A few persons are to be found who endeavor to collect the dust from the feet of one hundred thousand Brahmins. One way of collecting this dust is by spreading a cloth before the door of a house where a great multitude of Brahmins are assembled at a feast, and, as each Brahmin comes out, he shakes the dust from his feet as he treads upon this cloth. Many miraculous cures are declared to have been performed upon persons using this dust.[447] A widow among the Armenian devil-worshipers is required "to strew dust on her head and to smear her face with clay."[448] CLAY-EATING. The eating of clay would appear to have once prevailed all over the world. In places the custom has degenerated into ceremonial or is to be found only in myths. The Aztec devotee picked up a pinch of clay in the temple of Tezcatlipoca and ate it with the greatest reverence.[449] Sahagun is quoted by Squier[450] as saying that the Mexicans swore by the sun and "by our sovereign mother, the Earth," and ate a piece of earth. But the use of clay by the Mexicans was not merely a matter of ceremony; clay seems to have been an edible in quite common use. Edible earth was sold openly in the markets of Mexico; "yaun tierra," says Gomara in the list of foods given by him.[451] The eating of clay was forbidden to Mexican women during pregnancy. Diego Duran describes the ceremonial eating of clay in the temples of Mexico; "Llegó el dedo al suelo, y cogiendo tierra en él lo metió en la boca; á la cual ceremonia llamaban comer tierra santa."[452] And again he says that in their sacrifices the Mexican nobles ate earth from the feet of the idols. "Comian tierra de la que estaba á los pies del Ydolo."[453] But the Mexicans did not limit themselves to a ceremonial clay-eating alone. Thomas Gage relates that "they ate a kind of earth, for at one season in the yeer they had nets of mayle, with the which they raked up a certaine dust that is bred upon the water of the Lake of Mexico, and that is kneaded together like unto oas of the sea."[454] Diego Duran[455] mentions the ceremonial clay-eating at the feast of Tezcatlipoca agreeing with the note already taken from Kingsborough. There is reference to clay-eating in one of the myths given in the Popol-Vuh. The Quiche deities Hunahpu and Xbalanqué, desiring to overcome the god Cabrakan, fed him upon roasted birds, but they took care to rub one of the birds with "tizate" and to put white powder around it. The circle of white powder was, no doubt, a circle of hoddentin or something analogous thereto, intended to prevent any baleful influence being exercised by Cabrakan. "Mais ils frottèrent l'un des oiseaux avec du _tizate_ et lui mirent de la poussière blanche à l'entour."[456] In a footnote the word "tizate" is explained to be a very friable whitish earth, used in polishing metals, making cement, etc.: "Terre blanchâtre fort friable, et dont ils se servent pour polir les métaux, faire du ciment, etc."