labouring man in Lincoln, who, upon a time, after his wife had so reviled
him with tongue nettle as the whole streete rung again for weariness
thereof, at last he went out of the house, and sate him downe quietly
upon a blocke before his owne doore; his wife, being more out of patience
by his quietness and gentle sufferaunce, went up into the chamber, and
out at the window powred downe a pisse-pot upon his head; which when the
poor man sawe, in a merry moode he spake these words: ‘Now, surely,’
quoth he, ‘I thought at last that after so great a thunder we should have
some raine.’”—(Idem, vol. vii. p. 15.)
The preceding filthy pleasantry comes down from a very distinguished
origin. Harington recalls the adventure of the “good Socrates, who, when
Xantippe had crowned him with a chamber-pot, he bore it off single with
his head and shoulders, and said to such as laughed at it,—
“It never yet was deemed a wonder
To see that rain should follow thunder.”
(“Ajax,” p. 94.)
“_Nathaniel._ They write from Libtzig (reverence to your ears)
The art of drawing farts from out of dead bodies
Is by the brotherhood of the Rosie Cross
Produced unto perfection, in so sweet
And rich a tincture.”
(“The Staple of News,” Ben Jonson, Gifford’s edition,
London, 1816, act iii. scene 1, p. 240.)
XXV.
URINE AND ORDURE AS SIGNS OF MOURNING.
Care should be taken to distinguish between the religious use of ordure
and urine, and that in which they figure as outward signs of mourning,
induced by a frenzy of grief, or where they have been utilized in the
arts.
Lord Kingsborough (Mexican Antiquities, vol. viii. p. 237) briefly
outlines such ritualistic defilement in the Mortuary Ceremonies of
Hebrews and Aztecs, giving as references for the latter Diego Duran, and
for the former the prophet Zechariah, chap. iii.: “Now Joshua was clothed
with filthy garments, and stood before the angel,” etc.
“The nearest relations cut their hair and blacken their faces, and the
old women put human excrement on their heads,—the sign of the deepest
mourning.”—(“The Native Tribes of South Australia,” Adelaide, 1879, pp.
200, received through the kindness of the Royal Society, New South Wales,
T. B. Kyngdon, Secretary.)
XXVI.
URINE AND ORDURE IN INDUSTRIES.
The economical value of human and animal excreta would seem to have
obtained recognition among all races from the earliest ages. It is not
venturing beyond limits to assert that a book could be written upon this
phase of the subject alone. It is not essential to incorporate here all
that could be compiled, but enough is submitted to substantiate the
statement just made, and to cover every line of inquiry.
It might perhaps be well to consider whether or not the constant
use of and familiarity with human urine and ordure in houses, arts,
and industries of various kinds would have a tendency to blunt the
sensibilities of rude races, so that in their rites we could look for the
introduction of these loathsome materials; just as we find that all those
races whose women are allowed to go naked place a very slight value upon
chastity.
“It certainly is not possible to separate the religious uses of urine
from its industrial and medical uses.... Probably nearly everywhere it
has been the first soap known. Does not this aspect of the matter need to
be insisted on, even from the religious point of view?... In England and
France, and probably elsewhere, the custom of washing the hands in urine,
with an idea of its softening and beautifying influence, still subsists
among ladies, and I have known those who constantly made water on their
hands with this idea.”—(Havelock Ellis, “Contemporary Science Series,”
London, Personal letter.)
TANNING.
The inhabitants of Kodiak employ urine in preparing the skins of birds,
according to Lisiansky.—(“Voyage round the World,” London, 1814, p. 214.)
“Les gants, articles de grand luxe, et de haute élégance, faits pour
recouvrir de blanches mains et des bras dodus, sont imbibés d’un jaune
d’œuf largement additionné dudit liquide ambré.”—(“Les Primitifs,”
Réclus, p. 72.)
By the Eskimo urine is preserved for use in tanning skins,[58] while its
employment in the preparation of leather, in both Europe and America, is
too well understood to require any reference to authorities.
The Kioways of the Great Plains soaked their buffalo hides in urine to
make them soft and flexible.[59]
Urine is employed by the Tchuktchi of Siberia “in curing or tanning
skins.”—(“In the Lena Delta,” Melville, Boston, Mass., 1885, p. 318.)
Sauer says that the Yakuts tan deer and elk skins with
cow-dung.—(“Expedition to the North parts of Russia,” London, 1802, p.
131.)
Dung is used in tanning by the Bongo of the upper Nile region.—(See
Schweinfurth, “Heart of Africa,” London, 1878, vol. i. p. 134.)
Bernal Diaz, in his enumeration of the articles for sale in the
“tianguez” or market-places of Tenochtitlan, uses this expression: “I
must also mention human excrements, which were exposed for sale in canoes
lying in the canals near this square, which is used for the tanning
of leather; for, according to the assurances of the Mexicans, it is
impossible to tan well without it.”—(Bernal Diaz, “Conquest of Mexico,”
London, 1844, vol. i. p. 236.)
The same use of ordure in tanning bear-skins can be found among the
nomadic Apaches of Arizona, although, preferentially, they use the ordure
of the animal itself.
Gómara, who also tabulated the articles sold in the Mexican markets, does
not mention ordure in direct terms; his words are more vague: “All these
things which I speak of, with many that I do not know, and others about
which I keep silent, are sold in this market of the Mexicans.”[60]
Urine figures as the mordant for fixing the colors of blankets and other
woollen fabrics woven by the Navajoes of New Mexico, by the Moquis
of Arizona, by the Zuñis and other Pueblos of the Southwest, by the
Araucanians of Chili, by Mexicans, Peruvians, by some of the tribes of
Afghanistan, and other nations, by all of whom it is carefully preserved.
BLEACHING.
“Roman fullers used human urine in their business, and Pliny says it was
noticed that they never suffered from gout.”—(Pliny, “Natural History,”
lib. xxviii. cap. 3: Bohn).
Urine has also been employed as a detergent in cleaning
wool.—(Encyclopædia Britannica, article “Bleaching.”)
DYEING.
Urine is used in dyeing by the people of Ounalashka, according to
Langsdorff, “Voyages” (vol. ii. p. 47); also, according to Sarytschew, in
“Philip’s Voyages” (vol. vi. p. 72).
The same use of it has been attributed to the Irish by Camden, in
“Brittania,” edition of London, 1753, vol. ii. p. 1419. His statement is
quoted by Buckle: “In 1562, O’Neal, with some of his companions, came
to London and astonished the citizens by their hair flowing in locks on
their shoulders, on which were yellow surplices, dyed with saffron or
stained with urine.”—(“Commonplace Book,” vol. ii. p. 236.)
“As a substitute for alum, urine was employed.”—(“Folk-Lore of the
Pennsylvania Germans,” W. J. Hoffman, M. D., in “Journal of American
Folk-Lore,” 1889.)
“The preparation of blue, violet, and bluish-red coloring matters from
lichens by the action of the ammonia of stale urine, seems to have
been known at a very early period to the Mediterranean peoples, and
the existence, down almost to the present day, of such a knowledge in
the more remote parts of Ireland, Scotland, and Scandinavia, renders
it not improbable that the art of making such dyes was not unknown to
the northern nations of Europe also.”—(“The Manners and Customs of the
Ancient Irish,” Eugene O’Curry, introduction by W. K. Sullivan, London,
Dublin, Edinburgh, and New York, 1873, p. 450.)
PLASTER.
As a plaster for the interior of dwellings, cow-dung has been used with
frequency; that the employment of the ordure of an animal held sacred by
so many peoples has a religious basis, is perhaps too much to say, but it
will be shown, further on, that different ordures were kept about houses
to ensure good luck or to avert the maleficence of witchcraft.
Marco Polo has the following: (In Malabar) “there are some called Gaui,
who eat such oxen as die of themselves, but may not kill them, and daub
over their houses with cow-dung.”—(Marco Polo, in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p.
162.)
The huts in Senegal were plastered “with cow-dung, which stunk
abominably.”—(Adamson, “Voyage to Senegal,” in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p.
611.)
“The cow-dung basements around the tents” of the Mongols are spoken of by
Rev. James Gilmour.—(“Among the Mongols,” London, 1883, p. 176.)
“A floor is next made of soft tufa and cow-dung.”—(Livingston, “Zambesi,”
London, 1865, p. 293.)
Animal dung is used as a mortar by the inhabitants of Turkey in Asia
living in the valley of the Tigris.—(See “Assyrian Discoveries,” George
Smith, New York, 1876, p. 82.)
The natives of the White Nile, the tribes of the Bari, make “a cement
of ashes, cow-dung, and sand,” with which “they plaster the floors and
enclosures about their houses.”—(“The Albert Nyanza,” Sir Samuel Baker,
Philadelphia, 1869, p. 58. See the same author for the Latookas, idem, p.
135; and for the statement that the Obbos plaster enclosures, walls, and
floors alike, see pp. 203, 262.)
Pliny tells us that the threshing-floors of the Roman farmers were paved
with cow-dung; in a footnote it is stated that the same rule obtains in
France to this day.—(Pliny, lib. lxxviii. cap. 71: Bohn).
Horse-dung was considered very valuable as a luting for chemical stills
and furnaces.—(See Schurig, “Chylologia,” p. 815; also, as a “Digesting
medium,” idem.)
Of the Yakuts of Siberia it is related: “In dirtiness they yield to
none; for a grave author assures us that the mortars which they use
for bruising their dried fish are made of cow-dung hardened by the
frost.”—(Maltebrun, “Universal Geography,” vol. i. p. 347.)
“The people of Jungeion ... collected the dung of cows and sheep
... dried it, roasted it on the fire, and afterwards used it for a
bed.”—(Mungo Park, “Travels in Africa,” in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 834.)
“The vessels in which they (the Yakuts) stamp their dried fish, Roots and
Berries, are made of dried Oxen and Cow’s dung.”—(Van Stralenberg, p.
382.)
The Index to the first volume of Purchas has “Dung bought by sound of
tabor, p. 270, 1. 40;” and “Dung of Birds, a strange report of it;” but
neither of these could be found in the main portion of the volume.
AS A CURE FOR TOBACCO.
The best varieties of Tobacco coming from America were arranged in
bunches, tied to stakes, and suspended in privies, in order that the
fumes arising from the human ordure and urine might correct the corrupt
and noxious principles in the plant in the crude state.—(See Schurig,
“Chylologia,” p. 776. “Ex paxillo aliquandiu suspendere in Cloacis
Tabacum,” etc.)
“I heard lately from good authority that, in Havana, the female urine is
used in cigar-manufacturing as a good maceration.”—(Personal letter from
Dr. Gustav Jaeger, Stuttgart, August 29, 1888.)
TO RESTORE THE ODOR OF MUSK AND THE COLOR OF CORAL.
The odor of musk and the color of coral could be restored by suspending
them in a privy for a time.—(See Danielus Beckherius, “Medicus
Microcosmus,” London, 1600, p. 113.)
“Paracelsus scil. mediante digestione stercus humanum ad odorem Moschi
redigere voluit.”—(Etmuller, “Opera Omnia,” Comment. Ludovic. Lyons,
1690, vol. ii. pp. 171, 172.)
“Moschi odorem deperditum restitui posse, si in loco aliquo, ubi
urina et excrementa alvina putrescunt, detineatur, apud autores
legimus.”—(Schurig, “Chylologia,” p. 768.)
“Fit, ut Moschus longo tempore æmittat odorem, quem tamen recuperat
si irroretur cum pueri urina, vel si suspendatur in latrina
humana.”—(Etmuller, vol. ii. p. 276.)
CHEESE MANUFACTURE.
“A storekeeper in Berlin was punished some years ago for having used
the urine of young girls with a view to make his cheese richer and more
piquant. Notwithstanding, people went, bought and ate his cheese with
delight. What may be the cause of all these foolish and mysterious
things? In human urine is the Anthropin.”—(Personal letter from Dr.
Gustav Jaeger, Stuttgart, August 29, 1888.)
“En certaines fermes de Suisse on se sert, m-a-t’on-dit, de l’urine pour
activer la férmentation de certaines fromages qu’on y plonge.”—(Personal
letter from Dr. Bernard to Captain Bourke, dated Cannes, France, July 7,
1888.)
Whether or not the use of human urine to ripen cheese originated in the
ancient practice of employing excrementitious matter to preserve the
products of the dairy from the maleficence of witches; or, on the other
hand, whether or not such an employment as an agent to defeat the efforts
of the witches be traceable to the fact that stale urine was originally
the active ferment to hasten the coagulation of the milk would scarcely
be worth discussion.
OPIUM ADULTERATION.
The smoker of opium little imagines that, in using his deadly drug, he is
often smoking an adulterated article, the adulterant being hen manure;
he is thus placed on a par with the American Indian smoking the dried
dung of the buffalo, and the African smoking that of the antelope or the
rhinoceros.
EGG-HATCHING.
In the description of the province of Quang-tong, it is stated that the
Chinese hatch eggs “in the Oven, or in Dung.”—(Du Halde, “History of
China,” London, 1741, vol. i. p. 238.) See the same statement made in
Purchas, vol. i. 270.
In China “their fish is chiefly nourished with the dung of Oxen that
greatly fatteth it.”—(Perera, in Purchas, vol. i. p. 205.)
TAXES ON URINE.
The Roman emperors imposed a tax and tolls upon urine because of its
usefulness in many things.—(“Dreck Apotheke,” Paullini, p. 8. See
previous statements in this volume and consult Suetonius “Vespasian.”)
CHRYSOCOLLON.
There was a cement for fixing the precious metals, which cement was known
as “Chrysocollon,” and was made with much ceremony from the urine “of an
innocent boy.” There are various descriptions, but the following, while
brief, contain all the material points.
Galen describes this Chrysocollon, or Gold-Glue, as prepared by some
physicians from the urine of a boy, who had to void it into a mortar of
red copper while a pestle of the same material was in motion, which urine
carefully exposed to the sun until it had acquired the thickness of
honey, was considered capable of soldering gold and of curing obstinate
diseases: “Attamen medicamentum quod ex urina pueri conficetur quod
quidam vocant chrysocollon, quia eo ad auri glutinationem utuntur, ad
ulcera difficilia sanatu optimum esse assero fit autem id figura phiali
confecto mortario ex ære rubro habentem pistillum ejusdem materiæ in quod
mejente puero pistillum circumages, identidem, ut non tantum a mortario
deradedet, etc.” (“Opera Omnia,” Kuhn’s edition, vol. xii. pp. 286, 287.)
Dioscorides describes the manufacture thus: “Quinetiam ex ea (i. e.
‘pueri innocentis urina’) et ære cyprio idoneum ferruminando glutea
paratur.”—(“Materia Medica,” Kuhn’s edition, vol. i. p. 227 _et seq._)
If a boy’s urine be rubbed up in a copper mortar with a copper pestle,
it makes a sort of mucilage which can be used to fasten articles of gold
together, as Sextus Placitus tells us: “Si pueri lotium cuprino mortario
et cuprino pistello contritum fuerit, aurum solidat.”—(“De Medicamentis
ex Animalibus,” edition of Lyons, 1537, pages not numbered, article, “De
Puello et Puella Virgine.”)
The definition given by Avicenna, the Arabian authority, is: “Quæ fit ex
urina infantium mota in mortario æro cum aceto in sole.”—(Vol. i. p. 336,
a 34 _et seq._)
We also read of an “Alchymical Water,” called “Diana,” for transmuting
metals into gold and silver; it was believed that this preparation was
efficacious “ad mutandum Mercurium in Solem vel Lunam.” (“Sol” was gold,
“Luna” was silver; see notes from Paracelsus below.) This “Diana” was
employed in the preparation of “Crocus Martis,” as well as in that of
“Oleum Martis,” for giving metals the color of gold, for polishing gold
plate, for giving a fine temper to the best iron or steel implements,
and for making the “Chrysocolla” just described.—(“Medicus Microcosmus,”
Beckherius, pp. 103-108.)
Paracelsus, speaking of the metals says: “Sol, that is Gold; Luna, that
is silver; Venus, that is Copper; Mercury, that is Quicksilver; Saturnus,
that is Lead; Jupiter, that is Tinne; Mars, that is Iron.”—(“The Secrets
of Physicke,” English translation, London, 1633, p. 117.)
FOR REMOVING INK STAINS.
Human urine was considered efficacious in the removal of ink-spots.—(See
Pliny, Bohn, lib. v. and lib. xxviii.)
AS AN ARTICLE OF JEWELRY.
Fossilized excrement is used in the manufacture of jewelry, under the
name of “Coprolite.”
Lapland women carry a little case made from the bark of the birch tree,
“which they usually carry under the girdle” in which is to be found
reindeer dung, not as an amulet but to aid in weaning the young reindeer
by smearing the udders of the dams.—(See Leems’ “Account of Danish
Lapland,” in Pinkerton, vol. i. p. 405.)
But, from other sources, we have learned that the Laps attached the most
potent influences to ordure and urine believing that their reindeer could
be bewitched, that vessels could be hastened or retarded in their course,
etc., by the use of such materials. Several examples of this belief are
given in this volume; see under “Witchcraft.”
TATTOOING.
Langsdorff noticed that urine entered into the domestic economy of the
natives of Ounalashka. He tells us that the tattooing was performed
with “a sort of coal dust mixed with urine, rubbed in” the punctures
made in the skin (“Voyages,” vol. ii. p. 40). That the tattooing with
which savages decorate their bodies has a significance beyond a simple
personal ornamentation cannot be gainsaid, although the degree of its
degeneration from a primitive religious symbolism may now be impossible
to determine. Even if regarded in no other light than as a means of
clan-distinction, there is the suggestion of obsolete ceremonial, because
the separation into castes and gentes is in every case described by the
savages concerned as having been performed at the behest of some one of
their innumerable deities, who assigned to each clan its appropriate
“totem.” Clan marks may be represented in the tattooing, the conventional
signs of primitive races not having yet been sufficiently investigated;
for example, among the Apaches three marks radiating out from a single
stem represent a turkey, that being the form of the bird’s foot. At
the dances of the Indians of the pueblo of Santo Domingo, on the Rio
Grande, New Mexico, the bodily decorations were, in nearly every case,
associated with the clan “totem;” but this fact never would have been
suspected unless explained by one of the initiated. In one of the dances
of the Moquis the members of the Tejon or Badger clan appeared with white
stripes down their faces; that is one of the marks of the badger, as they
explained.
The author does not wish to say much on this topic, since his attention
was not called to it until a comparatively late period in his
investigations; but he was surprised to learn that the Apaches, among
whom he then was, although marking themselves very slightly, almost
invariably made use of an emblemism of a sacred character; moreover, it
was very generally the work of some one of the “medicine men.”
The tattooing of the people of Otaheite seen by Cook was surmised by
him to have a religious significance, as it presented in many instances
“squares, circles, crescents, and ill-designed representations of men
and dogs.” (In Hawkesworth’s “Voyages,” London, 1773, vol. ii. p. 190.)
Every one of these people was tattooed upon reaching majority. (Idem, p.
191.) It is stated that certain chiefs in New Zealand, unable to write
their names to a document presented to them for signature drew lines like
those tattooed upon their faces and noses.—(See “Voyage of Adventure and
Beagle,” London, 1839, vol. ii. p. 586.)
Among the Dyaks of Borneo “all the married women are tattooed on the
hands and feet, and sometimes on the thighs. The decoration is one
of the privileges of matrimony, and is not permitted to unmarried
girls.”—(“Head-Hunters of Borneo,” Carl Bock, London, 1881, p. 67.)
A recent writer has the following to say on this subject: “The tattoo
marks make it possible to discover the remote connection between clans;
and this token has such a powerful influence upon the mind that there
is no feud between tribes which are tattooed in the same way. The type
of the marks must be referred to the animal kingdom; yet we cannot
discover any tradition or myth which relates to the custom. There is no
reason for asserting that there is any connection between the tattoo
marks and Totemism, although I am personally disposed to think that this
is sometimes the case. The tattooing, which usually consists in the
imitation of some animal forms, may lead to the worship of such animals
as religious objects.” (“The Primitive Family,” C. N. Starcke, Ph. D.,
New York, 1889, p. 42.) Here is an example of putting the cart before the
horse; in all cases investigation will show that the animal was a god,
and for that reason was imprinted on the person of the worshipper as a
vow of supplication or prayer.
In another place the same writer says that tattooing had “to be performed
by a priest.”—(Idem, p. 241.)
The religious element in Totemism has been plainly revealed by W.
Robertson Smith in Encyclopædia Britannica, article “Sacrifice,” and by
James G. Frazer, M.A., in his “Totemism,” Edinburgh, 1887.
Andrew Lang devotes several chapters to the subject (“Myth, Ritual, and
Religion,” London, 1887, vol. i. cap. 3). He says of the Australian
tribes: “There is some evidence that in certain tribes the wingong or
totem of each man is indicated by a tattooed representation of it upon
his flesh” (p. 65). On another page, quoting from Long’s “Voyages,” 1791,
he says: “The ceremony of adoption was painful, beginning with a feast
of dog’s flesh, followed by a Turkish bath, and a prolonged process of
tattooing.”—(Idem, p. 71.)
A traveller of considerable intelligence comments in these terms upon the
bodily ornamentation of the Burmese:—
“Burmah is the land of the tattooed man.... In my visit to the great
prison here, which contains more than three thousand men, I saw six
thousand tattooed legs.... The origin of the custom I have not been
able to find out. It is here the Burmese sign of manhood, and there is
as much ceremony about it as there is about the ear-piercing of girls
which chronicles their entrance upon womanhood. There are professional
tattooers, who go about with books of designs.... The people are
superstitious about it; and certain kinds of tattooing are supposed to
ward off disease. One kind wards off the snake-bite, and another prevents
a man from drowning.”—(Frank G. Carpenter, in the “Bee,” Omaha, Nebraska,
May 19, 1889.)
Surgeon Corbusier, U. S. Army, says of the Apache-Yumas of Arizona
Territory, that “the married women are distinguished by seven narrow
blue lines running from the lower lip down to the chin.... Tattooing is
practised by the women, rarely by the men.... A young woman, when anxious
to become a mother, tattooes the figure of a child on her forehead.”—(In
the “American Antiquarian,” November, 1886.)
The “sectarial marks” of the Hindus are possibly vestiges of a former
practice of tattooing. Coleman (“Mythology of the Hindus,” London, 1832,
p. 165) has a reference to them.
Squier, in his monograph upon “Manobosho,” in “American Historical
Review,” 1848, says that the Mandans have a myth in which occurs the name
of a god, “Tattooed Face.”
Alice Oatman stated distinctly that “she was tattooed by two of their
(Mojaves) physicians,” and “marked, not as they marked their women, but
as they marked their captives.” Be that as it may, the four lines on
her chin, as well as can be discerned from the indifferent woodcut, are
the same as can be seen upon the chins of Mojave women to-day.—(See
Stratton’s “Captivity of the Oatman Girls,” San Francisco, 1857, pp. 151,
152.)