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 priesthood of the false gods is hereditary in the family.... Others
may be introduced into the corps of fetich priests, but they have to pay
dearly for the honor.... Every morning before sunrise and every evening
at sunset the aspirants were heard singing in choir, directed by an
old fetich priestess.” These ceremonies of consecration “last several
days.... The crinkled hair which is completely shaved off of some, and
only from the crown of the head of others, the aspersion of lustral
water, the imposition of the new name.”—(“Fetichism,” Rev. P. Baudin, New
York, 1885, pp. 74, 75.)
“One observer of the customs of the blacks has stated in the journal of
the Anthropological Society of London that in the Hunter River District
of New South Wales, the catechumens at some parts of the Bora ceremonies
are required to eat ordure; but I have made diligent inquiries in the
same locality and elsewhere, but have found nothing to corroborate his
statement. Similarly, in one district in Queensland, it is said that the
blacks, whether at the Bora or not I cannot say, make cup-like holes in
the clay soil, collect their urine in them, and drink it afterwards. This
latter statement may be true, but I have never been able to substantiate
it by information from those who know. Various considerations, however,
lead me to think it possible that our blacks, in some places at least
(for their observances are not everywhere the same), may use ordure and
urine in that way, thinking that the evil spirit will be propitiated by
their eating in his honor that which he himself delights to eat; just as
in Northwestern India a devotee may be seen going about with his body
plastered all over with human dung in honor of his god. And our blacks
have good reason to try to propitiate this unclean spirit (Gunungdhukhya)
in every possible way, for they believe that he can enter their bodies,
and effecting a lodgment in their abdomen, feed there on the foulest of
the contents, and thus cause cramps, fits, madness, and other serious
disorders. The non-Aryan population of India have similar beliefs;
for among the devil-worshippers of Western India there are certain
malignant spirits called Bhutas; and these in their habits are similar to
Gunungdhukhya. They too cause mischief by taking possession of the body,
and they delight to devour human beings; they too live in desert places,
especially among tall trees. They take the forms of men and animals, and
prowl about in burial-grounds, and eat the carcasses.”—(Personal letter
from John Frazer, LL.D., dated Sydney, New South Wales, December 24,
1889.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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