“Myth changes while custom remains constant; men continue to do what their fathers did before them, though the reasons on which their fathers acted have long been forgotten. The history of religion is a long attempt to reconcile old custom with new reason; to find a sound theory for an absurd practice.”—(Idem, p. 62.)
The Australians have a myth of the Creation of Man; it is given in Latin: “Ningorope lætitiæ plena in latrina lutum amœne erubescens cernebat; hoc in hominis figuram formabat, quæ tactu divæ motum vitalem sumebat et donc ridebat.”—(“Aborig. of Victoria,” Smyth, vol. i. p. 425.)
This myth is given in English from another authority, on next page of this volume.
The Creation Myth of the Australians relates that the god “Bund-jil oceanum creavit minctione per plures dies in terrarum orbem. Bullarto Bulgo magnam lotii copiam indicat.” (Idem, vol. i. p. 429.) (Bund-jil created the ocean by urinating for many days upon the orb of the earth.) The natives say that the god being angry “Bullarto Bulgo” upon the earth. Bullarto Bulgo indicates a great flow of urine.
The same myth has already been given from Andrew Lang, under “Ordeals and Punishments.”
In the cosmogonical myths of the islanders of Kadiack, it is related that the first woman, “by making water, produced seas.”—(Lisiansky, “Voy. round the World,” London, 1814, p. 197.)
“In the fourth story” (i. e., stories told by the Kalmucks and Mongols) “it is under the excrement of a cow that the enchanted gem, lost by the daughter of the king, is found.”—(“Zoöl. Mythol.,” De Gubernatis, p. 129.)
In the mythic lore of the Hindus, the god Utanka sets out on a journey, protected by Indra. “On his way, he meets a gigantic bull, and a horseman who bids him, if he would succeed, eat the excrement of the bull; he does so, rinsing his mouth afterwards.”—(Idem, p. 80.)
Further on we learn that Utanka was told “the excrement of the bull was the ambrosia which made him immortal in the kingdom of the serpents.” (Idem, pp. 81, 95.) Here we have the analogue of the use of excrement and urine in Europe to baffle witches, and of the drinking of the Siberian girl’s urine, which in all probability was proffered to the guest as an assurance that no witchcraft was in contemplation, or else to baffle the witches, much as, in England, bridal couples urinated through the wedding ring.
The Chinese have a mythical animal which has been identified with the Tapir; it is called the Mih; to it they ascribe the power to eat iron and copper. “For this reason the urine of this animal is prescribed when a person has swallowed iron or copper; it will, in a short time, change them into water.”—(“Chinese Repository,” Canton, 1839, vol. vii. pp. 46, 47.)