XXV.
URINE AND ORDURE AS SIGNS OF MOURNING.
Care should be taken to distinguish between the religious use of ordure and urine, and that in which they figure as outward signs of mourning, induced by a frenzy of grief, or where they have been utilized in the arts.
Lord Kingsborough (Mexican Antiquities, vol. viii. p. 237) briefly outlines such ritualistic defilement in the Mortuary Ceremonies of Hebrews and Aztecs, giving as references for the latter Diego Duran, and for the former the prophet Zechariah, chap. iii.: “Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the angel,” etc.
“The nearest relations cut their hair and blacken their faces, and the old women put human excrement on their heads,—the sign of the deepest mourning.”—(“The Native Tribes of South Australia,” Adelaide, 1879, pp. 200, received through the kindness of the Royal Society, New South Wales, T. B. Kyngdon, Secretary.)
XXVI.
URINE AND ORDURE IN INDUSTRIES.
The economical value of human and animal excreta would seem to have obtained recognition among all races from the earliest ages. It is not venturing beyond limits to assert that a book could be written upon this phase of the subject alone. It is not essential to incorporate here all that could be compiled, but enough is submitted to substantiate the statement just made, and to cover every line of inquiry.
It might perhaps be well to consider whether or not the constant use of and familiarity with human urine and ordure in houses, arts, and industries of various kinds would have a tendency to blunt the sensibilities of rude races, so that in their rites we could look for the introduction of these loathsome materials; just as we find that all those races whose women are allowed to go naked place a very slight value upon chastity.
“It certainly is not possible to separate the religious uses of urine from its industrial and medical uses.... Probably nearly everywhere it has been the first soap known. Does not this aspect of the matter need to be insisted on, even from the religious point of view?... In England and France, and probably elsewhere, the custom of washing the hands in urine, with an idea of its softening and beautifying influence, still subsists among ladies, and I have known those who constantly made water on their hands with this idea.”—(Havelock Ellis, “Contemporary Science Series,” London, Personal letter.)