mixed blood, relates to a ceremonial dance which he observed among the
Aiga-lukamut Eskimo of the southern coast of Alaska. The informant, as
his father had been before him, had for a number of years been employed
by the Russians to visit the various tribes on the mainland to conduct
trade for the collection of furs and peltries. Besides being perfectly
familiar with the English and Russian languages, he had acquired
considerable familiarity with quite a number of native dialects, and was
thus enabled to mingle with the various peoples among whom much of his
time was spent. The ceremony was conducted in a large partly underground
chamber, of oblong shape, having a continuous platform or shelf,
constructed so as to be used either as seats or for sleeping. The only
light obtained was from native oil lamps. The participants, numbering
about ten dozen, were entirely naked, and after being seated a short time
several natives, detailed as musicians, began to sing. Then one of the
natives arose, and performed the disgusting operation of urinating over
the back and shoulders of the person seated next him, after which he
jumped down upon the ground, and began to dance, keeping time with the
music. The one who had been subjected to the operation just mentioned,
then subjected his nearest neighbor to a similar douche, and he in turn
the next in order, and so on until the last person on the bench had
been similarly dealt with, he in turn being obliged to accommodate the
initiator of the movement, who ceases dancing for that purpose. In the
meantime all those who have relieved themselves step down and join in
the dance, which is furious and violent, inducing great perspiration and
an intolerable stench. No additional information was given further than
that the structure may have been used in this instance as a sudatory,
the urine and violent movements being deemed sufficient to supply the
necessary amount of moisture and heat to supply the participants with a
sweat-bath.—(Personal letter from Dr. W. J. Hoffman, Bureau of Ethnology,
Washington, D. C., June 16, 1890.)
Elliott describes the “Orgies” in the “Kashgas” as he styles them. “The
fire is usually drawn from the hot stones on the hearth.... A kantog
of chamber-lye poured over them, which, rising in dense clouds of
vapor, gives notice by its presence and its horrible ammoniacal odor
to the delighted inmates that the bath is on. The kashga is heated to
suffocation; it is full of smoke; and the outside men run in from their
huts with wisps of dry grass for towels and bunches of alder twigs to
flog their naked bodies.
“They throw off their garments; they shout and dance and whip themselves
into profuse perspiration as they caper in the hot vapor. More of their
disgusting substitute for soap is rubbed on, and produces a lather, which
they rub off with cold water.... This is the most enjoyable occasion of
an Indian’s existence, as he solemnly affirms. Nothing else affords a
tithe of the infinite pleasure which this orgy gives him. To us, however,
there is nothing about him so offensive as that stench which such a
performance arouses.”—(Henry W. Elliott, “Our Arctic Province,” New York,
1887, p. 387.)
“Quoique généralement malpropres, ces gens ont, comme les autres Inoits
et la plupart des Indiens, la passion des bains de vapeur, pour lesquels
le kachim a son installation toujours prête.
“Avec l’urine qu’ils recueillent précieusement pour leurs opérations
de tannage, ils se frottent le corps; l’alcali, se mélangeant avec les
transpirations et les huiles dont le corps est imprégné, nettoie la
peau comme le ferait du savon; l’odeur âcre de cette liqueur putréfiée
paraît leur être agréable, mais elle saisit à la gorge les étrangers qui
reculent suffoqués, et ont grand’peine à s’y faire. Horreur! horreur!
oui, pour ceux qui ont un pain de savon sur leur table à toilette; mais
pour ceux qui ne possèdent pas ce détersif?”—(“Les Primitifs,” Réclus, p.
71, “Les Inoits Occidentaux.”)
“Nul s’étonnera que les Ouhabites et les Ougagos de l’Afrique orientale
en fassent toujours autant. Mais on a ses préférences. Ainsi Arabes et
Bedouines recherchent l’urine des chamelles. Les Banianes de Momba se
lavent la figure avec de l’Urine de vache, parceque, disent-ils, la
vache est leur mère. Cette dernière substance est aussi employée par les
Silésiennes contre les taches de rousseur. Les Chowseures du Caucase la
trouvent excellente pour entretenir la santé et développer la luxuriance
de la chevelure. A cette fin, ils recueillent soigneusement le purin des
étables, mais le liquide encore imprégné de chaleur vitale passe pour
le plus énergique. Les trayeuses flattent la bête, lui sifflent un air,
chatouillent certain organe et au moment précis, avancent le crâne pour
recevoir le flot qui s’épanche; la mère industrieuse fait inonder la tête
de son nourrisson en même temps que la sienne.”—(Idem, p. 73.)
The “Estufa” of the Pueblos was no doubt, in the earlier ages of
the tribal life, a communal dwelling similar to the “yourts” of the
Siberians, like which it had but one large opening in the roof, for the
entrance of members of the family, or clan, and the egress of smoke. An
examination of the myths and folk-lore of Siberia might reveal to us the
birth and the meaning of the visits of our good old Christmas friend,
Santa Claus, who certainly never sprang from European soil. A god, loaded
with gifts for good little children, could descend the ladders placed
in the chimneys of “yourts” and “estufas,” but such a feat would be an
impossibility in the widest chimneys ever constructed in Germany or
England for private houses.
The habitations of the natives of Ounalashka, according to Langsdorff,
are made with the entrances through the roofs, precisely like those of
the people of Kamtchatka.—(“Voyages,” vol. ii. p. 32.)
The “Estufa” model was perpetuated in the Temples of India, exactly as
the Imperial market-places of Rome supplied the type of the “Basilica” of
the Christian Church.
An article in “Frazer’s Magazine,” signed F. P. C., gives the dimensions
of the great Snake Temple of Nakhon-Vat in Cambodia: “Six hundred feet
square at the base, ... rises in the centre to the height of one hundred
and eighty feet, ... probably the grandest temple in the world.... In
the inner court of this temple are ‘tanks’ in which the living serpents
dwelt and were adored.... The difference between these ‘tanks’ and the
‘Public Estufas’ is simply this: the latter are partially or almost
completely roofed.”
Some time after reaching the conclusion just expressed and much loss of
study in a fruitless examination of Encyclopædias, which did not contain
so much as the name of the patron of childhood, the work of Mr. George
Kennan was perused in which the same views are anticipated by a number
of years; it is by no means the least important fact in an extremely
interesting volume.
“The houses, if houses they could be called, were about twenty feet in
height, rudely constructed of drift-wood which had been thrown up by the
sea, and could be compared in shape to nothing but hour-glasses. They had
no doors or windows of any kind, and could only be entered by climbing
up a pole on the outside, and slipping down another pole through the
chimney,—a mode of entrance whose practicability depended entirely upon
the activity and intensity of the fire which burned underneath.
“The smoke and sparks, although sufficiently disagreeable, were
trifles of comparative insignificance. I remember being told, in early
infancy, that Santa Claus always came into a house through the chimney;
and, although I accepted the statement with the unreasoning faith of
childhood, I could never understand how that singular feat of climbing
down a chimney could be safely accomplished.... My first entrance into a
Korak ‘yourt,’ however, at Kamenoi, solved all my childish difficulties,
and proved the possibility of entering a house in the eccentric way
which Santa Claus is supposed to adopt.”—(George Kennan, “Tent Life in
Siberia,” 12th edition, New York, 1887, p. 222.)
Steller describes a Festival of the Kamtchatkans occurring at the end
of November, after the winter provisions are in; in this, one party, on
the outside of the house, attempts to lower a birch branch down through
the chimney; the party on the inside attempts to capture it.—(Steller,
“Kamtchatka,” translated by Mr. Bunnemeyer.)
“Every time they make water, or other unclean exercise of nature, they
wash those parts, little regarding who stands by. Before prayer, they
wash both face and hands, sometimes the head and privities.”—(Blount,
“Voy. into the Levant,” in Pinkerton, vol. x. p. 261.)
“Among the Negroes of Guinea, when a wife is pregnant for the first
time, she must perform certain ‘ceremonies,’ among which is ‘going to
the sea-shore to be washed.’ She is followed by a great number of boys
and girls, who fling all manner of dung and filth at her in her way to
the sea, where she is ducked and made clean.”—(Bosman, “Guinea,” in
Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 423.)
“In 1847, I was then twenty-six years old, once an old woman (in
Cherbourg) came to me with a washing-pan, and asked me to piss into it,
as the urine of a stout, healthy young man was required to wash the
bosoms of a young woman who was just delivered of a child.”—(Personal
letter from Captain Henri Jouan, French Navy, to Captain Bourke, dated
Cherbourg, France, July 29, 1888.)
In Scotland, the breasts of a young mother were washed with salt and
water to ensure a good flow of milk. The practice is alluded to in the
following couplet from “The Fortunate Shepherdess,” by Alexander Ross,
1778.
“Jean’s paps wi’ sa’t and water washen clean,
Reed that her milk get wrang, fen it was green.”
(Quoted in Brand, “Pop. Ant.” vol. ii. p. 80, art. “Christening Customs.”)
This practice seems closely allied to the one immediately preceding. We
shall have occasion to show that salt and water, holy water, and other
liquids superseded human urine in several localities, Scotland among
others.
“Being to wean one of their children, the father and mother lay him on
the ground, and whilst they do that which modesty will not permit me to
name, the father lifts him by the arm, and so holds him for some time,
hanging in the air, falsely believing that by these means he will become
more strong and robust.”—(Father Merolla, “Voyage to the Congo,” in
Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 237, A.D. 1682.)
In the Bareshnun ceremony, the Parsee priest “has to undergo certain
ablutions wherein he has to apply to his body cow’s urine, and sand and
clay, which seem to have been the common and cheapest disinfectant known
to the ancient Iranians.”—(Dr. J. W. Kingsley, Personal letter to Captain
Bourke, apparently citing “The History of the Parsees,” by Dosabhai
Framje Karaka.)
The Manicheans bathed in urine.—(Picart, “Coûtumes,” etc.; “Dissertation
sur les Perses,” p. 18.)
“Le lecteur le plus dégoûté s’en occupe presque à son insu; quand il
demande à son ami, Comment allez-vous? s’il vous plaît si ce n’est là—où
se fait ce que nous disons? Dans un pays voisin on se salue en disant, La
matière est-elle louable? Et en Angleterre, c’est la même pensée qu’on
exprime lorsqu’on dit, en abordant quelqu’un, How do you do? Comment
faites-vous?”—(Bib. Scat. p. 21.)
“There is a place where whenever the King spits the greatest ladies of
his court put out their hands to receive it; and another nation where
the most eminent persons about him stop to take up his ordure in a linen
cloth.”—(Montaigne, Essays, “On Customs.”)
“A few days after birth, or according to the fancy of the parents, an
‘angekok,’ who by relationship or long acquaintance with the family, has
attained terms of great friendship, makes use of some vessel and with
the urine of the mother washes the infant, while all the gossips around
pour forth their good wishes for the little one to prove an active man,
if a boy, or, if a girl, the mother of plenty of children. The ceremony,
I believe, is never omitted, and is called Gogsinariva.”—(“The Central
Eskimo,” Boas, p. 610, quoting G. F. Lyon, “Private Journal of H. M.
S. Hecla, during the recent Voyage of Discovery under Captain Parry,”
London, 1824.)
The same custom is practised by the Eskimo of Cumberland Sound (idem).
“Buffalo dung I have seen carefully arranged in (Crow) Indian dance
tepees, having apparently some connection with the ceremonies.”—(Personal
letter from Dr. A. B. Holder, Memphis, Tenn., to Captain Bourke, Feb. 6,
1890.)
“In one of the sacred dances of the Cheyennes, there is to be seen
an altar surrounded by a semi-circle of buffalo chips. This dance or
ceremony is celebrated for the purpose of getting an abundance of
ponies.”—(See the description in Dodge’s “Wild Indians,” pp. 127, 128.)
The sacred pipes used in the Sun Dance of the Sioux are so placed that
the bowl rests upon a “buffalo chip.”—(“The Sun Dance of the Ogallalla
Sioux,” Alice Fletcher, in “Proceed. American Association for the
Advancement of Science,” 1882.)
The drinking of the water in which a new-born babe had been bathed is
intimated in the myths of the Samoans. When the first baby was born
“Salevao provided water for washing the child, and made it Saor, sacred
to Moa. The rocks and the earth said they wished to get some of that
water to drink. Salevao replied that if they got a bamboo he would send
them a streamlet through it, and hence the origin of springs.”—(“Samoa,”
Turner, London, 1884, p. 10.)
Although it is not so stated in the text, yet from analogy with other
cosmogonies we may entertain a suspicion as to how the god provided the
water,—no doubt from his own person.
STERCORACEOUS CHAIR OF THE POPES.
“Stercoraire, Chaire (Hist. des Papes); c’est ainsi qu’on nommoit à Rome,
au rapport de M. L’Enfant, une chaire qui étoit autrefois devant le
portique de la basilique, sur laquelle on faisait asseoir le Pape le jour
de sa consécration. Le chœur de musique lui chantoit alors ces paroles
du Psaume 113, selon l’Hébreu, et le 112, selon la Vulgate, v. 6, et
suiv. ‘Il tire de la poussière celui qui est dans l’indigence et il élève
le pauvre de son avilissement pour le placer avec les princes de son
peuple;’ c’étoit pour insinuer au Pape, dit cardinal Raspon, la vertu de
l’humilité, qui doit être la compagne de sa grandeur. Cet usage fut aboli
par Léon X, qui n’étoit pas né pour ces sortes de minuties.”—(“Encyc.
ou Dict. Raison. des Sciences,” etc., Neufchatel, 1765, tome quinzième,
article as above.)
Consult Ducange also, “Stercoraria Sedes,” wherein it is stated that the
use of this chair could be traced back to the tenth century.
“Stercoraria sedes, in qua creati pontifices ad frangendos elatos
spiritus considerent, unde dicta.”—(Baronius, “Annales,” Lucca, 1758.)
Read also the remarks upon the subject of Ducking Stools, from which this
seems to have been derived, under “Ordeals and Punishments.”
Father Le Jeune relates, among the ceremonies observed by the Indians
of Canada upon capturing a bear, that no women were allowed to remain
in the lodge with the carcass, and that special care was taken to
prevent dogs from licking the blood, gnawing the bones, or _eating the
excrement_.—(See “Relations,” 1634, vol. i., Quebec, 1858.)
XXIX.
ORDURE IN SMOKING.
Among all the observances of the every-day life of the American
aborigines, none is so distinctly complicated with the religious idea
as smoking; therefore, should the use of excrement, human or animal, be
detected in this connection, full play should be given to the suspicion
that a hidden meaning attaches to the ceremony. This would appear to
be the view entertained by the indefatigable missionary, De Smet, who
records such a custom among the Flatheads and Crows in 1846: “To render
the odor of the pacific incense agreeable to their gods it is necessary
that the tobacco and the herb (skwiltz), the usual ingredients, should be
mixed with a small quantity of buffalo dung.”[63]
The Sioux, Cheyennes, Arapahoes, and others of the plains tribes, to whom
the buffalo is a god, have the same or an almost similar custom.
The Hottentots, when in want of tobacco, “smoke the dung of the
two-horned rhinoceros or of elephants.”—(Thurnberg’s Account of the Cape
of Good Hope, quoted in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 141.)
The followers of the Grand Lama, as already noted, make use of his dried
excrements as snuff, and an analogous employment of the dried dung of
swine retained a place in the medical practice of Europe until the
beginning of the present century, and may, perhaps, still survive in the
Folk-medicine of isolated villages.
The people of Achaia say “that the smoke of dried cow dung, that of the
animal when grazing I mean, is remarkably good for phthisis, inhaled
through a reed.”—(Pliny, Nat. Hist. lib. xxviii. cap. 67.)
Dung is also used in Central Africa. “A huge bowl is filled with tobacco
and clay and sometimes with a questionable mixture, the fumes are inhaled
until the smoker falls stupefied or deadly sick—this effect alone being
sought for.”—(“Central Africa,” Chaillé Long, p. 266.)
“In Algeria, gazelle droppings are put in snuff and smoking tobacco; the
Mongol Tartars mix the ashes of yak manure with their snuff.”—(Personal
letter from W. W. Rockhill.)
Mr. Rudyard Kipling shows in his “Plain Tales from the Hills” (“Miss
Youghal’s Sais”) that the native population of India is accustomed to use
a mixture of one part of tobacco to three of cow-dung.
XXX.
COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE.
“To multiply and replenish the earth,” was the first command given to
man; to love, and to desire to be loved in return, is the strongest
impulse of our nature, and therefore it need surprise no student who
sets about investigating the occult properties attributed to the human
and animal egestæ to find them in very general use in the composition
of love-philters, as antidotes to such philters, as aphrodisiacs, as
antiphrodisiacs, and as aids to delivery.
ORDURE IN LOVE-PHILTERS.
Love-sick maidens in France stand accused of making as a philter a cake
into whose composition entered “nameless ingredients,” which confection,
being eaten by the refractory lover, soon caused a revival of his waning
affections.[64] This was considered to savor so strongly of witchcraft
that it was interdicted by councils.
The witches and wizards of the Apache tribe make a confection or philter,
one of the ingredients of which is generally human ordure, as the author
learned from some of them a few years since. The Navajoes, of same blood
and language as the Apaches, employ the dung of cows (as related in the
“Snake Dance of the Moquis,” p. 27.)
Frommann gives an instance of a woman who made love-philters out of her
own excrement. As late as Frommann’s day, the use of such philters was
punishable with death. The remedies for love-philters were composed of
human skull, coral, verbena flowers, secundines, or after-birth, and
a copious flow of urine. He says that Paracelsus taught that when one
person ate or drank anything given off by the skin of another, he would
fall desperately in love with that other. “Quod illi, qui ederunt aut
biberunt aliquid a scorte datum, in amorem alicujus conjiciantur et
rapiantur.” (Frommann, “Tractatus de Fascinatione,” pp. 820, 826, 970,
quoting Paracelsus, Tract. 1, de Morbis Amantium, cap. v.) He also cites
Beckherius to the effect that some philters were made of perspiration,
menses, or semen.—(Idem, quoting Beckherius, “Sapgyr. Microc.,” p. 89.)
John Leo, in Purchas (vol. ii. p. 850), speaks of “the roote Surnay
growing also upon the Western part of Mount Atlas.... The inhabitants of
Mount Atlas doe commonly report that many of those damosels which keepe
Cattell upon the said Mountaines, lose their Virginitie by no other
occasion than by making water upon said Roote.... This roote is said to
be comfortable and preseruatiue unto the priuie partes of man, and being
drunk in an Electuary to stirre up Venereal lust.”
Reginald Scot mentions a “Wolves yard” among the ingredients in a
love-philter.—(“Discoverie of Witchecraft,” London, 1651, p. 62.)
Human ordure was in constant use in the manufacture of these philters,
being administered both internally and externally. On this point it may
be proper to give the exact words of Schurig, who explains that it was
sometimes put in porridge, and in other cases in the shoes. In the last
example, the man who made such use of the excrement of his lady love was
completely cured of his infatuation, after wearing the defiled shoes
one hour. “Contra Philtræ tam interne quam externe adhiberi solet amatæ
puellæ stercus, ab exsiccato enim atque in pulmento personæ philtratæ
exhibito amorem in maximam antipathiam mutatam annotavit Eberhardus
Gockelius ... etiam Capitanei cujusdam meminit qui, postquam amasiæ
stercus novis calceis imposuerat, posteaque iisdem per integram horam
spatiatus fuerat ab illius amore liberabatur.”—(“Chylologia,” p. 774.)
Leopard-dung was in repute as an aphrodisiac.—(Idem, p. 820.)
“The urine that has been voided by a bull immediately after covering ...
taken in drink,” as an aphrodisiac; and “the groin well rubbed with earth
moistened with this urine.”—(Pliny, Bohn, lib. xxviii. cap. 80.)
“The wizard, witch, sorcerer, druggist, doctor, or medicine man ...
played the part of an ochreous Cupid. Instead of smiles and bright eyes,
his dealings were with some nasty stuff put into beer, or spread slyly
upon bread.... In the Shroft book of Egbert, Archbishop of York, one of
their methods is censured; and it is so filthy that I must leave it in
the obscurity of the original old English.”—(“Saxon Leechdoms,” vol. i.
p. 45.)
An ointment of the gall of goats, incense, goat-dung, and nettle-seeds
was applied to the privy parts previous to copulation to increase the
amorousness of women.—(See “Saxon Leechdoms,” vol. i. p. 351, quoting
Sextus Placitus.)
“Love-charms are made of ingredients too disgusting to mention,
and are given by the Mussulmans to women to persuade them to love
them.”—(“Indo-Mahomedan Folk-Lore,” No. 3, H. C., p. 180, in “Notes and
Queries,” 3d series, vol. xi., London, 1867.)
Vambéry has this obscure passage: “The good woman had the happy idea to
prescribe to the sick Khan five hundred doses of that medicine said to
have worked such beneficial effects upon the renowned poet-monarch of
ancient history.... The Khan of Khiva took from fifty to sixty of these
pills ‘for impuissance.’”—(“Travels in Central Asia,” New York, 1865, p.
166.)
Besides these elements there were employed others equally disgusting;
for example, the catamenial fluid, which seems to have been in high
repute for such purposes: “Quædam auditæ sunt jactantes se sua excrementa
propinasse, præcipue menstrua, quibus cogant se amari.”—(“Saxon
Leechdoms,” vol. i. p. 45, quoting Cæsalpinus, “Dæmonum Investigatio,”
fol. 154 b. Cæsalpinus died in 1603.)
“He has taken the enchanted philter, and soiled my garment with
it.”—(“Chaldean Magic,” Lenormant, London, 1877, p. 61, quoting an
Incantation of the Chaldean sorcerers. It is, of course, a matter of
impossibility to tell of what this philter was composed.)
“They say that if a man takes a frog, and transfixes it with a reed
entering its body at the sexual parts, and coming out at the mouth, and
then dips the reed in the menstrual discharge of his wife, she will be
sure to conceive an aversion for all paramours.”—(Pliny, lib. xxxii. cap.
13.)
“Sanguis menstruus, qui, a Paracelso vocatur Zenith Juvencularum; hic
primus virginis impollutæ multa in se habet arcana non semper revelanda.
Ut autem pauca adducam, extreme linteum a primo sanguine menstruo madidum
et exsiccatum, hanc denuo humectatum et applicatum pedi podagraci,
mirum quantum lenit dolores podagræ. Idem linteum, si applicetur parti
Erysipelate affectæ, incontinenti erysipelas curat. In affectibus ab
incantationibus et veneficiis oriundis multa præstat sanguis menstruus;
nam et ipse sanguis menstruus ad veneficia adhibetur, et sunt mulieres,
quæ pro philtris utuntur sanguine suo menstruo.” He instances such
a philter, made with menstrual and a hare’s blood, which drove the
recipient to mania and suicide. It was further used to make people
“impenetrable” to an enemy’s weapon, and to cure burning sores. (See
Michael Etmuller, “Opera Omnia,” vol. ii. p. 270, art. “Schrod. Dilucid.
Zoölogia.”)
A medical student was frequently courted by his neighbor’s daughter,
but he disregarded her advances. At one time, however, he slept with
the brother of the girl in her father’s house, and after that was so
infatuated that he would rise at midnight to kiss the jambs of the door
of her house. Some time afterwards, he sent his clothes to a tailor to be
mended, and, sewed up in his trousers, was found a little bundle of hair
from an unmentionable part of the girl’s body, containing the initials S.
T. I. A. M., which were by some interpreted to mean “Sathanas te trahat
in amorem mei.” As soon as this little bunch of hair was burned, the poor
fellow had rest.—(Paullini, pp. 258, 259.)
Human semen was equally used for the very same purpose. There is nothing
to show whether male lovers used this ingredient, and maidens the
menstrual liquid, or both indiscriminately; but it seems plausible to
believe that each sex adhered to its own excretion.
“Semen, f. Sperma, non modo comperimus per se a nonnullis ad veneris
scilicet ligaturam maleficam dissolvendam, sed et Momiam magneticam
inde fieri quæ amoris concilietur fervor. Quin et homunculum suum inde
meditatur Paracelsus.”—(Etmuller, “Opera Omnia,” vol. ii. p. 266.)