Scatalogic Rites of All Nations: A dissertation upon the employment of excrementitious remedial agents in religion, therapeutics, divination, witchcraft, love-philters, etc., in all parts of the globe — John Shaqi
Scatalogic Rites of All Nations: A dissertation upon the employment of excrementitious remedial agents in religion, therapeutics, divination, witchcraft, love-philters, etc., in all parts of the globeBourke, John Gregory
Religion
Scatalogic Rites of All Nations: A dissertation upon the employment of excrementitious remedial agents in religion, therapeutics, divination, witchcraft, love-philters, etc., in all parts of the globe
Bourke, John Gregory
Scatology
Repugnant, therefore, as the subject is under most points of view, the
author has felt constrained to reproduce all that he has seen and read,
hoping that, in the fuller consideration that all forms of primitive
religion are now receiving, this, the most brutal, possibly, of all, may
claim some share of examination and discussion. To serve as a nucleus
for notes and memoranda since gleaned, the author has reproduced his
original monograph, first published in the Transactions of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, 1885, and read by title at
the Ann Arbor, Michigan, meeting, in the same year.
II.
THE URINE DANCE OF THE ZUÑIS.
On the evening of November 17, 1881, during my stay in the village of
Zuñi, New Mexico, the _Nehue-Cue_, one of the secret orders of the Zuñis,
sent word to Mr. Frank H. Cushing,[2] whose guest I was, that they would
do us the unusual honor of coming to our house to give us one of their
characteristic dances, which, Cushing said, was unprecedented.
The squaws of the governor’s family put the long living-room to rights,
sweeping the floor and sprinkling it with water to lay the dust.
Soon after dark the dancers entered; they were twelve in number, two
being boys. The centre men were naked, with the exception of black
breech-clouts of archaic style. The hair was worn naturally, with a
bunch of wild-turkey feathers tied in front, and one of corn husks over
each ear. White bands were painted across the face at eyes and mouth.
Each wore a collar or neckcloth of black woollen stuff. Broad white
bands, one inch wide, were painted around the body at the navel, around
the arms, the legs at mid-thighs, and knees. Tortoise-shell rattles
hung from the right knee. Blue woollen footless leggings were worn with
low-cut moccasins, and in the right hand each waved a wand made of an
ear of corn, trimmed with the plumage of the wild turkey and macaw. The
others were arrayed in old, cast-off American Army clothing, and all wore
white cotton night-caps, with corn-husks twisted into the hair at top of
head and ears. Several wore, in addition to the tortoise-shell rattles,
strings of brass sleigh-bells at knees. One was more grotesquely attired
than the rest, in a long India-rubber gossamer “overall,” and with a
pair of goggles, painted white, over his eyes. His general “get-up”
was a spirited take-off upon a Mexican priest. Another was a very good
counterfeit of a young woman.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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