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.)
“Pedere te mallem, namque hoc nec inutile, dicit Symmachus, et risum res movet ista simul.”—(Martial, vii. 17, 9.)
“‘Le Tonnerre, ce n’est qu’un Pet;’ c’est Aristophane qui le dit.” Βροντὴ καὶ πορδή, ὁμοίω—(“Nućes.”)
All the preceding from Bib. Scat., article, “Oratio pro Guano Humano.”
Consult Aristophanes, “The Clouds,” act v. scene 2.
“Dissertation sur le dieu Pet,” par M. Claude Terrin.—This author is stated to have cited from Clemens Romanus and Saint Cæsar.—(See Bib. Scat., p. 37.)
Suetonius has the following remarks upon the Roman Emperor Claudius: “It is said too that he intended to publish an edict ... allowing to all people the liberty of giving vent at table to any distension occasioned by flatulence.” This was upon “hearing of a person whose modesty, under such circumstances, had nearly cost him his life.”—(“Claudius,” xxxii.)
Plutarch asks the question: “Question 95. Why was it ordained that they that were to live chaste should abstain from pulse?... Or rather was it because they should bring empty and slender bodies to their purifications and expiations? For pulse are windy and cause a great deal of excrements that require purging off. Or is it because they excite lechery by reason of their flatulent and windy nature?” (“Morals,” Goodwin’s English translation, Boston, 1870, vol. ii. p. 254.)
“The fact that in honor of the arrival of friends, the house is swept and strewn with sand, and that the people bathe at such occasions, shows that cleanliness is appreciated. The current expression is that the house is so cleaned that no bad smell remains to offend the guest. For the same reason the Indian takes repeated baths before praying, ‘that he may be agreeable to the Deity.’”—(“Report on the Northwestern Tribes of Canada,” Dr. Franz Boas, British Association for the Advancement of Science, Newcastle-upon-Tyne Meeting, 1889, p. 19.)
“Saul went into a cave ‘ut purgaret ventrem.’”—(Harington, “Ajax,” p. 25.)
XXII.
OBSCENE TENURES.
In close connection with this worship of Bel-Phegor, if there ever was such a worship, may be examined the obscene tenures by which certain estates in England were held in “sergeantcy.” No less an authority than Buckle, the historian, deemed an investigation of these not beneath the dignity of his intellect, as may be ascertained by a glance at his article “Contributions to the History of the Pet,” in his “Commonplace Book,” p. 472. He refers to “Miscellanea Antica Anglicana,” Blount’s “Ancient Tenures,” Luther’s “Table Talk” (as above), Dulaure’s “Des Divinités Génératrices,” Niebuhr’s “Description of Arabia,” Gifford’s edition of Ben Jonson, “The Staple of News,” by Ben Jonson, Wright’s “Political Ballads,” in vols. iii. and vii. of the Percy Society’s publications. With the exception of the first named, all the above have been examined, and a transcription made of the notes, which will be found inserted in their proper place.
“The Lord of the Manor of Essington holds tenure from the lord of the Manor of Hilton in this way. He, the first named, must bring a goose each New Year to the hall of the Manor of Hilton, and drive it at least three times around the fire, ‘while Jack of Hilton is blowing the fire.’ This Jack of Hilton is an image of brass, of about twelve inches high, kneeling on his left knee, and holding his right hand upon his head, and his left upon pego, or his viretrum, erected, having a little hole at the mouth, at which, being filled with water, and set to a strong fire, which makes it evaporate like an aelopile, it vents itself in constant blast, so strongly that it is very audible, and blows the fire fiercely.”—(Blount, “Tenures of Land and Customs of Manors,” Hazlitt’s edition, London, 1874, p. 118.)
This recalls the “mannikin” of Brussels, which may have superseded some long since forgotten local deity; it still serves political purposes occasionally.
Blount’s work was first issued under the title of “Jocular Tenures.”
The prevalence of phallic worship all over Flanders should be adverted to in mentioning the “mannikin” of Brussels.
Dulaure (“Des différens Cultes,” Paris, 1825, vol. ii. p. 272 et seq.) describes the phallic shrines of Saints Foutin, Guerlichon et al. “Anne d’Autriche, épouse de Louis XIII., y alla en pélerinage,”—that is, to the shrine of Saint Foutin.
He also shows that the use of the “raclure” of these phallic saints prevailed in France until the opening years of the present century.
“Rowland, le Sarcere, holds one hundred and ten acres of land in Hemington, County of Suffolk, by serjeantcy, for which on Christmas Day, every year, before our sovereign lord the King of England, he should perform altogether and at once a leap, a puff, and a fart.”—(Idem, p. 154.)
“One Baldwin also formerly held these lands by the same service, and was called by the nickname of Baldwin le Peteur, or Baldwin the Farter.”—(Idem, p. 154.)
Dr. Fletcher, president of the Anthropological Society of Washington, D. C., called attention to the fact that reference to the above tenure of Baldwin, “per saltum, sufflatum, et pettum,” is given in the Ingoldsby Legends, “The Spectre of Tappington,” based upon Blount. Ducange, in his “Glossarium,” proves the antiquity of these tenures, which go back, so far as known, to the earliest years of the fourteenth century.—(See Ducange, article “Bombus.”)
Ducange also describes the peculiar custom governing the admission of “filia communis” into the “villa Montis Lucii,” of which more anon.
“Barrington, in his ‘Observations on the Statutes,’ speaking of the people, says: ‘They were also, by the customs prevailing in particular districts, subject to services not only of the most servile, but the most ludicrous nature.’ ‘Utpote Die Nativitatis Domini coram eo saltare, buccas cum sonitu inflare, et ventrum crepitum edere.’ (Struvii Jurispr. Feud. p. 541.) Sir Richard Cox, in his ‘History of Ireland,’ likewise mentions some very ridiculous customs which continued in the year 1565.”—(Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” vol. i. p. 515, article “Fool-Plough and Sword-Dance.”)
“Monstrelet, en décrivant une fête que donna en 1453 le duc de Bourgogne, dit qu’on y voyait: une pucelle qui, de sa mamelle, versait hypocras en grande largesse; à côté de la pucelle était un jeune enfant qui, de sa broquette, rendait eau rose.”—(Chroniq. vol. iii. fol. 55 v.; Dulaure, “Traité des Différens Cultes,” vol. i. p. 324, footnote.)
That these customs, absurd, obscene, irrational, as they appear in the light of to-day, had their origin in the mists of antiquity is not at all improbable; neither is it a violent assumption to attribute a religious origin to them. It is conceded that they had all the force of legalized customs; and law was anciently part and parcel of religion’s dower.
The remarks of Ducange are inserted because they may not be readily accessible to every reader. He quotes from Camden and Spellman.
Baldwin “Qui tenuit terras in Comitatu Suffolciensi, per serjenciam pro qua debuit facere, singulis annis (die Natali Domini), coram Domino Rege, unum saltum, unum sufflatum, et unum bombulum.”
“Hemingston, wherein Baldwin le Petteur (observe the name) held land by serjeantcy (thus an ancient book expresses it), for which he was obliged every Christmas Day to perform before our lord the King of England one saltus, one sufflatus, and one bumbulus; or as it is read in another place, he held it by a saltus, a sufflus, and a pettus,—that is (if I apprehend it aright), he was to dance, make a noise with his cheeks, and let a fart. Such was the plain, jolly mirth of those days.”—(Camden, “Brittania,” edition of London, 1753, vol. i. p. 444.)
Grimm was impressed with the undeniable intermixture of the old religious doctrine with the system of law; for the latter, “even after the adoption of the new faith, would not part with certain old forms and usages.” (“Teutonic Mythol.,” introduc. p. 12.) In another paragraph he says: “I shall try elsewhere to show in detail how a good deal in the gestures and attitudes prescribed for certain legal transactions savors of priestly ceremony at sacrifice and prayer.”—(Idem, vol. i. p. 92.)
XXIII.
TOLLS OF FLATULENCE EXACTED OF PROSTITUTES IN FRANCE.
Another odd usage of which no explanation has been transmitted is thus described by Ducange, Dulaure, and others:—
“En outre, chaque fille publique qui se livre à quelque homme que ce soit, lorsqu’elle entre pour la première fois dans la ville de Montlucon, doit payer sur le pont de cette ville quatre deniers, ou y faire un pet.”—(Dulaure, “des Divin. Générat.” p. 279, quoting from Ducange, “Glossarium,” article “Bombus.”)
In a work by the Abbé Roubaud, entitled “La Pétérade, poême en quatre chants,” we are informed, “Il renvoie à Ducange pour prouver qu’en France on admettait les pets comme monnaie de cours en paiement des péages.... Bombi pro scudis valebant.”—(“Bib. Scatalogica,” p. 48.)
If we may believe Victor Hugo, the custom of the “péage” at the bridge of Montluc was generally known to the people of France in the fifteenth century. Thus, in the first chapter of “Notre Dame,” the populace of Paris, at the Feast of Fools, are represented as indulging in much badinage,—
“Dr. Claude Choart, are you seeking Marie la Giffards?”
“She’s in the Rue de Glatigny.”
“She’s paying her four deniers,—quatuor denarios.”
“Aut unum bumbum.”
Dulaure again quotes Ducange in regard to the tolls demanded of public women first crossing the bridge at Montluc. He finds description of this peculiar toll in registers dating back to 1398; he also sees the resemblance between this toll and the tenure of the Manor of Essington.—(See “Traité des Dif. Cultes,” vol. ii. p. 315, footnote.)
Surgeon Robert M. O’Reilly, U. S. Army, states that among the Irish settlers who came to the United States in the closing hours of the last century the expression was common, in speaking of Flatulence, to term it “Sir-Reverence.”
“Sir-Reverence. In old writers, a common corruption of ‘save reverence,’ or ‘saving your reverence,’—an apologetic phrase used when mentioning anything deemed improper or unseemly, and especially a euphemism for stercus humanum.” “‘Cagada,’ a surreverence.”—(Stevens’s “Sp. Dict.,” 1706.)
“Siege, stool, sir-reverence, excrement.”—(Bishop Wilkins’s “Essay towards a Philosophical Language,” 1688, p. 241.)
“Thoo grins like a dog eating sir-reverence.” (Holderness, “Glossary, English Dialect Society.”) Compare Spanish salvanor, anus. (Stevens.)—(“Folk-Etymology,” Rev. A. Smith Palmer, London, 1882.)