In the report of one of the early American explorations to the Trans-Missouri region occurs the story that the Republican Pawnees, Nebraska, once (about 1780-90) violated the laws of hospitality by seizing a calumet-bearer of the Omahas who had entered their village, and, among other indignities, making him “drink urine mixed with bison gall.”—(“Long’s Expedition,” Philadelphia, 1823, vol. i. p. 300.)
Bison gall itself sprinkled upon raw liver, just warm from the carcass, was regarded as a delicacy. The expression “excrement eater” is applied by the Mandans and others on the Upper Missouri as a term of the vilest opprobrium, according to Surgeon Washington Matthews, U. S. Army (author of “Hidatsa,” and other ethnological works of authority), whose remarks are based upon an unusually extended and intelligent experience.
“They gave me the abuse of the Punjabi, ... pelting me with sticks and cow-dung till I fell down and cried for mercy.”—(“Gemini,” Rudyard Kipling, in “Soldiers Three,” New York, 1890.)
“May the garbage of the foundations of the city be thy food; may the drains of the city be thy drink.”—(“The Chaldean Account of Genesis,” George Smith, New York, 1880.)
Among the Cheyenne expressions of contempt is to be found one which recalls the objurgations of the Bedouins; namely, natsi-viz, or “s—t-mouth.”—(Personal notes of September 25, 1878, interview with the chiefs of the Northern Cheyennes, Ben Clark, interpreter.)
Rev. J. Owen Dorsey, who has made such prolonged and careful studies of the manners and myths of the tribes of the Siouan stock, is authority for the statement that the worst insult that one Ponca can give another is to say, “You are an eater of dog-dung;” and it is noticeable that the words of the expression are rarely used in the language of every-day life. He gives other examples from myths, etc., and supplies a variant of the story narrated by Captain Long; but as all this is to appear in one of the Doctor’s coming books, it is omitted from these pages.
The Kamtchatkans say, “May you have one hundred burning lamps in your podex,” “Eater of fæces with his fish-spawn,” etc.—(Steller, translated by Bunnemeyer.)
“Stercus.” As a term of abuse.—“Nolo stercus curiæ dici Glauciam.”—(Cicero, “De Oratoribus,” 3, 41, 164; Andrew’s “Latin Dictionary,” New York, 1879, article “Stercus.”)
Caracalla put to death those who made water in front of his statues. “Damnati sunt eo tempore (that is, the end of his wars with the Germans) qui urinam in eo loco ferrant in quo statuæ aut imagines erant principis.”—(Ælius Lampridius, “Life of the Emperor Caracalla,” edition of Frankfort, 1588, p. 186, lines 43 and 44.)
There are some very singular laws of the ancient Burgundians in regard to abusive words. “Si quis alterum concagatum clamaverit, 120 denariis mulctetur.”—(Barrington, “Obs. on the Statutes,” London, 1775, p. 315.)