Where urine is applied in bodily ablutions, the object sought is undoubtedly the procuring of ammonia by oxidation, and in no case of that kind is it sought to ascribe an association of religious ideas. But where the ablutions are attended with ceremonial observances, are incorporated in a ritual, or take place in chambers reserved for sacred purposes, it is not unfair to suggest that everything made use of, including the urine, has a sacred or a semi-sacred significance.

No difficulty is experienced in assigning to their proper categories the urinal ablutions of the Eskimo of Greenland (Hans Egede Saabye, p. 256); of the Alaskans (Sabytschew, in Phillips, vol. vi.); of the Indians of the northwest coast of America (Whymper’s “Alaska,” London, 1868, p. 142; H. H. Bancroft, “Nat. Races,” vol. i. p. 83); of the Indians of Cape Flattery (Swan, in “Smithsonian Contrib.”); of the people of Iceland (see below); of Siberia (see below); and of the savages of Lower California.

Pericuis of Lower California. “Mothers, to protect them against the weather, cover the entire bodies of their children with a varnish of coal and urine.”—(Bancroft, vol. i. p. 559.)

Clavigero not only tells all that Bancroft does, but he adds that the women of California washed their own faces in urine.—(“Hist. de Baja California,” Mexico, 1852, p. 28; see, also, Orozco y Berra and Baegert.)

“People of Iceland are reported to wash their faces and hands in pisse.” (Hakluyt, “Voyages,” vol. i. p. 664.) This report was, however, indignantly denied of all but the common people by Arugrianus Jonas, an Icelandic writer.

The inhabitants of Ounalashka “wash themselves first with their own urine, and afterwards with water.”—(“Russian Discoveries,” William Coxe, London, 1803, quoting Solovoof’s “Voyage,” 1764, p. 226.)

In the same volume is to be found the statement that in Alaska and the Fox Islands, the people “washed themselves, according to custom, first with urine, and then with water.”—(p. 225, quoting “Voyage of Captain Krenitzin,” 1768.)

When a child gets very dirty “with soot and grease,” a Vancouver squaw uses “stale urine” to cleanse it. “This species of alkali as a substitute for soap is the general accompaniment of the morning toilet of both sexes, male and female. During winter they periodically scrub themselves with sand and urine.”—(J. G. Swan, “Indians of Cape Flattery, Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge,” No. 220, p. 19.)

Among the Tchuktchees, urine “is a useful article in their household economy, being preserved in a special vessel, and employed as a soap or lye for cleansing bodies or clothing.”—(“In the Lena Delta,” Melville, p. 318.)

“But they also wash themselves, as well as their clothes, with it; and even in the hot bath, of which men and women are alike fond, because they love to perspire, it is with this fluid they sometimes make their ablutions.”—(Lisiansky, “Voyage round the World,” London, 1811, p. 214.)

Used as “a substitute for soap-lees, according to Langsdorff.”—(“Voyages,” London, 1814, vol. ii. p. 47.)

“By night, the Master of the house, with all his family, his wife and children, lye in one room.... All of them make water in one chamber-pot, with which, in the morning, they wash their face, mouth, teeth, and hands. They allege many reasons thereof, to wit, that it makes a faire face, maintaineth the strength, confirmeth the sinewes in the hands, and preserveth the teeth from putrefaction.”—(“Dittmar Bleekens,” in Purchas, vol. i. p. 647.)

After describing the double tent of skins used by the Tchuktchees, Mr. W. H. Gilder, author of “Schwatka’s Search,” says all food is served in the “yoronger,” or inner tent, in which men and women sit, in a state of nudity, wearing only a small loin-cloth of seal-skin.

After finishing the meal, “a small, shallow pail or pan of wood is passed to any one who feels so inclined, to furnish the warm urine with which the board and knife are washed by the housewife. It is a matter of indifference who furnishes the fluid, whether the men, women, or children; and I have myself frequently supplied the landlady with the dish-water. In nearly every tent there is kept from the summer season a small supply of dried grass. A little bunch of this is dipped in the warm urine and serves as a dish-rag and a napkin. These people are generally kind and hospitable, and were very attentive to my wants as a stranger, and regarded by them as more helpless than a native. The women would, therefore, often turn to me after washing the board and knife, and wash my fingers and wipe the grease from my mouth with the moistened grass. Any of the men or women in the tent who desired it would also ask for the wet grass, and use it in the same way.

“It was not done as a ceremony, but merely as a matter of course or of necessity.

“I do not think they would use urine for such purposes if they could get all the water, and especially the warm water, they needed. But all the water they have in winter is obtained by melting snow or ice over an oil lamp,—a very slow process; and the supply is therefore very limited, being scarcely more than is required for drinking purposes, or to boil such fresh meat as they may have.

“The urine, being warm and containing a small quantity of ammonia, is particularly well adapted for removing grease from the board and utensils, which would otherwise soon become foul, and to their taste much more disagreeable.

“The bottom of the ‘yoronger’ is generally carpeted with tanned seal-skins, and they too are frequently washed with the same fluid. The consequence is that there is ever a mingled odor of ammonia and rotten walrus-meat pervading a well-supplied and thrifty Tchouktchi dwelling.”—(Personal letter to Captain Bourke, dated New York, October 15, 1889.)

“Vice-Admiral of the Narrow Seas.” “A drunken man that pisses under the table into his companion’s shoes.”—(Grose, “Dictionary of Buckish Slang,” London, 1811, article as above.)

This use of urine as a tooth-wash has had a very extensive diffusion; it is still to be found in many parts of Europe and America, of boasted enlightenment. The Celtiberii of Spain, “although they boasted of cleanliness both in their nourishment and in their dress, it was not unusual for them to wash their teeth and bodies in urine,—a custom which they considered favorable to health.”—(Maltebrun, “Univ. Geog.,” vol. v. book 137, p. 357, article “Spain.”)

From Strabo we learn that the Iberians “do not attend to ease or luxury, unless any one considers it can add to the happiness of their lives to wash themselves and their wives in stale urine kept in tanks, and to rinse their teeth with it, which they say is the custom both with the Cantabrians and their neighbors.” (Strabo, “Geography,” Bohn, lib. iii. cap. 4, par. 16, London, 1854. In a footnote it is stated that “Apuleius, Catullus, and Diodorus Siculus all speak of this singular custom.”) The same practice is alluded to by Percy, and also by the “Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences,” Neufchatel, 1745, vol. xvii. p. 499; and the practice is said to obtain among the modern Spaniards as well. “Les Espagnols font grand usage de l’urine pour se nettoyer les dents. Les anciens Celtibériens faisoient la même chose.”—(Received from Prof. Frank Rede Fowke, London, June 18, 1888.)

“Bien que soigneux de leurs personnes et propres dans leur manière de vivre, les Celtibères se lavent tout le corps d’urine, s’en frottant même les dents, estimant cela un bon moyen pour entretenir la santé du corps.”—(Diodore, v. 33.)

The manners of the Celtiberians, as described by Strabo and others, have come down through many generations to their descendants in all parts of the world; all that he related of the use of human urine as a mouth-wash, as a means of ablution, and as a dentifrice, was transplanted to the shores of America by the Spanish colonists; and even in the present generation, according to Gen. S. V. Bénèt, U. S. Army, traces of such customs were to be found among some of the settlers in Florida.

The same custom has been observed among the natives along the Upper Nile. “The Obbo natives wash out their mouths with their own urine. This habit may have originated in the total absence of salt in their country.”—(“The Albert Nyanza,” Sir Samuel Baker, p. 240.)

In England likewise there was a former employment of the same fluid as a dentifrice.

“‘Nettoyer ses dents avec de l’urine, mode espagnole,’ dit Erasme.”—(“Les Primitifs,” Elie Réclus, Paris, 1885, quoting Erasmus, “De Civilitate.”)

Urine was employed as a tooth-wash, alone or mixed with orris powder. “Farina orobi (bitter vetch) permisceatur cum urina.”—(“Medicus Microcosmus,” Danielus Beckherius, pp. 62-64.)

A paragraph in Paullini’s “Dreck Apothek,” p. 74, would show that in Germany the same usages were not unknown. As a dentifrice he recommends urine as a wash; or a powder made of pulverized gravel stone, mixed with urine.

Ivan Petroff states that the peasants of Portugal still wash their clothes in urine.—(Ivan Petroff, in “Trans. American Anthropological Society,” 1882, vol. i.)

Urine is used on whaling vessels, when stale, for washing flannel shirts, which are then thrown overboard and towed after the ship.—(Dr. J. H. Porter.)

Dr. V. T. McGillicuddy, of Rapid City, Dakota, furnishes the information that Irish, German, and Scandinavian washerwomen who have immigrated to the United States persist in adding human urine to the water to be used for cleansing blankets.

“I have observed somewhere that the Basks and some Hindus clean their mouths with urine, but I do not remember the book.”—(Dr. Alfred Gatchett, Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, D. C.)

Dr. Carl Lumholtz, of Christiania, Norway, states that he had seen the savages of Herbert River, Australia, in 18° south latitude, with whom he lived for some months, use their own urine to clean their hands after they had been gathering wild honey.

The statement concerning the Celtiberians may also be found in Clavigero.—(“Hist. de Baja California,” p. 28, quoting Diodorus Siculus.)

Diderot and D’Alembert assert unequivocally that in the latter years of the last century the people of the Spanish Peninsula still used urine as a dentifrice.—(“Les Espagnols,” etc., reading as above given from “Dict. Raisonné.” See Encyclopédie, Geneva, 1789, article “Urine.”)