Du Halde, a Jesuit missionary, had the assistance of all the members of his order on duty in China; no less than a score or more aided him; one of the number, Father Constancin, had a tour of service in the Flowery Kingdom, as a missionary, of over thirty-two consecutive years. During the generation preceding the appearance of Du Halde’s work, the Jesuits had traversed China, Tartary, and Thibet. Tavernier, whose opportunities for observation were excellent, asserted the fact without ambiguity. The excrement of the Grand Lama was carefully collected, dried, and in various ways used as a condiment, as a snuff, and as a medicine.
“The Butan merchants assured Tavernier that they strew his ordure, powdered, over their victuals.”—(Tavernier, “Travels,” vol. ii. p. 185. Footnote to page 559, vol. vii. Pinkerton’s “Voyages and Travels,” London, 1814.)
“Unde tantis venerationis indiciis ab omnibus colitur, ut beatum ille se reputet, cui Lamarum (quod summis et pretiosis muneribus eum in finem, non sine magno eorum lucro corrumpere solent) benignitate aliquid ex naturalis secessus sordibus aut urina Magnæ Lamæ obtigerit. Ex ejusmodi enim collo portatis, urina quoque cibis commixta.”—(Letter of Father Adam Schall, S. J., “Aulæ Sino-Tartaricæ Supremi Concilii Mandarinus,” in Thevenot, vol. ii.; Thevenot’s second volume contains three short letters in Latin from Grueber to members of his order, but in none is there any mention made of the ordure of the Grand Lama.)
“There is no king in the world more feared and respected by his subjects than the king of Butan; being in a manner adored by them.... The merchants assured Tavernier that those about the king preserve his ordure, dry it, and reduce it to powder like snuff; that then putting it into boxes, they go every market-day and present it to the chief traders and farmers, who, recompensing them for their great kindness, carry it home as a great rarity, and when they feast their friends, strew it upon their meat. The author adds that two of them showed him their boxes with the powder in them.”—(“A Description of Thibet,” in Pinkerton, London, 1814, vol. vii. 567.)
The expression “king of Butan,” as used by Tavernier, means the Grand Lama of Thibet. Tavernier’s statement has been accepted by the most careful writers. “Indorum nonnullos, incolas scilicet regni Boutan Homerda seu excrementis alvinis Regis sui siccatis et pulverisatis cibos amicis et convivis suis appositos condire, refert Johannes Baptista Tavernier, Itinerar. Indic. lib. 3, cap. 15, fol. m.” (Schurig, “Chylologia,” Dresden, 1725, p. 775.) The same paragraph quoted in the Bibliotheca Scatalogica, pages 29, 93, and 96, to which the anonymous author adds, “et les Tartares et les Japonais tenaient en pareille vénération la merde du grand lama et du Dairi.”
Rosinus Lentilius, in the Ephemeridum Physico-Medicorum, Leipsig, 1694, speaks of the Grand Lama of Thibet as held in such high veneration by the devotees of his faith that his excrements, carefully collected, dried, powdered, and sold at high prices by the priests, were used as a sternutatory powder, to induce sneezing, and as a condiment for their food, and as a remedy for all the graver forms of disease. He quotes all this from Tavernier, and from Erasmus Franciscus, p. 1662. There is also another citation from Tavernier, lib. 4, cap. 7.
“Nec de rege in Bantam, et summo Tangathani Regni Pontifice, magno Lama, quos tanto in honore subditi habent ut merda eorum magno studio collectam, et in pulverem comminutam (quam Brachmines ære multo simplicibus divendunt) illi quidem scil. Boutamenses, loco pulvere nasalis utantur, eoque lautius, victuri cibos condiant hi vero scil. Tangat hani pro remedio longe presentissimo ad varios desperatissimosque morbos habeant, aliisque medicamentis admisceant, per sæpe memoratum” Tavernier, Itin. lib. 3, cap. 15, et Franciscus, loc. cit. p. 1662.
References to “amulets” among the peoples of Tartary and Thibet are made by nearly all travellers; but few seem to have considered it worth while to determine of what these amulets were composed.
Fathers Grueber and Dorville say of the Kalmuck Tartar women, “each with a charm about their necks to preserve them from dangers.” These may have been ordure amulets of the Grand Lama.