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
The following information received from Victor Namoff, a Kadiak of
mixed blood, relates to a ceremonial dance which he observed among the
Aiga-lukamut Eskimo of the southern coast of Alaska. The informant, as
his father had been before him, had for a number of years been employed
by the Russians to visit the various tribes on the mainland to conduct
trade for the collection of furs and peltries. Besides being perfectly
familiar with the English and Russian languages, he had acquired
considerable familiarity with quite a number of native dialects, and was
thus enabled to mingle with the various peoples among whom much of his
time was spent. The ceremony was conducted in a large partly underground
chamber, of oblong shape, having a continuous platform or shelf,
constructed so as to be used either as seats or for sleeping. The only
light obtained was from native oil lamps. The participants, numbering
about ten dozen, were entirely naked, and after being seated a short time
several natives, detailed as musicians, began to sing. Then one of the
natives arose, and performed the disgusting operation of urinating over
the back and shoulders of the person seated next him, after which he
jumped down upon the ground, and began to dance, keeping time with the
music. The one who had been subjected to the operation just mentioned,
then subjected his nearest neighbor to a similar douche, and he in turn
the next in order, and so on until the last person on the bench had
been similarly dealt with, he in turn being obliged to accommodate the
initiator of the movement, who ceases dancing for that purpose. In the
meantime all those who have relieved themselves step down and join in
the dance, which is furious and violent, inducing great perspiration and
an intolerable stench. No additional information was given further than
that the structure may have been used in this instance as a sudatory,
the urine and violent movements being deemed sufficient to supply the
necessary amount of moisture and heat to supply the participants with a
sweat-bath.—(Personal letter from Dr. W. J. Hoffman, Bureau of Ethnology,
Washington, D. C., June 16, 1890.)
Elliott describes the “Orgies” in the “Kashgas” as he styles them. “The
fire is usually drawn from the hot stones on the hearth.... A kantog
of chamber-lye poured over them, which, rising in dense clouds of
vapor, gives notice by its presence and its horrible ammoniacal odor
to the delighted inmates that the bath is on. The kashga is heated to
suffocation; it is full of smoke; and the outside men run in from their
huts with wisps of dry grass for towels and bunches of alder twigs to
flog their naked bodies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account