Chapter M: C. H. Gaidoz takes exception to this interpretation. In his opinion, (2)

Additional references of the same tenor are to be found in the “Pilgrims,” Beaumont and Fletcher, ii. 1: “The Scourge of Villanie,” Marston, 1599, satire 2; and in the following, which does not accord with Dr. Fletcher’s opinion that such utensils were provided solely for the female members of the household.

“_Host._ Hostlers, you knaves and commanders, take the horses of the knights and competitors; your honorable hulks have put into harbor; they’ll take in fresh water here, and I have provided clean chamber-pots.”—(“The Merry Devil of Edmonton,” 1608.)

Such vessels were in use in Ireland, where they were called “omar-fuail,” from _omar_, a vessel, and _fuail_, urine. They must have been employed from the earliest centuries. “And they (the Sybarites) were the first people who introduced the custom of bringing chamber-pots into entertainments” (Athenaus, book xii. cap. 17).

It is not easy to detect any essential difference between the manners of the people of Iceland, as described by Bleekmans on another page, and those of the more polished Romans.

Bed-pans were used in France in the earliest days of the fifteenth century. They are noted in “The Farce of Master Pathelin” (A.D. 1480).—(See “Le Moyen Age Médical,” Dupouy, Paris, 1888, p. 280 _et seq._, and the translation of the same by Minor, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1890, p. 82.)

“Maids need no more their silver pisse-pots scour,
...
Presumptuous pisse-pot, how did’st thou offend?
Compelling females on their hams to bend?
To kings and queens we humbly bend the knee,
But queens themselves are forced to stoop to thee.”

(“On Melting down the Plate, or the Piss-Pot’s Farewell,”
State Poems, vol. i. part 2, p. 215, A.D. 1697.)

“What need hath Nature of silver dishes or gold chamber-pots?”

(“The Staple of News,” Ben Jonson, iii. 2; London, 1628.)

“In the ‘Chronicle of London,’ written in the fifteenth century, a curious anecdote is related, to the effect that in A.D. 1258-60, a Jew, on Saturday, fell into a ‘privy’ at Tewksbury, but out of reverence for his Sabbath, would not allow himself to be drawn out. The next day being Sunday, the Earl of Gloucester would not let any one draw him out;” and so, says the Chronicle, “the Jew died in the privy.”—(“A Chronicle of London from 1089 to 1483,” London, 1827, p. 20, quoted by Buckle in “Commonplace Book,” p. 507, in vol. ii. of his Works, London, 1872.)

“Heliogabalus’ body was thrown into a jakes, as writeth Suetonius.”—(Harington’s “Ajax,” p. 46.)

Heliogabalus was killed in one (latrine); Arius, the great heresiarch, and Pope Leo, his antagonist, had the same fate. Charles the Fifth, Emperor of Germany and Spain, was born in one in the palace of Ghent, of Jeanne of Aragon, in 1500; hence, they must have been introduced in the localities named.—(See Biblioth. Scatal. p. 17.)

“Urinary reservoirs were erected in the streets of Rome, either for the purpose of public cleanliness, or for the use of the fullers, who were accustomed to purchase their contents of the Roman government during the reign of Vespasian, and perhaps other emperors, at a certain annual impost, and which, prior to the invention or general use of soap, was the substance employed principally in their mills for cleansing cloths and stuffs previous to their being dyed.”—(John Mason Good, translation of Lucretius’ “De Natura Rerum,” London, 1805, vol. ii. p. 154, footnote.)

“Vases, called Gastra, for the relief of passengers, were placed by the Romans upon the edges of roads and streets.”—(Fosbroke, “Encyc. of Ant.,” London, vol. i. p. 526, article “Urine.”)

“Les Chinois semblent manquer d’engrais, car on trouve de tous côtés des lieux d’aisance pour les besoins des voyageurs.”—(“Voyage à Pékin,” De Guignes, Paris, 1808, vol. i. p. 284; and again, vol. iii. p. 322.)

“Large vases of stone-ware are sunk in the ground at convenient places for the use of passing travellers.”—(“Chinese Repository,” Canton, 1835, vol. iii. p. 134.)

“A traveller who lately returned from Pekin asserts that there is plenty to smell in that city, but very little to see.... The houses are all very low and mean, the streets are wholly unpaved, and are always very muddy and very dusty, and as there are no sewers or cess-pools, the filthiness of the town is indescribable.”—(“Chicago News,” copied in the “Press,” Philadelphia, Penn., May 14, 1889.)

“By the Mahometan law, the body becomes unclean after each evacuation ... both greater and smaller ... requires an ablution, according to circumstances.... If a drop of urine touches the clothes, they must be washed.” For fear that their garments have been so defiled, “the Bokhariots frequently repeat their prayers stark naked.” ... The matter of cleaning the body after an evacuation of any kind is defined by religious ritual. “The law commands ‘Istindjah’ (removal), ‘istinkah’ (ablution), and ‘istibra’ (drying,)”—i. e., a small clod of earth is first used for the local cleansing, then water at least twice, and finally a piece of linen a yard in length.... In Turkey, Arabia, and Persia all are necessary, and pious men carry several clods of earth for the purpose in their turbans. “These acts of purification are also carried on quite publicly in the bazaars, from a desire to make a parade of their consistent piety.” Vambéry saw “a teacher give to his pupils, boys and girls, instruction in the handling of the clod of earth, and so forth, by way of experiment.”—(“Sketches of Central Asia,” Arminius Vambéry, London, 1868, pp. 190, 191.)

Moslems urinate sitting down on their heels; “for a spray of urine would make hair and clothes ceremonially impure.... After urining, the Moslem wipes the os penis with one to three bits of stone, clay, or a handful of earth, and he must perform Wuzu before he can pray.” Tournefort (“Voyage au Levant,” vol. iii. p. 355) tells a pleasant story about certain Christians at Constantinople who powdered with poivre d’Inde the stones in a wall where the Moslems were in the habit of rubbing the os penis by way of wiping.—(Burton, “Arabian Nights,” vol. ii. p. 326. Again, in footnote to p. 229, vol. iii., he says, “Scrupulous Moslems scratch the ground in front of their feet with a stick, to prevent spraying and consequent defilement.”)

Marco Polo, in speaking of the Brahmins, says, “They ease themselves in the sands, and then disperse it, hither and thither, lest it should breed worms, which might die for want of food.”—(“Travels,” in Pinkerton, vol. vii. pp. 164, 165.)

Speaking of the Mahometans, Tournefort says, “When they make water, they squat down like women, for fear some drops of urine should fall into their breeches. To prevent this evil, they squeeze the part very carefully, and rub the head of it against the wall; and one may see the stones worn in several places by this custom. To make themselves sport, the Christians smear the stones sometimes with Indian pepper and the root called ‘Calf’s-Foot,’ or some other hot plants, which frequently causes an inflammation in such as happen to use the Stone. As the pain is very smart, the poor Turks commonly run for a cure to those very Christian surgeons who were the authors of all the mischief. They never fail to tell them it is a very dangerous case, and that they should be obliged, perhaps, to make an amputation. The Turks, on the contrary, protest and swear that they have had no communication with any sort of woman that could be suspected. In short, they wrap up the suffering part in a Linen dipped in Oxicrat tinctured with a little Bole-Armenic; and this they sell them as a great specifick for this kind of Mischief.”—(Tournefort, “A Voyage to the Levant,” London, 1718, vol. ii. p. 49.)

“Some of their doctors believe Circumcision was not taken from the Jews, but only for the better observing the Precept of Cleanness, by which they are forbidden to let any Urine fall upon their flesh. And it is certain that some drops are always apt to hang upon the Præputium, especially among the Arabians, with whom that skin is naturally much longer than in other men.”—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 46.)

The Mahometans have “Two ablutions, the great and small.... The first is of the whole body, but this is enjoined only to” those “who have let some urine drop upon their flesh when they have made water.” This he enumerates among “The Three great Defilements of the Mussulmans.”—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 48.)

John Leo says of those “Arabians which inhabit in Barborie, or upon the Coast of the Mediterranean Sea.... Their churches they frequent very diligently, to the end they may repeat certain prescript and formall Praiers, most sperstitiously perswading themselves that the same day wherein they make their praiers, it is not lawfull for them to wash certaine of their members, when, as at other times, they will wash their whole bodies.”—(“Observations of Africa,” in Purchas’s “Pilgrims,” vol. ii. p. 766.)

“Les lieux destinés à la décharge de la nature ... sont toujours propres.... Les Turcs ne sont point assis comme nous quand ils sont en ces lieux-là, mais ils s’accroupissent sur le trou qui n’est relevé de terre que d’un demy-pied ou d’un peu plus.... Les Turcs et tous les Mahométans en général ne se servent point de papier à de vils usages, et quand ils vont à ces sortes de lieux ils portent un pot plein d’eau pour se laver.”—(J. B. Tavernier, “Relation de l’intérieur du Sérail du Grand Seigneur,” Paris, 1675, p. 194.)

“Nunquam Turcas seu papyro pro anistergio uti, sed pro magno ipsis delicti habere, et quidem ideo, quia fortasse Nomen Dei ipsi inscriptum sit vel inscribi possit, refert Thevenot, Itinerar. Orient. lib. 1, cap. 33, p. m. 60. Et juxta A. Bubeqv., Ep. 3, p. m. 184, Turcæ alvum excrementis non exonerant quin aquam secum portant, qua partes obscenas lavent.”—(Schurig, “Chylologia,” Dresden, 1725, p. 796.)

Rabelais has written a characteristic chapter on the expedients to which men resorted before the general introduction of paper for use in latrines; see his chapter xiii., “Anisterges.”

“Nothing could be more filthy than the state of the palace and all the lanes leading up to it. It was well, perhaps, that we were never expected to go there; for without stilts and respirators it would have been impracticable, such is the filthy nature of the people. The king’s cows even are kept in his palace enclosure, the calves actually entering the hut, where, like a farmer, Kamresi walks among them, up to his ankles in filth, and inspecting them, issues his orders concerning them.”—(Speke, “Nile,” London, 1863, vol. ii. p. 526, describing the palace of King Kamresi, at the head of the Nile.)

“Shortly afterwards, a disturbance arose between some of my people and the natives, owing to one of my men who retired into a patch of cultivated ground having been discovered there by the owner. He demanded compensation for his land having been defiled, and had to be appeased by a present of cloth. If they were only half as particular about their dwellings as their fields, it would be a good thing, for their villages are filthy in the extreme, and would be even worse but for the presence of large numbers of pigs which act as scavengers.”—(“Across Africa,” Cameron, London, 1877, vol. ii. p. 200.)

“I was disgusted with the custom which prevailed in the houses like that in which I was lodged, of using the terrace as a sort of closet; and I had great difficulty in preventing my guide, Amer el Walati, who still stayed with me and made the terrace his usual residence, from indulging in the filthy practice.”—(Dr. Henry Barth, “Travels in North and Central Africa,” Philadelphia, 1859, p. 429, description of Timbuctoo.)

“They (the Tartars) hold it not good to abide long in one place, for they will say when they will curse any of their children, ‘I would thou mightest tarry so long in one place that thou mightest smell thine own dung as the Christians do;’ and this is the greatest curse they have.”—(“Notes of Richard Johnson, servant to Master Richard Chancellor,” in Pinkerton, vol. i. p. 62. “Voyages of Sir Hugh Willoughby and others to the Northern parts of Siberia and Russia.”)

The Tungouses of Siberia told Sauer that “they knew no greater curse than to live in one place like a Russian or Yakut, where filth accumulates and fills the inhabitants with stench and disease.”—(Sauer, “Expedition to the North parts of Russia,” London, 1802, p. 49.)

“It is a common obloquy that the Turks (who still keep the order of Deuteronomy for their ordure) do object to Christians that they are poisoned with their own dung.”—(Harington, “Ajax,” p. 115.)

“The aspect of the village itself is very neat, the ground being often swept before the chief houses; but very bad odors abound, owing to there being under each house a stinking mud-hole, formed by all waste liquids and refuse matter poured down through the floor above. In most other things, Malays are tolerably clean—in some scrupulously so—and this peculiar and nasty custom, which is almost universal, arises, I have little doubt, from their having been originally a water-loving and maritime people, who built their houses on posts in the water, and only migrated gradually inland, first up the rivers and streams, and then into the dry interior.

“Habits which were once so convenient and cleanly, and which had been so long practised as to become a part of the domestic life of the nation, were of course continued when the first settlers built their houses inland; and, without a regular system of drainage, the arrangement of the villages is such that any other system would be very inconvenient.”—(“The Malay Archipelago,” Alfred Russell Wallace, London, 1869, vol. i. p. 126.)

Forster speaks of “an intolerable stench which arises from the many tanks dispersed in the different quarters of the town, whose waters and borders are appropriated to the common use of the inhabitants” (“Sketch of the Mythology of the Hindoos,” George Forster, London, 1785, p. 7); but, he adds, “The filth alone which is indiscriminately thrown into the street.”

“There are some Guai, which ... dawbe ouer their houses with Oxe-dung.... They touch not their meat with the left hand, but use that hand only to wipe and other unclean offices.”—(Marco Polo, in Purchas, vol. i. p. 105.)

“Having list at any time to ease themselves, the filthy lousels had not the manners to withdraw themselves further from us than a Beane can be cast. Yea, like vile slouens, they would lay their tails in our presence, while they were yet talking with us.”—(Friar William de Rubruquis, the Franciscan, sent by Saint Louis, of France (King Louis IX.), as ambassador to the Grand Khan of Tartary in A.D. 1235,—in Purchas, vol. i. p. 11.)

“A great magnifico of Venice, being ambassador in France, and hearing a noble person was come to speak with him, made him stay till he had untied his points; and when he was new set upon his stool, sent for the nobleman to come to him at that time, as a very special favor.”—(Harington, “Ajax,” p. 30.)

“The French courtesy I spake of before came from the Romans; since in Martial’s time, they shunned not one another’s company at Monsieur Ajax.” (“Ajax” as used by Harington, is a play upon the words “a Jakes.”)—(See Harington, “Ajax,” p. 38.)

Carl Lumholtz stated to the author that the Australians urinate in the presence of strangers, and while talking to them.

“Il n’est fonction physiologique ou besoin naturel qu’ils aient gêne à satisfaire en public. ‘Une coutume n’a rien d’indécent quand elle est universelle,’ remarque philosophiquement un de nos voyageurs.”—(“Les Primitifs,” Elie Réclus, Paris, 1885, p. 71,—“Les Inoits Occidentaux,” quoting Dall.)

Padre Gumilla says that the Indians on the Orinoco have the same custom as the Jews and Turks have of digging holes with a hoe and covering up their evacuations. (See “Orinoco,” Madrid, 1741, p. 109.) No such cleanliness can be attributed to the Indians of the Plains of North America or the nomadic tribes of the Southwest.

“And thou shalt have a paddle upon thy weapon; and it shall be, when thou wilt ease thyself abroad, thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn back and cover that which cometh from thee.

“For the Lord, thy God, walketh in the midst of thy camp, to deliver thee and to give up thine enemies before thee; therefore shall thy camp be holy; that he see no unclean thing in thee, and turn away from thee.”—(Deuteronomy xxiii.)

Speaking of the Essenes, Josephus informs us: “On the seventh day ... they will not even remove any vessel out of its place, nor perform the most pressing necessities of nature. Nay, on other days they dig a small pit, a foot deep, with a paddle (which kind of hatchet is given them when they first are admitted among them), and, covering themselves round with their garment, that they may not affront the divine rays of light, they ease themselves into that pit. After which they put the earth that was dug out again into that pit.

“And even this they do only in the most lonesome places, which they choose for this purpose. And it is a rule with them to wash themselves afterwards, as if it were a defilement.”—(“Wars of the Jews,” edition of New York, 1821, p. 241.)

“The Rabbinical Jews believed that every privy was the abode of an unclean spirit of this kind” (i. e., an excrement-eating god), “which could be inhaled with the breath, and descending into the lower parts of the body, lodge there, and thus like the Bhutas of India, bring suffering and disease.” (Personal letter from John Frazer, Esq., LL.D., Sydney, New South Wales, Dec. 24, 1889.)

In descriptions of Jerusalem, we read of the “Dung Gate,” by or through which, all the fecal matter of the city had to be carried.—(See Harington, “Ajax,” p. 87.)

“When an aborigine obeys a call of nature, he always carries a pointed instrument with which to turn up the ground, so that his fecal excreta may be hidden from the keen vision of the vagabond Bangals.” (“Bangals” are the native witches or their parallels.)—(“Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina,” A. Brough-Smith, vol. i. p. 165.)

The same custom has been ascribed to the Dyaks of Borneo. It is by no means certain that this custom had its origin in any suggestion of cleanliness; on the contrary, it is fully as probable that the idea was to avert the maleficence of witchcraft by putting out of sight material the possession of which would give witches so much power over the former owner.

Mr. John F. Mann confirms from personal observation that the natives of Australia observed the injunction given to the Hebrews in Deuteronomy. “From personal observation, I can state that the natives, all over the country, as a rule, are particular in this matter, but it was many years before I ascertained the reasons for this care. Sorcery and witchcraft exist in every tribe; each tribe has its ‘Kooradgee’ or medicine-man; the natives imagine that any death, accident, or pain, is caused by the evil influence of some enemy. These ‘Kooradgees’ have the power not only of inflicting pain, but of causing all kinds of trouble. They are particular to always carry about with them, in a net bag, a ‘charm’ which is most ordinarily made of rock crystal, human excrement, and kidney fat. If one of these medicine-men can obtain possession of some of the excrement of his intended victim, or some of his hair, in fact anything belonging to his person, it is the most easy thing in the world to bewitch him.”—(Personal letter from John F. Mann, Esq., Neutral Bay, New South Wales.)

“The disposal of excreta is not so much for the sake of cleanliness as to prevent any human substance from falling into the hands of an enemy.”—(Idem.)

Schurig devotes a long paragraph to an exposition of the views entertained by learned physicians in regard to the effects to be expected from the deposition of the fecal matter upon plants that were either noxious or beneficial to the human organism; in the former case, the worst results were to be dreaded from sympathy; in the latter, only the most salutary. Rustics, in his opinion, enjoyed better health than the inhabitants of cities for the very peculiar reason that the latter evacuated in latrines and in the act were compelled to inhale the deleterious gases emanating from the foul deposits already accumulated; whereas the countryman could go out to a comfortable place in the fields and evacuate without the danger and inconvenience to which the urban population were subject.

But he takes occasion to warn his readers that they must be careful not to defecate upon certain malignant herbs which might be the cause of virulent dysentery. “Præterea cavendum est ne feces supra herbas malignas exulcerantes sive violenter purgantes deponamus hinc enim causa latente dysenteria periculosa inducitur quæ vix nisi herbis prorsus putrefactis ullis medicamentis cedit.”—(“Chylologia,” p. 792, paragraph 66.)

Colonel Garrick Mallery, United States Army, reports having met with people of respectability and intelligence in the mountainous parts of Virginia who hold the same views upon the subject of latrines.

“Ye great ones, why will ye disdain
To pay your tribute on the plain?
Why will you place in lazy pride?
When from the homeliest earthenware
Are sent up offerings more sincere
Than where the haughty Duchess locks
Her silver vase in cedar box.”

(Dean Swift.)

“Si une bhikshuni jette des excréments sur l’herbe croissante, c’est un pacittiya, etc.”—(“Pratimoksha Sutra,” translated by W. W. Rockhill, Paris, 1884. Soc. Asiatique.) These bhikshuni are the nuns of Thibet, and the word “pacittiya” means a sin.

The following beastly practices are related of the Capuchins: “Tunica replicata, absque impedimento cacat et mingit, anum fune abstergit.”—(Fosbroke, “British Monachism,” quoting “Specimen Monchologiæ.”)

There are no latrines of any kind in Angola, West Africa; the negroes believe that it is very vile to frequent the same place for such purposes. They do not cover up their excrements, but deposit them out in the bushes. Sometimes it happens that a man will defecate inside the house, in which case he will be laughed at all the rest of his life, and be called “D’Kombe,” which is a kind of leopard.—(“Muhongo,” an African boy, translation by Rev. Mr. Chatelain.)

The following is the epigram of Martial “ad Furium”:—

“A te sudor abest, abest saliva,
Mucusque et pituita mala nasi,
Hunc ad munditiem adde mundiorem,
Quod culus tibi purior salillo est,
Nec toto decies cacas in anno;
Atque id durius est faba et lapillis,
Quod tu si manibus teras fricesque,
Non unquam digitum inquinare possis.”

The Hon. John F. Finerty called public attention to the fact that in the city of Mexico, ten years ago, beggars of the vilest caste invariably made a practice of defecating upon the marble steps of the main entrance to the grand cathedral.

Dr. J. H. Porter states that in some parts of the Mexican republic the women come out in front of their doors to urinate; the author has seen them doing this, and also defecating in the streets of Tucson, at that time the capital of Arizona; he has seen the same practice in several of the smaller hamlets of that territory and Sonora and New Mexico, but always at night.

The Mexicans living on our side of the border never constructed privies for their dwellings, a custom perhaps derived from Spain, where we have seen that even in Madrid the construction of such conveniences was unknown until after the middle of the last century.

POSTURE IN URINATION.

The Apache men in micturating always squat down, while the women, on the contrary, always stand up. Giraldus Cambrensis says of the Irish: “Præterea, viri in hac gente sedendo, mulieres stando, urinas emittunt.”—(“Opera,” edited by James Dimock, and published under the direction of the Master of the Rolls, London, 1867, vol. v. p. 172.)

The author has seen an Italian woman of the lower class urinating in this manner in the street near San Pietro in Vinculis, Rome, in open daylight, in 1883.

French women were to be seen in the streets of Paris urinating while standing over gutters.—(Mr. W. W. Rockhill.)

“Among the Turks, it is an heresy, to p—s standing.”—(Harington, “Ajax,” in the chapter “Ulysses upon Ajax,” p. 43.)

The Egyptian “women stand up when they make water, but the men sit down.”—(Herodotus, “Euterpe,” p. 35.)

Mr. Carl Lumholtz (author of “Among Cannibals,” New York, 1889) also stated that the Australian men squatted while urinating; the women generally stood erect, but upon this point he was not quite sure.

“Mantegazza, in his ‘Gli amori degli uomini,’ describing the operation of splitting the male urethra, practised among Australian tribes, remarks: ‘To urinate, they squat down like our women, lifting the penis slightly. It appears that, on the contrary, Australian women urinate standing.’ (He is apparently quoting from Michluchs-Maclay.) Among the Kaffirs, etc., at the Cape, the usual practice, I understand, does not differ from ours.”—(Personal letter from Havelock Ellis, Esq., editor of the Contemporary Science series, dated Red Hill, Surrey, Oct. 8, 1889. From this gentleman there was also received much matter of a most valuable character, from the early English dramatists, travellers, and others, which has been already quoted from these sources direct.)

“Behold the strutting Amazonian whore!
She stands in guard, with her right foot before:
Her coat tucked up, and all her motions just,
She stamps, and then cries, ‘Hah!’ at every thrust.
But laugh to see her, tired from many a bout,
Call for the pot, and like a man piss out.”

(Juvenal, Satire VI., Dryden’s translation.)

The Thibetan nuns are forbidden to adopt certain postures, as are the monks.

“110, 111. Ne pas se soulager debout, n’étant pas malade, est une règle qu’on doit apprendre.”—(“Pratimoksha Sutra,” translated by W. W. Rockhill, Paris, 1884, Soc. Asiatique.)

“Æsop, that great man, saw his master make water as he walked. ‘What!’ said he; ‘must we, then, dung as we walk?’”—(Planudus, quoted by Montaigne, “Essays,” Hazlitt’s translation, New York, 1859, vol. iii. p. 467.)

The lazzaroni of Naples are more filthy in all these respects than the wildest Maori, Bedouin, or Apache Indian, as the author can assert from disagreeable personal observation.

“It can be justly said that the inhabitants of Cadiack, if we except the women during their monthly periods and their lying-in, have not the least sense of cleanliness. They will not go a step out of the way for the most necessary purposes of nature; and vessels are placed at their very doors for the reception of the urinous fluid, which are resorted to alike by both sexes.”—(Lisiansky, “Voyages,” p. 214, quoted also in Bancroft’s “Native Races of the Pacific Slope,” vol. i. p. 81.)

“Par suite des ordures et du manque d’air, l’intérieur des huttes répand une puanteur presque insupportable.”—(“Les Primitifs,” Elie Réclus, Paris, 1885, “Les Inoits Orientaux.”)

Old women in Switzerland urinate standing, especially in cold weather.—(Rev. Mr. Chatelain, himself a native of Switzerland, and now a Protestant missionary in Angola, Western Africa.)

The men of Angola, Africa, urinate standing; the women of the same tribes urinate standing, as a general thing, although there are some exceptions. It should be remembered that the Jesuits have had missions in that region for two hundred years, and some effect upon the ideas of the people, due to these ministrations as well as to the occupancy of the country by the Portuguese, should be perceptible.

Gómara says of the Indians of Nicaragua: “Mean todos do les toma la gana—ellos en cuclillas y ellas en pie.”—(“Historia de las Indias,” p. 283.)

The Mojaves of the Rio Colorado follow the same rule as the Apaches.

In Ounalashka, the houses are divided by partitions. “Each partition has a particular wooden reservoir for the urine, which is used both for dyeing the grass and for washing the hands, but after cleansing the latter in this manner, they rince them in pure water.”—(Sarytschew, in “Phillip’s Voyages,” London, 1807, vol. vi. p. 72.)

Dr. Porter communicates the information that he has often heard the Arctic explorer Dr. Hayes speak of the propensity of the Eskimo of the east coast of Greenland to use the trench to the hut as a latrine. He tried in vain to prevent this practice among his Eskimo attendants, but believed that they had a pride among themselves in leaving conspicuous traces of their presence.

For urinals among the Eskimo, see also notes from Egede, Egede Saabye, and Richardson, under “Industries,” in this volume.

“Neither is it lawfull for any one to rise from the table to make water; but for this purpose the daughter of the house, or another maid or woman, attendeth always at the table, watchfull if any one beckon to them; to him that beckoneth shee gives the chamber-pott under the table with her owne hands; the rest in the meanwhile grunt like swine least any noise bee heard. The water being poured out, hee washeth the bason, and offereth his services to him that is willing; and he is accounteth uncivill who abhorreth this fashion.”—(Dittmar Bleecken’s “Voyage to Iceland and Greenland,” A.D. 1565, in Purchas, vol. i. pp. 636-647.)

Steller’s account shows that in his time the people of Kamtchatka had no regular water-closets.

“The dogs steal food whenever they can, and even eat their straps. In their presence no one is able to ease nature without the protection of a club for the purpose of keeping them at a distance. As soon as he leaves, the dogs rush to the spot, and under much snarling and snapping each seeks to grasp the deposit.”—(Steller, translated by Bunnemeyer.)

In the Eskimo myths there is the story of the Eskimo boy, an orphan, who was abused by being made to carry out of the hut the large urine vessel. This would indicate a certain antiquity for the employment of these vessels.—(See “The Central Eskimo,” Franz Boas, in “Sixth Annual Report,” Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, D. C., 1888, p. 631.)

In the city of Bogota, Colombia, South America, the lower classes urinate openly in the streets; in the city of Mexico, the same practice prevailed until recently.

In “The Snake Dance of the Moquis of Arizona,” the author had something to say touching the practice of the Moquis, Zuñis, and others of the Pueblo tribes, of collecting urine in vessels of earthenware; this was for the purpose of saving the fluid for use in dyeing the wool of which their blankets and other garments were to be made. It was noticed, however, that a particular place was assigned for such emergencies as might arise when the ordinary receptacles might not be within reach. Thus, in the town of Hualpi (on the eastern mesa in the northeast corner of the Territory of Arizona), one of the corners had been in such constant use, and for so long a time that the stream percolating down from the wall had eroded a channel for itself in the friable sandstone flooring, which would serve to demonstrate that the place had been so dedicated for a very extended number of years.

Latrines of some sort would seem to have been in use among the natives of Australia, if we are to interpret literally the expression employed by A. Brough Smyth, which see under “Myths” in this volume. The Tonga Islanders, in the mortuary ceremonies of their great chiefs, are stated to have had them (see under “Mortuary Ceremonies” in this volume).

Carl Lumholtz did not observe latrines of any kind among such of the Australians as he visited.

Among the Chinese “it is usual for the princes, and even the people, to make water standing. Persons of dignity, as well as the vice-kings, and the principal officers, have gilded canes, a cubit long, which are bored through, and these they use as often as they make water, standing upright all the time; and by this means the tube carries the water to a good distance from them.[53] They are of opinion that all pains in the kidneys, the strangury, and even the stone, are caused by making water in a sitting posture; and that the reins cannot free themselves absolutely of these humors but by standing to evacuate; and that thus this posture contributes exceedingly to the preservation of health.”—(“The Travels of Two Mahometans through India and China,” in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p. 215.)

The Persian “must not pray before an overhanging wall, or in a room where there is a pot de chambre.”—(Benjamin, “Persia,” London, 1887, p. 444, quoting from the Shahr.)

In the Hawaiian Islands, if a man’s shadow fall on a chief, the man is put to death.—(See “The Golden Bough,” Frazer, vol. i. p. 190.)

“These natives (East Siberia) always preserve for use in their domesticity the urine of the whole family; it is preserved in a large tub or half-barrel, procured from the whale-ships or found in the drift that comes upon their shores. They use the warm water from their bodies for cleansing their bodies; the rim that gathers round the high-water mark of their cess-pool is used for smearing their bodies to kill the vermin.... The habits of these people are beastly in the extreme.... They seemed to have no aversion whatever to close contact with the feces of men or animals.”—(Personal letter of Chief Engineer Melville, U. S. Navy, to Captain Bourke.)

Van Stralenberg says of the “Koræiki” (Koraks): “For their necessary occasions they make use of a tub, which they have with them in the hut, and when full they carry it out, and make use of the same tub to bring in water for other occasions.”—(“Histori-Geographical Description of the North and East Parts of Europe and Asia,” p. 397.)

By referring to page 390 of this volume, it will be seen that the Lapps, upon breaking camp, made it a point to burn the dung of their reindeer in cases where any of these animals had died of disease; while it is also related that immigrants to California from the States of Missouri and Arkansas, for some reason not understood, had the singular custom of burning their own excrement in the camp-fire.

“When they ease themselves, they commonly go in the morning unto the Towne’s end, where there is a place purposely made for them, that they may not bee seene, so also because men passing by should not be molested with the smell thereof. They also esteeme it a bad thing that men should ease themselves upon the ground, and therefore they make houses which are borne up above the ground, wherein they ease themselves upon the ground, and every time they do it they wipe; or else they goe to the water’s side to ease themselves in the sand; and when the Priuie houses are full, they set fire to them, and let them burn to ashes; they pisse by jobs as dogs doe, and not all at one time.”—(Master Richard Jobson, A.D. 1620, “Gold Coast of Africa,” in Purchas, vol. ii. p. 932.)

XXI.

AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE OF THE RITES CONNECTED WITH THE WORSHIP OF BEL-PHEGOR.

Precisely what ceremonial observances the ritual of Bel-Phegor demanded of the suppliant at his shrine is not likely ever to be known. It would be worse than useless to attempt in a treatise of this kind to affirm or deny the existence of the obscene usages alleged to have formed part of his worship; sufficient, at this moment, to lay before reflecting minds testimony on both sides of the question, with reasons for the belief that flatulence could be presented as an oblation, with examples of quaint customs which may partake of the nature of “survivals” from religious ceremonies of a nature not far removed from those supposed to have been associated with the rites of Bel-Phegor.

Well has an old author remarked: “Men have lost their reason in nothing so much as their religion, wherein stones and clouts make martyrs; and since the religion of one seems madness to another, to afford an account or rational of old rites requires no rigid reader.”—(Sir Thomas Browne, “Religio Medici,” edition of Boston, 1868, p. 329, article “Urn-Burial.”)

“Le Pet était une divinité des anciens Égyptiens; elle était la personnification d’une fonction naturelle. On la figurait par un enfant accroupi qui semble faire effort, et on peut en voir la représentation dans les ouvrages d’antiquité. Le poême Calotin, intitulé le Conseil de Momus (voyez aux Polygraphes) donne, contre la page 19, deux figures de ce dieu. L’une était en cornaline de trois couleurs; l’autre en terre cuite, se trouvait dans le cabinet du Marquis de Cospy, et la figure en a été donnée dans le Museum Cospianum. L’auteur de la Dissertation sur un ancien Usage (voyez le numéro 18) conteste que ces figurines se rapportent au Crepitus, et croit qu’elles ont été inventées dans un but plus solide.

“C’est de Minutius Felix que nous vient la reconnaissance du Crepitus, qui, lors même qu’il aurait été célébré réellement en Égypte, n’était peut-être qu’une caricature imaginée par les plaisants du jour. Ménage cependant affirme que les Pélusiens adoraient le Pet; il dit que Baudelot en a donné la preuve dans les éditions de son premier vol., et qu’il en possédait une figure. (Voy. Menagiana, 1693, no. 397. St. Jerome dit la même chose sur Isaie, xiii. 46. Voy. encore Klotz, act. littér. t. v., première partie, 1, Elmenhorst sur l’Octavius de Minutius Felix; Mythol. de Banier, t. 1; Montfaucon, ‘l’Antiquité expliquée,’ t. iii. part 2, p. 336.)

“Quelques antiquaires ont cru pouvoir identifier le dieu Crepitus des Romains avec Bel-Phegor, Baal-Phegor ou Baal-Peor, dieu Syrien,—Phegor, assure-t-on, ayant ce sens en Hebreu. (Origen contra Celsus; Minutius Felix.) Mais, sur cette dernière divinité les savants sont fort peu d’accord.

“Origène, St. Jerome, Salomon Ben Jarchi, lui donnent une signification qui la rendrait tout à fait indigne de figurer dans notre catalogue; mais Maimonide (Moge Nevoch, cap. 46) et Salom. Ben Jarchi (Comment. 3, sur Nomb. ch. 25) prétendent que son culte était plus sale que obscène, et les traducteurs de ces rabbins pour exprimer le principal détail des cérémonies célébrées en l’honneur du dieu de Syrie, disent: ‘Distendere coram eo foramen podicis et stercus offere.’

“Ajoutez que les pets étaient de bon augure chez les Grecs, de mauvais augure chez les Romains.”—(Voy. Scaliger, Auson.)

“No one now supposes that the Rabbins had anything but their imaginations to go on in what they say about Baal-Peor; they invented the story as a fanciful etymology of the name.”[54]—(Personal letter from Prof. W. Robertson Smith to Captain Bourke.)

Citations have already been made from the Bibliotheca Scatalogica, a curious collection of learning, no name and no place of publication of which can be found, but which seems to have been printed by Giraudet et Jouaust, 315 Rue Saint Honoré, Paris, granting that this title be not fictitious. In that work are to be seen the titles of no less than one hundred and thirty-three treatises upon Flatulence, some grotesque, some coarse, one or two of quaint erudition.

No. 88, entitled “Éloge du Pet, dissertation historique, anatomique et philosophique sur son origine, son antiquité, ses vertus, sa figure, les honneurs qu’on lui a rendus chez les peuples anciens, etc.; avec une figure représentant le dieu Pet, et cette inscription: Crepitui ventris conservatori deo propitio (p. 38),” the stupendous work of Sclopetarius, No. 111, of the Bibliotheca (Frankfort, 1628) seems to have been a monumental labor upon a subject not generally dissected. The same remark may be applied to “Physiologia crepitus ventris” of Rod. Goclenius, Frankfort and Leipsic, 1607, No. 123 of the Bibliotheca.

The earliest known work upon this curious topic is “Le plaisant deuis du Pet,” Paris, 1540.

“Origen saith the name Baal-Peor signifieth filthiness, but what filthiness he knew not; Salomon Ben Jarchi writeth they offered to him ordure, placing before his mouth the likeness of that place which Nature hath made for egestion.”—(Purchas, vol. v. p. 85.)

A reference to the work of Bel-Phegor is to be found in the following couplet from a book entitled “Conseil de Momus:”—

“La deuxième moitié du premier chant est consacrée

‘A certains vents coulis
Jadis adorés à Memphis.’”—(Bib. Scat., p. 7.)

“The antient Pelusiéns, a people of lower Egypt, did (amongst other whimsical, chimerical objects of veneration and worship) venerate a Fart, which they worshipped under the symbol of a swelled paunch.”—(“A View of the Levant,” Charles Perry, M. D., sm. fol., London, 1743, p. 419.)

“Time has preserved to us a figure of this ridiculous Divinity, which represents a very young child in the posture of that indecent action whence this god has his name.”—(Abbé Banier, “Mythology,” English translation, 1740, vol. ii. pp. 52 _et seq._)[55]

“Their Beetle-gods out of their privies; yea, their Privies and Farts had their unsavorie canonization and went for Egyptian deities.... So, Hierome derideth their dreadfull deitie, the Onion, and a stinking Fart, Crepitus ventris inflati que Pelusiaco religio est, which they worshipped at Pelusium.”—(Purchas, vol. v. p. 641.)

It may be well to bear in mind that the heathen idea of the power of a god was entirely different from our own. The deities of the heathen were restricted in their powers and functions; they were assigned to the care of certain countries, districts, valleys, rivers, fountains, etc. Not only that, they were capable of aiding only certain trades, professions, etc. They were not able to cure all diseases, only particular kinds, each god being a specialist; consequently, each was supposed to take charge of a section of the human body. This was the case with the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, and others. In mediæval times the same rule obtained, only in place of gods, we find saints assigned to these functions. Brand, Pop. Antiq. vol. i. p. 356, _et seq._, gives a list of the saints, and the functions ascribed to each. On page 366 of the work just cited, it will be seen that Saint Erasmus was in charge of “the belly, with the entrayles.” Keeping this in view, we can better understand the peculiar ceremonies connected with the worship of Bel-Phegor; he was, no doubt, the deity to whom the devotee resorted for the alleviation of ailments connected with the rectum and belly, much as he would, at a later date in the history of religion, have invoked Saint Phiacre to relieve him “of the phy or emeroids, of those especially which grow in the fundament.” (See in Brand, loc. cit. p. 362.) On the same principle that the worshipper was wont to hang up in the temples of Esculapius wax and earthen representations of the sore arms, legs, and other members which gave him pain, the worshipper of Bel-Phegor would offer him the sacrifice of the flatulence and excrement, testimonies of the good health for which gratitude was due to the older deity.

“The Egyptians divided the human body into thirty-six parts, each of which they believed to be under the particular government of one of the decans or aerial demons who presided over the triple divisions of the twelve signs; and we have the authority of Origen for saying that when any part of the body was diseased, a cure was effected by invoking the demon to whose province it belonged.”—(“Medical Superstitions,” Pettigrew, Philadelphia, 1844, p. 47.)

The ascription of particular signs of the Zodiac to the care of different members of the human anatomy is in line with the same religious idea; because the signs of the Zodiac, especially the Animal signs, were once Animal Gods.

Hone, in his “Every-Day Book,” has a therapeutical hagiology, too long to be here repeated.

“Melton says, ‘The saints of the Romanists have usurped the place of the Zodiacal constellations in their governance of the parts of man’s body,’ and that ‘for every limb they have a saint.’” Thus Saint “Erasmus rules the belly with the entrayles in the place of Libra and Scorpius.”—(“Medical Superstitions,” Pettigrew, Philadelphia, 1844, p. 54.) Next follows a long list of saints, with the particular functions assigned to each, beginning first with the list to be found in Hone, which Pettigrew extends.—(“Saint Giles and Saint Hyacinth against Sterility,” idem, pp. 55, 56.)

“In later times, according to Herodotus, a particular and minute division of labor characterized the Egyptians; the science of medicine was distributed into different parts; every physician was for one disease, not more; so that every place was full of physicians, for some were doctors for the eyes, others for the head; some for the teeth, others for the belly; and some for occult disorders. There were also physicians for female disorders. The sons followed the professions of their fathers, so that their numbers must necessarily have been very great.”—(Idem, p. 44.)

As the Egyptian priests were the doctors of that country, it is perfectly in accord with the eternal fitness of things that we should find them, even after they had been differentiated into different professions, restricted to the treatment of special diseases, much as the gods whom the priests once represented had been restricted.[56]

“The art of medicine is thus divided among them (Egyptians). Each physician applies himself to one disease only and not more. All places abound in physicians; some physicians are for the eyes, others for the teeth, others for the parts about the belly, and others for internal disorders.”—(Herodotus, “Euterpe,” p. 82.)

Hone shows that every joint of the fingers was dedicated to some saint.—(See his “Every-Day Book,” vol. ii. p. 48.)

“But, under the venerated name of Hermes, were issued books of astronomical forecasts of diseases, setting forth the evil influence of malignant stars upon the unborn; telling how the right eye is under the sun, the left under the moon, the hearing under Saturn, the brain under Jupiter, the tongue and throat under Mercury, smelling and tasting under Venus, the parts that have blood under Mars.... The early centuries next after the Christian era produced a rank crop of literary forgeries.”—(See “Saxon Leechdoms,” vol. iii. pp. 11, 12.)

“The New Zealanders gave a separate deity to each part of the body.”—(“Folk-Medicine,” Black, p. 11.)

The interview between Moses and Jehovah, where the latter refused to allow the prophet to see the glory of his face, but made him content himself with a view of his posterior, indicates that the sacred writers of the earlier periods were living in an atmosphere of thought which accepted all such ideas as those surrounding the Bel-Phegorian ceremonials.

The Hebrews believed that Jehovah should be propitiated with sweet savors:[57] “Offer up a sweet savor unto the Lord.” Bel-Phegor and other deities of the gentiles, who were the gods of particular parts of the human body, would, in all probability, be pleased with oblations coming especially from that particular part; thus, the god of Hunting had offerings of game; the gods of the Seas had sacrifices of fish; babies were offered to the deities of Childbirth; therefore the gods of the fundament should, naturally, be regaled with excrement and flatulence.

Harington calls attention to David’s prophecy in the 77th Psalm: “Percussit inimicos suos in posteriores, opprobrium sempiternum dedit illis.” “He smote his enemies in the hinder parts and put them to a perpetual shame.”—(“Ajax,” p. 25.)

The absence of unity is the characteristic of all primitive forms of religious thought; hence, the various differentiations mentioned above occur as a matter of religious necessity.

Among the practices prohibited by the Taoist religion: “A man must not sing and dance on the last day of the moon.... Must not weep, spit, or be guilty of other indecency towards the North.”—(Legge, “Religions of China,” p. 187.)

The Parsis have a curious idea suggestive of the Hebrew antagonism to the worship of Bel-Phegor: “14. The rule is that when one retains a prayer inwardly and wind shall come from below, or wind shall come from the mouth, it is all one.” (Shayast la Shayast, Max Müller’s edition, Oxford, 1880, cp. x. verse 14, p. 221. A footnote explains: “Literally, ‘both are one,’ that is, in either case the spell of the vag or prayer is broken.”)

“The Bedawi, who eructates as a matter of civility, has a mortal hatred to a crepitus ventris; and were a by-stander to laugh at its accidental occurrence, he would be at once cut down as a ‘pundonor.’ The same is the custom among the Highlanders of Afghanistan. And its artificial nature suggests direct derivation; for the two regions are separated by a host of tribes, Persians and Beloch, who utterly ignore the pundoner and behave like Europeans. The raids of the pre-Ishmaelitish Arabs over the lands lying to the northeast of them are almost forgotten; still, there are traces, and this may be one of them.”—(Burton, “Arabian Nights,” vol. v. p. 137.)

According to Niebuhr, the voiding of wind is considered to be the gravest indecency among the Arabs; some tribes make a perpetual butt of the offender once guilty of such an infraction of decorum; the Belludjages, upon the frontiers of Persia, expel the culprit from the tribe. Yet Niebuhr himself relates that a sheik of the tribe “Montesids” once had a contest of this kind among his henchmen, “avoit autorisé un défi dans ce genre entre ses domestiques et couronné le vainqueur.” (Niebuhr, “Description de l’Arabie,” Amsterdam, 1774, p. 27.) Snoring and Flatulence would seem to have been considered equally offensive by the Tartars. See Marco Polo’s reference to the mode of selecting wives for the Grand Khan (in Purchas, vol. i. p. 82). He says that the Grand Khan puts those deemed to be eligible under the care of “his Barons’ wives,” “to see if they snore not in their sleepe, if in smell or behaviour they bee not offensive.”

“Yet it is holden a shame with them to let a fart, at which they wondered in the Hollanders, esteeming it a contempt.”—(“Negroes of Guinea,” Purchas, vol. v. p. 718.)

On the Gold Coast of Africa, the negroes “are very careful not to let a fart, if anybody be by them; they wonder at our Netherlanders that use it so commonly, for they cannot abide that a man should fart before them, esteeming it to be a great shame and contempt done unto them.”—(Master Richard Jobson, A.D. 1620, in Purchas, vol. ii. p. 936.) In the Russian sect of dissenters called the “Bezpopovtsi,” “during the service of Holy Thursday, certain of them, known as ‘gapers’ or ‘yawners,’ sit for hours with their mouths wide open, waiting for ministering angels to quench their spiritual thirst from invisible chalices.”—(Heard, “Russian Church and Russian Dissent,” pp. 200, 201.)

Bastian, in “Allerlei aus Volks- und Menschenkunde” (vol. i. p. 9), quotes from Kubary, “Religion of the Pelew Islands,” to the effect that in cases of death, the vagina, urethra, rectum, nostrils, and all other orifices of the body are tightly closed with the fibres of certain roots or sponge, to prevent the escape of any of the liquids of the body, which seem to be of some use to the spirit of the deceased.—(Contributed in a Personal letter from Dr. Gatchett of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, D. C.)

In Wallachia, “No mode of execution is more disgraceful than the gallows. The reason alleged is that the soul of a man with a rope round his neck, cannot escape from his mouth.”—(Maltebrun, “Universal Geography,” Boston, 1847, vol. ii. p. 458, article “Hungary.”)

“The soul is commonly supposed to escape by the natural openings of the body, especially the mouth and nostrils.”—(Frazer, “The Golden Bough,” vol. i. p. 125.)

“Caton appliquait à l’objet d’un de nos chapitres; ‘Nullum mihi vitium facit.’ ... C’est ce que disait Caton lorsqu’un de ses esclaves pétoit en sa presence.”—(Bib. Scat., “Oratio pro Guano Humano,” p. 21.)

In Angola, West Coast of Africa, flatulence is freely permitted among the natives, but any license of this kind, taken while strangers are in the vicinity, is regarded as a most deadly insult.—(“Muhongo,” an African boy from Angola; interpretation by Rev. Mr. Chatelain.)

The poet Horace “a consacré plusieurs vers au sujet qui nous occupe. On peut voir particulièrement la Satire VIII. qui contient le passage suivant:—

“‘Mentior, at si quid merdis caput inquiner albis
Corvorum, atque in me veniat mictum atque cacatum
Julius, et fragilis pedacia, furque Voranus.’”—(Bib. Scat. p. 76.)

The celebrated English orator, Charles James Fox, is credited with the authorship of “An Essay upon Wind,” published anonymously in London, and numbered 91 in the Bib. Scat. (p. 39).

Martin Luther had many struggles and disputes with his Satanic Majesty, in all of which the latter came off second best. Melanchthon is cited as describing one of these, in which there were results worthy of incorporation in this work: “Hoc dicto victus Dæmon, indignabundus secumque murmurans abiit, eliso crepitu, non exiguo, cujus fussimen tetri odoris dies aliquot redolebat hypocaustum.” Vid. Joh. Wier, de Præstig. Dæmon. cap. 7, p. m. 54, in Schurig, “Chylologia,” p. 795, article “De Crepitu Diaboli.”

“Luther relates a story of a lady who ‘Sathanum crepitu ventris fugavit.’”—(“Les Propos de Table de Luther,” par G. Brunet, Paris, 1846, p. 22, quoted in Buckle’s “Commonplace Book,” p. 472, vol. ii. of his “Works.” All the English editions of Luther’s “Table Talk,” so far as known to the author, are “expurgated.”)

“Ciceron, considérant le Peditus comme une victime innocente, opprimée par la civilisation de son temps, poussait en sa faveur le cri de liberté et formulait ses droits.” As a footnote to the foregoing we read the following extract from Cicero: “Crepitus æque liberos ac ructus esse opportere.”—(Lib. 9, Epist. 22.)

“Memento quia ventus est vita mea.”—(Job. vii. 9.)