Mr. Havelock Ellis calls attention to the use of cow’s urine after confinement by the women of the Cheosurs of the Caucasus. See also under “Witchcraft,” “Therapeutics,” “Divination,” “Amulets and Talismans,” “Cures by Transplantation,” “Ceremonial Observances.”
For an example of Urinal Aspersion, in connection with Weaning, see on page 211.
The attainment by young men of the age of manhood is an event which among all primitive peoples has been signalized by peculiar ceremonies; in a number of instances ordure and urine have been employed, as for example: The observances connected with this event in the lives of Australian warriors are kept a profound secret, but, among the few learned is the fact that the neophyte is “plastered with goat dung.”—(See “Aborigines of Australia,” A. Brough Smyth, London, 1878, vol. i. p. 59, footnote.)
In some parts of Australia, Smyth says that the youth of fourteen or fifteen had to submit himself to the rite of “Tid-but,” during which his head was shaved and plastered with mud (“the head is then daubed with clay”) “and his body is daubed with clay, mud, and charcoal-powder and filth of every kind.” (Smyth had previously specified goat-dung.) “He carries a basket under his arm, containing moist clay, charcoal, and filth.... He gathers filth as he goes, and places it in the basket.”—(Idem, vol. i. p. 60.)
The young initiate throws this filth at all the men he meets, but not at the women or children, as these have been warned to keep out of his way. This is the account given by Smyth, but Featherman, from whom Smyth derived his information, makes no such restriction in his text, simply stating that the young man was considered to be “excommunicated _de facto_.” (See A. Featherman, “Social History of the Races of Mankind,” 2d Division, London, 1887, p. 152.) But, in either case, it is surely remarkable to stumble upon the counterpart of one of the proceedings of the Feast of Fools in such a remote corner of the globe.
“Among many of the tribes, the ceremony of introducing a native into manhood, is said to be accompanied with some horrible and disgusting practices.”—(“The Nat. Tribes of S. Australia,” Adelaide, 1879, Introduction, xxviii, received through the kindness of the Royal Soc. of Sydney, N. S. Wales, T. B. Kyngdon, Secretary.)