“Comme le lecteur ne manquera pas de le remarquer, c’est par édification que l’annaliste, clerc lui-même, raconte cette histoire. En effet, elle fait honneur à la piété du roi et elle prouve que ‘le respect montré à l’Église ... a obtenu sa récompense.’ Ce qui vient des hommes de Dieu participe en effet au caractère sacré de Dieu qu’ils représentent.
“Si l’on cherchait à étendre cette enquête de scatologie hiératique on trouverait sans doute bien des croyances et des pratiques répugnantes à notre goût de civilisés, mais raisonnables en un sens quand on accepte le point de départ, quand on ne condamne pas la logique, et surtout quand on se rappelle que le dégoût pour les résidus de la digestion n’est devenu instinctif que pour la vie civilisée et les habitudes sociales. Les peuples qui ne se lavent pas doivent certainement sentir autrement que nous, et même ne pas sentir du tout; et nos ancêtres de l’âge des cavernes n’avaient certainement l’odorat plus difficile. On assure que chez les Namas, tribu hottentote, le shaman qui célèbre un mariage asperge les conjoints de son urine. Cela remplace notre eau bénite. Le shaman est en effet ’un homme de Dieu,’ par excellence; car, lorsqu’il se livre à ces danses désordonnées qui sont une partie du culte, on croit que le dieu descend en lui, non en esprit, mais en réalité.
“C’est aussi le cas de rappeler un usage linguistique des habitants de Samoa dans la Polynésie. Lorsqu’une femme est sur le point d’accoucher, on adresse des prières au dieu ou génie de la famille du père et à celui de la famille de la mère. Quand l’enfant est né, la mère demande quel dieu on était en train de prier à ce moment. On en prend soigneusement note et ce dieu sera en quelque sorte le “patron” de l’enfant pendant le reste de sa vie.
“Par respect pour ce dieu, l’enfant est appelé son excrément et pendant son enfance on l’appelle réellement, comme ‘petit-nom,’ ‘m⸺ de Tongo,’ ou de Satia, ou de tout autre dieu, suivant le cas. La formule est grossière, mais l’intention, sous une apparence tout matérielle, part d’un sentiment de respect et de piété à l’égard de la divinité.”
The last two paragraphs of the above are taken from the work of the missionary Turner, who lived for seventeen years in the islands of Polynesia; they appear in his “Samoa,” London, 1884, p. 79. But in the same book, issued under the title “Polynesia,” London, 1861, it has been expunged.
The mother of the King of Uganda invited Speke to visit her and drink pombé, the native plantain wine; when she happened to spill some of this the servants “instantly fought over it, dabbing their noses on the ground, or grabbing it with their hands, that not one atom of the queen’s favor might be lost; for everything must be adored that comes from royalty, whether by design or accident.” (Speke, “Nile,” London, 1863, vol. ii. p. 313.) This is the Grand Lama business over again and nothing else.
The people of Madagascar have an annual feast of the greatest solemnity, during which no cattle are allowed to be slaughtered; “which means that none can be eaten, as meat will not keep twenty-four hours in Madagascar.” This festival is called “The Queen’s Bath,” and is arranged with much parade. “When the water was warm the queen stepped down and entered the curtained space. In a few moments salvos of artillery announced to the people that the queen was taking her bath. In a few minutes more she reappeared, sumptuously clothed with jewels. She carried a horn filled with the bath-water, with which she sprinkled the company.”—(“Evening Star,” Washington, D. C., quoting from “Transcript,” Boston, Massachusetts.)
That the ruler of a tribe or nation is in some manner connected with and representative of the deities adored by the tribe or nation, is a form of man-worship presenting its most perfect manifestation in the reverence accorded the Grand Lama; but no part of the world has been free from it, and among our own forefathers it obstinately held its ground in the opinion so long prevalent all over Europe that the touch of the king’s hand would cure the scrofula. This remedial potency was also ascribed to women in a certain condition.
“Scrofulous sores were believed by some to be cured by the touch of a menstruating woman.”—(Pliny, Bohn’s edition, lib. 28, cap. 24.)
“The Hindu wife is in Paradise compared to the Hindu widow. The condition of the wife is bad enough. As the slave of her husband, she eats after he is through, and she eats what is left. She has no education to speak of, and her only hope of salvation is in him. She stands while he sits in the household; and she cannot, if she lives in the interior, go to the Ganges and bathe herself in the sacred water. I am told that in many cases she considers it a privilege to bathe her husband’s feet after he returns, and thinks that she gets some absolution from sin by drinking the water.”—(Frank G. Carpenter, in “World,” New York, June 30, 1889.)