MANURE EMPLOYED AS FUEL.
The employment of manures as fuel for firing pottery among Moquis, Zuñis, and other Pueblos, and for general heating in Thibet, has been pointed out by the author in a former work. (“Snake Dance of the Moquis,” London, 1884.) It was used for the same purpose in Africa, according to Mungo Park. (“Travels,” etc., p. 119.) The dung of the buffalo served the same purpose in the domestic economy of the Plains Indians. Camel dung is the fuel of the Bedouins; that of men and animals alike was saved and dried by the Syrians, Arabians, Egyptians, and people of West of England for fuel. Egyptians heated their lime-kilns with it.—(McClintock and Strong, “Dung.” See, also, Kitto’s Biblical Encyclopædia, article “Dung.”)
Pocock says of camel dung: “In order to make fuel of it, they mix it, if I mistake not, with chopped straw, and, I think, sometimes with earth, and make it into cakes and dry it; and it is burnt by the common people in Egypt; for the wood they burn at Cairo is very dear, as it is brought from Asia Minor.”—(Pocock, in Pinkerton, vol. xv. p. 381.)
Bruce does not allude to any of the filthy customs which are detailed by Schweinfurth, Sir Samuel Baker, and others; he does say that the Nuba of the villages called Daher, at the head of the White Nile, Abyssinia, “never eat their meat raw as in Abyssinia; but with the stalk of the dura or millet and the dung of camels they make ovens under ground, in which they roast their hogs whole, in a very cleanly and not disagreeable manner.”—(“Nile,” Dublin, 1791, vol. v. p. 172.)
“Argol, the dried dung of camels, is the common fuel of Mongolia.”—(“Among the Mongols,” Rev. James Gilmour, London, 1883, pp. 84, 146, 191, 296.)
The dung of camels is the fuel of the Kirghis.—(See “Oriental and Western Siberia,” T. W. Atkinson, New York, 1865, pp. 218, 221.)
See also “From Paris to Pekin,” Meignan, London, 1885, pp. 186, 306, 310, 333; Burton’s edition of the “Arabian Nights,” vol. iii. p. 51; Father Gerbillon’s Account of Tartary, in Du Halde, vol. iv. p. 151.
“Asses’ dung used for fuel and other purposes, such as making Joss sticks.”—(Burton’s edition of the “Arabian Nights,” vol. ii. p. 149, footnote.)
Cow-dung fuel and sheep-dung fuel alluded to by Huc, as used in Thibet.—(See also Manning, Bogle, and Della Penna, in Markham’s “Thibet,” London, 1879, p. 70.)
Friar William de Rubruquis, the Minorite, sent as ambassador to the Grand Khan of Tartary, by Saint Louis, King of France, in 1253, speaks of eating “Unleavened bread baked in Oxe-Dung or Horse-dung” (in Purchas, vol. i. p. 34). Cow dung used for the same purpose in Thibet.—(See Turner’s “Embassy to Thibet,” London, 1806, p. 202.)
“Cowe-dung fewell,” in Malta, mentioned by Master George Sandys, A.D. 1610 (in Purchas, vol. ii. p. 916).—(“Stercus bouinum,” in Egypt, idem, vol. ii. p. 898.)
Yak manure used as fuel in Eastern Thibet, according to W. W. Rockhill in “Border Land of China,” in “Century” Magazine, New York, 1890.
Cow manure employed for the same purpose by the people of Turkey in Asia, in the valley of the Tigris, near Mosul, according to George Smith.—(“Assyrian Discoveries,” New York, 1876, p. 122.)
The “whole fuel” of the Mongols is “cow or horse dung dried in the sun.”—(Father Gerbillon’s Account of Tartary, in Du Halde, vol. iv. pp. 234, 270.)
The use of cow-dung as fuel in certain parts of the world would seem not to be entirely divested of the religious idea.
“Firewood at Seringapatam is a dear article, and the fuel most commonly used is cow-dung made up into cakes. This, indeed, is much used in every part of India, especially by men of rank; as, from the veneration paid the cow, it is considered as by far the most pure substance that can be employed. Every herd of cattle, when at pasture, is attended by women, and these often of high caste, who with their hands gather up the dung and carry it home in baskets.
“They then form it into cakes, about half an inch thick, and nine inches in diameter, and stick them on the walls to dry. So different indeed are Hindu notions of cleanliness from ours that the walls of their best houses are frequently bedaubed with these cakes; and every morning numerous females, from all parts of the neighborhood, bring for sale into Seringapatam baskets of this fuel. Many females who carry large baskets of cow-dung on their heads are well-dressed and elegantly formed girls.”—(“A Journey through Mysore,” Buchanan, Pinkerton, vol. viii. p. 612.)