C. For further references to the Hottentot ceremony of Initiation, by

sprinkling the young warrior with urine, consult Pinkerton’s “Voyages,” vol. xvi. pp. 89 and 141, where there is a quotation from Thurnberg’s “Account of the Cape of Good Hope.” See also Maltebrun, “Univ. Geog.” vol. ii. article “The Cape of Good Hope.” The Indians of California gave urine to newly-born children. “At time of childbirth, many singular observances obtained; for instance, the old women washed the child as soon as it was born, and drank of the water; the unhappy infant was forced to take a draught of urine medicinally.”—(Bancroft, H. H. “Native Races,” vol. i. p. 413.) Forlong states that at the time of investiture of the Indian boy with the sacred thread, “the fire is kindled with the droppings of the sacred cow.”—(“Rivers of Life,” London, 1883, vol. i. p. 323.) Valuable information was also received from Mr. Edward Palmer, of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, especially in regard to the Kalkadoon tribe near Cloncurry, who are among those who split the urethra. In order to bring up an Eskimo child to be an “Angerd-lartug-sick,”—that is, “a man brought up in a peculiar manner, with a view to acquiring a certain faculty by means of which he might be called to life again and returned to land, in case he should be drowned,”—“for this purpose the mother had to keep a strict fast and the child to be accustomed to the smell of urine.”—(Rink, “Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo,” p. 45.) Réclus says of the Inuit child selected to be trained as an Angekok: “Sitôt née, la petite créature sera aspergée d’urine de manière à l’imprégner de son odeur caractéristique; c’est décidément leur eau bénite. Ailleurs, la barbe, la chevelure, l’entière personne des rois et sacrificateurs sont ointes d’huile prise dans de saintes ampoules; ailleurs, elles sont beurrées et barbouillées de bouse soigneusement étendue.”—(“Les Primitifs,” p. 84, “Les Inoits Occidentaux.”) For initiation in witchcraft, “Dans la Hesse, le postulant se place sur du fumier en prononçant des formules magiques, et pique un crapaud avec un bâton blanc qu’il jette ensuite à l’eau.”—(“La Fascination,” J. Tuchmann, in “Mélusine,” Paris, July-August, 1890, p. 93.) “I am strongly inclined to the belief that all these rites are survivals or debased vestiges of the blood-covenant practice, by which the partaking of each other’s selves (by whatever is a portion of one’s self) is a form of covenanting by which two persons become as one. Are you aware of the fact that the habit of giving the urine of a healthy child to a new-born babe has prevailed down to the present day among rustic nurses in New England, if not elsewhere, in America? I can bear personal testimony to this fact from absolute knowledge. It is a noteworthy fact that the Hebrew word _chaneek_, which is translated ‘trained’ or ‘initiated,’ and which is used in the proverb, ‘Train up a child,’ etc., has as its root-idea (as shown in the corresponding Arabic word) the ‘opening of the gullet’ in a new-born child, the starting the child in its new life. Among some primitive peoples fresh blood, as added life, is thus given to a babe; and in other cases it is urine.”—(Personal letter from Rev. H. K. Trumbull, editor of the “Sunday-School Times,” Philadelphia, April 19, 1888.) “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.) This correspondent has struck the keynote of the curious behavior of the prophet Ezekiel and others. Believing, as was believed in their day, that deities ate excrement, why should not they, the representatives of the gods, eat it too? And if a god enter into a man’s body to eat excrement, why should not the victim feed him on that which is so acceptable, and by gorging him free himself from pain? See, under “War Customs,” the use of the drink _wysoccan_ by the Indians of Virginia, in their ceremonies of initiation. See, under “Ordeals and Punishments,” page 254, in regard to the belief of the Australians. WAR-CUSTOMS.—ARMS AND ARMOR. It is remarkable that we should be able to adduce any example of the employment of excrementitious matter in war customs; not that we should not suspect their existence, but because on occasions of such importance the medicine-men, who arrogate to themselves so much consequence in all military affairs, would naturally be more careful to conceal their performances from profane eyes. There is very little reason to doubt that a fuller examination would be rewarded with new facts of additional interest and value. When the Dutch were besieging Batavia, in the Island of Java, in 1623, the natives daubed themselves with human ordure, in all likelihood for some vague religious purpose,—“a 1629, in obsidione Batavos obsessos, in defectu aliorum ad defensionem necessariorum requisitorum hostes suos Indos stercore humano ex cloacis collecto, ollisque in ipsorum nuda corpora conjecto, fugasse.”—(“Chylologia,” p. 795.) “Les Malais se servent de l’urine pour tremper leurs fameux criss. Ils enfoncent ces poignards dans la terre, et pendant un certain temps, ils viennent uriner de manière que cette terre soit toujours imbibée d’urine.”—(Personal letter from Dr. Bernard, Cannes, France, dated July 7, 1888.) Against what was known in the Middle Ages as “magical impenetrability,” human ordure was in high repute. The sword or “machete” of the person exposed to attack from such an enemy should be rubbed in pig-dung. But let Schurig tell his own story: “Scilicet, priusquam cum adversario hujus rei suspecto congrediaris, cuspis machæræ vel gladii, stercori suillo infigatur; vel si eminus agendum, globuli bomberdis infarciendi per sphincterem ani ducantur; quod certissimum dicitur antidotum contra hanc non minus quam Diaboli Incantationes.”—(“Chylologia,” p. 791, par. 64.) Frommann states that arms may be bewitched so that they can do harm; but he makes no mention of human or animal excreta in such connection.—(“Tract. de Fascinat.,” p. 654.) “Dum gladio quo vulnus fuit inflictum sive cruento sive non cruento applicatur unguentum quod vocant magneticum armarium quo curatur vulnus.” (Etmuller, vol. i. p. 68.) This magnetic ointment was made of human ordure and human urine. See also page 298 of this volume. “The Scythians prefer mares for the purposes of war, because they can pass their urine without stopping in their career.”—(Pliny, lib. viii. cap. 66.) The “black drink” of the Creeks and Seminoles was an emetic and cathartic of somewhat violent nature. It was used by the warriors of those tribes when about to start out on the war-path or engage in any important deliberations.—(See Cornwallis Clay’s dissertation upon the Seminoles of Florida, in “Annual Report of Bureau of Ethnology,” Washington, D. C., 1888.) The “black drink” of the Creeks was made from the Iris Versicolor (Natural order, Iridacæa), “an active emeto-cathartic, abundant in swampy grounds throughout the Southern States.”—(See Brinton, “Myths of the New World,” New York, 1868, p. 274.) Beverly mentions “a mad potion,” “the Wysoccan,” used by the Indians of Virginia during “an initiatory ceremony called Huskansaw, which took place every sixteen or twenty years,” which he calls “the water of Lethe,” and by the use of which they “perfectly lose the remembrance of all former things, even of their parents, their treasure, and their language.”—(“Golden Bough,” vol. ii. p. 349, quoting Beverly’s “History of Virginia,” London, 1722, p. 177.) See, under “Insults,” p. 256, for the war customs of the Samoans. See also “Catamenia;” “Witchcraft.” XXXIV. HUNTING AND FISHING. The African hunter in pursuit of game, such as elephants, anoints himself “all over with their dung.”—(Father Merolla, in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 251, “Voyage to Congo.”) This, he says, is merely to deceive the animal with the smell. Pliny relates that in Heraklea the country-people poisoned panthers with aconite. But the panthers had sense enough to know that human excrement was an antidote. (Lib. xxviii. c. 2.) Again in lib. viii. c. 41 he tells of the aconite-poisoned panther curing itself by eating human excrement. Knowing this fact, the peasants suspend human excrement in a pot so high in the air that the panther exhausts itself in jumping to reach it, and dies all the sooner. Schurig (“Chylologia,” p. 774) has the above tale, but has taken it from Claudius Æmilianus, as well as Pliny. The reindeer Tchuktchi feign to be passing urine in order to catch their animals which they want to use with their sleds. The reindeer, horses, and cattle of the Siberian tribes are very fond of urine, probably on account of the salt it contains, and when they see a man walking out from the hut, as if for the purpose of relieving his bladder, they follow him up, and so closely that he finds the operation anything but pleasant. “The Esquimaux of King William’s Land and the adjacent peninsula often catch the wild reindeer by digging a pit in the deep snow, and covering it with thin blocks of snow, that would break with the weight of an animal. They then make a line of urine from several directions, leading to the centre of the cover of the pitfall, where an accumulation of snow, saturated with the urine of the dog, is deposited as bait. One or more animals are thereby led to their destruction.”—(Personal letter from the Arctic explorer, W. H. Gilder, dated New York, October 15, 1889.) “The dogs of the Esquimaux are equally fond of excrement, especially in cold weather, and when a resident of the Arctic desires to relieve himself, he finds it necessary to take a whip or a stick to defend himself against the energy of the hungry dogs. Often, when a man wants to urge his dog-team to greater exertion, he sends his wife or one of the boys to run ahead, and when at a distance, to stoop down and make believe he is relieving himself. The dogs are thus spurred to furious exertion, and the boy runs on again, to repeat the delusion. This never fails of the desired effect, no matter how often repeated.”—(Idem.) “I only know one superstitious use of excrement,—that wherein the hooks were placed round some before the fishing incantations began.” (“The Maoris of New Zealand,” E. Tregear, in “Journal of the Anthrop. Institute,” London, 1889.) This bears a very close resemblance to certain of the uses of cow-dung in India. The people of Angola, west coast of Africa, when about to set out on a hunt, are careful to collect the dung of the elephant, antelope, and other kinds of wild animals, and hand them to the medicine-man, who makes a magical compound out of them, and places it in a horn. It then serves as an amulet, and will ensure success in the hunt.—(“Muhongo,” an African boy from Angola; interpretation made by Rev. Mr. Chatelain.) XXXV. DIVINATION.—OMENS.—DREAMS. Among the ancients there was a method of divination by excrementitious materials.—(See “Scatomancie,” in Bib. Scat. p. 28.) “Gaule, in his ‘Mag-Astromancers Posed and Puzzled’ (p. 165), enumerates as follows the several species of divination.” (Here follows a list of fifty-three kinds.) One of the kinds enumerated is “Spatalomancy, by skin, bones, excrement.”—(Brand, “Pop. Ant.,” pp. 329, 330.) In the “Rhudhiradhyaya, or Sanguinary Chapter,” translated from the Calica Puran, in the 4th vol. “Asiatic Researches,” 4th ed., London, 1807, the following is stated in regard to human victims: “If, at the time of presenting the blood, the victim discharges fæces or urine, or turns about, it indicates certain death to the sacrificer.” The Peruvians had one class of wizards (i. e., medicine-men) who “told fortunes by maize and the dung of sheep.”—(“Fables and Rites of the Yncas,” Padre Cristoval de Molina, translated by Clement C. Markham, Hakluyt Society Transactions, London, 1873, vol. xlviii., p. 14. Molina resided in Cuzco, as a missionary, from 1570 to 1584.) “Les Hachus (a division of the Peruvian priesthood) consultaient l’avenir au moyen de grains de maïs ou des excréments des animaux.”—(Balboa, “Histoire de Pérou,” p. 29, in Ternaux, vol. xv.) See, also, D. G. Brinton’s “Myths of the New World,” New York, 1868, pp. 278, 279. Ducange, enumerating the pagan superstitions which still survived in Europe in A.D. 743, mentions divination or augury by the dung of horses, cattle, or birds: “De auguriis vel avium, vel equorum, vel boum stercoracibus.”—(Ducange, Glossary, article “Stercoraces.”) “What wise man would think that God would commit his counsel to a dog, an owle, a swine, or a toade; or that he would hide his secret purposes in the dung or bowels of beastes?” Reg. Scot (“Discoverie,” p. 150), speaking of the omens consulted by Spaniards, English, and others, says: “Among the rustics of France, to dream of ordure was regarded as a sign of good luck; in like manner, to have a ball, or anything that one carried in the hand, fall in ordure, was also a sign of good fortune.” “To dream of ordure means that somebody is going to try to bewitch you.”—(“Muhongo,” a boy from Angola, Eastern Africa, in conversation with Captain Bourke; translation by Rev. Mr. Chatelain.) This belief in the good or bad prognostications to be derived from dreams about ordure, was very widely disseminated. “Luck, or Good Luck. To tread in Sir Reverence; to be bewrayed; an allusion to the proverb, ‘Sh-tt-n luck is good luck.’”—(“Grose, Dict. of Buckish Slang,” London, 1811.) “Inasmuch as the sun of morning, or spring, comes out of the dark-blue bird of night, we can understand the popular Italian and German superstition, that when the excrement of a bird falls upon a man it is an omen of good luck. The excrement of the mythical bird of night, or winter, is the sun.”—(“Zoöl. Mythol.,” Angelo de Gubernatis, vol. ii. p. 176, London, 1872.) “When a Hindu child’s horoscope portends misfortune or crime, he is born again from a cow, thus: being dressed in scarlet, and tied on a new sieve, he is passed between the hind legs of a cow, forward through the fore legs to the mouth, and again in the reverse direction, to simulate birth; the ordinary birth ceremonies (aspersion, etc.) are then gone through, and the father smells his son as a cow smells her calf.”—(Frazer, “Totemism,” Edinburgh, 1887, p. 33.) To put one’s foot in dung is supposed by the French peasantry to imply the acquirement of wealth.—(Mr. W. W. Rockhill.) Among the Kamtchatkans, if a child has been born in stormy weather, they believe that to be a bad omen, and that the child will cause storm and rain wherever it goes. As soon as it is grown and can speak, they purify it, and appease heaven by the following method: During a most violent storm of wind and rain, the child is compelled to walk naked, holding a cup or shell of Mytues high above its head, around the ostrag and all balagans and dog huts, and to say the following prayer to Billukai and his Kamuli: “Gsaulga, set yourselves down and stop urinating or storming; this shell is used to salty but not to sweet water; you make me very wet, and I almost freeze to death; besides, I have no clothing; see how I tremble.”—(Steller, translated by Bunnemeyer.) Divination by urine seems to have been superseded by holy water in a “chrystall.” Scot, speaking of the latter mode, says: “They take a glass vial, full of holy water, ... on the mouth of the vial or urinall,” etc.—(“Discoverie,” p. 188.) There is among children in the United States and England, and possibly on the continent of Europe as well, a superstition to the effect that the one who plucks the dandelion will become addicted to the habit of urinating in bed during sleep. The author has been unable to trace the origin of the curious notion or to obtain any explanation of it. “Leontodon. Dandelion. Children that eat it in the evening experience its diuretic effects in the night, which is the reason that other European nations as well as the British vulgarly call it piss-a-bed.”—(Encyclopædia, Philadelphia, Penn., 1797, article “Leontodon.”) “The following compendious new way of magical divination, which we find so humorously described in Butler’s ‘Hudibras’ as follows, is affirmed by