Chapter LIV: Conclusion 467 (2)

All that Higgins believed was believed and asserted by the Dominican missionary Diego Duran. Duran complains bitterly that the unwise destruction of the ancient Mexican pictographs and all that explained the religion of the natives left the missionaries in ignorance as to what was religion and what was not. The Indians, taking advantage of this, mocked and ridiculed the dogmas and ceremonies of the new creed in the very face of its expounders, who still lacked a complete mastery of the language of the conquered. The Indians never could be induced to admit that they still adhered to their old superstitions, or that they were boldly indulging in their religious observances; many times, says the shrewd old chronicler, it would appear that they were merely indulging in some pleasant pastime, while they were really engaged in idolatry; or that they were playing games, when truly they were casting lots for future events before the priest’s eyes; or that they were subjecting themselves to penitential discipline, when they were sacrificing to their gods. This remark applied to all that they did. In dances, in baths, in markets, in singing their songs, in their dramas (the word is “_comedia_,” a comedy, but a note in the margin of the manuscript says that probably this ought to be “_comida_,” food, or dinner, or feast), in sowing, in reaping, in putting away the harvest in their granaries, even in tilling the ground, in building their houses, in their funerals, in their burials, in marriages, in the birth of children, into everything they did entered idolatry and superstition.

“Parece muchas veces pensar que estan haciendo placer y estan idolatrando; y pensar que estan jugando y estan echando suertes de los sucesos delante de nuestros ojos y no los entendemos y pensamos que se disciplinan y estanse sacrificando.

“Y asi erraron mucho los que con bueno celo (pero no con mucha prudencia), quemaron y destruyeron al principio todas las pinturas de antiguallas que tenian; pues, nos dejaron tan sin luz que delante de nuestros ojos idolatran y no los entendemos.

“En los mitotes, en los baños, en los mercados, y en los cantares que cantan lamentando sus Dioses y sus Señores Antiguos, en las comedias, en los banquetes, y en el diferenciar en el de ellas, en todo se halla supersticion é idolátria; en el sembrar, en el coger, en el encerrar en los troges, hasta en el labrar la tierra y edificar las casas; pues en los mortuorios y entierros, y en los casamientos y en los nacimientos de los niños, especialmente si era hijo de algun Señor; eran estrañas las ceremonias que se le hacian; y donde todo se perfeccionaba era en la celebration de las fiestas; finalmente, en todo mezclaban supersticion é idolatria; hasta en irse á bañarse al rio los viejos, puesto escrúpulo á la republica sino fuese habiendo precedido tales y tales ceremonias; todo lo cual nos es encubierto por el gran secreto que tienen.”—(Diego Duran, lib. 2, concluding remarks.)

Fray Diego Duran, a Fray Predicador of the Dominican order, says, at the end of his second volume, that it was finished in 1581.

The very same views were held by Father Geronimo Boscána, a Franciscan, who ministered for seventeen years to the Indians of California. Every act of an Indian’s life was guided by religion.—(See “Chinigchinich,” included in A. A. Robinson’s “California,” New York, 1850.)

The Apaches have dances in which the prehistoric condition of the tribe is thus represented; so have the Mojaves and the Zuñis; while in the snake dance of the Moquis and the sun dance of the Sioux the same faithful adherence to traditional costume and manners is apparent.

THE URINE DANCE OF THE ZUÑIS MAY CONSERVE A TRADITION OF THE TIME WHEN VILE ALIMENT WAS IN USE.

The Zuñi dance may therefore not improperly be considered among other points of view, under that which suggests a commemoration of the earliest life of this people, when vile aliment of every kind may have been in use through necessity.

An examination of evidence will show that foods now justly regarded as noxious were once not unknown to nations of even greater development than any as yet attained by the Rio Grande Pueblos.

Necessity was not always the inciting motive; frequently religious frenzy was responsible for orgies of which only vague accounts and still vaguer explanations have come down to us.

The religious examples will be adduced at a later moment, as will those in which human or animal excreta have been employed in ordeals and punishments, terrestrial and supernal.

So long as the lines of investigation are included within civilized limits, the instances noticed very properly fall under the classification of mania and of abnormal appetite; and the latter, in turn, may be subdivided into the two classes of the innate and the acquired, the second of which has presented a constant decrease since physicians have rejected such disgusting remedial agents from the Materia Medica.

That both human ordure and urine have been, and that they may still to a limited extent be, added by the rustic population of portions of Europe to the contents of love-philters is a fact established beyond peradventure; and that the followers of the Grand Lama of Thibet stand accused, on what has the semblance of excellent authority, of obtaining from their priests the egestæ of that potent hierarch and adopting them as condiments, food, charms, amulets, and talismans, as well as internal medicines, will be fully stated in the chapters devoted to that purpose.

Schurig gives numerous examples of the eating of human and animal excrement by epileptics, by maniacs, by chlorotic young women, or by women in pregnancy, by children who had defiled their beds and dreading detection swallowed the evidences of their guilt, and finally by men and women with abnormal appetites.—(See Schurig, “Chylologia,” Dresden, 1725, pp. 45, 81, 84, 780-782.)

Burton relates the story of a young German girl, Catherine Gualter, in 1571, as told by Cornelius Gemma, who vomited, “among other things, pigeons’ dung and goose-dung.” She was apparently a victim of hysteria, and in her paroxysms had previously swallowed all manner of objectionable matter.—(See “Anatomy of Melancholy,” edition of London, 1806, vol. i. p. 76.)

“On a vu, surtout dans les hôpitaux, des femmes se faire un jeu d’avaler clandestinement leurs urines à mesure qu’elles les rendaient, et essayer faire croire qu’elles n’en rendaient point du tout.”—(Personal letter to Captain Bourke from Mr. Frank Rede Fowke, dated Department of Science and Art, South Kensington Museum, London, S. W., June 18, 1888.)

V.

HUMAN EXCREMENT USED IN FOOD BY THE INSANE AND OTHERS.

The subject of excrement-eating among insane persons has engaged the attention of medical experts. H. B. Obersteiner, in a communication to the “Psychiatrisches Centralblatt,” Wien, 1871, vol. iii. p. 95, informs that periodical that Dr. A. Erlenmeyer, Jr., induced by a lecture delivered by Professor Lang in 1872, had prepared a tabulated series of data embodying the results of his observations upon the existence of coprophagy among insane persons. He found that one in a hundred of persons suffering from mental diseases indulged in this abnormal appetite; the majority of these were men. No particular relation could be established between excrement-eating and Onanism; and no deleterious effect upon the alimentary organs was detected.

“In pathological reversion of type, due to cerebral disease, there are certain stages in some forms of mental disease in which some of the actions to which you refer are not uncommon.”—(Personal letter to Captain Bourke from Surgeon John S. Billings, U. S. Army, in charge of the Army Medical Museum, dated Washington, D. C., April 23, 1888.)

“A boy of four years old had fouled in bed; but being much afraid of whipping, he ate his own dung, yet he could not blot the sign out of the sheets; wherefore, being asked by threatenings, he at length tells the chance. But being asked of its savor, he said it was of a stinking and somewhat sweet one.... A noble little virgin, being very desirous of her salvation, eats her own dung, and was weak and sick. She was asked of what savor it was, and she answered it was of a stinking and a waterishly sweet one.” These examples Von Helmont says were personally known to him, as was that of the painter of Brussels who, going mad, subsisted for twenty-three days on his own excrements.—(See Von Helmont’s “Oritrika” (English translation), London, 1662, pp. 211, 212. Von Helmont’s work is a folio of 1161 pages.)

A French lady was in the habit of carrying about her pulverized human excrements, which she ate, and would afterwards lick her fingers. (Christian Franz Paullini, “Dreck Apothek,” Frankfort, 1696, p. 9.) Paullini also gives the instance of the painter of Brussels already cited on preceding page.

“Bouillon Lagrange, pharmacien à Paris, que ses confrères appellaient Bouillon à Pointu, a publié un ouvrage, intitulé la Chimie du Goût, sur la fabrication des liqueurs de table, et il donne la recette d’une préparation qu’il appelle Eau de Mille Fleurs qui se compose de bouse de vache, infusée dans l’eau de vie.”—(“Bibliotheca Scatalogica,” pp. 93-96.)

“As to the excrements of the cow, they are still used to form the so-called ‘eau de mille fleurs,’ recommended by several pharmacopœias as a remedy for cachexy.”—(“Zoological Mythology,” Angelo de Gubernatis, London, 1874, vol. i. p. 275-277.)

“Scatophagi. Ces gourmets d’un genre particulier, ces ruminants de nouvelle espèce, ces épicuriens blasés ou raffinés, s’appellaient scatophages, ou scybalophages. (De scybales, scybala, σκύβαλα. Voyez dans Dioscoride, lib. 5, c. 77, et Gorreus, Def. med. p. 579, les diverses acceptions de ce mot.) L’empereur Commode était de ceux-là; ‘Dicitur sæpe prætiosissimis cibis humana stercora miscuisse, nec abstinuisse gustu,’ dit Lampride (Vie de l’empereur Commode, p. 160). Riedlinus (Linear. Medic., an. 1697, mens. nov. obs. 23, p. 800) rapporte le cas d’une femme qui affirmait ‘nullum cibum in tota vita sua palato magis satisfecisse.’ Sauvage (Nosologie méthodique) dit qu’une fille lui a avoué qu’elle avait mangé jadis avec un plaisir infini la croûte qui s’attache aux murailles des latrines. Zacutus Lusitanus a connu une demoiselle qui, ayant par hasard goûté ses excréments, en fit dans la suite sa nourriture favorite, au point qu’elle ne pouvait en passer sans être malade.

“J. J. Wypffer, Dec. III? an. 2, obs. 135, schol., p. 199, rapporte un fait du même genre. De même: Ehrenfreid; Pagendornius (Obs. et hist. phys. med. cent. 3, hist. 95); Daniel Eremita (Descript. Helvet. oper. p. 402); P. Tollius (Epist. itinerar. 62, p. 247); Tob. Pfanner (Diatrib. de Charismati, seu miracul. et antiq. eccles., c. 2); [Citations are also made from Von Helmont, Frommann, Posinus Lentilius, and Paullini, which have been quoted elsewhere direct from those authors.] P. Borellus (Obs. phys. med. cent. 4, obs. 2); J. Johnstonus (Thaumagograph, admirand. homin. c. 2, art. 2); George Hanneous (Dec. II., an. 8, obs. 115); P. Romelius (Dec. III., an. 7 and 8, obs. 40); Mich. Bern. Valentin. (Novell. med. log. as. II). Nous croyons nous rappeler qu’il existe des exemples du même genre dans l’ouvrage de J. B. Cardan, intitulé: ‘De Abstinentis ab usu ciborum fetidorum,’ libellus imprimé à la suite du traité ‘De Utilitate ex adversis capienda’ de son père. On a connu à Paris un riche bourgeois, nommé Paperal, qui, par une étrange dépravation de goût, avalait des excréments de petits enfants. (Virey, Nouv. Dict. d’hist. nat. Deterville, tom. X.) La traduction même rapporte qu’ils les mangeait avec une cuiller d’or. Ce n’est pas le seul exemple d’un goût aussi bizarre. Bouillon portait toujours une boîte d’or remplie non de tabac, mais des excréments humains. (Voy. Dulaure, Hist. de Paris, edit. de 1825, t. VII. p. 262.)”—(Bibliotheca Scatalogica, pages 93 to 96.)

“La fiente de bécasse, dont les fines gourmets, véritablement scatophages, sont, comme on sait, très friands.”—(Bibliotheca Scatalogica, p. 133.)

In this curious book, full of learning and research, there are citations from more than three hundred authorities, some of them, of course, merely obscene and not coming within the purview of these notes, but others, as may be readily understood from reading the extracts taken from them, of the highest value in a scientific sense. Schurig gives an instance of voracity in which a certain glutton, after consuming all other food in sight, was wont to satisfy himself with urine and excrement: “Et si panes deerant, sua ipse excrementa comedebat et lotium bibebat.” (Schurig, “Chylologia,” Dresden, 1725, p. 52.) A case is given of a patient who having once experienced the beneficial effects of mouse-dung in some complaint, became a confirmed mouse-dung eater, and was in the habit of picking it up from the floor of his house before the servants could sweep it away.—(See Schurig, “Chylologia,” Dresden, 1725, p. 823 _et seq._)

The enceinte wife of a farmer in the town of Hassfort, on the Main, ate the excrements of her husband, warm and smoking.—(See Christian Franz Paullini, “Dreck Apothek,” edition of Frankfort, 1696, page 8. See also quotation from “Ephemeridum Physico-Medicorum,” Leipsig. 1694, on page 212 of this volume.)

“Chacun en fait, en voit, en sent, en touche, en parle, souvent en écrit, quelquefois en lit, et si chacun n’en mange pas, c’est que nous ne sommes pas encore au temps où les bécasses tomberont toutes rôties; mais de celui-là en voudrait manger.”—(Bibliotheca Scatalogica, p. 21, “Oratio pro Guano Humano.”)

An extract is here given from a letter sent to Charlotte Elizabeth of Bavaria, Princess-Palatine, daughter of Charles Louis, Elector-Palatine of the Rhine, born at Heidelberg, in 1652; she married the brother of Louis XIV., the widower of Henrietta Maria of England.

The letter in question was sent her by her aunt, the wife of the Elector of Hanover, and may serve to give an idea of the boldness of the opinions entertained by the ladies of high rank in that era, and the coarseness with which they expressed them:—

“HANOVRE, 31 Octobre, 1694.

“Si la viande fait la merde, il est vrai de dire que la
merde fait la viande.... Est-ce que dans les tables les plus
délicates, la merde n’y est pas servie en ragoûts?... Les
boudins, les andouilles, les saucisses, ne sont-ce pas des
ragoûts dans des sacs à merde?”

The letters here spoken of are to be found almost complete in the Bibliotheca Scatalogica, pages 17-21.

The following appeared in an article headed “The Last Cholera Epidemic in Paris,” in the “General Homœopathic Journal,” vol. cxiii., page 15, 1886: “The neighbors of an establishment famous for its excellent bread, pastry, and similar products of luxury, complained again and again of the disgusting smells which prevailed therein and which penetrated into their dwellings. The appearance of cholera finally lent force to these complaints, and the sanitary inspectors who were sent to investigate the matter found that there was a connection between the water-closets of these dwellings and the reservoir containing the water used in the preparation of the bread. This connection was cut off at once, but the immediate result thereof was a perceptible deterioration of the quality of the bread. Chemists have evidently no difficulty in demonstrating that water impregnated with ‘extract of water-closet,’ has the peculiar property of causing dough to rise particularly fine, thereby imparting to bread the nice appearance and pleasant flavor which is the principal quality of luxurious bread.”—(Personal letter from Dr. Gustav Jaeger, Stuttgart, Germany. See page 39.)

VI.

THE EMPLOYMENT OF EXCREMENT IN FOOD BY SAVAGE TRIBES.

The very earliest accounts of the Indians of Florida and Texas refer to the use of such aliment. Cabeza de Vaca, one of the survivors of the ill-fated expedition of Panfilo de Narvaez, was a prisoner among various tribes for many years, and finally, accompanied by three comrades as wretched as himself, succeeded in traversing the continent, coming out at Culiacan, on the Pacific Coast, in 1536. His narrative says that the “Floridians,” “for food, dug roots, and that they ate spiders, ants’ eggs, worms, lizards, salamanders, snakes, earth, wood, the dung of deer, and many other things.”[9] The same account, given in Purchas’s “Pilgrims” (vol. iv. lib. 8, cap. 1, sec. 2, p. 1512) expresses it that “they also eat earth, wood, and whatever they can get; the dung of wild beasts.” These remarks may be understood as applying to all tribes seen by this early explorer east of the Rocky mountains.

Gómara identifies this loathsome diet with a particular tribe, the “Yaguaces” of Florida. “They eat spiders, ants, worms, lizards of two kinds, snakes, earth, wood, and ordure of all kinds of wild animals.”[10]

The California Indians were still viler. The German Jesuit, Father Jacob Baegert, speaking of the Lower Californians (among whom he resided continuously from 1748 to 1765), says:—

“They eat the seeds of the pitahaya (giant cactus) which have passed off undigested from their own stomachs; they gather their own excrement, separate the seeds from it, roast, grind, and eat them, making merry over the loathsome meal.” And again: “In the mission of Saint Ignatius, ... there are persons who will attach a piece of meat to a string and swallow it and pull it out again a dozen times in succession, for the sake of protracting the enjoyment of its taste.”—(Translation of Dr. Charles F. Rau, in Annual Report, Smithsonian Institution, 1866, p. 363.)

A similar use of meat tied to a string is understood to have once been practised by European sailors for the purpose of teasing green comrades suffering from the agonies of sea-sickness.

(Fuegians.) “One of them immediately coughed up a piece of blubber which he had been eating and gave it to another, who swallowed it with much ceremony and with a peculiar guttural noise.”—(“Voyage of the Adventure and Beagle,” London, 1839, vol. i. p. 315.)

The same information is to be found in Clavigero (“Historia de la Baja California,” Mexico, 1852, p. 24), and in H. H. Bancroft’s “Native Races of the Pacific Slope,” vol. i. p. 561; both of whom derive from Father Baegert. Orozco y Berra also has the story; but he adds that oftentimes numbers of the Californians would meet and pass the delicious tid-bit from mouth to mouth.[11]

Castañeda alludes to the Californians as a race of naked savages, who ate their own excrement.[12]

The Indians of North America, according to Harmon, “boil the buffalo paunch with much of its dung adhering to it,”—a filthy mode of cooking which in itself would mean little, since it can be paralleled in almost all tribes. But in another paragraph the same author says: “Many consider a broth made by means of the dung of the cariboo and the hare to be a dainty dish” (Harmon’s “Journal,” etc., Andover, 1820, p. 324).[13]

The Abbé Domenech asserts the same of the bands near Lake Superior: “In boiling their wild rice to eat, they mix it with the excrement of rabbits,—a delicacy appreciated by the epicures among them” (Domenech, “Deserts,” vol. ii. p. 311).

Of the negroes of Guinea an old authority relates that they “ate filthy, stinking elephant’s and buffalo’s flesh, wherein there is a thousand maggots, and many times stinks like carrion. They eat raw dogge guts, and never seethe nor roast them” (De Bry, Ind. Orient. in Purchas’s “Pilgrims,” vol. ii. p. 905). And another says that the Mosagueys make themselves a “pottage with milk and fresh dung of kine, which, mixed together and heat at the fire, they drinke, saying it makes them strong” (Purchas, lib. 9, cap. 12, sec. 4, p. 1555).

The Peruvians ate their meat and fish raw; but nothing further is said by Gómara. “Comen crudo la carne y el pescado” (Gómara, “Hist. de las Indias,” p. 234.)

The savages of Australia “make a sweet and luscious beverage by mixing taarp with water. Taarp is the excrement of a small green beetle, wherein the larvæ thereof are deposited.”—(“The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina,” P. Beveridge, Melbourne, 1889, p. 126; received through the kindness of the Royal Society of Sydney, New South Wales, T. B. Kyngdon, Secretary.)

“One of them (Snakes), who had seized about nine feet of the entrails, was chewing it at one end, while with his hand he was diligently clearing his way by discharging the contents of the other. It was indeed impossible to see these wretches ravenously feeding on the filth of animals, and the blood streaming from their mouths, without deploring how nearly the condition of savages approaches that of the brute creation.”—(Lewis and Clark, quoted by Spencer, “Descriptive Sociology: ‘Snakes.’”)

“Some authors have said that all the Hottentots devour the entrails of beasts, uncleansed of their filth and excrements, and that, whether sound or rotten, they consider them as the greatest delicacies in the world; but this is not true. I have always found that when they had entrails to eat they turned and stripped them of their filth and washed them in clear water.”—(“Peter Kolben’s Voyage to the Cape of Good Hope,” in Knox’s “Voyages and Travels,” London, 1777, vol. ii. p. 385.)

Atkinson declined to dine with a party of Kirghis who had killed a sheep, “having seen the entrails put into the pan after undergoing but a very slight purification.”—(“Siberia,” T. W. Atkinson, New York, 1865, p. 219, and again p. 433.)

“The entrails of animals and other refuse matter thrown overboard from the English ships is eagerly collected and eaten by the Cochi-Chinese, whom Mr. White even accuses of having a predilection for filth.”—(“Encyc. of Geography,” Philadelphia, 1845, vol. ii. p. 397, article “Farther India.”)

(Arabs of the Red Sea.) “The water of Dobelew and Irwee tasted strongly of musk, from the dung of the goats and antelopes, and the smell before you drink it is more nauseous than the taste.”—(“Travels to discover the Source of the Nile,” James Bruce, Dublin, 1790, vol. i. p. 367.)

From thus enduring water polluted with the excrements of animals to drinking beverages to which urine has been purposely added, as Sir Samuel Baker and Colonel Chaille Long show to have been the custom of the negroes near Gondokoro with their milk, is but a very small step.

Chaille Long relates that in Central Africa he and his men were obliged to drink water which was a mixture of the excrements of the rhinoceros and the elephant (see “Central Africa,” New York, 1877, p. 86). Livingston tells us that the Africans living along the banks of the Zambesi are careful not to drink except from springs or wells which they dig in the sand. “During nearly nine months in the year ordure is deposited around countless villages along the thousands of miles drained by the Zambesi. When the heavy rains come down and sweep the vast fetid accumulation into the torrents the water is polluted with filth” (“Zambesi,” London, 1865, p. 181).

Rev. J. Owen Dorsey reports that he has seen, while among the Ponkas, “a woman and a child devour the entrails of a beef, with the contents” (personal letter to Captain Bourke).

Réclus says that the Eastern Inuit eat excrement. “Ils ne reculent pas devant les intestins de l’ours, pas même devant ses excréments, et se jettent avec avidité sur la nourriture mal digérée qu’ils retirent du ventre des rennes” (“Les Primitifs,” Paris, 1885, pp. 31, 32). “Les Ygarrotes des Philippines, qui versent comme sauce à leur viande crue le jus des fientes d’un buffle fraîchement abattu” (idem, p. 31).

The tribes of Angola, West Africa, cook the entrails of deer without removing the contents; this is for the purpose of getting a flavor, as the excrement itself is not eaten (“Muhongo,” interpretation by Rev. Mr. Chatelain).

The Thibetan monk was not to eat entrails. “Ne pas manger des tripes” (“Pratimoksha Sutra,” W. W. Rockhill, Soc. Asiatique, Paris, 1885.)

(Tunguses of Siberia.) “They eat up every part of the animal which they kill, not throwing away even the impurities of the bowels, with which they make a sort of black pudding by a mixture of blood and fat.”—(Gavrila Sarytschew, in Phillips’s “Voyages,” London, 1807, vol. v.)

Natives of Eastern Siberia “ate with avidity the entrails of the seal without cleaning in the least the partly digested food from the intestines, the ordure of the seal being as offensive to civilized man as the fæces of men or dogs.”—(Personal letter from Chief Engineer Melville, U. S. Navy, to Captain Bourke.)

The Aleuts and Indians from the extreme northern coast of America with Melville’s party displayed the same appetite for the half-digested contents of the paunches of the seals killed by them. This appetite was not due to lack of food, as Melville takes care to explain. At another time he detected his “natives” in the act of eating “plentifully, though covertly, of the droppings of the reindeer” (idem).

VII.

URINE IN HUMAN FOOD.

CHINOOK OLIVES.

The addition of urine to human food is mentioned by various writers. Speaking of the Chinooks, Paul Kane describes a delicacy manufactured by some of the Indians among whom he travelled, and called by him “Chinook Olives.” They were nothing more nor less than acorns soaked for five months in human urine (see Kane, “Artist’s Wanderings in North America,” London, 1859, p. 187). Spencer copies Kane’s story in his “Descriptive Sociology,” article “Chinooks.”

“In Queensland, near Darlington, there is a tract of country covered with a peculiar species of pine, yielding an edible nut of which the natives are extremely fond.... The men would form large clay pans in the soil, into which they would urinate; they would then collect an abundance of these seeds and steep them in the urine. A fermentation took place, and all the seeds were devoured greedily, the effect being to cause a temporary madness among the men,—in fact a perfect delirium tremens. On these occasions it was dangerous for any one to approach them. The liquid was not used in any way.”—(Personal letter from John F. Mann, Esq., Neutral Bay, Sydney, New South Wales.)

This account not only recalls the story told by the artist Kane in the preceding paragraph, but establishes the fact that in Australia there is something with a marvellous resemblance to the Ur-Orgie of the people of Siberia.

Chief Engineer George W. Melville, U. S. Navy, author of “In the Lena Delta,” has had much experience with the natives of Northern Siberia, among whom it was his misfortune to be cast away. In a personal letter to Captain Bourke he states that he observed several instances of Siberian women drinking their own or their neighbor’s freshly voided urine. Once, in Sutke Harbor, Saint Lawrence Bay, near East Cape, when he “frowned at their unclean and unseemly act, they seemed very much amused, and after a moment’s talk, one of them voided her urine and another drank it, both being very much diverted by my disgust.” He further relates that when his “natives” could not obtain from his limited supplies all the alcohol they wanted, they made a mixture of alcohol and their own urine in equal parts and drank it down.

“On the morning of the 8th of May, while struggling with an attack of fever, I received a visit from Gilmoro, who brought me a gourd of milk as an expression of gratitude for saving him at an opportune moment his position. Burning with fever, I drained at one draught a goblet full of the foaming liquid ere the sense of taste could detect the nauseous mixture; my stomach, however, quickly rebelled, and rejected in violent retching the unsavory potion, seven eighths of which were simply the urine of the cow!—a practice, by the by, common to all Central Africans, who never drink milk unless thus mixed.”

“This fetish and superstition thereby insures protection for the cow here, as on the Bahr-el Abiad, mysteriously connected with the unknown,—a shadow possibly of the old Egyptian worship.”—(“Central Africa,” Chaille Long, New York, 1877, p. 70.)

URINE IN BREAD-MAKING.

A comparatively late writer says of the Moquis of Arizona: “They are not as clean in their housekeeping as the Navajoes, and it is hinted that they sometimes mix their meal with chamber-lye for these festive occasions; but I did not know that until I talked with Mormons who visited them” (J. H. Beadle, “Western Wilds,” Cincinnati, Ohio, 1878, p. 279).

Beadle lived and ate with the Moquis for a number of days. This story, coming from the Mormons, may refer to some imperfectly understood ceremonial.

There is some ground for suspecting that urine may have been employed by bakers in Europe prior to the introduction of the “barm” or ale yeast as a ferment. Ammonia is at the present time made use of by the Germans in this industry (see page 32).

It is possible that the following account of the manner of eating blubber among the Patagonians may mean that urine was poured over it: “He put the same piece on the fire again, and after an addition to it too offensive to mention, again sucked it” (“Voyage of the Adventure and Beagle,” London, 1839, vol. i. p. 343).

As bearing upon the ingestion of human excreta, which would seem to excite a natural feeling of revulsion, the following statement may have some significance: Spencer Saint John, in his “Life in the Far East,” London, 1842, after describing a head feast among the Dyaks, says that, after certain preliminary rites and amusements, “they commence eating and drinking ... an extraordinary accumulation,—fowls roasted with their feathers on, eggs black with age, decayed fruit, rice of all colors and kinds, strong-smelling fish almost approaching a state of rottenness, and their drink having the appearance and thickness of curds, in which they mix pepper and other ingredients. It has a sickening effect upon them, and they swallow it more as a duty than because they relish it.”

Evidently nastiness is an object, since “before they have added any extraneous matter” this drink “is not unpleasant, having something the taste of spruce-beer” (p. 66).

If the ceremony in question partakes of the nature of a sacrifice,—which is not at all certain from the text, in which it is described as an “entertainment,” but which appears probable from its being connected with the organization and representation of the tribe and from its relation to head-hunting,—then it may be assumed that the spoiled food and nauseous drink are perfectly natural features, which have their counterparts in many places.

As a rule, the more painful, costly, unnatural, and disgusting a rite is, the more essentially sacrificial is its character,—for obvious reasons.

Von Stralenburg says of the Koraks that they use the same tubs as urinals and for the purpose of holding drinking water (see citation on page 152 of this volume).

HUMAN ORDURE EATEN BY EAST INDIAN FANATICS.

Speaking of the remnants of the Hindu sect of the Aghozis, an English writer observes:—

“In proof of their indifference to worldly objects they eat and drink whatever is given to them, even ordure and carrion. They smear their bodies also with excrement, and carry it about with them in a wooden cup, or skull, either to swallow it, if by so doing they can get a few pice, or to throw it upon the persons or into the houses of those who refuse to comply with their demands.”—(“Religious Sects of the Hindus,” in “Asiatic Researches,” vol. xvii. p. 205, Calcutta, India, 1832.)

Another writer confirms the above. The Abbé Dubois says that the Gurus, or Indian priests, sometimes, as a mark of favor, present to their disciples “the water in which they had washed their feet, which is preserved and sometimes drunk by those who receive it” (Dubois, “People of India,” London, 1817, p. 64). This practice, he tells us, is general among the sectaries of Siva, and is not uncommon with many of the Vishnuites in regard to their vashtuma. “Neither is it the most disgusting of the practices that prevail in that sect of fanatics, as they are under the reproach of eating as a hallowed morsel the very ordure that proceeds from their Gurus, and swallowing the water with which they have rinsed their mouths or washed their faces, with many other practices equally revolting to nature” (idem, p. 71).

Again, on page 331, Dubois alludes to the Gymnosophists “or naked Samyasis of India ... eating human excrement, without showing the slightest symptom of disgust.”

As bearing not unremotely upon this point, the author wishes to say that in his personal notes and memoranda can be found references to one of the medicine-men of the Sioux who assured his admirers that everything about him was “medicine,” even his excrement, which could be transmuted into copper cartridges.

“I was informed that vast numbers of Shordrus drank the water in which a Brahmin has dipped his foot, and abstain from food in the morning till this ceremony be over. Some persons do this every day.... Persons may be seen carrying a small quantity of water in a cup and entreating the first Brahmin they see to put his toe in it.... Some persons keep water thus sanctified in their houses.”—(Ward, quoted by Southey in his “Commonplace Book,” London, 1849, 2d series, p. 521.)

VIII.

THE ORDURE OF THE GRAND LAMA OF THIBET.

That the same disgusting veneration was accorded the person of the Grand Lama of Thibet, was once generally believed. Maltebrun asserts it in positive terms: “It is a certain fact that the refuse excreted from his body is collected with sacred solicitude, to be employed as amulets and infallible antidotes to disease.”

And, quoting from Pallas, book 1, p. 212, he adds: “Il est hors de doute que le contenu de sa chaise percée est dévotement recueilli; les parties solides sont distribuées comme des amulettes qu’on porte au cou; le liquide est pris intérieurement comme une médécine infaillible.”—(Maltebrun, Universal Geography, article “Thibet,” vol. ii. lib. 45, American edition, Philadelphia, 1832.)

The Abbé Huc denies this assertion: “The Talé Lama is venerated by the Thibetans and the Mongols like a divinity. The influence he exercises over the Buddhist population is truly astonishing; but still it is going too far to say that his excrements are carefully collected and made into amulets, which devotees inclose in pouches and carry around their necks.”—(Huc, “Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China,” London, 1849, vol. ii. p. 198.)

HUC AND DUBOIS COMPARED.

Huc was a keen and observing traveller; he was well acquainted with the languages and customs of the Mongolians; his tour into Thibet was replete with incident, and his narrative never flags in interest. Still, in Thibet he was only a traveller; the upper classes of the Buddhist priesthood looked upon him with suspicion. The lower orders of priesthood and people did seem to consider him as a Lama from the far East, but he did not succeed in gaining the confidence of the Thibetans to the extent possessed by Dubois among the Brahminical sects. The history of the latter author is a peculiar one: A French priest, driven from his native land by the excesses of the revolution, he took refuge in India, devoting himself for nearly twenty years to missionary labor among the people, with whom he became so thoroughly identified that when his notes appeared they were published at the expense of the British East India Company, and distributed among its officials as a text-book.

While it is possible to consult earlier authorities, the determination of this matter should not be allowed to remain in controversy. The first Europeans known to have penetrated to Thibet (or Barantola, as they called it) were the Jesuits Grueber and Dorville, who, returning from China to Europe, walked through Thibet, and down through India to the sea-coast. This was in 1661; another member of the same order, Father Andrade, claimed to have succeeded in the same perilous undertaking at an earlier date (1621), but the names of the cities he visited proves that he did not get beyond what is now known as Afghanistan, at the foot of the mountains bordering on Thibet. While Grueber and Dorville were making their journey, or not many years after, Father Gerbillon, also a Jesuit, had taken up his abode among the nomadic Tartars, acquiring an influence with them of which the Emperor of China was glad to avail himself in emergencies. None of these travellers claimed to have seen the Grand Lama in person.

“Grueber assures us that the grandees of the kingdom are very anxious to procure the excrements of this divinity (i. e., the Grand Lama), which they usually wear about their necks as relics. In another place he says that the Lamas make a great advantage by the large presents they receive for helping the grandees to some of his excrements, or urine; for, by wearing the first about their necks, and mixing the latter with their victuals, they imagine themselves to be secure against all bodily infirmities. In confirmation of this, Gerbillon informs us that the Mongols wear his excrements, pulverized, in little bags about their necks, as precious relics, capable of preserving them from all misfortunes, and curing them of all sorts of distempers. When this Jesuit was on his second journey into Western Tartary, a deputy from one of the principal lamas offered the emperor’s uncle a certain powder, contained in a little packet of very white paper, neatly wrapped up in a scarf of very white taffety; but that prince told him that as it was not the custom of the Manchews to make use of such things, he durst not receive it. The author took this powder to be either some of the Great Lama’s excrements, or the ashes of something that had been used by him.”—(“A Description of Thibet,” in Pinkerton’s “Voyages and Travels,” London, 1814, vol. vii. p. 559).

“Grueber, in his late account of his return from China, A.D. 1661, by way of Lassa, or Barantola, as Kircher calls it (see Kircher, China Illustrata, part ii. c. 1), but Grueber himself Barantaka (where, he saith, no Christian hath never been) ... above all, he wondered at their pope (the Grand Lama of Thibet), to whom they give divine honors, and worship his very excrements, and put them up in golden boxes, as a most excellent remedy against all mischiefs.”—(Stillingfleet, “Defence of Discourse concerning Idolatry in Church of Rome,” London, 1676, pp. 116-120, quoted by H. T. Buckle, in his “Commonplace Book,” p. 79, vol. ii. of his Works, London, 1872).

Turner, “Embassy to Thibet,” London, 1806, makes no reference to the use of the excrements of the Grand Lama.

Friar Odoric, of Pordenone, visited L’hassa, Thibet, between A.D. 1316 and 1330 (see Markham’s edition of Bogle’s “Thibet,” London, 1879, p. 46). Markham believes that the Jesuit Antonio Andrada, “in 1624,” whom he styles “an undaunted missionary,” “found his way over the lofty passes to Rudok,” “climbed the terrific passes to the source of the Ganges, and eventually, after fearful sufferings, reached the shores of the sacred lake of Mansorewar, the source of the Sutlej.”—(Introduction to Bogle’s “Thibet,” London, 1879).

Warren Hastings speaks of the Thibetan priests of high degree, the “Ku-tchuck-tus,” who, he says, “admit a superiority in the Dalai Lama, so that his excrements are sold as charms, at great price, among all the Tartar tribes of this religion.”—(“Memorandum on Thibet,” accompanying the instructions to Mr. Bogle, the first English embassador to that country. See in Markham’s “Thibet,” London, 1879, p. 11.)

It is truly remarkable that neither in the report nor letters of Bogle, nor in the notes of Manning, nor in the fragments of Grueber, Desideri, nor Horace Della Penna, preserved in Markham’s “Thibet,” can any allusion be found to the use of the excrements of the Grand Lama in religion or medicine.

“Les grands du royaume” (i. e., of Barantola), “recherchent fort les excréments de cette divinité” (i. e., Lamacongiu). “Ils les portent ordinairement à leur col comme des reliques.”—(“Voyage de P. Grueber à Chine,” taken from Conversations with P. Grueber. See, in Thévenot, vol. ii., “Relations de Divers Voyages curieux,” Melchisédec Thevenot, Paris, 1696, vol. ii.)

Several authorities from whom much was expected are absolutely silent.

No mention is to be found in Rubruquis of any use of human ordure or urine among the Tartars among whom he travelled; all that he says is that they baked their bread on cow-dung. This monk, a Franciscan, was sent by King Louis IX. (Saint Louis), of France, on a mission to the Grand Khan of Tartary in 1253, in the execution of which office he travelled for thousands of miles through their territory. In Pinkerton it is said: “The travels of Rubruquis are equally astonishing in whatever light they are considered. Take them with respect to length, and they extend upwards of five thousand miles one way and nearly six thousand another.”—(Vol. vii. p. 96.)

During such a long journey he should have been able to notice much, but we are to bear in mind that the manners of the Tartars of the Grand Khan were at that time somewhat modified by contact with European civilization, having among them many prisoners, as Rubruquis points out, who officiated as artificers, while, on the other hand, we know that the monk was thoroughly ignorant of all their dialects. Marco Polo, who lived among the Tartars about the same time, says: “But now the Tartars are mixed and confounded, and so are their fashions.”—(Marco Polo, “Travels,” in Pinkerton’s “Voyages,” London, 1814, vol. vii. p. 124.)

Du Halde, although he gives an account of Thibet in his fourth volume, and seems to be familiar with all the works on that country, mentioning Fathers Grueber and Dorville, yet makes no allusion to the use of the excrements of the Grand Lama as amulets or internally. (See Du Halde’s “History of China,” London, 1736.) The fault may lie with his translator in his zeal to “expurgate.”

Du Halde, a Jesuit missionary, had the assistance of all the members of his order on duty in China; no less than a score or more aided him; one of the number, Father Constancin, had a tour of service in the Flowery Kingdom, as a missionary, of over thirty-two consecutive years. During the generation preceding the appearance of Du Halde’s work, the Jesuits had traversed China, Tartary, and Thibet. Tavernier, whose opportunities for observation were excellent, asserted the fact without ambiguity. The excrement of the Grand Lama was carefully collected, dried, and in various ways used as a condiment, as a snuff, and as a medicine.

“The Butan merchants assured Tavernier that they strew his ordure, powdered, over their victuals.”—(Tavernier, “Travels,” vol. ii. p. 185. Footnote to page 559, vol. vii. Pinkerton’s “Voyages and Travels,” London, 1814.)

“Unde tantis venerationis indiciis ab omnibus colitur, ut beatum ille se reputet, cui Lamarum (quod summis et pretiosis muneribus eum in finem, non sine magno eorum lucro corrumpere solent) benignitate aliquid ex naturalis secessus sordibus aut urina Magnæ Lamæ obtigerit. Ex ejusmodi enim collo portatis, urina quoque cibis commixta.”—(Letter of Father Adam Schall, S. J., “Aulæ Sino-Tartaricæ Supremi Concilii Mandarinus,” in Thevenot, vol. ii.; Thevenot’s second volume contains three short letters in Latin from Grueber to members of his order, but in none is there any mention made of the ordure of the Grand Lama.)

“There is no king in the world more feared and respected by his subjects than the king of Butan; being in a manner adored by them.... The merchants assured Tavernier that those about the king preserve his ordure, dry it, and reduce it to powder like snuff; that then putting it into boxes, they go every market-day and present it to the chief traders and farmers, who, recompensing them for their great kindness, carry it home as a great rarity, and when they feast their friends, strew it upon their meat. The author adds that two of them showed him their boxes with the powder in them.”—(“A Description of Thibet,” in Pinkerton, London, 1814, vol. vii. 567.)

The expression “king of Butan,” as used by Tavernier, means the Grand Lama of Thibet. Tavernier’s statement has been accepted by the most careful writers. “Indorum nonnullos, incolas scilicet regni Boutan Homerda seu excrementis alvinis Regis sui siccatis et pulverisatis cibos amicis et convivis suis appositos condire, refert Johannes Baptista Tavernier, Itinerar. Indic. lib. 3, cap. 15, fol. m.” (Schurig, “Chylologia,” Dresden, 1725, p. 775.) The same paragraph quoted in the Bibliotheca Scatalogica, pages 29, 93, and 96, to which the anonymous author adds, “et les Tartares et les Japonais tenaient en pareille vénération la merde du grand lama et du Dairi.”

Rosinus Lentilius, in the Ephemeridum Physico-Medicorum, Leipsig, 1694, speaks of the Grand Lama of Thibet as held in such high veneration by the devotees of his faith that his excrements, carefully collected, dried, powdered, and sold at high prices by the priests, were used as a sternutatory powder, to induce sneezing, and as a condiment for their food, and as a remedy for all the graver forms of disease. He quotes all this from Tavernier, and from Erasmus Franciscus, p. 1662. There is also another citation from Tavernier, lib. 4, cap. 7.

“Nec de rege in Bantam, et summo Tangathani Regni Pontifice, magno Lama, quos tanto in honore subditi habent ut merda eorum magno studio collectam, et in pulverem comminutam (quam Brachmines ære multo simplicibus divendunt) illi quidem scil. Boutamenses, loco pulvere nasalis utantur, eoque lautius, victuri cibos condiant hi vero scil. Tangat hani pro remedio longe presentissimo ad varios desperatissimosque morbos habeant, aliisque medicamentis admisceant, per sæpe memoratum” Tavernier, Itin. lib. 3, cap. 15, et Franciscus, loc. cit. p. 1662.

References to “amulets” among the peoples of Tartary and Thibet are made by nearly all travellers; but few seem to have considered it worth while to determine of what these amulets were composed.

Fathers Grueber and Dorville say of the Kalmuck Tartar women, “each with a charm about their necks to preserve them from dangers.” These may have been ordure amulets of the Grand Lama.

In his condensation of the travels into Thibet of Fathers Grueber and Dorville, Pinkerton omits what they had to say about these amulets, although in another place, already cited, he refers to it.

(Burats of Siberia.) “I could observe no images among them except some relics given them by their priests which they had from the Delay-Lama; these are commonly hung up in a corner of their tents, and sometimes about their necks, by way of an amulet to preserve them from misfortunes.” (Bell, “Travels in Asia,” with the Russian Embassy to China, in 1714, in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p. 347). Undoubtedly, these were amulets of human ordure, etc., received from the Grand Lama.

(Kalmucks of Siberia.) “Des pilules bénites qui viennent du Tibet méritent attention; on les appelle Schalir. Les prêtres ne les donnent qu’aux Kalmouks riches ou de distinction; ils les portent toujours sur eux, et ils n’en font usage que dans les maladies graves où la mort leur paraît presqu’inévitable. Ils prétendent que ces pilules servent à distraire l’ame des choses temporelles, et à la sanctifier: elles sont noires et de la grosseur d’un pois. Je presumai qu’elles renfermaient de l’opium ou autre narcotique; mais on m’assure au contraire que leur vertu était purgatif.”—(Voyages de Pallas, Paris, 1793, vol. i. pp. 567, 568.)

(Mongolia.) “When famous lamas die and their bodies are burnt, little white pills are reported as found among the ashes, and sold for large sums to the devout, as being the concentrated virtue of the man and possessing the power of insuring a happy future for him who swallows one near death. This is quite common. I heard of one man who improved on this by giving out that these little pills were in the habit of coming out through the skin of various parts of the body. These pills, called Sharil, met with a ready sale, and then the man himself reaped the reward of his virtue and did not allow all the profit to go to his heir.”—(“Among the Mongols,” Rev. James Gilmour, London, 1883, p. 231.)

This writer says that these sacred pills are white; another one, already noted, describes them as black, while those obtained by the author from Mr. W. W. Rockhill are red.

Vambéry instances one of the holy men of the Turkomans who, after reciting a number of sacred verses, “used to place before him a cup of water into which he spat at the end of each poem, and this composition ... was sold to the best bidder as a wonder-working medicine.”—(“Travels in Central Asia,” New York, 1865, p. 272.)

Such use of the excrement of ecclesiastical dignitaries was indicated in Oriental literature. In the “Arabian Nights” King Afrida says to the Emirs, among other things, “‘And I purpose this night to sacre you all with the Holy Incense.’ When the Emirs heard these words, they kissed the ground before him. Now the incense which he designated was the excrement of the Chief Patriarch, the denier, the defiler of the truth, and they sought for it with such instance, and they so highly valued it, that the high-priests of the Greeks used to send it to all the countries of the Christians in silken wraps, after mixing it with musk and ambergris; hearing of it, kings would pay a thousand gold pieces for every dram, and they sent for and sought it to fumigate brides withal; and the Chief Priests and the Great Kings were wont to use a little of it as a Collyrium for the eyes, and as a remedy in sickness and colic; and the Patriarchs used to mix their own skite (excrement) with it, for that the skite of the Chief Patriarch would not suffice for ten countries.”—(Burton’s edition, vol. ii. pp. 222, 223). In Burton’s Index this is called “Holy Merde.” Burton also says, “The idea of the Holy Merde might have been suggested by the Hindus; see Mandeville, of the archiprotopapaton (prelate) carrying ox-dung and cow-urine to the king, who therewith anoints his face and breast, etc. And, incredible to relate, this is still practised by the Parsis, one of the most progressive and sharpest-witted of the Asiatic races.”—(Idem.)

Rochefoucauld tells us that we ascribe to others the faults of which we ourselves would be guilty, had we the opportunity. The Arabians no doubt were fully acquainted with just such customs; possibly, the Greeks also.

The Kalmucks believe in spirits or genii called “Bourkans,” and in a maleficent one known as “Erlik-khan.” They tell a story of three of these “Bourkans,” one of them being Sakya-Muni: “Étant un jour assis ensemble, firent leurs prières dans la plus grande ferveur, ayant les yeux fermés, ainsi que cela se pratique chez les Kalmouks, le génie infernal s’approche d’eux, et fit ses ordures dans la coupe sacrée que les prêtres ont devant eux lorsqu’ils font la prière. Dès que les dieux s’en aperçurent, ils tinrent conseil. Ils conclurent que s’ils répandoient cette matière venimeuse dans les airs, ils féroient périr tous les habitants de cet élément; et que s’ils la jétoient sur la terre, ils féroient mourir tous les êtres vivans qui l’occupent. Ils résolurent donc, pour le bien de l’humanité, de l’avaler. Sakya-Muni eut pour sa part le fond de la coupe; le levain étoit si fort que son visage devint tout bleu. C’est la raison pour laquelle on lui peint la figure en bleu dans les images; ses idoles ont seulement le bonnet vernissé en bleu.”—(Voyages de Pallas, Paris, 1793, vol. i. p. 548).

This is a lame explanation, invented by the Lamas after men had become somewhat refined, and had begun to evince a repugnance to these diabolical usages. Compare with the notes presented by Mr. W. W. Rockhill, the Oriental scholar and Thibetan explorer, on p. 37.

The following is from a manuscript by Mr. W. W. Rockhill, entitled “The Lamaist Ceremony called the Making of the Mani Pills:”—

“Certain indestructible particles of the bodies of the Buddhas and saints, as well as certain other bodily remains, have ever been considered by Buddhists to enjoy certain properties, such as that of emitting light, and of having great curative properties. The travels of Huein-Tsang and of Fa-hsien are filled with accounts of the discovery of such treasures, and of the supernatural properties which they possessed. Among Thibetans, the first class of these relics is known as ‘pedung’ (upel-gedung), the second as ‘dung-rus’ (gdung-rus). They say the pedung are minute globules found in the bones of Buddhas and saints, that they possess wonderful brilliancy, and that sometimes they may be seen on the exterior of some saintly person, when they have the appearance of brilliant drops of sweat. While these pedung have most potent curative properties, they become also the palladium of the locality fortunate enough to have them. By a natural extension of the idea of the power of pedung, Thibetans have come to think that if one preserves and carries about on one’s person even a little of the excretions, or of the hair or nail-trimmings of a saint who is known to have pedung, such, for instance, as the Tale-Lama, or the Panchan-Rimpoche, they will shield him from gun or sword wounds, sickness, etc.; hence the extraordinary objects one so often finds in Thibetan charm-boxes (Ka-Wo).