CLAY-EATING.
The eating of clay would appear to have once prevailed all over the world. In places the custom has degenerated into ceremonial or is to be found only in myths. The Aztec devotee picked up a pinch of clay in the temple of Tezcatlipoca and ate it with the greatest reverence.[449]
Sahagun is quoted by Squier[450] as saying that the Mexicans swore by the sun and "by our sovereign mother, the Earth," and ate a piece of earth.
But the use of clay by the Mexicans was not merely a matter of ceremony; clay seems to have been an edible in quite common use.
Edible earth was sold openly in the markets of Mexico; "yaun tierra," says Gomara in the list of foods given by him.[451]
The eating of clay was forbidden to Mexican women during pregnancy.
Diego Duran describes the ceremonial eating of clay in the temples of Mexico; "Llegó el dedo al suelo, y cogiendo tierra en él lo metió en la boca; á la cual ceremonia llamaban comer tierra santa."[452] And again he says that in their sacrifices the Mexican nobles ate earth from the feet of the idols. "Comian tierra de la que estaba á los pies del Ydolo."[453] But the Mexicans did not limit themselves to a ceremonial clay-eating alone. Thomas Gage relates that "they ate a kind of earth, for at one season in the yeer they had nets of mayle, with the which they raked up a certaine dust that is bred upon the water of the Lake of Mexico, and that is kneaded together like unto oas of the sea."[454]
Diego Duran[455] mentions the ceremonial clay-eating at the feast of Tezcatlipoca agreeing with the note already taken from Kingsborough.
There is reference to clay-eating in one of the myths given in the Popol-Vuh. The Quiche deities Hunahpu and Xbalanqué, desiring to overcome the god Cabrakan, fed him upon roasted birds, but they took care to rub one of the birds with "tizate" and to put white powder around it. The circle of white powder was, no doubt, a circle of hoddentin or something analogous thereto, intended to prevent any baleful influence being exercised by Cabrakan. "Mais ils frottèrent l'un des oiseaux avec du tizate et lui mirent de la poussière blanche à l'entour."[456]
In a footnote the word "tizate" is explained to be a very friable whitish earth, used in polishing metals, making cement, etc.: "Terre blanchâtre fort friable, et dont ils se servent pour polir les métaux, faire du ciment, etc."
Cabeza de Vaca says that the Indians of Florida ate clay—"de la terre."[457] He says also[458] that the natives offered him many mesquite beans, which they ate mixed with earth—"mele avec de la terre."[459]
The Jaguaces of Florida ate earth (tierra).[460]
At the trial of Vasco Pocallo de Figueroa, in Santiago de Cuba, in 1522, "for cruelty to the natives," he sought to make it appear that the Indians ate clay as a means of suicide: "el abuso de los Indios en comer tierra ... seguian matandose de intento comiendo tierra."[461]
The Muiscas had in their language the word "jipetera," a "disease from eating dirt."[462] Whether the word "dirt" as here employed means filth, or earth and clay, is not plain; it probably means clay and earth.
Venegas asserts that the Indians of California ate earth. The traditions of the Indians of San Juan Capistrano, California, and vicinity show that "they had fed upon a kind of clay," which they "often used upon their heads by way of ornament."[463]
The Tátu Indians of California mix "red earth into their acorn bread ... to make the bread sweet and make it go further."[464]
Long[465] relates that when the young warrior of the Oto or Omaha tribes goes out on his first fast he "rubs his person over with a whitish clay," but he does not state that he ate it.
Sir John Franklin[466] relates that the banks of the Mackenzie River in British North America contain layers of a kind of unctuous mud, probably similar to that found near the Orinoco, which the Tinneh Indians "use occasionally as food during seasons of famine, and even at other times chew as an amusement.... It has a milky taste and the flavour is not disagreeable."
Father de Smet[467] says of the Athapascan: "Many wandering families of the Carrier tribe ... have their teeth worn to the gums by the earth and sand they swallow with their nourishment." This does not seem to have been intentionally eaten.
"Some of the Siberian tribes, when they travel, carry a small bag of their native earth, the taste of which they suppose will preserve them from, all the evils of a foreign sky."[468]
We are informed that the Tunguses of Siberia eat a clay called "rock marrow," which they mix with marrow. "Near the Ural Mountains, powdered gypsum, commonly called 'rock meal,' is sometimes mixed with bread, but its effects are pernicious."[469]
"The Jukabiri of northeastern Siberia have an earth of sweetish and rather astringent taste," to which they "ascribe a variety of sanatory properties."[470]
There is nothing in the records relating to Victoria respecting the use of any earth for the purpose of appeasing hunger, but Grey mentions that one kind of earth, pounded and mixed with the root of the Mene (a species of Hæmadorum), is eaten by the natives of West Australia.[471]
The Apache and Navajo branches of the Athapascan family are not unacquainted with the use of clay as a comestible, although among the former it is now scarcely ever used and among the latter used only as a condiment to relieve the bitterness of the taste of the wild potato; in the same manner it is known to both the Zuñi and Tusayan.
Wallace says that eating dirt was "a very common and destructive habit among Indians and half-breeds in the houses of the whites."[472]
"Los apassionados à comer tierra son los Indios Otomacos."[473]
"The earth which is eaten by the Ottomacs [of the Rio Orinoco] is fat and unctuous."[474]
Waitz[475] cites Heusinger as saying that the Ottomacs of the Rio Orinoco eat large quantities of a fatty clay.
Clay was eaten by the Brazilians generally.[476]
The Romans had a dish called "alica" or "frumenta," made of the grain zea mixed with chalk from the hills at Puteoli, near Naples.[477]
According to the myths of the Cingalese, their Brahmins once "fed on it [earth] for the space of 60,000 years."[478]