This mode of purification is recommended in the Avesta, and is
said to be used by the few remaining followers of this creed.
We have not only to take into account the frequency with which among
primitive peoples the excretions possess a religious significance. It is
further to be noted that in the folk-lore of modern Europe we everywhere
find plentiful evidence of the earlier prevalence of legends and practices
of a scatalogical character. It is significant that in the majority of
cases it is easy to see a sexual reference in these stories and customs.
The legends have lost their earlier and often mythical significance, and
frequently take on a suggestion of obscenity, while the scatalogical
practices have become the magical devices of lovelorn maidens or forsaken
wives practiced in secrecy. It has happened to scatalogical rites to be
regarded as we may gather from the _Clouds_ of Aristophanes, that the
sacred leathern phallus borne by the women in the Bacchanalia was becoming
in his time, an object to arouse the amusement of little boys.
Among many primitive peoples throughout the world, and among the
lower social classes of civilized peoples, urine possesses magic
properties, more especially, it would seem, the urine of women
and that of people who stand, or wish to stand, in sexual
relationship to each other.
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