Asia, in the valley of the Tigris, near Mosul, according to George
Smith.—(“Assyrian Discoveries,” New York, 1876, p. 122.)
The “whole fuel” of the Mongols is “cow or horse dung dried in the
sun.”—(Father Gerbillon’s Account of Tartary, in Du Halde, vol. iv. pp.
234, 270.)
The use of cow-dung as fuel in certain parts of the world would seem not
to be entirely divested of the religious idea.
“Firewood at Seringapatam is a dear article, and the fuel most commonly
used is cow-dung made up into cakes. This, indeed, is much used in every
part of India, especially by men of rank; as, from the veneration paid
the cow, it is considered as by far the most pure substance that can be
employed. Every herd of cattle, when at pasture, is attended by women,
and these often of high caste, who with their hands gather up the dung
and carry it home in baskets.
“They then form it into cakes, about half an inch thick, and nine inches
in diameter, and stick them on the walls to dry. So different indeed
are Hindu notions of cleanliness from ours that the walls of their best
houses are frequently bedaubed with these cakes; and every morning
numerous females, from all parts of the neighborhood, bring for sale
into Seringapatam baskets of this fuel. Many females who carry large
baskets of cow-dung on their heads are well-dressed and elegantly formed
girls.”—(“A Journey through Mysore,” Buchanan, Pinkerton, vol. viii. p.
612.)
SMUDGES.
Dried ordure is generally used for smudges, to drive away insects; the
Indians of the Great Plains beyond the Missouri burned the “chips” of the
buffalo with this object.
The natives of the White Nile “make tumuli of dung which are constantly
on fire, fresh fuel being added constantly, to drive away the
mosquitoes.”—(“The Albert Nyanza,” Baker, p. 53.)
“When they burn it (the dung of a camel) the smoke which proceeds from
it destroys Gnats and all kinds of vermin.”—(Chinese recipes given in Du
Halde’s “History of China,” vol. iv. p. 34.)
Schweinfurth describes the Shillooks of the west bank of the Nile as
“burning heaps of cow-dung to keep off the flies.”—(“Heart of Africa,”
vol. i. p. 16. See also “Central Africa,” Chaillé Long, New York, 1877,
p. 215.)
Such smudges were employed by the Arabians to kill bed-bugs. “Effugatione
Cimicum” effected by a “suffumigium” of “stercore vaccino.”—(“Avicenna,”
vol. ii. p. 214, a 47.)
Rev. James Gilmour describes a mode of extinguishing a burning tent,
observed among the Mongols, the counterpart of which is to be found in
“Gulliver’s Travels.”—(See “Among the Mongols,” p. 23.)
Lucius Cataline, accused by Marcus Cicero of raising a flame in the city
of Rome, “I believe it,” said he, “and, if I cannot extinguish it with
water, I will with urine.”—(Harington, “Ajax,” cap. “Ulysses upon Ajax,”
p. 22.)
HUMAN AND ANIMAL EXCRETA TO PROMOTE THE GROWTH OF THE HAIR AND ERADICATE
DANDRUFF.
For shampooing the hair, urine was the favorite medium among the
Eskimo.[61]
Sahagun, gives in detail the formula of the preparation applied by the
Mexicans for the eradication of dandruff: “Cut the hair close to the
root, wash head well with urine, and afterward take amole (soap-weed)
and coixochitl leaves—the amole is the wormwood of this country [in this
Sahagun is mistaken]—and then the kernels of aguacate ground up and
mixed with the ashes already spoken of (wood ashes from the fire-place),
and then rub on black mud with a quantity of the bark mentioned
(mesquite).”[62]
A similar method of dressing the hair, but without urine, prevails among
the Indians along the Rio Colorado and in Sonora, Mexico. First, an
application is made of a mixture of river mud (“blue mud,” as it is
called in Arizona) and pounded mesquite bark. After three days this
is removed, and the hair thoroughly washed with water in which the
saponaceous roots of the amole have been steeped. The hair is dyed a rich
blue-black, and remains soft, smooth, and glossy.
Dove-dung was also applied externally in the treatment of
baldness.—(Hippocrates, Kuhn, lib. 2, p. 854.)
The urine of the foal of an ass was supposed to thicken the hair. (See
Pliny, lib. xxviii. cap 11.) Camel’s dung, reduced to ashes and mixed
with oil, was said to curl and frizzle the hair (idem, lib. xxviii. cap.
8). The natives of the Nile above Khartoum have “their hair stained red
by a plaster of ashes and cow’s urine.”—(“The Albert Nyanza,” Sir Samuel
Baker, p. 39.)
And the Shillooks of the west bank make “repeated applications of clay,
gum, or dung,” to their hair.—(“Heart of Africa,” Schweinfurth, vol. i.
p. 17; idem, the Nueirs, p. 32.)
“L’aqua ex stercore distillata fait pousser les cheveux” (Bib. Scat. p.
29), while Schurig (Chylologia, p. 760) says that the same preparation
“promotes the growth of the hair and prevents its falling out.”
Schurig further says that swallow-dung was of conceded efficacy as a
hair-dye, and was applied frequently as an ointment. (Idem, p. 817.) He
recommends the use of mouse-dung for scald head and dandruff, and even
to excite the growth of the beard. (Idem, p. 823 _et seq._) Ammonia, or,
more properly speaking, “the ashes of hartshorn, burnt and applied with
wine,” was known to Pliny as a remedy for dandruff. (Pliny, lib. xxviii.
cap. 11.) Possibly the use of hartshorn for this purpose sprang from
the prior use of urine, from which hartshorn or ammonia was gradually
manufactured.
For loss of hair, the dung of pigeons, cats, rats, mice, geese, swallows,
rabbits, or goats, or human urine, applied externally, were highly
recommended by Paullini, in his “Dreck Apothek,” Frankfort, 1696.
Cat-dung was highly recommended by Sextus Placitus.
AS A MEANS OF WASHING VESSELS.
Among the Shillooks, “ashes, dung, and the urine of cows are the
indispensable requisites of the toilet. The item last named affects the
nose of the stranger rather unpleasantly when he makes use of any of
their milk vessels, as, according to a regular African habit, they are
washed with it, probably to compensate for a lack of salt.”—(“Heart of
Africa,” Schweinfurth, vol. i. p. 16.)
“The Obbo natives are similar to the Bari in some of their habits. I
have had great difficulty in breaking my cow-keeper of his disgusting
custom of washing the milk-bowl with cow’s urine, and even mixing some
with the milk. He declares that unless he washes his hands with such
water before milking the cow will lose her milk. This filthy custom is
unaccountable.”—(“The Albert Nyanza,” Baker, p. 240.)
A personal letter from Chief Engineer Melville, U. S. Navy, states that
the natives of Eastern Siberia use urine “for cleansing their culinary
materials.”
By the tribes on Lake Albert Nyanza, the “butter was invariably packed
in a plantain leaf, but frequently the package was plastered with
cow-dung and clay.” (“The Albert Nyanza,” p. 363. See, also, extract from
Paullini, on p. 316, and from Schurig, p. 121, of this volume.) There
certainly seems to be a trace of superstition in the first case mentioned
by Sir Samuel Baker.
In the County Cork, Ireland, rusty tin dishes are scoured with cow
manure; the manure is blessed, and so will benefit the dishes and bring
good luck. It is a not infrequent custom to bury “keelars” and other
dishes for holding milk under a manure-heap during the winter and early
spring (when cows are apt to be dry, and the milk-dishes empty), to
protect them (the dishes) from persons evilly disposed, who might cast
a spell on them, and so bewitch either the cows or the milk. Such an
evil-eyed person could not harm a dish unless empty.
“The cow is believed to be a blessed animal, and hence the manure is
sacred.” (Personal letter from Mrs. Fanny D. Bergen, Cambridge, Mass.)
This belief of the Celtic peasantry apparently connects itself with the
religious veneration in which the cow is held by the people of India.
FILTHY HABITS IN COOKING.
The Eskimo relate stories of a people who preceded them in the Polar
regions called the Tornit. Of these predecessors, they say, “Their way
of preparing meat was disgusting, since they let it become putrid, and
placed it between the thigh and the belly to warm it.”—(“The Central
Eskimo,” Dr. Franz Boas, in Sixth Annual Report, Bureau of Ethnology,
Washington, D. C., 1888, p. 635.)
This recalls the similar method of the Tartars, who used to seat
themselves on their horses with their meat under them.
XXVII.
URINE IN CEREMONIAL ABLUTIONS.
Where urine is applied in bodily ablutions, the object sought is
undoubtedly the procuring of ammonia by oxidation, and in no case of that
kind is it sought to ascribe an association of religious ideas. But where
the ablutions are attended with ceremonial observances, are incorporated
in a ritual, or take place in chambers reserved for sacred purposes,
it is not unfair to suggest that everything made use of, including the
urine, has a sacred or a semi-sacred significance.
No difficulty is experienced in assigning to their proper categories the
urinal ablutions of the Eskimo of Greenland (Hans Egede Saabye, p. 256);
of the Alaskans (Sabytschew, in Phillips, vol. vi.); of the Indians of
the northwest coast of America (Whymper’s “Alaska,” London, 1868, p. 142;
H. H. Bancroft, “Nat. Races,” vol. i. p. 83); of the Indians of Cape
Flattery (Swan, in “Smithsonian Contrib.”); of the people of Iceland (see
below); of Siberia (see below); and of the savages of Lower California.
Pericuis of Lower California. “Mothers, to protect them against the
weather, cover the entire bodies of their children with a varnish of coal
and urine.”—(Bancroft, vol. i. p. 559.)
Clavigero not only tells all that Bancroft does, but he adds that the
women of California washed their own faces in urine.—(“Hist. de Baja
California,” Mexico, 1852, p. 28; see, also, Orozco y Berra and Baegert.)
“People of Iceland are reported to wash their faces and hands in
pisse.” (Hakluyt, “Voyages,” vol. i. p. 664.) This report was, however,
indignantly denied of all but the common people by Arugrianus Jonas, an
Icelandic writer.
The inhabitants of Ounalashka “wash themselves first with their own
urine, and afterwards with water.”—(“Russian Discoveries,” William Coxe,
London, 1803, quoting Solovoof’s “Voyage,” 1764, p. 226.)
In the same volume is to be found the statement that in Alaska and the
Fox Islands, the people “washed themselves, according to custom, first
with urine, and then with water.”—(p. 225, quoting “Voyage of Captain
Krenitzin,” 1768.)
When a child gets very dirty “with soot and grease,” a Vancouver squaw
uses “stale urine” to cleanse it. “This species of alkali as a substitute
for soap is the general accompaniment of the morning toilet of both
sexes, male and female. During winter they periodically scrub themselves
with sand and urine.”—(J. G. Swan, “Indians of Cape Flattery, Smithsonian
Contributions to Knowledge,” No. 220, p. 19.)
Among the Tchuktchees, urine “is a useful article in their household
economy, being preserved in a special vessel, and employed as a soap or
lye for cleansing bodies or clothing.”—(“In the Lena Delta,” Melville, p.
318.)
“But they also wash themselves, as well as their clothes, with it; and
even in the hot bath, of which men and women are alike fond, because
they love to perspire, it is with this fluid they sometimes make their
ablutions.”—(Lisiansky, “Voyage round the World,” London, 1811, p. 214.)
Used as “a substitute for soap-lees, according to
Langsdorff.”—(“Voyages,” London, 1814, vol. ii. p. 47.)
“By night, the Master of the house, with all his family, his wife and
children, lye in one room.... All of them make water in one chamber-pot,
with which, in the morning, they wash their face, mouth, teeth, and
hands. They allege many reasons thereof, to wit, that it makes a faire
face, maintaineth the strength, confirmeth the sinewes in the hands, and
preserveth the teeth from putrefaction.”—(“Dittmar Bleekens,” in Purchas,
vol. i. p. 647.)
After describing the double tent of skins used by the Tchuktchees, Mr.
W. H. Gilder, author of “Schwatka’s Search,” says all food is served in
the “yoronger,” or inner tent, in which men and women sit, in a state of
nudity, wearing only a small loin-cloth of seal-skin.
After finishing the meal, “a small, shallow pail or pan of wood is
passed to any one who feels so inclined, to furnish the warm urine with
which the board and knife are washed by the housewife. It is a matter
of indifference who furnishes the fluid, whether the men, women, or
children; and I have myself frequently supplied the landlady with the
dish-water. In nearly every tent there is kept from the summer season a
small supply of dried grass. A little bunch of this is dipped in the
warm urine and serves as a dish-rag and a napkin. These people are
generally kind and hospitable, and were very attentive to my wants as a
stranger, and regarded by them as more helpless than a native. The women
would, therefore, often turn to me after washing the board and knife,
and wash my fingers and wipe the grease from my mouth with the moistened
grass. Any of the men or women in the tent who desired it would also ask
for the wet grass, and use it in the same way.
“It was not done as a ceremony, but merely as a matter of course or of
necessity.
“I do not think they would use urine for such purposes if they could get
all the water, and especially the warm water, they needed. But all the
water they have in winter is obtained by melting snow or ice over an oil
lamp,—a very slow process; and the supply is therefore very limited,
being scarcely more than is required for drinking purposes, or to boil
such fresh meat as they may have.
“The urine, being warm and containing a small quantity of ammonia,
is particularly well adapted for removing grease from the board and
utensils, which would otherwise soon become foul, and to their taste much
more disagreeable.
“The bottom of the ‘yoronger’ is generally carpeted with tanned
seal-skins, and they too are frequently washed with the same fluid.
The consequence is that there is ever a mingled odor of ammonia and
rotten walrus-meat pervading a well-supplied and thrifty Tchouktchi
dwelling.”—(Personal letter to Captain Bourke, dated New York, October
15, 1889.)
“Vice-Admiral of the Narrow Seas.” “A drunken man that pisses under the
table into his companion’s shoes.”—(Grose, “Dictionary of Buckish Slang,”
London, 1811, article as above.)
This use of urine as a tooth-wash has had a very extensive diffusion;
it is still to be found in many parts of Europe and America, of boasted
enlightenment. The Celtiberii of Spain, “although they boasted of
cleanliness both in their nourishment and in their dress, it was not
unusual for them to wash their teeth and bodies in urine,—a custom which
they considered favorable to health.”—(Maltebrun, “Univ. Geog.,” vol. v.
book 137, p. 357, article “Spain.”)
From Strabo we learn that the Iberians “do not attend to ease or luxury,
unless any one considers it can add to the happiness of their lives to
wash themselves and their wives in stale urine kept in tanks, and to
rinse their teeth with it, which they say is the custom both with the
Cantabrians and their neighbors.” (Strabo, “Geography,” Bohn, lib. iii.
cap. 4, par. 16, London, 1854. In a footnote it is stated that “Apuleius,
Catullus, and Diodorus Siculus all speak of this singular custom.”) The
same practice is alluded to by Percy, and also by the “Encyclopédie ou
Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences,” Neufchatel, 1745, vol. xvii. p. 499;
and the practice is said to obtain among the modern Spaniards as well.
“Les Espagnols font grand usage de l’urine pour se nettoyer les dents.
Les anciens Celtibériens faisoient la même chose.”—(Received from Prof.
Frank Rede Fowke, London, June 18, 1888.)
“Bien que soigneux de leurs personnes et propres dans leur manière de
vivre, les Celtibères se lavent tout le corps d’urine, s’en frottant
même les dents, estimant cela un bon moyen pour entretenir la santé du
corps.”—(Diodore, v. 33.)
“Nunc Celtiber, in Celtiberia terra
Quod quisque minxit, hoc solet sibi mane
Dentem atque russam defricare ginginam.”
(Catullus, “Epigrams,” 39.)
The manners of the Celtiberians, as described by Strabo and others, have
come down through many generations to their descendants in all parts of
the world; all that he related of the use of human urine as a mouth-wash,
as a means of ablution, and as a dentifrice, was transplanted to the
shores of America by the Spanish colonists; and even in the present
generation, according to Gen. S. V. Bénèt, U. S. Army, traces of such
customs were to be found among some of the settlers in Florida.
The same custom has been observed among the natives along the Upper Nile.
“The Obbo natives wash out their mouths with their own urine. This habit
may have originated in the total absence of salt in their country.”—(“The
Albert Nyanza,” Sir Samuel Baker, p. 240.)
In England likewise there was a former employment of the same fluid as a
dentifrice.
“‘Nettoyer ses dents avec de l’urine, mode espagnole,’ dit Erasme.”—(“Les
Primitifs,” Elie Réclus, Paris, 1885, quoting Erasmus, “De Civilitate.”)
Urine was employed as a tooth-wash, alone or mixed with orris powder.
“Farina orobi (bitter vetch) permisceatur cum urina.”—(“Medicus
Microcosmus,” Danielus Beckherius, pp. 62-64.)
A paragraph in Paullini’s “Dreck Apothek,” p. 74, would show that in
Germany the same usages were not unknown. As a dentifrice he recommends
urine as a wash; or a powder made of pulverized gravel stone, mixed with
urine.
Ivan Petroff states that the peasants of Portugal still wash their
clothes in urine.—(Ivan Petroff, in “Trans. American Anthropological
Society,” 1882, vol. i.)
Urine is used on whaling vessels, when stale, for washing flannel shirts,
which are then thrown overboard and towed after the ship.—(Dr. J. H.
Porter.)
Dr. V. T. McGillicuddy, of Rapid City, Dakota, furnishes the information
that Irish, German, and Scandinavian washerwomen who have immigrated to
the United States persist in adding human urine to the water to be used
for cleansing blankets.
“I have observed somewhere that the Basks and some Hindus clean their
mouths with urine, but I do not remember the book.”—(Dr. Alfred Gatchett,
Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, D. C.)
Dr. Carl Lumholtz, of Christiania, Norway, states that he had seen the
savages of Herbert River, Australia, in 18° south latitude, with whom he
lived for some months, use their own urine to clean their hands after
they had been gathering wild honey.
The statement concerning the Celtiberians may also be found in
Clavigero.—(“Hist. de Baja California,” p. 28, quoting Diodorus Siculus.)
Diderot and D’Alembert assert unequivocally that in the latter years of
the last century the people of the Spanish Peninsula still used urine as
a dentifrice.—(“Les Espagnols,” etc., reading as above given from “Dict.
Raisonné.” See Encyclopédie, Geneva, 1789, article “Urine.”)
XXVIII.
URINE IN CEREMONIAL OBSERVANCES.
But in the examples adduced from Whymper concerning the people of the
village of Unlacheet, on Norton Sound, “the _dancers_ of the Malemutes of
Norton Sound bathed themselves in urine.” (Whymper’s “Alaska,” London,
1868, pp. 142, 152.) Although, on another page, Whymper says that this
was for want of soap, doubt may, with some reason, be entertained.
Bathing is a frequent accompaniment, an integral part of the religious
ceremonial among all the Indians of America, and no doubt among the Inuit
or Eskimo as well; when this is performed by dancers, there is further
reason to examine carefully for a religious complication, and especially
if these dances be celebrated in sacred places, as Petroff relates they
are.
“They never bathe or wash their bodies, but on certain occasions the men
light a fire in the kashima, strip themselves, and dance and jump around
until in a profuse perspiration. They then apply urine to their oily
bodies and rub themselves until a lather appears, after which they plunge
into the river.”—(Ivan Petroff in “Transactions American Anthropological
Society,” vol. i. 1882.)
“In each village of the Kuskutchewak (of Alaska) there is a public
building named the kashim, in which councils are held and festivals
kept, and which must be large enough to contain all the grown men of the
village. It has raised platforms around the walls, and a place in the
centre for a fire, with an aperture in the roof for the admission of
light.”—(Richardson, “Arctic Searching Expedition,” London, 1851, p. 365.)
Those kashima are identical with the estufas of Zuñis, Moquis, and Rio
Grande Pueblos. Whymper himself describes them thus: “These buildings may
be regarded as the natives’ town hall; orations are made, festivals and
feasts are held in them.”
No room is left for doubt after reading the fuller description of these
kashima, contained in Bancroft. He says the Eskimo dance in them, “often
_in puris naturalibus_,” and make “burlesque imitations of birds and
beasts.” Dog or wolf tails hang to the rear of their garments. A sacred
feast of fish and berries accompanies these dances, wherein the actors
“elevate the provisions successively to the four cardinal points, and
once to the skies above, when all partake of the feast.”—(Bancroft,
“Native Races,” vol. i. p. 78.)
There is a description of one of these dances by an American, Mr. W.
H. Gilder, an eyewitness. “The kashine (_sic_) is a sort of town hall
for the male members of the tribe.... It is built almost entirely under
ground, and with a roof deeply covered with earth. It is lighted through
a skylight in the roof, and entered by a passage-way and an opening which
can only be passed by crawling on hands and knees.... In the centre of
the room is a deep pit, where in winter a fire is built to heat the
building, after which it is closed, and the heat retained for an entire
day. In this building the men live almost all the time. Here they sleep
and eat, and they seldom rest in the bosom of their families.” He further
says that there was “a shelf which extends all round the room against the
wall.... One young man prepared himself for the dance by stripping off
all his clothing, except his trousers, and putting on a pair of reindeer
mittens.... The dance had more of the character of Indian performances
than any I had ever previously seen among the Esquimaux.”—(“Ice-Pack and
Tundra,” pp. 56-58.)