. (p. 39).
Martin Luther had many struggles and disputes with his Satanic Majesty,
in all of which the latter came off second best. Melanchthon is cited
as describing one of these, in which there were results worthy of
incorporation in this work: “Hoc dicto victus Dæmon, indignabundus
secumque murmurans abiit, eliso crepitu, non exiguo, cujus fussimen tetri
odoris dies aliquot redolebat hypocaustum.” Vid. Joh. Wier, de Præstig.
Dæmon. cap. 7, p. m. 54, in Schurig, “Chylologia,” p. 795, article “De
Crepitu Diaboli.”
“Luther relates a story of a lady who ‘Sathanum crepitu ventris
fugavit.’”—(“Les Propos de Table de Luther,” par G. Brunet, Paris, 1846,
p. 22, quoted in Buckle’s “Commonplace Book,” p. 472, vol. ii. of his
“Works.” All the English editions of Luther’s “Table Talk,” so far as
known to the author, are “expurgated.”)