The drinking of the water in which a new-born babe had been bathed is intimated in the myths of the Samoans. When the first baby was born “Salevao provided water for washing the child, and made it Saor, sacred to Moa. The rocks and the earth said they wished to get some of that water to drink. Salevao replied that if they got a bamboo he would send them a streamlet through it, and hence the origin of springs.”—(“Samoa,” Turner, London, 1884, p. 10.) Although it is not so stated in the text, yet from analogy with other cosmogonies we may entertain a suspicion as to how the god provided the water,—no doubt from his own person. STERCORACEOUS CHAIR OF THE POPES. “Stercoraire, Chaire (Hist. des Papes); c’est ainsi qu’on nommoit à Rome, au rapport de M. L’Enfant, une chaire qui étoit autrefois devant le portique de la basilique, sur laquelle on faisait asseoir le Pape le jour de sa consécration. Le chœur de musique lui chantoit alors ces paroles du Psaume 113, selon l’Hébreu, et le 112, selon la Vulgate, v. 6, et suiv. ‘Il tire de la poussière celui qui est dans l’indigence et il élève le pauvre de son avilissement pour le placer avec les princes de son peuple;’ c’étoit pour insinuer au Pape, dit cardinal Raspon, la vertu de l’humilité, qui doit être la compagne de sa grandeur. Cet usage fut aboli par Léon X, qui n’étoit pas né pour ces sortes de minuties.”—(“Encyc. ou Dict. Raison. des Sciences,” etc., Neufchatel, 1765, tome quinzième, article as above.) Consult Ducange also, “Stercoraria Sedes,” wherein it is stated that the use of this chair could be traced back to the tenth century. “Stercoraria sedes, in qua creati pontifices ad frangendos elatos spiritus considerent, unde dicta.”—(Baronius, “Annales,” Lucca, 1758.) Read also the remarks upon the subject of Ducking Stools, from which this seems to have been derived, under “Ordeals and Punishments.” Father Le Jeune relates, among the ceremonies observed by the Indians of Canada upon capturing a bear, that no women were allowed to remain in the lodge with the carcass, and that special care was taken to prevent dogs from licking the blood, gnawing the bones, or _eating the excrement_.—(See “Relations,” 1634, vol. i., Quebec, 1858.) XXIX. ORDURE IN SMOKING. Among all the observances of the every-day life of the American aborigines, none is so distinctly complicated with the religious idea as smoking; therefore, should the use of excrement, human or animal, be detected in this connection, full play should be given to the suspicion that a hidden meaning attaches to the ceremony. This would appear to be the view entertained by the indefatigable missionary, De Smet, who records such a custom among the Flatheads and Crows in 1846: “To render the odor of the pacific incense agreeable to their gods it is necessary that the tobacco and the herb (skwiltz), the usual ingredients, should be mixed with a small quantity of buffalo dung.”[63]