“For the Lord, thy God, walketh in the midst of thy camp, to deliver thee and to give up thine enemies before thee; therefore shall thy camp be holy; that he see no unclean thing in thee, and turn away from thee.”—(Deuteronomy xxiii.)
Speaking of the Essenes, Josephus informs us: “On the seventh day ... they will not even remove any vessel out of its place, nor perform the most pressing necessities of nature. Nay, on other days they dig a small pit, a foot deep, with a paddle (which kind of hatchet is given them when they first are admitted among them), and, covering themselves round with their garment, that they may not affront the divine rays of light, they ease themselves into that pit. After which they put the earth that was dug out again into that pit.
“And even this they do only in the most lonesome places, which they choose for this purpose. And it is a rule with them to wash themselves afterwards, as if it were a defilement.”—(“Wars of the Jews,” edition of New York, 1821, p. 241.)
“The Rabbinical Jews believed that every privy was the abode of an unclean spirit of this kind” (i. e., an excrement-eating god), “which could be inhaled with the breath, and descending into the lower parts of the body, lodge there, and thus like the Bhutas of India, bring suffering and disease.” (Personal letter from John Frazer, Esq., LL.D., Sydney, New South Wales, Dec. 24, 1889.)
In descriptions of Jerusalem, we read of the “Dung Gate,” by or through which, all the fecal matter of the city had to be carried.—(See Harington, “Ajax,” p. 87.)
“When an aborigine obeys a call of nature, he always carries a pointed instrument with which to turn up the ground, so that his fecal excreta may be hidden from the keen vision of the vagabond Bangals.” (“Bangals” are the native witches or their parallels.)—(“Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina,” A. Brough-Smith, vol. i. p. 165.)
The same custom has been ascribed to the Dyaks of Borneo. It is by no means certain that this custom had its origin in any suggestion of cleanliness; on the contrary, it is fully as probable that the idea was to avert the maleficence of witchcraft by putting out of sight material the possession of which would give witches so much power over the former owner.
Mr. John F. Mann confirms from personal observation that the natives of Australia observed the injunction given to the Hebrews in Deuteronomy. “From personal observation, I can state that the natives, all over the country, as a rule, are particular in this matter, but it was many years before I ascertained the reasons for this care. Sorcery and witchcraft exist in every tribe; each tribe has its ‘Kooradgee’ or medicine-man; the natives imagine that any death, accident, or pain, is caused by the evil influence of some enemy. These ‘Kooradgees’ have the power not only of inflicting pain, but of causing all kinds of trouble. They are particular to always carry about with them, in a net bag, a ‘charm’ which is most ordinarily made of rock crystal, human excrement, and kidney fat. If one of these medicine-men can obtain possession of some of the excrement of his intended victim, or some of his hair, in fact anything belonging to his person, it is the most easy thing in the world to bewitch him.”—(Personal letter from John F. Mann, Esq., Neutral Bay, New South Wales.)
“The disposal of excreta is not so much for the sake of cleanliness as to prevent any human substance from falling into the hands of an enemy.”—(Idem.)