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
Among the Chinese “it is usual for the princes, and even the people,
to make water standing. Persons of dignity, as well as the vice-kings,
and the principal officers, have gilded canes, a cubit long, which are
bored through, and these they use as often as they make water, standing
upright all the time; and by this means the tube carries the water to a
good distance from them.[53] They are of opinion that all pains in the
kidneys, the strangury, and even the stone, are caused by making water in
a sitting posture; and that the reins cannot free themselves absolutely
of these humors but by standing to evacuate; and that thus this posture
contributes exceedingly to the preservation of health.”—(“The Travels of
Two Mahometans through India and China,” in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p. 215.)
The Persian “must not pray before an overhanging wall, or in a room where
there is a pot de chambre.”—(Benjamin, “Persia,” London, 1887, p. 444,
quoting from the Shahr.)
In the Hawaiian Islands, if a man’s shadow fall on a chief, the man is
put to death.—(See “The Golden Bough,” Frazer, vol. i. p. 190.)
“These natives (East Siberia) always preserve for use in their
domesticity the urine of the whole family; it is preserved in a large tub
or half-barrel, procured from the whale-ships or found in the drift that
comes upon their shores. They use the warm water from their bodies for
cleansing their bodies; the rim that gathers round the high-water mark of
their cess-pool is used for smearing their bodies to kill the vermin....
The habits of these people are beastly in the extreme.... They seemed
to have no aversion whatever to close contact with the feces of men or
animals.”—(Personal letter of Chief Engineer Melville, U. S. Navy, to
Captain Bourke.)
Van Stralenberg says of the “Koræiki” (Koraks): “For their necessary
occasions they make use of a tub, which they have with them in the hut,
and when full they carry it out, and make use of the same tub to bring
in water for other occasions.”—(“Histori-Geographical Description of the
North and East Parts of Europe and Asia,” p. 397.)
By referring to page 390 of this volume, it will be seen that the Lapps,
upon breaking camp, made it a point to burn the dung of their reindeer
in cases where any of these animals had died of disease; while it is
also related that immigrants to California from the States of Missouri
and Arkansas, for some reason not understood, had the singular custom of
burning their own excrement in the camp-fire.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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