[5] See in Dictionary of French and English Language, by Ferdinand E. A. Gasc, London, Bell and Daldy, York Street, Covent Garden, 1873.
Littré, whose work appeared in 1863, gives as one of his definitions, “anything that is shaped like a sausage.”
Bescherelle, Spiers and Surenne, and Boyer, do not give Gasc’s definition.
[6] And very probably a phallic symbol also.
[7] Faber advances the opinion that the “mummers” or clowns who figured in the pastimes of “the abbot of unreason,” etc., bear a strong resemblance to the animal-headed Egyptian priests in the sacred dances represented on the Bembine or Isiac table. (See Faber’s “Pagan Idolatry,” London, 1816, vol. ii. p. 479.)
[8] “However horrible was this profanation, I could quote a passage where in part of a curious penance actions most indecent were to be publicly performed upon the altar-table; and therefore our ancestors had plainly not the same ludicrous ideas of these mummeries as ourselves. They were the mere coarse festivities of the age which delighted in low humor.”—(Fosbroke, “British Monachism,” 2d edition, London, 1817, quoted principally from Ducange.)
[9] “Ils mangent des araignées, des œufs de fourmis, des vers, des lézards, des salamandres, des couleuvres, de la terre, du bois, de la fiente de cerfs, et bien d’autres choses.”—(Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, in “Ternaux,” vol. vii. p. 144.)
[10] “Comen arañas, hormigas, gusanos, salamanquesas, lagartijas, culebras, palos, tierra, y cagajones y cagarrutas.”—(Gómara, “Historia de las Indias,” p. 182.) He derives his information from the narrative of Vaca. The word “cagajon” means horse-dung, the dung of mules and asses; “cagarruta,” the dung of sheep, goats, and mice.
[11] “Algunas veces se juntan varios Indios y á la redonda va corriendo el bocado de uno en otro.”—(Orozco y Berra, “Geografia de las lenguas de Mejico,” Mexico, 1854, p. 359.)
[12] “Peuplé de sauvages qui vont tous nus, et qui mangent leurs propres ordures.”—(Castañeda, in Ternaux, vol. ix. p. 156.)