nearly all the old writers.
Beckherius tells his readers that to counteract the effects of
witchcraft, and especially of “Nouer l’Aiguillette” ... “Si per nuptialem
annulum sponsius mingat, fascina et Veneris impotentia solvetur, qua a
maleficiis ligatus fuit.”—(“Med. Microcos.” p. 66.)
“Pisse through a wedding-ring if you would know who is hurt in his
privities by witchcraft.”—(Reg. Scot, “Discoverie,” p. 64.)
“Si quis aliquo veneficio impotens ad usum veneris factus fuerit at quam
primum mingat per annulum conjugalem.”—(Frommann, “Tract. de Fascinat.”
p. 997.)
Etmuller did not believe that witches could “nouer l’aiguillette;”
he attributed that effect to excessive modesty; yet all the remedies
mentioned by him, by which the testes of the bridegroom were to be
anointed, contained “Zibethum” as an ingredient.—(See his “Opera Omnia,”
vol. i. p. 461 b, and 462 a.)
For loss of virility, Paullini recommends drinking the urine of a bull,
immediately after he has covered a cow, and smear the pubis with the
bull’s excrements; also piss through the engagement ring (pp. 152, 153).
But when witches have been the occasion of such impotence, the victim
should urinate through the wedding ring immediately after discovering
his misfortune; he also advises urination upon a broom; human ordure was
also efficacious. Or, take castor-oil plant, put it into a pot, add some
of the patient’s urine, hermetically seal, boil slowly, and then bury in
an unfrequented spot. By this method, the witches will either be made
to piss blood, or have other tormenting pains until they relieve the
bewitched one.—(Idem, pp. 264, 265.)
Etmuller describes another “sympathetic” cure for this infirmity: This
prescribed that the bridegroom should catch a fish (the Latin word is
“lucium,” meaning probably our pike), forcibly open its mouth, urinate
therein, and throw the fish back in the water, upstream; then try to
copulate, taking care to urinate through the wedding-ring, both before
and after. “Si quis emat lucium piscem sexus masculini, huic per vim
aperiatur os, et in os ejus immittatur urinam, maleficiati. Hic lucius
ita vivus immittatur in fluvium, idque contra ejusdem cursum ... subito
namque tollitur maleficium si non sit nimis inveteratum, etc.... probatum
etiam fuit si sponsus ante copulationem et etiam post eam mittat suam
urinam per annulum sponsalitium quem accepit a sponsa.” He gives
another cure, of much the same kind, which, however, required that the
micturation through the ring should be done in a cemetery while the
patient was lying on his back on a tombstone. “A vetula suppeditato dum
scil. in cementerio quodam missit urinam per annulum cujusdam lapidis
sepulchro incumbentis.”—(Etmuller, vol. i. p. 462 a, 462 b.)
This remedy is believed in and practised by the peasantry in some
parts of Germany to the present day. “A married man who has become
impotent through evil influences can obtain relief by forming
a ring with his thumb and forefinger, and urinating through it
secretly.”—(“Sagen-märchen, Volkaberglauben, aus Schwaben,” Drs.
Birlinger and Buck, Freiburg, 1861, p. 486.)
Grimm, in his “Teutonic Mythology” (vol. iii.) refers to “Nouer
l’aiguillette,” but adds nothing to what has been presented above.
There are certain quaint usages connected with weddings among the
peasantry of Russia, as well as among the rustic population of England,
which might excite the curiosity of antiquarians. In the first case,
there is a “sprinkling” with water once used by the bride for the purpose
of bathing her person; in the other, there is a “sale” of a liquid by the
bride, this liquid being an intoxicant.
Wedding ceremonies of the peasantry of Samogitia: “The bride was led on
the wedding-day three times round the fireplace of her future husband; it
was then customary to wash her feet, and with the same water that had
been used for that purpose the bridal bed, the furniture, and all the
guests were sprinkled.”—(Maltebrun, “Univ. Geog.,” vol. ii. p. 548, art.
“Russia.”)
By a reference back to page 60 of this volume, it will be seen that the
Queen of Madagascar favored her subjects in the same way. This sprinkling
with the water used as above may be a survival of a former practice, in
which the aspersion was with the urine of the bride.
“Bride-Ale, Bride-Bush, and Bride-Stake are nearly synonymous terms, and
are all derived from the circumstance of the bride’s selling ale on the
wedding-day, for which she received, by way of contribution, whatever
handsome price the friends assembled on the occasion chose to pay her for
it.” (Brand, “Pop. Ant.,” vol. ii. p. 143, art. “Bride-Ales.”) In this
article he introduces the story from Mungo Park already given in these
pages, and seems to have a suspicion that the custom above described
could be traced back to a rather unsavory origin.
The derivation of the English word “bridal” is very obscure; Fosbroke
says that the word “bride-ale” comes from the bride’s selling ale on her
wedding-day, and the friends contributing what they liked in payment
of it.—(“Cyclop. of Antiq.,” vol. ii. p. 818, under “Marriage” and
“Bride-Ales.”)
The Latin name for beer or ale was “cerevisia,” which would seem to be a
derivative from the name of the goddess. It may, in earlier ages, have
been a beverage dedicated to that goddess, employed in her libations, and
held sacred as the means of producing the condition of inebriation, which
in all nations has been looked upon as sacred. Réclus tells that there
are still nations who regard their brewers as priests, and there are
others who exalt their milkmen to that office: “Les Chewsoures du Caucase
ont leurs prêtres brasseurs; les Todas des Neilgherries leurs divins
fromagiers.”—(“Les Primitifs,” p. 116, article “Les Inoits Occidentaux.”)
Hazlitt mentions the case where the Fairies, having a mock baptism and no
water at hand, made use of strong beer.—(“Fairy Tales,” London, 1875, p.
385.)
Beer would appear entitled to claim as old an origin as alcohol; it
is mentioned in the sacred books of the Buddhists of Tibet: “La Bière
d’hiver (dguntchang).”—(“Pratimoksha Sutra,” translated by W. W.
Rockhill, Paris, 1885, Société Asiatique.)
XXXII.
PARTURITION.
For the cure of sterility, Pliny says that “authors of the very highest
repute ... recommend the application of a pessary made of the fresh
excrement voided by an infant at the moment of its birth.” The urine
of eunuchs was considered to be “highly beneficial as a promoter of
fruitfulness in females.”—(Lib. xxviii. cap. 18.)
“A hawk’s dung, taken in honeyed wine, would appear to render females
fruitful.”—(Idem, lib. xxx. c. 44.)
“Ut mulier concipiat, infantis masculi stercus quod primum
enatus emittet, suppositum locis mulieris conceptionem facit et
præstat.”—(Sextus Placitus, “De Medicamentis ex Animalibus,” Lyons, 1537,
pages not numbered, article “De Puello et Puella Virgine.”)
Schurig recommends an application of bull-dung to the genitalia of women
to facilitate pregnancy. (“Chylologia,” vol. ii. p. 602.) The woman drank
her own urine to ease the pains of pregnancy. (Idem, p. 535.) There is
a method of inducing conception outlined in vol. ii. p. 712, by the use
of a bath of urine poured over rusty old iron. Mouse-dung was applied
as a pessary in pregnancy. (Idem, pp. 728, 729.) Hawk-dung drunk by a
woman before coitus insured conception. (Idem, p. 748.) Goose or fox dung
rubbed upon the pudenda of a woman aided in bringing about conception.
(Idem, p. 748.) Leopard-dung was also supposed to facilitate conception;
pastilles were made of it, and the sexual parts fumigated therewith; or a
pessary was inserted and kept in place for three days and three nights:
“Ea quamvis antea sterilis fuit, deinceps tamen concipiet.”—(Idem, p.
820.)
But Schurig warns his readers that care must be exercised in the use
of such remedies. He gives an instance of a woman who applied the dung
of a wolf to her private parts, and soon after bearing a child, found
him possessed of a wolfish appetite.—(Idem, lib. i. cap. 1, article “De
Bulimo Brutorum,” p. 24.)
“When ladies desire to know whether or not they are enceinte, Paullini
recommends that they urinate in an earthen vessel wherein a needle has
been thrown. Let it stand over night; should the needle become covered
with small red spots, the woman is enceinte; but should it be black or
rusty, she is not. To determine whether she is to have a son or daughter,
dig two small pits; put barley in one, and wheat in the other; let the
enceinte lady urinate into both; then cover up the vessels with earth; if
the wheat sprout first, it is to be a son; if the barley sprout before
the wheat, it is to be a daughter.”—(Paullini, p. 163.)
Or, throw a pea into each parcel of urine; then the pea which germinates
first, etc., etc. “Aut injiciatur lens in unius cujusque urina et cujus
efflorescit, ille culpa caret,” is the method suggested by Danielus
Beckherius.—(“Med. Microcos. aut Spagyria Microcosmi,” pp. 60, 61,
quoting from still older authorities.)
He gives still another plan: “If you wish to determine whether a woman is
to bear children, pour some of her urine upon marsh-mallows; if they be
found dry on the third day, she’ll not conceive.” “Si explorare volueris,
utrum mulier ad concipiendam sit idonea, tunc super malvam sylvestram
urinam ejus funde; si ille tertio die arida fuerit, omnino minus idoneam
illam habeto.”—(Idem, p. 61.)
Paullini urges that the excrements of goats, hawks, horses, geese, and
the urine of camels be taken to remedy sterility (p. 161).
And the very same remedies are given by Beckherius and still older
writers.
English women, in some localities, drank the urine of their husbands to
assist them in the hour of labor.
“In the collection entitled ‘Sylon, or the Wood’ (p. 130) we read that ‘a
few years ago, in this same village, the women in labor used to drinke
the urine of their husbands, who were all the while stationed, as I have
seen the cows in St. James’s Park, straining themselves to give as much
as they can.’”—(Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” London, 1849, vol. iii.
article, “Lady in the Straw.”)
“Mariti urina hausta partum difficilem facilitare dicitur.”—(Etmuller,
vol. ii. p. 265, Schroderi, “Dilucidati Zoölogia.”)
An instance of the drinking of her own urine by a pregnant woman is to be
read in Schurig (p. 45), art. “De Pica.”
The warm urine of the husband was drunk for the same purpose: “Scil.
Hartmannus commendat ut difficiliter pariens libat haustum urinæ mariti
sui et ita si hic fuerit genuinus fœtus parientam illam ex parti solvi
putat; ast si urinæ aliquid subest erit illud sali volatili ad morem
aliorum omnium volatilium, attribuendum.” (Etmuller, vol. ii. pp. 171,
172.) Here we have the husband’s urine employed not only as a medicine,
but as a test of the wife’s fidelity.
John Moncrief directs that, to facilitate conception, a pessary should
be inserted in the vagina, of which hare’s dung was to be a component.
Horse’s dung, drunk in water, aided a woman in childbirth.—(“The Poor
Man’s Physician,” Edinburgh, 1716, p. 149.)
“Ut mulier post partum in secundis non laboret, de lotio hominis
subtiliter gustet et secundæ statim sequentur.”—(Sextus Placitus.)
Dioscorides prescribed both human ordure and the dung of the vulture to
bring about the expulsion of the fœtus.—(Materia Medica, edition of Kuhn,
vol. i. p. 232 _et seq._)
Goose-dung, in internal doses, was prescribed by Pliny for the same
purpose.—(Lib. 30, c. 4.)
But the dung of the elephant or menstrual blood prevented conception,
according to Avicenna: “Impregnationem prohibent ... stercus elephantis,”
vol. i. p. 390, b 11; “Impregnationem prohibent ... sanguis menstruus, si
supponatus.”—(Vol. i. pp. 330, a 35, 388, b 50.)
For accidents to pregnant women, apply rabbit’s dung externally; for
miscarriages, man’s urine, internally; the excreta of lionesses, hawks,
and chickens, internally; of horses and geese, externally and also
internally; and of pigeons and cows, externally. For after-birth pains,
the patient’s own urine, externally; or the excrement of chickens,
internally.—(Paullini.)
Schurig recommended the use of lion-dung, internally, in cases of
difficult parturition.—(“Chylologia,” p. 819.)
Etmuller says of secundines: “In partu difficili nil est præstantius” (p.
270).
Both Pliny and Hippocrates recommend hawk-dung in the treatment of
sterility, and to aid in the expulsion of the fœtus in childbirth; it
was to be drunk in wine; their prescription is copied by Etmuller:
“Hippocrates et Plinius ad sterilitatem emendandam propinant.”—(vol. ii.
p. 285.)
For the expulsion of the dead fœtus, Pliny recommended a fumigation of
horse-dung.—(Lib. xxviii. c. 77.)
And Sextus Placitus says: “Similiter, mortuum etiam partum ejicit. Idem
facit ut mulier facile pariat si totum corpus suffumigaveris claudit et
ventrem.”—(Cap. “De Equo.”)
Etmuller advises the use of these fumigations to aid in the expulsion
of the fœtus and after-birth; a potion of the dung should also be
administered in all such cases, being, in his opinion fully equal to the
dung of dogs or swallows.—(Vol. ii. p. 263.)
A parturient woman in New Hampshire, drank the urine of her husband as
a diuretic, forty or fifty years ago.—(Mrs. Fanny D. Bergen, Cambridge,
Massachusetts.)
Flemming is another who recommends a draught of the husband’s urine to
aid in delivery: “Porro, in partu difficili, urinam mariti calidam calido
haustam esse” (p. 23).
“A urine tub was held above the head of a woman in labor to ward off all
manner of evil influences.”—(Henry Rink, “Tales and Traditions of the
Eskimo,” Edinburgh, 1875, p. 55.)
“Gomez” (which is the “nirang” or urine of the ox) was prescribed to be
drunk as a purifying libation by a woman who had miscarried. (See Fargard
V. Avendidad, Zendavesta (Darmesteter’s translation), Max Müller’s
edition. “Sacred Books of the East,” Oxford, 1880, p. 62.) “She shall
drink gomez mixed with ashes, three cups of it, or six or nine, to wash
over the grave within her womb.... When three nights have passed, she
shall wash her body, she shall wash her clothes, with gomez and with
water by the nine holes, and thus shall she be clean.”—(Idem, pp. 63, 90.)
“Avec une tendre sollicitude, les bonnes amies versent sur la tête de
la femme en travail le contenu d’un pot de chambre pour fortifier,
disent-elles.”—(“Les Primitifs,” Elie Réclus, p. 43; “Les Inoits
Orientaux.”)
“The Commentaires of Bernard the Provincial, informs us” says Daremberg,
“that certain practices, not only superstitious but disgusting, were
common among the doctrines of Salerno; one, for instance, was to eat
themselves, and also to oblige their husbands to eat, the excrements of
an ass fried in a stove in order to prevent sterility.”—(“The Physicians
of the Middle Ages,” Minor, Cincinnati, Ohio, p. 6, translated from
Dupouy’s “Le Moyen Age Médical.”)
Mr. Havelock Ellis calls attention to the use of cow’s urine after
confinement by the women of the Cheosurs of the Caucasus. See also under
“Witchcraft,” “Therapeutics,” “Divination,” “Amulets and Talismans,”
“Cures by Transplantation,” “Ceremonial Observances.”
WEANING.
For an example of Urinal Aspersion, in connection with Weaning, see on
page 211.
XXXIII.
INITIATION OF WARRIORS.—CONFIRMATION.
The attainment by young men of the age of manhood is an event which among
all primitive peoples has been signalized by peculiar ceremonies; in a
number of instances ordure and urine have been employed, as for example:
The observances connected with this event in the lives of Australian
warriors are kept a profound secret, but, among the few learned is the
fact that the neophyte is “plastered with goat dung.”—(See “Aborigines of
Australia,” A. Brough Smyth, London, 1878, vol. i. p. 59, footnote.)
In some parts of Australia, Smyth says that the youth of fourteen or
fifteen had to submit himself to the rite of “Tid-but,” during which
his head was shaved and plastered with mud (“the head is then daubed
with clay”) “and his body is daubed with clay, mud, and charcoal-powder
and filth of every kind.” (Smyth had previously specified goat-dung.)
“He carries a basket under his arm, containing moist clay, charcoal,
and filth.... He gathers filth as he goes, and places it in the
basket.”—(Idem, vol. i. p. 60.)
The young initiate throws this filth at all the men he meets, but not
at the women or children, as these have been warned to keep out of his
way. This is the account given by Smyth, but Featherman, from whom Smyth
derived his information, makes no such restriction in his text, simply
stating that the young man was considered to be “excommunicated _de
facto_.” (See A. Featherman, “Social History of the Races of Mankind,”
2d Division, London, 1887, p. 152.) But, in either case, it is surely
remarkable to stumble upon the counterpart of one of the proceedings of
the Feast of Fools in such a remote corner of the globe.
“Among many of the tribes, the ceremony of introducing a native into
manhood, is said to be accompanied with some horrible and disgusting
practices.”—(“The Nat. Tribes of S. Australia,” Adelaide, 1879,
Introduction, xxviii, received through the kindness of the Royal Soc. of
Sydney, N. S. Wales, T. B. Kyngdon, Secretary.)
“In order to infuse courage into boys, a warrior, Kerketegerkai, would
take the eye and tongue of a dead man (probably of a slain enemy), and
after mincing them and mixing with his urine, would administer the
compound in the following manner. He would tell the boy to shut his
eyes and not look, adding: ‘I give you proper kaikai’ (‘kaikai’ is an
introduced word, being the jargon English for food). The warrior then
stood up behind the sitting youth, and putting the latter’s hand between
his (the man’s) legs, would feed him. After this dose, ‘heart along,
boy no fright.’”—(A. C. Haddon, “The Ethnography of the Western Tribes
of Torres Straits,” in Journal of the Anthrop. Institute, Great Britain
and Ireland, xix. no. 3, 1890, p. 420. Received through the kindness of
Professor H. C. Henshaw, U. S. Geol. Survey, Washington, D. C.)
“Some other customs are altogether so obscene and disgusting I must, even
at the risk of leaving my subject incomplete, pass them over by only thus
briefly referring to them.”—(“Nat. Tr. of S. Australia,” p. 280.)
Monier Williams repeats almost what Müller says about the Parsis. A young
Parsi undergoes a sort of confirmation, during which “he is made to drink
a small quantity of the urine of a bull.”—(“Modern India,” London, 1878,
p. 178.)
FEARFUL RITE OF THE HOTTENTOTS.
A religious rite of still more fearful import occurs among the same
people at the initiation of their young men into the rank of warriors—a
ceremony which must be deferred until the postulant has attained his
eighth or ninth year. It consists, principally, in depriving him of the
left testicle, after which the medicine man voids his urine upon him.[67]
“At eight or nine years of age, the young Hottentot is, with great
ceremony deprived of his left testicle.” (Kolbein, p. 402.) He says
nothing about an aspersion with urine in this instance, but on the
succeeding page he narrates that there is first a sermon from one of
the old men, who afterwards “evacuates a smoking stream of urine all
over him, having before reserved his water for that purpose. The youth
receives the stream with eagerness and joy; and making furrows with the
long nails in the fat upon his body, rubs in the briny fluid with the
quickest action. The old man, having given him the last drop, utters
aloud the following benediction: ‘Good fortune attend thee; live to old
age. Increase and multiply. May thy beard grow soon.’”—(Idem, p. 403.)
“The young Hottentot, who has won the reputation of a hero by killing
a lion, tiger, leopard, elephant, etc., is entitled to wear a bladder
in his hair; he is formally congratulated by all his kraal. One of the
medicine-men marches up to the hero and pours a plentiful stream over him
from head to foot,—pronouncing over him certain terms which I could never
get explained. The hero, as in other cases, rubs in the smoking stream
upon his face and every other part with the greatest eagerness.”—(Idem,
p. 404.)
Rev. Theophilus Hahn cites Kolbein in “Beiträge für Kunde der
Hottentoten,” in Jahrbuch für Erdkunde, von Dresden, 1870, p. 9, as
communicated by Dr. Gatchett of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, D.
C. For further references to the Hottentot ceremony of Initiation, by
sprinkling the young warrior with urine, consult Pinkerton’s “Voyages,”
vol. xvi. pp. 89 and 141, where there is a quotation from Thurnberg’s
“Account of the Cape of Good Hope.” See also Maltebrun, “Univ. Geog.”
vol. ii. article “The Cape of Good Hope.”
The Indians of California gave urine to newly-born children. “At time
of childbirth, many singular observances obtained; for instance,
the old women washed the child as soon as it was born, and drank of
the water; the unhappy infant was forced to take a draught of urine
medicinally.”—(Bancroft, H. H. “Native Races,” vol. i. p. 413.)
Forlong states that at the time of investiture of the Indian boy with
the sacred thread, “the fire is kindled with the droppings of the sacred
cow.”—(“Rivers of Life,” London, 1883, vol. i. p. 323.)
Valuable information was also received from Mr. Edward Palmer, of
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, especially in regard to the Kalkadoon
tribe near Cloncurry, who are among those who split the urethra.
In order to bring up an Eskimo child to be an “Angerd-lartug-sick,”—that
is, “a man brought up in a peculiar manner, with a view to acquiring a
certain faculty by means of which he might be called to life again and
returned to land, in case he should be drowned,”—“for this purpose the
mother had to keep a strict fast and the child to be accustomed to the
smell of urine.”—(Rink, “Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo,” p. 45.)
Réclus says of the Inuit child selected to be trained as an Angekok:
“Sitôt née, la petite créature sera aspergée d’urine de manière à
l’imprégner de son odeur caractéristique; c’est décidément leur eau
bénite. Ailleurs, la barbe, la chevelure, l’entière personne des rois
et sacrificateurs sont ointes d’huile prise dans de saintes ampoules;
ailleurs, elles sont beurrées et barbouillées de bouse soigneusement
étendue.”—(“Les Primitifs,” p. 84, “Les Inoits Occidentaux.”)
For initiation in witchcraft, “Dans la Hesse, le postulant se place
sur du fumier en prononçant des formules magiques, et pique un crapaud
avec un bâton blanc qu’il jette ensuite à l’eau.”—(“La Fascination,” J.
Tuchmann, in “Mélusine,” Paris, July-August, 1890, p. 93.)
“I am strongly inclined to the belief that all these rites are survivals
or debased vestiges of the blood-covenant practice, by which the
partaking of each other’s selves (by whatever is a portion of one’s self)
is a form of covenanting by which two persons become as one. Are you
aware of the fact that the habit of giving the urine of a healthy child
to a new-born babe has prevailed down to the present day among rustic
nurses in New England, if not elsewhere, in America? I can bear personal
testimony to this fact from absolute knowledge. It is a noteworthy
fact that the Hebrew word _chaneek_, which is translated ‘trained’ or
‘initiated,’ and which is used in the proverb, ‘Train up a child,’ etc.,
has as its root-idea (as shown in the corresponding Arabic word) the
‘opening of the gullet’ in a new-born child, the starting the child in
its new life. Among some primitive peoples fresh blood, as added life,
is thus given to a babe; and in other cases it is urine.”—(Personal
letter from Rev. H. K. Trumbull, editor of the “Sunday-School Times,”
Philadelphia, April 19, 1888.)