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JUNE, 1895.)
CATALOGUE OF NICOBARESE OBJECTS.
169
you. You have come from the body of the cow; therefore I pray you to forgive my sins and to cleanse my body. Cleanse me, who offer you worship, from my sins. Pardon and save nie." After a second bow and the meditation of Hari, the five products are mixed in one cup; the priest drinks a little, pours it into the hollow hands of the worshippers and they drink. Nothing is so cleansing as this mixture. All Indians often drink it. The five nectars - milk, curds, butter, sugar and honey - are good, but much less powerful.26
Cow-dung is generally used in Brâhman purifications.27 Cow.dung is eaten by Hindus as an atonement for sin.28 In consecrating fire and hallowing sacrificial implements a space must be smeared with cow-dung.20 In the Malay Archipelago, Oderic (1321) found a poisonous tree, for which the only core was to eat human dung mixed with water,30 Cock-dung is nsed as a cure in Burma.31 Pigeon's dang is & medicine in China.22 In China, horse-dung is used as a cure for the black sweat in horses.33 The Chinese consider cowdung an excellent salve for boils, inflammations and abscesses, 34 and this opinion is shared by the English peasantry. In China, human dung is considered a very useful medicine in fever and small-pox, Buddhist monks are famous for the preparation of this drug. Some consider it the elixir of life.35 According to Tavernier (A. D. 1670) the excrements of the Dalai Lama are kept with care, dried, and eaten as medicine.36 The Australians, who live near the meeting of the rivers Page and Isis, cure wounds by laying on the wound the burning dung of a kangaroo,37 At the end of the bora, or man-making ceremony, in Australia, the youths have to eat the excrement of old women,38 The dressing of abscesses in North-West Africa is cow's dang.39 In Morocco, wounds are dressed with cow-dung,while the Abyssinians eat human dung and water as a cure for enake-bite. The Romans believed that the dung of different animals wrought many cures. The early Germans (A.D. 100) covered their under-ground granaries with dung.43. Burton, in 1620, mentions sheep's dung Asa cure for epilepsy, and notes that the excrement of beasts is good for many diseases." In Scotland (1800), before the calf ate anything, cow-dang was forced into its mouth. After this, neither witch nor fairy could harm it.45 In Strathspey, in North Scotland, a country, or wisewoman's, cure for illness caused by charms is a warm cow-dung poultice. 46
(To be continued.)
157.
DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE OF OBJECTS MADE AND USED BY THE
NATIVES OF THE NICOBAR ISLANDS.
BY E, H, MAN, C.1.E. (Concluded from page 136.)
17. Ornaments. Malau. Large glase bead necklaces, usually worn by the menlūana (i. e., the
Shamans). 158 (m). Homyahta (C. N. Merahta), and 159 (m). Tarito. Singular iron objects, made by
the natives of Chowra Island, and prized by all throughout the Islands as ornaments. Duboie, Vol. I. p. 207.
* Colebrooke's Miscellaneous Essays, Vol. I. p. 138. a Ward's View of the Hindus, Vol. I. p. xliii. 29 Colebrooke's Miscellaneous Essays, Vol. I. p. 149. * Yule's Cathay, Vol. L p. 91.
81 Shway Yoe's The Burman, Vol. II. p. 140. * Gray's China, Vol. II. p. 190.
* Op. cit. Vol. IL p. 173. » Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 122
35 Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 124. Dubois, Vol. II. p. 367. Jour. Anthrop. Inst. Vol. VIL. P. 256.
» Op. cit. Vol. VII. P. 252. * Park's Travels, Vol. I. p. 276.
** Rohlf's Morocco, p. 90. Yule's Cathay, Vol. I. p. 191. . Pliny's Natural History, Book xxviii, Chap. 17. A few of the preseriptions may be cited. Calf-dung sodder in wine for melancholy, and the ashes of calf-dang in wine and goat's dung for dropsy, for shingles, and for a dislocated joint, and the smoke for consumption, Goat's dung cured diuloontions and rheumatiam, hart'a dung, dropsy: haro's dang, burns; and pig's dung, consumption, measles, swellings, burns, convulsiona, cramps and bruisce. Ite manifold medical uses seems to explain why in Western India the smell of pig's dung is believed to frighten spirita 3 Tacitus' Germania, Cap. 16.
# Barton's Anatomy of Melancholy, p. 131. Brand's Popular Antiquities, Vol. III. p. 257.
46 Cumming's In the Hebrides, p. 265.
