The Romans and Egyptians went farther than this; they had gods of excrement, whose special function was the care of latrines and those who frequented them. Torquemada, a Spanish author of high repute, expresses this in very plain language:—
“I assert that they used to adore (as St. Clement writes to St. James the Less) stinking and filthy privies and water-closets; and, what is viler and yet more abominable, and an occasion for our tears and not to be borne with or so much as mentioned by name, they adored the noise and wind of the stomach when it expels from itself any cold or flatulence; and other things of the same kind, which, according to the same saint, it would be a shame to name or describe.”[43]
In the preceding lines Torquemada refers to the Egyptians only, but, as will be seen by examining the Spanish notes below, his language is almost the same when speaking of the Romans.[44] The Roman goddess was called Cloacina. She was one of the first of the Roman deities, and is believed to have been named by Romulus himself. Under her charge were the various cloacæ, sewers, privies, etc., of the Eternal City.[45]
“Les anciens avaient fait plusieurs divinités du Stercus; 1. Stercus ou Sterces, père de Picus, inventeur de la méthode de fumer les terres (S. August. De Civ. Dei, lib. xviii. cap. 15). 2. Sterculius (Macrob., Saturn., lib. i. cap. 7); 3. Stercutius (Lactant. de fal. reb.), Stercutus, Sterquilinus, Sterquiline, divinités qui présidaient aux engrais. Quelques personnes croient que c’était un surnom de Saturne comme inventeur de l’agriculture; d’autres y reconnaissent la terre elle-même. Pline dit que ce dieu était fils du dieu Faune et petit-fils de Picus, roi des Latins.—(Pline, lib. xvii. cap. 9, num. 40; Persius, sat. i. ver. 3.)
“On honore aussi Faunus avec les deux derniers surnoms.”—(Pline, loc. cit. Bib. Scat.)
“Consultez sur cette déesse en l’honneur de laquelle on a frappé des médailles, Lactant. Instit. lib. i. cap. 20, p. 11; St. Cyp. Van. d. id. cap. 2, par. 6; Minutius Felix, Oct. cap. 25; Pline, Hist. Nat. lib. xiv. cap. 29; Tite Live, 3, 48; Banier, Myth. tome i. 348; iv. 329, 338.”—(Bib. Scat. p. 43, footnote.)
As far as possible, the above citations were verified; the edition of St. Augustine consulted was that of the Reverend Maurice Dods, Edinburgh, 1871.
“Tatius both discovered and worshipped Cloacina.”—(Minutius Felix, “Octavius,” cap. xxv., edition of Edinburgh, 1869.)
“Colatina, alias Clocina, was goddess of the stools, the jakes, and the privy, to whom, as to every of the rest, there was a peculiar temple edified.”—(Reginald Scot, “Discovery of Witchcraft,”? lib. 16, cap. 22, giving a list of the Roman gods.)
The following epigram is taken from Harington’s “Ajax,” p. xviii.:
For further references to Cloacina, see p. 264.
“Stercus, Dieu particulier qui présidait à la garde-robe. Ce dernier nous rappelle qu’à l’art. Scopetarius, num. 111, nous avons dit quelques mots de Cloacine, déesse des égouts.
“On trouve encore dans Arnobe un dieu Latrinus duquel il dit: ‘Quis Latrinus præsidem latrinis?’”—(Adv. Gent. lib. 4.)
“Horace et tous les poëtes du temps d’Auguste, parlent de Stercus et ses circonstances et dépendances en cent endroits de leurs ouvrages. Martial, Catulle, Pétrone, Macrobe, Lucrèce, en saupoudrent leurs poésies; Homère, Pline, Lampride en parlent à ciel et à cœurs couverts; Saint Jérome et Saint Augustin ne dédaignent pas d’en entretenir leurs lecteurs.”—(Bibliotheca Scatalogica, pp. 1, 2.)
“Dans Plautus, Aristophane fait dire par Carion que le dieu Esculape aime et mange la merde: il est merdivore, comme écrit le traducteur latin; Prave dieu, comme Sganarelle, qui a dit ce mot sacramentel et profond,—‘La matière est-elle louable?’ Il trouve dans les excréments le secret des souffrances humaines. Son trépied prophétique et médical, c’est une chaise percée.—(Idem, p. 66.)
“Sterculius. (Myth.) surnom donné à Saturne, parcequ’il fut le premier qui apprit aux hommes à fumer les terres pour les rendre fertiles.”—(“Encyc. Raisonnée des Sciences,” etc., Neufchatel, 1765, tome quinzième, art. “Sterculius.”)
The Romans “had a god of ordure named Stercutius; one for other conveniences, Crepitus; a goddess for the common sewers, Cloacina.”—(Banier, “Mythology,” vol. i. p. 199.)
“Sterculius was one of the surnames given to Saturn because he was the first that had laid dung upon lands to make them fertile.”—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 540.)
Another authority states that “the zealous adorers of Siva rub the forehead, breast, and shoulders with ashes of cow-dung,” and, further, he adds: “It is very remarkable that the Assyrian Venus, according to Lucian, had also offerings of dung placed upon her altars.”—(Maurice, “Indian Antiquities,” London, 1800, vol. i. pp. 172, 173.)[46]
The Mexicans had a goddess, of whom we read the following:—Father Fabreya says, in his commentary on the Codex Borgianus, that the mother of the human race is there represented in a state of humiliation, eating cuitlatl (kopros, Greek). The vessel in the left hand of Suchiquecal contains “mierda,” according to the interpreter of these paintings.—(See note to p. 120, Kingsborough’s “Mexican Antiquities,” vol. iv.)
The Spanish mierda, like the Greek kopros, means ordure.
Besides Suchiquecal, the mother of the gods, who has been represented as eating excrement in token of humiliation, the Mexicans had other deities whose functions were more or less clearly complicated with alvine dejections. The most prominent of these was Ixcuina called, also, Tlaçolteotl, of whom Brasseur de Bourbourg speaks in these terms: The goddess of ordure, or Tlaçolquani, the eater of ordure, because she presided over loves and carnal pleasures.[47]
Mendieta mentions her as masculine, and in these terms: The god of vices and dirtinesses, whom they called Tlazulteotl.[48]
Bancroft speaks of “the Mexican goddess of carnal love, called Tlazoltecotl, Ixcuina, Tlacloquani,” etc., and says that she “had in her service a crowd of dwarfs, buffoons, and hunchbacks, who diverted her with their songs and dances and acted as messengers to such gods as she took a fancy to. The last name of this goddess means “eater of filthy things,” referring, it is said, to her function of hearing and pardoning the confessions of men and women guilty of unclean and carnal crimes.—(Bancroft, H. H. “Native Races of the Pacific Slope,” vol. iii. p. 380.)
In the manuscript explaining the Codex Telleriano, given in Kingsborough’s “Mexican Antiquities,” vol. v. p. 131, occurs the name of the goddess Ochpaniztli, whose feast fell on the 12th of September of our calendar. She was described as “the one who sinned by eating the fruit of the tree.” The Spanish monks styled her, as well as another goddess, Tlaçolteotl,—“La diosa de basura ó pecado.” But “basura” is not the alternative of sin (pecado); it means “dung, manure, ordure, excrement.”[49] It is possible that, in their zeal to discover analogies between the Aztec and Christian religions, the early missionaries passed over a number of points now left to conjecture.
In the same volume of Kingsborough, p. 136, there is an allusion to the offerings or sacrifices made Tepeololtec, “que, en romance, quiere decir sacrificios de mierda,” which, “in plain language, signifies sacrifices of excrement.” Nothing further can be adduced upon the subject, although a note at the foot of this page, in Kingsborough, says that here several pages of the Codex Talleriano had been obliterated or mutilated, probably by some over-zealous expurgator.
Deities, created in the ignorance or superstitious fears of devotees, are essentially man-like in their attributes; where they are depicted as cruel and sanguinary toward their enemies, the nation adoring them, no matter how pacific to-day, was once cruel and sanguinary likewise. Anthropophagous gods are worshipped only by the descendants of cannibals, and excrement-eaters only by the progeny of those who were not unacquainted with human ordure as an article of food.
Dulaure quotes from a number of authorities to show that the Israelites and Moabites had the same ridiculous and disgusting ceremonial in their worship of Bel-phegor. The devotee presented his naked posterior before the altar and relieved his entrails, making an offering to the idol of the foul emanations.[50] Dung gods are also mentioned as having been known to the chosen people during the time of their idolatry.[51]
Mr. John Frazer, LL.D., describing the ceremony of initiation, known to the Australians as the “Bora,” and which he defines to be “certain ceremonies of initiation through which a youth passes when he reaches the age of puberty to qualify him for a place among the men of the tribe and for the privileges of manhood. By these ceremonies he is made acquainted with his father’s gods, the mythical lore of the tribe and the duties required of him as a man.... The whole is under the tutelage of a high spirit called ‘Dharamoolun.’ ... But, present at these ceremonies, although having no share in them, is an evil spirit called ‘Gunungdhukhya,’ ‘eater of excrement,’ whom the blacks greatly dread.” Compare this word “Gunungdhukhya,” with the Sanskrit root-word “Gu,” “excrement;” “Dhuk” is the Australian “to eat.”—(Personal letter from John Frazer, Esq., LL.D., dated Sydney, New South Wales, Dec. 24, 1889. Continuing his remarks upon the subject of the evil spirit “Gunungdhukhya,” he says: “This being is certainly supposed to eat ordure; and such is the meaning of his name.”)
King James gravely informs us that “Witches ofttimes confesse that in their worship of the Devil.... Their form of adoration to be the kissing of his hinder parts.”—(“Dæmonologie,” London, 1616, p. 113.) This book appeared with a commendatory preface from Hinton, one of the bishops of the English Church.
“Witches paid homage to the devil who was present, usually in the form of a goat, dog, or ape. To him they offered themselves, body and soul, and kissed him under the tail, holding a lighted candle.”—(“History of the Inquisition,” Henry C. Lea, New York, 1888, vol. iii., p. 500.)
Knowing of the existence of “dung gods” among Romans, Egyptians, Hebrews, and Moabites, it is not unreasonable to insist, in the present case, upon a rigid adherence to the text, and to assert that, where it speaks of a sacrifice as a sacrifice of excrement and designates a deity as an eater of excrement, it means what it says, and should not be distorted, under the plea of symbolism, into a perversion of facts and ideas.
Some writers made out the name of the god “Belzebul” to be identical with “Beelzebub,” and to mean “Lord of Dung,” but this interpretation is disputed by Schaff-Herzog.—(“Encyclopædia of Religious Knowledge,” New York, article “Beelzebub.”)