By reference to another portion of this volume, it will be seen that stercoraceous matter was deemed potent in frustrating witchcraft. Thus a mother was ordered to throw a “changeling” child upon a dunghill (p. 403.) The prostitutes of Amsterdam kept horse-dung in their houses for good luck, etc. Consequently, when we read of the corpses of criminals or witches having been thrown upon dunghills, we may let fancy indulge the idea that it was to render nugatory any schemes the ghost might cherish of wreaking revenge.

The historian Suetonius relates that the unfortunate Roman emperor Vitellius was pelted with excrement before being put to death.

Among the unlawful acts for Brahmans or Kshatriyas who are compelled to support themselves by following the occupations of Vaisyas, is selling sesamum, unless “they themselves have produced it by tillage.... If he applies sesamum to any other purpose but food, anointing, and charitable gifts, he will be born again as a worm, and together with his ancestors be plunged into his own ordure.”—(“Vasishtha,” cap. ii. 27-30. “Sacred Books of the East,” Oxford, 1882, vol. xiv., edition of Max Müller. This is one of the oldest of the Sacred Books. The same prohibition is to be found in “Prasna” 11, “Adhyaya” 1, “Kandika” 2.)

XXXVII.
INSULTS.

It is somewhat singular to find in the myths of the Zuñis—the very people among whom we have discovered the existence of this filthy rite of urine-drinking—an allusion to the fact that to throw urine upon persons or near their dwellings was to be looked upon as an insult of the gravest character. During the early winter of 1881 the author was at the Pueblo of Zuñi, New Mexico, while Mr. Frank H. Cushing was engaged in the researches which have since placed him at the head of American anthropologists, and then heard recited by the old men the long myth of the young boy who went to the Spirit Land to seek his father. One of the incidents upon which the story-tellers dwelt with much insistence was the degradation and ignominy in which the boy and his poor mother lived in their native village, as was shown by the fact that their neighbors were in the habit of emptying their urine vessels upon their roof and in front of their door.

The threat made against the Jews by Sennacherib (in Isaiah xxxvi. 12) deserves consideration in this connection; and also the threat in the Old Testament, “There shall not be left one that pisses against the wall.”

“Connected with the Samoan wars, several other things may be noted, such as consulting the gods, ... haranguing each other previous to a fight, the very counterpart of Abijah, King of Judah, and even word for word with the filthy-tongued Rabshakeh.”—(“Samoa,” Turner, p. 194.)

The people of Samoa have a myth relating a separation which occurred between the natives of several islands, due to the fact that the men and women living on Tutuaila “began to make a dunghill of their floating island.”—(Olosenga, idem, p. 225.)

“Nebuchadnezzar likewise gave Zedekiah (after he had made him dance and play before him a long while) a laxative drink, so that, like a beastly old fellow (as there are many such betwixt York and London), totus deturpatus fuit, he smelt as ill as your Ajax.” In a marginal reference, he adds: “According to an old ballad,—