CENTRAL CIRCULATION AND BOOKSTACKS
The person borrowing this material is re-
sponsible for its renewal or return before
the Latest Date stamped below. You may
be charged a minimum fee of $75.00 for
each non-returned or lost item.

Theft, mutilation, or defacement of library materials can be

causes for student disciplinary action. All materials owned by
the University of Illinois library are the property of the Stat*
of Illinois and are protected by Article 16B of Illinois Criminal
Law and Procedure.

TO RENEW, CALL (217) 333-8400.
University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign

DEC 21 1999

When renewing by phone, write new due date
below previous due date. L162

Field Museum of Natural History

Founded by Marshall Field, 1893

Publication 280
Anthropological Series Volume XVIII, No. 2

GEOPHAGY

7

BY

Berthold Laufer

CURATOR, DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY

CHICAGO, U. S. A.
1930

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY FIELD MUSEUM PRESS

FH

v. it

CONTENTS

PAGH

Introduction 101

China Ill

Indo-China 127

Malaysia and Polynesia 129

Melanesia and Australia 136

India, Burma, and Siam 140

Central Asia and Siberia 144

Persians and Arabs 150

Africa 156

Europe 163

North America 170

Mexico and Central America 178

South America 185

Bibliography 192

Index 194

99

GEOPHAGY

INTRODUCTION

The bibliography appended to this study may appear impressive
at first sight, and a glance at it may even convey the impression as
though a novel investigation of the subject were superfluous, but
such an impression would be a delusion. The only really profound
and serious research is represented by the fundamental work of
Ehrenberg, which has unfortunately been forgotten or overlooked
by the majority of those who have subsequently written on the
subject. Ehrenberg, a geologist by profession, has studied and
analyzed many hundreds of specimens of edible earths from all
parts of the globe, and has had a wider and deeper knowledge of
the subject than all his successors combined. Science does not
always progress consistently in a straight line. Many articles cited
in the bibliography are informative on special lines and useful,
particularly the work of Hooper and Mann, which is important as
far as India is concerned. The whole subject, however, is deserving
of a new treatment in the light of fresh material and from the
standpoint of the universal history of mankind.

In this article is given for the first time a correct exposition
of the facts concerning geophagy, as revealed by Chinese records
which are abundant. It will be noticed that these are very instruc-
tive and contribute important material toward the evaluation of
the whole question of geophagy. For this reason China opens this
investigation. The days are gone when the discussion of a problem
started with the Greeks and Romans whose importance in the
history of civilization is not much greater than and in many respects
inferior to that of the Asiatic nations. Next to China the relevant
conditions in Indo-China, Malaysia and Polynesia, Melanesia and
Australia, India, Burma, and Siam, Central Asia and Siberia,
among Persians and Arabs, in Africa, Europe, and America will
be reviewed and discussed. In all these sections a great many new
data unknown to previous investigators will be found. America
especially has never before been adequately treated.

Geophagy is a convenient term which comprises a series of most
varied phenomena resulting from entirely different causes and
moving along different psychological lines.

101

102 Geophagy

In regard to the various earths and clays used by mankind
Ehrenberg's work gives the best possible information, and any
new geological and chemical researches should continue where he
left his task. As a rule, not every kind of earth is eaten, but only
those kinds which recommend themselves through certain qualities,
such as color, odor, flavor, softness, and plasticity. The most impor-
tant from the standpoint of edibility is what is called diatomaceous
earth or kieselguhr, popularly known as "mountain meal" or
"fossil meal" (in Chinese "stone meal" or "earth-rice"), which is
a very light, porous earth resembling chalk or clay and consisting
of the siliceous remains of very minute aquatic organisms or diatoms
in several thousand varieties (hence, also styled "infusorial earth").
It varies in color from white to different shades of gray to black.
Earths used as medicines or for enjoyment are almost without
exception fine, fat, and usually ferruginous clays. They are con-
sumed either in their natural state or lightly baked. Diatomaceous
earth is at present of great industrial importance (cf . N. Goodwin,
Diatomaceous Earth, Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, 1920,
pp. 1158-1160; R. B. Ladoo, Non-metallic Minerals, 1925, p. 190).

Geophagy has been characterized by previous authors as an
"evil" or a "vice," while others have qualified it with such attributes
as "disgusting" or "depraved appetite." Such characterizations are
subjective and meaningless, and do not help us in understanding
the phenomenon. Man, at the outset, will taste and test every-
thing offered to him by nature; and consuming earth, mud, or clay
is no more surprising than eating salt, pepper, bark, insects, snakes,
or monkeys, or chewing gum, coca leaves, betel, or tobacco.

Earth or clay is nowhere used as an ordinary and regular article
of diet, on a par with vegetal and animal food-stuffs; as it essentially
consists of inorganic matter, it is naturally indigestible. It was
used, however, and may still be used by many peoples in times
of scarcity and famine as a food substitute to allay the pangs of
hunger, giving as it does a sensation of fullness to the stomach;
as a sort of condiment or relish, usually in combination with articles
of food; mixed with acrid tubers or acorns as a corrective of taste;
as a dainty or delicacy for its own sake; as a remedy for certain
diseases; as a part of religious rites and ceremonies. These are the
normal applications of clay and earth. There is, further, an abnormal
or morbid use produced by or accompanying certain diseases, or
due to nervous conditions.

Introduction 103

Most writers have indulged in the sweeping assertion that
geophagy is a universal phenomenon and was practised in times
of antiquity. Neither of these statements is true. Generalization is
the worst of all setbacks in scientific research and unfortunately
an only too common sin in ethnological studies. This or that custom
is observed in a single or a few individuals or in a single settlement,
and it is at once fastened on the whole community or tribe or
country. A traveler may have seen a certain person lick or chew
a bit of earth, and the nation to which this individual belongs will
go down in history as one of geophagists. Lasch (p. 216) asserts
that earth-eating is exceedingly diffused over Africa, but this
notion of a wide diffusion is merely fortified by a total of seven
references. What is needed in ethnology is application of statistical
methods or judicious restriction to really observed cases. Geophagy
is not universal; it is unknown, for example, in Japan ancient and
modern, Korea, Polynesia excepting New Zealand (while it occurs
in Malaysia and Melanesia), Madagascar, as well as in many parts
of Africa and Europe, and in the southern part of South America.
It was likewise unknown in ancient Egypt and Babylonia as well
as among the ancient Semites in general. It was equally foreign
to the Greeks and Romans of classical times, while in the Hellenistic
period the use of clay was confined to that of a medicine; neither
Greeks nor Romans were geophagists. In China, Indo-China, India,
and Persia earth-eating was practised to a certain extent, and is
still widely practised in India and Persia, but in none of these
countries is there an ancient record of this custom preserved; at
least I have found none that would antedate our era. Maybe, this
is fortuitous; maybe, it is not; the coincidence of the lack of ancient
records in all great civilizations of Asia, at any rate, is suggestive.

While geophagy is not a universal phenomenon, yet it occurs
sporadically almost anywhere. It has nothing to do with climate,
race, creed, culture areas, or a higher or lesser degree of culture.
It is found among the most civilized nations, even in our own
midst, as well as among primitive tribes. It occurs in the Old and
New Worlds alike. On the other hand, the habit is not general
in any particular tribal or social group, and none can positively be
labeled with a clear distinction as geophagists or non-geophagists.
There are individuals who eat earth, and there are other members
of the same tribe who abstain from it and even disapprove of the
habit or may even see fit to dissuade their countrymen from indulg-
ing in it. In other words, the habit is more or less individual, not

104 Geophagy

typically tribal; and this is exactly the point which has aroused my
interest in the subject. We are wont to look upon the life and
thoughts of a primitive people as something typical and collective,
as a standard adopted and followed by all members of the com-
munity. This in general is true, but there are also features in
primitive cultures which are left to individual decision and which
require careful study. One of these is geophagy, the causes of
which lie chiefly in the physical and mental constitution of the
individual. Imitation, as in all human habits, has, of course, been
a powerful factor in contributing toward the expansion of the
custom. It could not have been diffused so widely all over India
in all classes of the population unless by contamination of example.
Again, if women during the period of pregnancy are especially
devoted to clay-eating in a continuous area — Persia, India, Malaysia,
and Melanesia — while this is not the case in China, Indo-China,
Europe, and America, we must believe in an historical dissemination
over the aforementioned area. In other words — while, on the one
hand, geophagy may spring up anywhere spontaneously and inde-
pendently, it has, on the other hand, assumed certain forms which
can be explained only through contact and diffusion.

Clay-eating, consequently, cannot be interpreted as a racial
characteristic or as a peculiar trait of this or that group of peoples,
as has been done by Sarat Chandra Mitra, who expressed the opin-
ion, "It seems that the use of clay for food is more confined to the
Indian branch of the Aryan race, some Dravidian races and the
various peoples belonging to the Mongolian stock, than to any
other offshoot of the Aryan family or to any other race." This
conclusion has also been antagonized by Hooper and Mann. In
fact, the custom is not more characteristic of one tribe than of the
other and pervades all classes of Indian society without distinction.

Clay-eating is not exclusively a poor man's habit either. In
the Panjab "the very rich and the very poor are not free from it"
(Hooper and Mann, p. 253). In Assam "the best working classes
are affected by it" (ibid., p. 252). It is likewise as common in the
cities of India as among the peasantry; it prevails among all castes,
regardless of race and creed.

There is a medical angle to this subject which is beyond the
scope of this article. It has been suggested that geophagy is a
symptom of ankylostomiasis and can be subdued together with
this disease (H. Prowe, Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie, 1900, p. (354)).
Which is the cause and which is the effect seems not to be certain.

Introduction 105

Certain it is that cases of ankylostomiasis do occur without being
accompanied by geophagy; this disease, for instance, is widely
diffused throughout China and Formosa (J. L. Maxwell, Diseases
of China, pp. 174-182; G. Olpp, Beitrage zur Medizin in China,
pp. 86-87), but neither Maxwell nor Olpp mentions any clay-eating
on the part of patients. There is a disease known as cachexia
africana, which is a disorder of the nutritive functions among
Negroes and in certain kinds of disturbances of health among
women, in which there is a morbid craving to eat clay (for details
see p. 159). This so-called pathological geophagy is of limited
interest to the ethnologist, but belongs properly to the domain
of the physician. That inordinate and indiscriminate clay-eating
is injurious to health and may lead to untimely death is obvious;
even a Chinese author of the seventeenth century has plainly
pointed it out. On the other hand, the perils of the indulgence
have been overstated, and there is no doubt that occasional con-
sumption of diatomaceous earth or a sprinkling of earth or clay
over ordinary food is harmless. Again, the situation is not the
same everywhere. In India, where the habit perhaps is more
widely spread than in any other country and where it has developed
into a veritable passion with many individuals, especially women,
the appalling effects have grown proportionately. Here again,
however, experiences recorded as to ill effects of clay-eating vary
a great deal. One observer in India who made wide inquiries from
women habitually eating clay was invariably informed that they
experienced no ill effect whatever. Another correspondent who
has known numerous instances of earth-addicts in Mysore reports
that "the habit once contracted by women is rarely, if ever, aban-
doned by them, and is invariably followed by fatal results"
(Thurston, p. 553).

"Reports are almost unanimous in stating that the habit when
indulged in causes anaemia. Cases of intense anaemia are recorded
with the history that the patients were perfectly well until they
took to mud-eating. It is, however, almost certain that anaemia
gives rise to the habit, and most probable that the habit is both
the cause and the consequence of anaemia. Clay is eaten by people
who are already anaemic, and the more they eat it, the more anaemic
they become.

"Earth-eaters are frequently troubled by worms, but whether
they are caused by earth-eating, or their presence is a contributory
cause of the habit, is not quite decided. The most general idea

106 Geophagy

among medical men who have had to deal with large numbers of
cases is that anaemia accompanied by morbid gastric sensations
is most often due to the commencement of the habit. The anaemia
due to the ankylostoma worm is particularly accompanied by
gastric cravings. Dr. Brooks says it may or may not cause
ankylostomiasis of which anaemia is in his districts nearly always
a symptom" (Hooper and Mann, p. 264).

Clay-eating is seldom openly practised and does not belong to
the obvious things lying at the surface that would come within
the ordinary traveler's observation. Many natives feel that the
habit displeases the white man and will keep it secret or are loath
to talk about it. It is reported that the female coolies of the Cochin
hills "seem to be ashamed of the habit and, if other people see them
eating clay, try to hide it" (Thurston, p. 525).

While the effects of geophagy are comparatively easy to recog-
nize, it is more difficult to account for its causes.

Deniker is inclined to ascribe the habit of eating earthy sub-
stances to the need of supplying the deficiency of mineral substances
(calcareous or alkaline salts), which induces the use of salt. F. W.
Krickeberg (in Buschan, Vergl. Volkerkunde, I, 1922, p. 146) like-
wise regards the craving for salt as the cause leading to geophagy.

This theory is most improbable. In the first place, the clays
consumed by man, as a rule, contain no salts, or if so, only a negli-
gible quantity. Second, if Deniker's opinion were correct, we should
justly expect that the maximum of clay-eating would be reached
by people who command little or no salt and that with the growth
of the salt supply the habit of clay-eating would proportionately
decrease. This, however, is not the case. To cite but one example —
the Iroquois and related tribes formerly did not make use of salt,
but nothing is known about clay-eating on their part (cf. F. W.
Waugh, Iroquois Foods and Food Preparation, pp. 150-153, Canada
Geol. Survey, Memoir 86, 1916). The fact remains that all geo-
phagists have access to salt, and probably more easily than to clay.
Hooper and Mann (p. 263) point out that among children of India
the salty nature of the ingredients of some earths is the recommenda-
tion for their use, but add judiciously, "This, however, can be the
reason in but few cases of the habit." In another passage (p. 258)
they dissociate completely the use of salt earths from the habit of
earth-eating, contending that the use of the former can only be
referred to as occurring commonly in districts where salt is expensive.
In India, accordingly, earth-eating and the use of salt earth are

Introduction 107

two distinct and unrelated phenomena. The same is the case in
China. In ancient China a great amount of salt was obtained from
saline earth (J. O. von Buschman, Das Salz, II, 1906, pp. 4, 9;
F. von Richthofen, China, I, 1877, p. 102), but such saline earth was
never consumed, while other kinds of earth free from salt were
eaten by the people. The same situation, again, is met with in some
parts of Africa (Buschman, II, p. 278). A seeming exception occurs
in South America. Brazil is very deficient in salt (Buschman, II,
p. 413), and the Indians take recourse to various substitutes for
salt in preparing their food, usually by burning saline plants and
using the salty ashes; sometimes a reddish earth which has the
appearance of salt ashes is resorted to for the same purpose. F.
d'Azara, who traveled in South America from 1781 to 1801 (German
translation by C. Weyland, 1810, p. 19), has some interesting notes
on a salty clay (called by the Spaniards barrero) craved by the
grazing cattle which cannot be kept away from it even by blows
and which frequently feed on it to such an excess that they will die.
A few travelers in South America report the consumption of salty
clay on the part of Indians in lieu of salt, but the notes assembled
in the chapter on South America (p. 184) demonstrate abundantly,
that the widespread habit of eating non-salty clays throughout
South America springs from causes which are entirely independent
of the hunger for salt.

H. Schurtz (Katechismus der Volkerkunde, 1893, p. 21) believes
that the original object of earth-eating was to silence the hungry
stomach for a short while with an indigestible morsel.

Hooper and Mann (p. 270) are inclined to attribute the cause
of geophagy "primarily to the purely mechanical effect it seems
to have in comforting gastric or intestinal irritation. This may
or may not be due to disease; if it is so due, the result is quickly
to aggravate the disease it is taken to alleviate; if not, it rapidly
produces effects which bring on disease. Gastric or similar irrita-
tion is inseparable from certain periods in a woman's life, and these
are precisely the periods when the earth-eating habit is contracted.
Once indulged in, the wish for similar alleviation becomes a craving;
and the habit, as is usually the case with similar ones, strengthens
itself, and brings on disease of the digestive canal. In the cases
where men indulge, probably the habit has some similar origin."

The two last statements quoted assuredly contain some ele-
ments of truth, but do not explain all the phenomena connected
with geophagy, and a formula applicable to the subject in its entire

108 Geophagy

range can hardly be found, as geophagy appears in so many widely
varying forms. It is best to emphasize a few specific cases. When
we hear that the Porno Indians of California mix clay with acorn-
meal, their staple food, we may at first be inclined to dismiss this
case as an unusual or queer practice; but when we further read
that exactly the same thing is done by the peasants of Sardinia,
we pause and think. As an historical contact between the Porno
and Sardinians is out of the question, the cause for this practice
can only be physiological. The Zuni swallow a bit of white clay
with the tubers of Solanum fendleri, and it has been suggested that
this is done to counteract or reduce the acridity and astringency
of the tuber; this explanation may be correct as far as it goes,
although it remains unexplained why it is just clay that is resorted
to as a corrective. This is a matter that awaits the investigation
of a physiologist.

Chemical analyses of edible clays are all right as far as they go,
but are of no great utility to the ethnologist in understanding the
problem. Moreover, most of the analyses made date a considerable
time back when chemistry was not yet so perfected as it is at
present, and when the usual conclusion of the investigators has
been that the clays consumed by mankind contain neither nutritive
nor medicinal properties. Maybe this is true, maybe it is but
partially correct; but we need more solid and renewed information
from a biochemist and physiologist, in the light of modern science,
especially as to the effects of clays on the human organism. If
these pages should have the good fortune to attract the attention
of a biochemist and physiologist and to stimulate them to a fresh
investigation of the problems involved, I should feel amply rewarded
for the trouble and time I have taken in gathering this material
from all parts of the world; but it must be studied comparatively.
It cannot be fortuitous, for instance, that the identical phenomena
appear in the most diverse regions and peoples, as the example of
the Porno and Sardinians just mentioned, or the craving for the
bucaro pottery made of a reddish, odoriferous clay on the part of
Peruvian and Portuguese women alike.

When we read again and again that to people living widely
apart certain clays have an agreeable and spicy flavor and that
they are attracted to them irresistibly and experience a pleasant
and beneficial effect on their systems, we cannot simply brand such
folks as maniacs, but there must be a physiological cause for such
behavior.

Introduction 109

For the geophagy of the pregnant Lasch (p. 219) has tried to
give an explanation which does not satisfy me. According to him,
the stomach does not bear substances like earth and clay, which
will result in more or less violent vomitings which will cause,
especially during the last months of pregnancy, contractions of
the uterus and may facilitate delivery. This is theoretical specula-
tion, but is not based on really observed facts. None of the authors
who reports the craving of the pregnant for clay (and this is chiefly
the case in Melanesia, India, and certain parts of Africa) says a
word about vomiting, while the majority of women addicted to
clay-eating take it habitually, whether pregnant or not; it is only
during the periods of menstruation and pregnancy that the habit
appears more intensified. It is clear, moreover, that a woman
would not enjoy clay-eating and continue the habit if it really
operated as an emetic. It is curious that Lasch himself cites
Modigliani, who refers to the clay eaten by the Toba-Batak of
Sumatra, as saying that it has the property of stopping the vomit-
ing of women during pregnancy — the opposite of his theory — and
this is far more probable. The Greeks used the earth of Samos
as a means of stopping the vomiting of blood (Dioscorides), and
the Arabic pharmacologists recommended the clay of Nishapur as
a good remedy to relieve or stop nausea and vomiting (L. Leclerc,
Traite" des simples, II, p. 426).

The craving for earth so universally displayed by infants and
young children, even in our midst, is presumably not pathological,
but is simply due to insufficient roughage or insufficient mineral
matter in their regular diet, and to an instinctive desire for roughage,
which is usually supplied by wheat bran, potato-skins, green vege-
tables, and cereals. The case is known to me of a man (American)
who for a few years swallowed two teaspoonfuls of white sand
twice a day and declared that it kept him feeling fine in every
respect; then he developed sarcoma of the intestine and died;
whether the sarcoma was caused by his sand-eating habit has not
been determined.

Explanations given by natives for earth-eating must be taken,
of course, with a grain of salt. How many of us are able, if the
question were put to us unceremoniously, to give an intelligent
answer as to why we use salt and have a more intense craving for
salt at one time than another. The common explanation given by
primitives is that they believe earth or clay is good for them, that
it benefits the stomach and promotes digestion. Others are satisfied

110 Geophagy

with the notion that it has a pleasant odor and taste, that it tickles
the palate and gratifies the stomach; others are merely attracted
by the peculiar bright colors of some clays.

It seems that in its origin geophagy is not allied with religious
ideas, in particular, as one might think, with the worship of earth as
a deity or the notion of mother-earth. China, as will be seen,
affords the best example to this effect (p. 125).

It is curious that tribes which make an extensive use of clays
ceremonially, for instance, in body painting, do not take to eating
it; for example, the Andamans (A. R. Brown, The Andaman
Islanders, 1922, pp. 90, 99, 102, 106, 111, 122, etc.) and the
Cheyenne (G. B. Grinnell, The Cheyenne Indians, 1923, II,
pp. 235-236, 242).

On the other hand, geophagy frequently enters into religious
ceremonies, notably in ancient Mexico and among some Malayans,
who consume earth in ordeals, or among the Chins of Burma and
the Negroes of Barbados who swallow it in affirmation of an oath.
In China, diatomaceous earth was regarded as being of super-
natural origin, as the food of dragons and immortals; and the
discovery of such earth was hailed as a happy omen, and its con-
sumption could not fail to have a beneficial effect on the health and
welfare of pious believers.

Earth is also eaten by animals. Ehrenberg (II p. 19) mentions
a case of earth-eating horses from Africa. Examples are known
of wolves eating earth. Yet Wilken's theory (Handleiding van der
vergel. volkenkunde van Ned.-Indie, p. 21), that man hit upon
the idea of earth-eating in imitation of animals, is not convincing
and must be rejected. The physiological causes driving both
animal and man to earth-eating possibly are identical, and if so,
the assumption of a mutual imitation is superfluous.

I wish to express my thanks to Dr. S. A. Barrett, Mr. Elsdon
Best, Mr. C. Daryll Forde, Mr. I. Lopatin, Mr. Marshall H.
Saville, Dr. Frank G. Speck and Mr. J. Eric Thompson for specific
information. Their contributions are quoted verbatim under their
names and may be easily traced by consulting the index.

CHINA

As regards geophagy in China, three different ways of using
earth must be distinguished: (1) the magical method of the Taoists,
(2) the medicinal employment, (3) earth as a famine food.

In European literature we meet only a few casual references
to the subject with reference to China. As far as I know, Edouard
Biot, who took a profound interest in all scientific questions, first
called attention to this singular phenomenon. In his "Etudes
sur les montagnes et les cavernes de la Chine, d'apres les geographies
chinoises" (Journal asiatique, 1840, p. 290), he has the following
observations: —

"On Mount Lo-pao, department of Lin-ngan fu (Yun-nan),
the mountain-people make the earth of this mountain into balls;
it is fat and soft, and according to the text of the Kwang yii ki,
they feed on it habitually."

This translation, as will be seen presently, is not exact. The
name of the mountain is Lo-jung $& 0k, not Lo-pao. Biot adds
the remark, "This is a new example of the depravation of taste
observed for the first time by de Humboldt among the Ottomac."

The account of the Kwang yii ki, alluded to by Biot, which is a
geographical description of China, is as follows: "Mount Lo-jung
(or yung) ^ 0k iXl is south of the prefectural city (Lin-ngan fu
Hi 55: $f in Yun-nan). The earth of this locality has a fine odor,
and is made into cakes used for purposes of cauterizing. When
cooked (or heated), it can be eaten. The women of the P'o Bf
are fond of it." This text occurs in the original edition of the work,
published in 1600 (chap. 21, p. 6b), as well as in the subsequent
reprints of 1686 and 1744 (chap. 21, p. lib). The question is of
an edible clay; but the point emphasized by Biot, that the people
feed on it habitually, is not directly brought out by the text, while
he makes no reference to the P'o tribe; and this is an important
feature. It is, accordingly, not the Chinese, but an aboriginal
tribe of T'ai stock, which indulges in the habit; and, again, it is
especially their women, who have developed this appetite. A
similar reference to an aboriginal tribe is made in the Nan chao
ye shi: "When the Li-su suffer hunger, they swallow earth mixed
with honey" (C. Sainson, Histoire particuliere du Nan-tchao,
p. 181).

ill

112 Geophagy

According to the King chou ki M W q£, written by Sheng
Hung-chi # 3L £. in the fifth century A.D., there is in the district
Wu-tang li ^ a ravine on the banks of which there is a clay of
fresh-yellow color; also it is eatable (T'ai p'ing yii Ian, chap. 37,
p. 8). It is not stated, however, that this clay was actually eaten,
although this probably was the case.

The Shen sien chuan # {ill fit attributed to Ko Hung of the
fourth century, contains the following story: —

"Wang Lie 3E JBl lived solitary in the T'ai-hang Mountains
^C 4t Ul when all of a sudden he heard a crash on the east side
of the mountain and the -earth rolling like thunder. Lie proceeded
to find out what had happened. He noticed that the mountain
was cracked, and that the rocks were split over a distance of a
thousand feet. Both sides of the road were covered with green
stones exhibiting holes more than a foot in diameter. These holes
were filled with a green mud which flew out like marrow. Lie
took a sample of this mud, examined it, and formed it into a pill.
Instantaneously it became hard like stone, as if hot wax were
formed, and hardened immediately. It had an odor like boiled
rice; and when he chewed it, it also tasted like rice. Lie collected
several such pills of the size of peaches. He took these along and
returned to Ki Shu-ye %& $t T£, with the report that he had found
a strange object. Shu-ye, very pleased, took one of the pills and
examined it; it changed into a green stone, and when struck, gave
a sound like copper. Shu-ye then went along with Lie to inspect
the spot, but the mountain which was previously torn asunder
had resumed its normal shape."

There are several mountains bearing the above name — two
in Shan-si (in P'ing-yang fu and Tse chou) and three in Ho-nan
(in Chang-te fu, Wei-hui fu, and Hwai-k'ing fu). As follows from
a notice in the Kwang yii ki (chap. 6, p. 26; original edition of
1600), the T'ai-hang of the prefecture of Hwai-k'ing is hinted at
in the above story; for an abstract of it is given under the name
of this mountain.

A landslip lh %ft in the T'ai-hang is reported in the year A.D. 265
under the Emperor Yuan 7C ^ of the Wei (T'ung chi, chap. 74,
p. 29b), and it is plausible that this catastrophe forms the historical
background of Ko Hung's story.

The Gazetteer of Yi-hing S H S& ^ has this story: —

"As to Yao Sheng tyi &, it is unknown from what place he
came. Once he traveled to the Chang-kung Grotto IJJt & M and,

China 113

a torch in his hand, entered it. There he met two Taoists jE J:
seated opposite each other and engaged in a game of wei-k'i. Sheng
expressed the wish to obtain some food. The Taoists pointed to
several lumps of blue (or dark) clay or mud W $&> He chewed a
morsel of it, and found it very fragrant. The Taoists then bade
him go and not speak to mortals about his adventure. Sheng
bowed and thanked them, and carried away in his bosom the
remains of the clay. He left the grotto and met Kia Hu M &J,
who became frightened and said, 'This is the food of dragons.
Clay is produced in grottoes, in the same manner as rocks.' " In a
Chinese tale, entitled "The Nine-headed Bird," a youth meets a
dragon in its cave and notices it lick a stone ; the youth, tortured by the
pangs of hunger, follows the dragon's example and no longer experi-
ences hunger (R. Wilhelm, Chinesische Volksmarchen, 1927, p. 14).

Under the heading t'u fan ± IK ("earth-rice"), a funda-
mental document, hitherto not indicated, is contained in the K'ien
shu 3£ # ("Records of Kwei-chou Province"), written by T'ien
Wen ffl S (hao Mung-chai J§f 1§f). In the edition of the Yue ya
t'angts'ung shu (chap. 4, pp. 25b-26b) it is as follows: —

"During the period Wan-li (1573-1620) of the Ming dynasty,
the district Tse-yang M (# (in the prefecture of Yen-chou, Shan-
tung) was struck by a great famine. Suddenly appeared there a
Taoist monk with a star-cap, gourd, and sword, and pointing to
a lot of waste-land, said, 'Beneath this spot there is earth-rice,
which may serve as food.' He vanished at once, and the crowd
regarded him as a strange apparition. The people dug the soil
more than a foot deep, and found earth of a bluish color, which
somewhat had a flavor like grain. The famished people swallowed
it eagerly, and as they greatly enjoyed it, quarrelled about the
same piece. Several thousand men took so much of this earth
away that it resulted in a pit several acres wide and about twenty
feet deep. The following year, when wheat had matured, the
Taoist monk came down to the same spot, as if he had something
to fill out the pit. All of a sudden it was full, and again the people
began to dig; however, they found nothing but sandy earth which
could not be eaten; for the fairies 'fill ^ are crafty and make such
earth only to help men. Further, in the year ping-tse M -f of
the period Tsung-cheng (1636), there was an intense drought
north of the Yang-tse, and in the Fung-yang mountains JH Wi ill
this earth was produced. Many people depended on it to keep
themselves alive. In examining the records of K'ien jS^ ;&, I find

114 Geophagy

that for a number of years and in former times people used to dig
earth on the occasion of great famines and to subsist on it. People
unable to procure food, even when there was no drought, con-
tinually consumed such earth; nor is this astounding in view of
the poverty of the populace of K'ien. When I heard of this, I
was moved to sympathy with the people. Then I searched for this
earth in order to examine it: it is white and unctuous like rice or
meat-cakes. I tried it and found that it is flat 'of taste, but has
no special characteristic. It is swallowed with some difficulty;
when it has reached the stomach, however, one is satiated, but
with a feeling of depression. Excessive eating of earth will cause
obstructions and evil effects, and will ultimately lead to death.
Ordinarily, people doomed to death from starvation have no leisure
to select wherewith to fill their stomachs; anything is appetizing
to them, and their thoughts are occupied day and night with devis-
ing new means of subsistence. Those who escape death owe it
to the fact that they had mixed other things with the clay. This
earth, therefore, is not to be regarded very highly, and does not
even satisfy as much as chaff."

It is obvious that the specimen of white clay examined by
T'ien Wen is not identical with the earth-rice of bluish color eaten
by the people at the instigation of a Taoist monk. The former
was a common inorganic clay, the latter a kind of kieselguhr con-
taining organic substances and in principle identical with the
"stone flour" to be discussed presently.

A substance shi mien ^5 H ("stone meal" or "mineral flour") is
mentioned by Li Shi-chen in his Pen ts'ao kang mu (chap. 9,
p. 22b) published at the end of the sixteenth century. Apparently,
it is not pointed out in any previous Pen ts'ao. "Shi mien is not a
substance of ordinary growth, but is an object of good augury ^5 %.
According to some, it is produced only in times of famine. In the
third year of the period T'ien-pao Ji j| (a.d. 744), under the reign of
Hiian Tsung of the T'ang dynasty, in the districts Wu-wei jl£ fflL and
P'an-ho #7^1$ [in Liang-chou fu, Kan-su], a sweet spring suddenly
arose and brought forth stones, which were transformed into flour.1
This was taken and eaten by the poor. In the fourth year of

1 Inexact and incomplete translations of the text of the Pen ts'ao have been
given by Biot (p. 216), Schott (in Ehrenberg I p. 145), and F. de Mely (Lapidaire
chinois, p. 101). Biot translates, "Une source miraculeuse sortit de terre," omitting
the geographical names entirely. Schott renders, "A source in Wu-jin (now
Liang-chou fu) threw stones out." De Mely has, "La source de Li produisit
une pierre"; in his translation, based on the unreliable text of the San ts'ai t'u
hui (also utilized by Biot), all geographical names are eliminated, which renders

China 115

the period Yuan-ho X IP (a.d. 810), in the mountain valleys of
the three chou— Yiin, Wei, and Tai— of Shan-si lif © M & ft H W,
stones were transformed into flour, which was consumed by the
people. In the fourth month of the fifth year of the period Siang-fu
M %f (a.d. 1012), under the reign of the Emperor Chen Tsung of the
Sung dynasty, there was a famine in the populace of Ts'e chou |£ iW
[now Ki chou l=f W in P'ing-yang fu, Shan-si]; the mountains in
the district Hiang-ning #5 1f£ S£ [in P'ing-yang fu] produced a
greasy substance on stones like flour, which could be made into
cakes and eaten. In the third month of the seventh year of the
period Kia-yu M *fi (a.d. 1062), l under the Emperor Jen Tsung,
the soil around P'eng-ch'eng s^ M [in Chi-li] produced flour; in
the fifth month [of the same year] the soil in the district of Chung-li
M j$ [in the prefecture of Fung-yang, An-hwi] produced flour. In

the information valueless for scientific purposes, and the Chinese dates are not
even correlated with those of our chronology. As the above quotation relates to
the T'ang period, it is necessary to consult the geographical section of the T'ang
Annals in order to understand this terminology. There we find (T'ang shu, chap.
40, pp. 7b-8a) that the district Wu-wei jt£ J§£ f$ in Liang chou ^ »JU was divided
into six fu Jft; namely, Ming-wei HJ§ Jjj£, Hung-ch'i gfc ^, P'an-ho ^ ^,
Wu-ngan j£ £, Li-shwi |g 7JC, and Ku-ts'ang #f %$.; in the year a.d. 744, a
hill came forth from under a sweet spring (li ts'iian), and in consequence of this
event the name was changed into T'ung-hua ij'ffc. — -The natural event, as
described above, was doubtless caused by a landslip. In 48 B.C., we read (T'ung
chi, chap. 74, p. 29), mountains collapsed in Lung-si (Kan-su), and water-springs
burst forth to the surface ( ll] j^ 7jt ^ ?SJ tfj ) • The same Phrase (7jC fS Hi)
occurs in two passages of the Hou Han shu (chap. 26, pp. 3b, 4) in connection
with landslips. — The "sweet spring" (li ts'iian g§ ^ ) was prominent among
the phenomena of good augury. It was regarded as the essence of water, of
sweet and fine taste, and was believed to come forth only at a time when the
sovereign practised righteous principles. This first happened in A.D. 25 under
the Emperor Kwang Wu of the Han, when those suffering from chronic diseases
and partaking of this water were all cured. It appeared again in the beginning
of the reign of the Emperor Wen of the Wei and in a.d. 435 under Wen of the
Liu Sung dynasty (Sung shu, chap. 29, p. 41). In A.D. 1008 a sweet spring came
forth on the T'ai-shan (Shan-tung t'ung chi, chap. 63, p. 8); and in the same
year, the same event is reported in Ju chou $j] <Jf|, Ho-nan (Ju chou ts'iian chi,
chap. 9, p. 63). A li ts'iian with a wine-like aroma exists on the sacred Hwa-shan
in Shen-si (Hwa yo ts'iian tsi, ed. 1597, chap. 2, p. 3). Li is not the name of a
river, as conceived in de M&y's work, but li ts'iian designates only "a spring of
sweet water of miraculous origin."

xThe date is erroneous. The passage is copied from the Sung shi (chap. 66,
p. 18), where the date is given as the first year of Kia-yu (a.d. 1056). Moreover,
the locality is more exactly defined as the village Pai-hao £) $F| in the district
P'eng-ch'eng; and it is added, "The soothsayers stated, 'When the earth produces
flour, the people will be stricken by hunger.' "

116 Geophagy

the fifth month of the third year of the period Yuan-fung % H
(a.d. 1080), under the reign of Shen Tsung, all stones in Lin-k'ii
RI $J and Yi-tu ft ffl, in the prefecture of Ts'ing-chou ^ W [Shan-
tung] were transformed into flour, gathered and eaten by the people.
Inquiring into this phenomenon, it must be accounted for by the
desire to secure food. As to the taste of this substance, it is sweet
and non-poisonous. As to its healing powers, it benefits the breath;
and eaten, when mixed with other things, it stops hunger."

Li Shi-chen does not state that he has ever seen or examined
this substance; and in view of his assertion that it does not ordinarily
occur in nature, but appears in a prodigious or miraculous manner,
this is not even probable. It is no longer known in China under
this name, and is not given, for instance, in the "List of Medicines,"
published by the Imperial Maritime Customs. Li Shi-chen seems
to be the only author who has reference to this matter, for the
T'u shu tsi ch'eng cites no other text under this heading. There is
no description of the substance preserved; and what it was, must
remain more or less a matter of guesswork. Read and Pak (Minerals
and Stones, Peking Soc. of Nat. Hist. Bull, III, pt. 2, 1928, No. 72)
also give shi mien as unidentified.

We may positively state, however, what it was not: it was not
a famine-food. The intimation that it only appears in famine-
times is a gratuitous speculation; for under the dates recorded there
were no famines, nor is it said that the people were driven by hunger
to eat this substance; they ate it, simply because it was found and
thought to be eatable. On the other hand, in the numerous records
of famines under the Sung dynasty, it is not stated in a single
case that people subsisted on this mineral flour. On the contrary,
whenever food-substitutes are mentioned in such cases, they are
given as leaves, wood, roots, chaff, ferns, mosses, rats, and human flesh.

A. J. C. Geerts (Produits de la nature japonaise et chinoise,
1883, p. 388) has a brief notice on shi mien (Japanese seki-men),
saying that he has in his collection under this name a grayish white
friable clay coming from Iwakimura in the province of Kaga and
not containing organic matters. "Mixed with flour," he adds,
"this is eaten in China in times of famine as a supplement of an
insufficient nutrition, but it appears that in Japan where bad
harvests are fortunately much more seldom than in China geophagy
is not practised." This statement lacks sense and logic. If the
Japanese abstain from eating earth, how is any one to know that a
clay specimen from Japan is edible and how is it possible to assert

China 117

that this Japanese specimen is identical with the Chinese "stone
meal"? As a matter of fact, the former has nothing to do with
the latter, and Geerts' note is no contribution to the problem.

In my opinion the "stone meal" of the Chinese is a fossil earth
or kieselguhr, akin to the "mountain meal" of Germany (p. 168).

The last of the events mentioned by Li Shi-chen is also referred
to by a contemporary writer, Wang P'i-chi IE M ;£, in his Sheng
shwi yen Van lu M ?K $& l£ #fc (chap. 9, p. 19, and chap. 10, p. 9b),
written toward the end of the eleventh century. This author reports
a famine which took place in Lin-tse Sis M, in the prefecture of
Ts'ing-chou pf #1 (Shan-tung), during the period Yiian-fung (a.d.
1078-86); it then happened that in the mountains and plains grew
everywhere a white flour and white stone 6 H 6 ^J like lime
M, but unctuous; the people obtained several tens of hu ffi of this
substance and mixed it with flour made into gruels and cakes, which
could be eaten and proved very helpful. The author assures us that
he made this observation with his own eyes.

Under the heading Kwan-yin fen H If $r ("powder or flour of
Kwan-yin," Avalokitecvara), the Pen ts'ao kang mu shi i (chap. 2,
pp. 28b-29b; written by Chao Hio-min in 1650), which is a supple-
ment to the Pen ts'ao kang mu, gives the following additional infor-
mation on edible clays: —

"According to the Gazetteer of Ch'u-chou fu M W iff i^ [in
Che-kiang], there is a white clay of muddy appearance in the Yun-ho
Mountains if In Ul. It is mixed with water and beaten on a stone;
flour of glutinous rice is added, the proportions being half and half.
This compound is steamed and consumed. It is capable of appeasing
hunger, and is called Kwan-yin flour.

"There is an earth or clay produced in mountains, which in its
interior is as white as flour, very fine and glossy. In years of dearth the
villagers hastily dig it up, mix it with wheaten flour, and bake the mass
into cakes which they use as food. But moderation must be observed ;
in case too much is eaten, there is danger of the belly being closed,
as the natural properties of this clay are apt to obstruct the stomach
and bowels. Earth produced in caves must not be administered
for fear lest it might be poisoned with the saliva of venomous snakes.

"Cheng Chung-k'wei M # ^, in his Leng ch'ang tai ?p H iSc,
tells this story: In the year ping-tse N -f there was a dearth in the
villages I-yang and Shi-wo. The Buddhist monk in charge of the
temple there had a dream in which the Mahasatva % ± announced

118 Geophagy

that in the soil at the foot of the mountain there was a mineral flour
(shifen 7& Wt), which might be taken to satisfy hunger. In accordance
with these words he set out to dig and obtained this mineral flour,
which was very much like fern flour (kite fen fl$ Ifr).1 He ground it
finely and made it into cakes which were steamed until well cooked
and of pleasant taste, quite unusual. The villagers, as soon as
they received the news, vied with one another to gather this flour.
Some placed it in cabbage oil which made it so bitter that it was
unfit to eat. This substance was what is called 'flour of the Maha-
satva' (to shi fen jt dr $K).

"The mineral flour discussed in the section 'Stones' of the Pen
ts'ao kang mu is exactly the same. It is regarded as something extra-
ordinary and grows imperceptibly. Now everywhere in mountains
there are lakes on the banks of which is found a kind of earth that
has curative properties, inasmuch as it stops hunger, benefits the
breath, and adjusts the inner organs. When eaten, it stops hunger
unconsciously. It has the merit of removing moisture, and in this
respect is superior to ts'ang shu Hr tIl (Atractylis sp.), for even earth
may perform the function of the element water. Its taste is a bit
sweet and bitter; its nature is even, it neutralizes poison caused by
insects, it cures dropsy, clears the eyes and heals jaundice caused
by moisture."

In the Gazetteer of the district of Hwa-yang, which with Ch'eng-
tu forms the prefectural city of Ch'eng-tu and capital of Se-ch'wan
Province (Hwa-yang Men chi, chap. 43, p. 3), it is reported that
"in the forty-ninth year of K'ien-lung (1784) an ochre-colored earth
was produced in the town of Hwa-yang and that the people picked
it up and ate it, as it was as fine as flour." There was no famine at
that time, and there was no necessity of consuming this earth. It
simply appealed to the people for the reason that the appearance of
this earth was an unusual natural occurrence and that it was dis-
tinguished as to color, fineness, and possibly flavor.

An allusion to "mineral flour" is perhaps contained in the
following tradition which is pointed out by J. F. Davis (On the
Poetry of the Chinese, p. 95, Macao, 1834), but which I have not
been able to verify from Chinese records. "When Yung-lo usurped
the whole empire (a.d. 1403), one of his nephews, the proper heir,
shaved his head, and assuming the habit of a priest, retired to the

xThe young shoots of some kinds of fern are eaten, and a kind of arrow-root
is made from the rhizomes, which, after proper washing and cooking, are also
eaten, in spite of their bitterness — only as substitutes in times of famine (G. A.
Stuart, Chinese Materia Medica, p. 173).

China 119

depths of the mountains. The living rock there opened, and poured
out a constant supply of grain for the support of the royal refugee.
After his death, the miracle still went on, until a covetous priest,
not satisfied with the quantity of grain thus obtained, enlarged the
hole or fissure in the stone through which it flowed — when the
supply immediately stopped altogether, as the proper reward of
his cupidity."

Rockhill (J. R. A. S.t 1891, p. 267) was informed that an eatable
clay is found in holes in the low ground near the river at Wu-tai
shan in Shan-si.

From the notices of the Pen ts'ao kang mu and Pen ts'ao kang
mu shi i it follows that medicinal properties also were attributed to
edible clays. Li Shi-chen has devoted chapter VII of his work to
earthy and clayish substances, discussing sixty-one species and
their administration in the pharmacopoeia. This subject belongs to
the history of pharmacology and has no direct bearing on geophagy;
these medicinal clays were administered in small quantities in the
form of pills, and were usually blended with other ingredients.
Such pills surely were not capable of leading one into a habit of or
passion for earth-eating. In this connection, however, attention
must be drawn to the fact that it was the Taoists again who
inaugurated the employment of earth as a remedy against disease.
There is a story of a Taoist, Ch'en Nan ffl. $i by name, who was
possessed of the power of curing disease with a medicine which
he made by kneading earth and charmed water together into a
bolus. In consequence he was nicknamed by his contemporaries
Ch'en Ni-wan &. U %; that is, Mud-pill Ch'en (cf. W. P. Yetts,
New China Review, I, 1919, p. 17).

Rains of earth are also recorded in Chinese chronicles, thus in
1098 B.C. in the Bamboo Annals (E. Biot, Tchou chou ki nien, 1842,
p. 29); others during the period Shi-yuan (86-80 B.C.), in a.d. 503,
535 ("yellow dust"), 536, 550 ("yellow sand"), 580 ("yellow earth"),
and 582 ("earth") ; see T'ung chi *§. J&, chap. 74, p. 4. In no case
is it recorded, however, that such earth was consumed, presumably
because an earth rain was considered an evil augury.

Ehrenberg (I p. 144) has analyzed two specimens of edible
earth from China. One of these, a white earth, he received from A.
von Humboldt, while the latter resided in Paris, and forwarded
from China to Paris by French missionaries. The other specimen
was a yellow earth which Ehrenberg obtained in 1847 from one of

120 Geophagy

the large geological collections of London and which proved to be
a sort of loam.

The text quoted above from the K'ien shu demonstrates clearly
that clay also served occasionally as a famine food and that it was
a Taoist monk who pointed it out to the populace. It must be
emphasized, however, that, comparatively speaking, geophagy has
been a very rare occurrence in China in times of famine.

Famines, droughts, inundations, and other similar catastrophes,
to which the country has so frequently been subject, are listed
with minute care in the chapters of the Annals, entitled Wu hing
chi 3l fr ^ ("Records relating to the Five Elements")- In the
majority of cases, merely the fact of a famine is recorded under a
given year (see, for instance, Sung shu, chap. 34, p. 31; and T'ang shu,
chap. 34, p. 14), while food-substitutes used in famines are but seldom
mentioned in the Annals. The gruesome phrase A ^ Jt ("men ate
one another") recurs constantly. In A.D. 939, when locusts ravaged
the fields of Chu chou ^ jW (Shan-tung), the people were forced to
subsist on grass and leaves (Kiu Wu tai shi, chap. 141, p. 6 b).

In A.D. 1127 when the city of Pien-liang (now K'ai-fung,
capital of Ho-nan Province) was stricken by a great famine, the
price of a pint of rice soared to three hundred copper coins, a single
rat reached a high mark of several hundred copper coins, and
people subsisted on aquatic plants and leaves of trees like Sophora
japonica (Sung shi, Annals of the Sung Dynasty, chap. 67, p. 2).
In A.D. 1148 when the eastern part of Che-kiang Province was
visited by a famine, food was reduced to distillers' grains, chaff,
grass, and wood (ibid.). In A.D. 1640 there prevailed a drought,
locust-plague, and in consequence a famine in Ju chou $H ;W
(Ho-nan) when leaves of cotton-trees and other plants sold for a
hundred copper coins the catty; crows and magpies deserted the
country and flew southward, leaving their nests empty (Ju chou
ts'uan chi, chap. 9, p. 63). We read also that people driven by
hunger gnawed at crossbows or even boiled shoes, armor, leather,
or sinews.

Grass, foliage, weeds, wild herbs, and tree-bark have always been
the principal food-substitutes in famine times up to the present day.
The best known historical example of recent times is the so-called
"sweet dew" (kan lu) consumed by the T'ai-p'ing rebels during the
siege of Nanking in 1863. Li Siu-ch'eng ^ ^ $t, the so-called
Chung Wang fo ZE ("King of Loyalty"), as he tells in his memoirs,
induced the T'ien Wang ("The Heavenly King"), the leader of the

China 121

T'ai-p'ings (Hung Siu-ts'iian $£ ^ Jk), to issue a decree with
suggestions to meet the distress of the famished population. "The
decree was that they should eat 'sweet dew' in order to support
themselves, whereupon I asked, 'How can they subsist on sweet
dew?' The T'ien Wang replied, 'Let them take of the things which
the earth brings forth' — this, it appears, was what he called 'sweet
dew.' In concert with others I then represented that such was not
a fit article for food, whereupon the T'ien Wang observed, 'Bring
some here, and after preparing it, I will partake of some first.' As no
one complied with his request, he gathered several herbs from his own
palace garden and, having made them up into a ball, he sent the
ball outside with orders to the people to prepare their food in like
manner .... Three or four years prior to the present crisis orders
had been issued to each household to collect ten piculs of 'sweet
dew,' and deliver it into the treasury. Some obeyed and contributed
their quota, others did not. The T'ien Wang for many days ate
this stuff in his palace, and if my chief could do so, there was no
reason why I should not do the same" (The Autobiography of the
Chung Wang, translated from the Chinese by W. T. Lay, p. 62,
Shanghai, 1865).

Some examples of geophagy in times of famine, which have come
to my notice, may now follow. Such cases have occurred indeed,
though rarely, and clay has been the last resort of the people when
all other means of subsistence were exhausted.

The Kiu hwang hwo min shu <fc %t f£ Be HF is a monograph
dealing with famines, droughts, and other catastrophes and the
means employed on such occasions in saving human life. This work
was written under the Sung by Tung Wei 31 ^ (title Ki-hing
^s £$■), who graduated as tsin ski in A.D. 1194, and has been reprinted
in the collection Ch'ang en shu shi It W- # Hf published in 1854.
Several examples of geophagy during times of famine are cited in
this book (chap, $p *a, pp. 2 and 11). Thus, in A.D. 618, at a time
of scarcity, people gathered bark and leaves of trees, or pounded
straw into a powder, or baked earth and ate it.

It once happened under the T'ang (a.d. 618-906), when military
forces besieged Lo-yang and supplies were exhausted in the city,
that people ate grass, roots, and leaves. When all this was finished,
they subsisted on cakes made from pulverized rice dipped in float-
ing mud. All fell ill, their bodies swelled, and their feet weakened
until finally they died. In the period K'ien-tao (a.d. 1165-74),

122 Geophagy

when a great famine prevailed in Kiang-si, there were people who
ate white clay (pai shan t'u fi £§ ±) and choked to death.

It is on record in the Wu Tai shi 3l ft & (Annals of the Five
Dynasties of the tenth century): "When the town Ts'ang chou
tt ^H was besieged by Liu Shou-kwang §>J *& t£ [he died in a.d.
912], the inhabitants ate pieces of clay mixed with their food" $£ &
31 *& (cf. Couvreur, Dictionnaire classique chinois, p. 172).

In the Gazetteer of the District of Wen shwi ~% ?Jc (Wen shwi
hien chi, chap. 1, p. 7b), in the prefecture of T'ai-yiian in Shan-si
Province, it is on record that in a.d. 1586 there was no rain during
the entire year, so that a huge famine prevailed and people ate
grass, roots, and white clay or kaolin (pai t'u fi ±), with a very
large number of dead in consequence.

In 1834 the Chinese missionary Mathieu-Ly, stationed in the
province of Kiang-si, reported in the Annates de la Propagation de
la Foi (No. XLVIII, 1836, p. 85), "Several of our Christians will
surely die of starvation this year [1834]. God only can remedy so
many and so great needs. All crops have been swept away by the
inundation of the rivers. For three years numerous people feed
on the bark of a tree which grows here; others eat a light, white
earth discovered in a mountain. This earth can only be bought for
silver, so that not every one is able to procure it. The people first
sold their wives, then sons and daughters, then their utensils and
furniture; finally they demolished their houses in order to dispose
of the timber. Many of them were wealthy four years ago."
Reporting on the great famine which overtook Shen-si Province
in 1900-01, F. H. Nichols (Through Hidden Shensi, p. 232) states,
"In order to buy food the farmers sold first their scanty stock of
furniture and farming tools, then the roofs of their houses, and,
lastly, their children."

"Regarding the straits as to food to which the sufferers by
famine were put, various details are given. As a general rule, when
famine was at its height, the sufferers from it, as long as they were
able to do so, were in the habit of gathering grass, weeds, and
other herbage they could find in the fields, and of eating these
alone, or with such scanty supplies of better food as they were
able to get. Others betook themselves to a soft clayey slate, which
for a time allayed the pangs of hunger, but had a very injurious
effect upon them. Those who had bean-cake, cotton seeds, and
grass seeds swept from the roadsides, or bark and dried leaves,
were considered fortunate. In Shan-si stone-cakes were somewhat

China 123

extensively made use of as food, and were exposed for sale. The
stone of which they chiefly consisted was the same as that of which
English soft slate pencils are made. This was pounded to dust and
mixed with millet husks, in greater or less proportions according to
the poverty of the people, and then baked. It did not look bad,
but tasted like what it was — dust. Elsewhere the people made
use, as food, of a kind of white earth brought from the mountains,
and which has much the appearance of corn-flour. Many of the
people, for want of other sustenance, supported themselves upon
this 'mountain meal.' In many places it was impossible to see any
trees with the bark upon them; it had all been stripped off to be
reduced and so consumed as food. Of another locality it is recorded
that the most common food of the people consisted of leaves,
mainly willow-leaves, weeds, and elm-bark; that the trees in sum-
mer were so stripped of foliage as to look bare as in early spring;
the very weeds fast getting used up. Near T'ai-yiian fu, at the
extreme northern limit of the famine in Shan-si, the roots of rushes
were all eaten up; there were no trees left to bark except the poison-
ous ones, and hunger made the people often try these. In the same
locality every family lived on the seeds of thorn-bushes or wild
herbs, which they ground and mixed with a little corn-flour. In the
southern part of that province every tree whose bark was not actually
bare was stripped bare, and the dead trunks were cut up as fire-
wood; in one district there some fine persimmon (Dyospyros kaki)
orchards were left nearly uninjured, from which circumstances it
was concluded that the bark of that tree could not be eaten, not-
withstanding the excellent quality of its fruit. Elsewhere in that
province, the root of the flag-rush (Typha?). stems of wheat, millet,
maize, etc., and leaves of the willow, peach, plum, apricot, mul-
berry, and persimmon were eaten; also wild herbs, too numerous to
name, oily earth, and many other articles not usually consumed. In
some instances it was recorded that by means of small sums of
money given by the several agencies of relief, those who were living
on straw and reeds ground up with a little mud or chaff or boiled
bark, were able by the addition of more substantial food thus put
within their reach to tide over the time pretty well until the autumn
harvest was cut" (Surgeon-General C. A. Gordon, An Epitome of
the Reports of the Medical Officers to the Chinese Imperial Maritime
Customs Service, from 1871 to 1882, pp. 387, 388, London, 1884).

In the report of the great famine in northern China during 1920
and 1921, mention is made of "flour made of ground leaves, fuller's

124 Geophagy

earth, flower seed, etc." used in the daily diet of the famine-stricken
(W. H. Mallory, China: Land of Famine, p. 2, New York, 1926).

Speaking of steatite or soapstone found in the environment of
Lai-chou, Shan-tung Province, A. A. Fauvel (La Province chinoise
du Chan-toung, p. 163, Bruxelles, 1892) remarks that steatite in
a pulverized state is still employed in Shan-tung for the purpose of
rendering wheat flour white and heavy; during the famine of 1876-77
many unfortunate people ate such flour in the hope of deceiving
their stomachs and appeasing their hunger; the result was a terrible
constipation which entailed death.

The Chinese and also the Japanese have a class of literature
styled "treatises of eatable things" and devoted to a discussion of
vegetal and animal foods for human consumption. None of these
books makes any reference to earth or clay as an article of diet or
as a relish; nor have I ever heard or read of an habitual earth-
eater in China. The Chinese, although they regarded diatomaceous
earth as a marvel of nature and occasionally ate it and although
the destitute when driven by starvation occasionally resorted to
earth-eating, cannot be classified as geophagists.

Finally I deem it my duty to refute a few of the many errors
and misrepresentations from which this subject has suffered on the
part of previous writers. Ehrenberg (I p. 144) asserts that clay-
eating goes back in China to ancient times. There is no evidence
for this generalization. Ancient Chinese literature contains no
reference to such a practice. In this case, negative evidence may
claim some degree of validity; for the Chinese have always been
keen observers of the soil, its formation, color, and other proper-
ties, for purposes of agriculture and industry. The chapter Yii
kung of the Shu king is the best witness thereof: the nature of the
soil in each of the Nine Provinces is briefly characterized; for
instance, as "whitish and rich," as "red, clayish, and rich," as
"yellow and mellow," etc. In no passage, however, is any mention
made of geophagy. In the Chou li, the various qualities of soils are
set forth, and five classes are assumed according to aptitude for
cultivation, productions, and physical characteristics of the inhabi-
tants (E. Biot, Tcheou-li, I, pp. 194, 276). There are, further,
numerous references to earths and clays in technical literature,
which, however, maintains complete silence as to edible sorts (cf.
Beginnings of Porcelain in China, Field Museum Anthr. Series,
XV, No. 2, pp. 111-117).

China 125

Earth colored and plain played a great role in the worship of
the god of the Soil and in the ceremony of investiture with a fief
when a clod of earth enveloped by the white herb mao 6 if* was
bestowed upon the vassal by the liege-lord (cf. Chavannes, Le T'ai
Chan, 1910, pp. 450-459; Le royaume de Wou et de Yue, T'oung Pao,
1916, p. 187; J. Przyluski, Bull, de VEcole francaise, X, 1910, p. 347).

A clod of earth was the symbol of the land and sovereign power
over it. In 643 B.C. when Ch'ung-er fi If left Wei, he begged some
food from a villager, who handed him a clod of earth. The prince
became irritated and was about to whip him, but Tse-fan -? 3B
restrained him, saying that this is a gift of Heaven. Ch'ung-er then
touched the ground with his forehead, received the clod, and took
it with him in his carriage (Tso chwan, V, Hi kung, 23d year; cf.
Legge, Classics, V, p. 186; Couvreur, Tch'ouen Ts'iou et Tso
Tchouan, I, p. 342). These examples are instructive in demonstrating
that the sacred character of earth did not lead to earth-eating.

D. Hooper and H. H. Mann (p. 251) assert that "the Chinese
are addicted to the habit and eat a white clay free from all organic
remains." No authority is cited for this bold generalization,1 but
reference is made to D. Hanbury's "Science Papers" (p. 219),
where an aluminous and an argillaceous earth, used for medicinal
purposes, are described; but Hanbury does not state that they are
ever taken as food. Hooper and Mann, further, remark that the
Chinese, in many parts, mix gypsum with pulse, and thus form a
jelly, which they greatly relish. What is meant here is doubtless
traceable to F. Porter Smith (Contributions toward the Materia
Medica of China, p. 108), who says, "The mineral gypsum is largely
used as an ingredient in the bean-curd of ordinary diet. It enters
into the composition of some sorts of putty, and is used to give
rice a whiter face, after hulling and preparing it for sale." This
phenomenon, however, is radically different from clay-eating. The
question is here merely of an adulteration of food-stuffs, but the
Chinese certainly have no craving or appetite for gypsum.

R. Lasch (p. 216) states, "In China, earth-eating is widely dif-
fused. Pater Du Halde mentions a clay from the province of Shen-si
utilized by Chinese women in order to render their complexion pale.
Such clays are also found in many other places of China, and as in

xThe sentence is evidently taken from the article of Sarat Chandra Mitra,
who says (p. 288), "The Chinese, the Annamites, etc., are also addicted to this
habit." Almost all data in the first chapter of Hooper's and Mann's treatise are
derived from Mitra's article without acknowledgment. Who has ever observed
an earth-addict among the Chinese?

126 Geophagy

Persia and Java, are publicly sold." He quotes Du Halde's work,
but gives no exact page-reference. In fact, Du Halde says nothing
of the kind; at least he does not say that Chinese women eat clay
to bring this effect about; he does say (Description of the Empire
of China, I, p. 281), "It is affirmed that they rub their faces every
morning with a kind of paint to make them look fair and give them
a complexion, but that it soon spoils their skin and makes it full of
wrinkles." It is an old story that Chinese women, besides rice
powder, use pulverized clay as a face powder, but they never took
it internally. The Ling piao lu i (chap. A, p. 4, ed. of Wu ying
tien), written at the end of the ninth century by Liu Sun (Sino-
Iranica, p. 268), for instance, points out a pit of white clay north
of the city of Fu-chou 1§ 'JN (in the province of Hu-pei), the material
being dug and traded by the people of the district and being used
as a face powder by women.

INDO-CHINA

The brief communication of E. T. Hamy (see Bibliography) is
based on information received by him from G. Dumoutier at Hanoi,
who sent him specimens of earth cakes dried or cooked and con-
sumed in four provinces of Tonking — Nam-Dinh, Thai-Binh, Hai-
Duong, and Sontay. These cakes are said to be regarded rather as
dainties than as articles of food, but their consumption is not con-
nected with any superstitious idea or any belief in medicinal vir-
tues of the substance; it is, according to Dumoutier, a simple
depravation of taste maintained by local tradition. There are two
kinds of these cakes; one consisting of thin shavings cut off from a
compact block and rather dried than cooked over bricks made red
hot by fire. The natives call them "cat-ears tiles" (ngoe tax m&o).
They sell on the market on an average at 18 silver dollars for 600
grams. The other specimen looks like a thin tile, and has a beauti-
ful red color in consequence of a rather strong roasting; its price is
the same as for the preceding one. At the end of Hamy's notice a
few chemical observations are made by E. Demoussy. The cakes in
question have the physical properties of clay, unctuous to the touch,
almost completely free from grains of sand, sticking to the tongue
like kaolin and having the same flavor as the latter or rather lack
of flavor. The clay includes a bit of iron and lime without an
appreciable proportion of limestone, a little phosphoric acid, and a
quantity of azote in that proportion generally found in a good soil;
that is, about 15 per cent. The only characteristic that distinguishes
these specimens from ordinary earth is that they contain a bit of
combined ammonia, but in a quantity not sufficient to convey to
them the slightest flavor. In short, they do not contain any
ingredients that would justify their use as an article of food.

As the information given by Dumoutier seemed little satis-
factory to me, I applied to the Ecole francaise d'Extreme-Orient of
Hanoi, and the then secretary, Noel Peri, whose premature death
is much to be deplored, was good enough to transmit to me in 1919
the following precise information which had been communicated to
him by Dr. med. Paucot after the latter's own observations. "Cases
of geophagy were observed only among the Annamese, not among
the Muong. There is in Tonking no fossil edible clay. The cases
known date more than twenty years back, the last being recorded
in 1899-1900. The question was of eaters of an alluvial potter's clay
observed in only two villages, one located a few kilometers south-

127

128 Geophagy

east of Hanoi on the right bank of the Red River, the other on the
same bank opposite the town Yen-bay. There was but a small
number of such persons, all in a wretched condition, who seemed to
have acquired this habit in consequence of famines. How they got
this idea could not be determined. The habit of eating a few mouth-
fuls of earth at their meals persisted even when it was possible for
them to return to a normal state of nutrition, and they consumed
this earth jointly with other foods. The clay was cut up into the
shape of thin tiles of small size and simply dried in the sun. This
consumption of clay resulted in the following symptoms: increase in
volume of the intestines; extensive dilatation of the stomach which
in some cases dropped to a point beneath the umbilicus; frequent
helminthiasis; ankylostomiasis in all cases; state of emaciation and
cachexy within the lapse of one or two years. From time to time
cases of morbid geophagy are observed among children in the Anna-
mese population; the parents are generally annoyed and alarmed
and consult a physician. These cases are of interest only from a
medical point of view, but seem to be devoid of interest to the
ethnographer."

Monsieur Peri added that these earth cakes were never regarded
as dainties, that they occurred until a few years ago not far from
Hanoi in the provinces of Ha-dong and Son-tay, but that this custom
appears to have almost vanished at present owing to the cessation
of famines, as he was assured by a high Annamese functionary.
Mitra (p. 288), without citing an authority, asserts that "the
Annamese look upon the pasty and tasteless clay as a great
delicacy."

MALAYSIA AND POLYNESIA

The earliest mention of geophagy with reference to Java is made
by Labillardiere (Relation du voyage a la recherche de la P^rouse
fait en 1791-92 et 1798, II, p. 322 or Account of a Voyage in Search
of La PeYouse, II, p. 338, London, 1800). In the villages between
Surabaya and Samarang he noticed with surprise in the markets of
several villages shops filled with little square, flat loaves of a reddish
potter's earth which the inhabitants called tana ampo. This term
means "clay earth." In his Malay vocabulary appended to his work
(p. 376) the author defines it as "potter's clay which the Javanese
eat." "I had at first imagined," Labillardiere writes, "that they
might probably employ these cakes for scouring their clothes; but
presently I saw the natives chew them in small quantities, and they
assured me that they made no other use of them." A specimen of
this loam was sent in 1847 by Mohnike to Berlin, where it was
analyzed by Ehrenberg (Bericht iiber die Verhandlungen der Ber-
liner Akademie, 1848, pp. 222-225). Dutch scholars have since done
considerable work in studying the edible clays used in Malaysia,
above all J. J. Altheer, a chemist, who has examined and analyzed
eleven specimens from Java and Borneo, and J. Heringa, who has
investigated a clay coming from the west coast of Sumatra.

The word ampo is explained by J. Rigg (Dictionary of the Sunda
Language, p. 13, Batavia, 1862) as follows: "Said of animals, parti-
cularly buffalo and deer, which lick the places where salt has been
deposited, or are in the habit of licking the ground or rocks which
contain some saline matter. Batu ampo is ampo stone which is found
in many parts of Java and eaten by the natives. It is either a rock
in a high state of decomposition, from having undergone a sort of
caries in situ, or in other cases may be an aggregation of minute
animal exuviae."

In a letter addressed to A. von Humboldt, Leschenault has given
the following information: "The earth sometimes eaten by the Java-
nese is a sort of reddish ferruginous clay. It is spread out on rather
thin leaves and then rolled into the shape of small tubes (almost in
the form of the cinnamon of commerce) which are toasted over a fire.
In this state the clay is called ampo, and is sold in the markets. The
ampo has an insipid and empyreumatic flavor. It is rather absorbing,
sticking to the tongue, and dries it up. Only women will eat it,

129

130 Geophagy

especially during the period of maternity or when attacked by the
malady known in Europe as pica. Some men also eat ampo, for the
purpose of checking obesity. I believe that ampo only acts on
the stomach as a substance which absorbs the gastric juices"
(Camilli, p. 188).

Hekmeyer, who was an officer in charge of the distribution of
drugs in the Dutch Indies, stated that the Javanese first remove sand
and other hard substances from the edible clay, and then reduce it
to a paste by kneading it with water. The dressed clay is then molded
into small cakes or tablets of about the thickness of lead pencils. The
latter are baked in an iron sauce-pan, and when thoroughly roasted,
look like pieces of dried pork. The Javanese often partake of small
figures roughly made from clay in the form of animals or little men
like those made by pastry-cooks (Mitra, p. 288). E. Ferrand gives
illustrations of such clay figures representing a girl astride a dog, a
woman holding a child, and a dancing girl. It is reported also that the
women of Java eat pieces of a red pottery made at Samarang (Heringa,
p. 186) and that at Batavia red pieces of clay wrapped in dried leaves
of pisang or other plants are sold in the market (Altheer, p. 84).

The women of Java are also said to eat earth when attacked by
chlorosis or pica. Others resort to it as an alleged means of reducing
weight, because a slender figure is regarded as beautiful.

The preparation of ampo in Java forms an industry of its own
which is practised by professionals, called tukang ampo (A. Maass,
Durch Zentral-Sumatra, II, p. 252).

A red-brown earth is eaten by the Batak women on the west
coast of Sumatra (Heringa, p. 186).

In the highlands of Padang in Sumatra earth is eaten, especially
by pregnant women. To bring about abortion, a pap made of leaves
and eatable clay is heated and applied to the abdomen. In Nias
women put hot slices of clay on the abdomen to the same end (A.
Maass, op. cit.).

The Encyclopaedic van Nederlandsch-Indie (2d ed., I, p. 3) gives
the following brief summary under Eetbare aarde: —

"Eating earth is a custom encountered throughout the Archi-
pelago, both in Java and Sumatra among Malayans and Batak,
among the Dayak of Borneo, in Sumbawa, and even in New Guinea.
The earth which is eaten, called ampo in Java, consists of a fat clay
white, yellow, reddish, yellow brown, or gray green in color, and
which besides the common components of clay contains bituminous
and organic substances. It is carefully cleaned; when it has settled

Malaysia and Polynesia 131

after a night, it is rubbed and formed into disks or tubes. The
cakes are often covered with a solution of salt, smeared with coco-
nut oil, and are then roasted. The earth is usually eaten as a delicacy,
sometimes also by pregnant women, that the unborn infant may be
fond of it. Its use leads to constipation and illness."

Other writers say that Javanese pregnant women eat clay in the
belief that their foetus is fond of it.

Aside from this realistic geophagy, there is a ceremonial form of
it. Eating of earth features in the ordeals of the Javanese: when a
dispute arises about a boundary, it is believed that a bit of the con-
troversial earth swallowed will swell the wrong-doer or burst him (P.
J. Veth, Java, IV, 1907, p. 146). This custom may be traceable to
India (below, p. 141).

In the island of Timor earth-eating played a role in ordeals.
When the oath was sworn, a bit of rice was scattered, and some
earth was eaten while the Mistress of the Earth was invoked (Riedel,
Die Landschaft Dawah oder West-Timor, Deutsche Geogr. Blatter, X,
p. 280; and A. H. Post, Grundriss der ethnologischen Jurisprudenz,
I, 1895, pp. 482-483).

H. L. Roth (The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo,
I, 1896, p. 385) quotes from Sir Spencer St. John (1862) that "in
their boat expeditions Borneo people take a supply of red ochre to
eat, in case of becoming short of other provisions; and we once found
in some deserted Seribas' prahus many packets of a white oleaginous
clay used for the same purpose"; and from Bishop McDougall (1863)
that "there is a certain slimy clay which the Sakarran Dyaks always
provide themselves with when they make their excursions in their
boats, and which they suck when their stock of rice is exhausted:
they say it is very nutritious." Roth was informed that the Undup
occasionally eat a clay much resembling fuller's earth; they did not
like it, but thought it a healthy thing to do — they seemed to think
it acted as a purifier.

A. W. Nieuwenhuis (Quer durch Borneo, I, 1904, p. 83) informs
us, "The fact is noteworthy that the natives of central Borneo some-
times crave a peculiar relish; thus, I observed that men and women,
particularly pregnant women, sought in the soil of the banks for a
yellowish or reddish loam consisting of weathered slate."

0. Beccari (Wanderings in the Great Forests of Borneo, 1904,
pp. 335, 337) tells of Dayak of Borneo hunting among the pebbles
of a torrent for a peculiar stone and nibbling it greedily as if it were a
sweetmeat. It was a kind of clayey schist, soft and brittle and greasy

132 Geophagy

to the touch. At Ruma Sale he saw again some Dayak eating clay-
schist with evident relish and observes, "It certainly was not eaten
to appease hunger, but as a delicacy or perhaps to assuage an instinc-
tive craving of the stomach for some alkaline substance."

H.W.Walker (Wanderings among South Sea Savages, 1909, p. 220)
writes, "I made the discovery that some of my Dayak friends
were addicted to the horrible[!] habit of eating clay, and actually
found a regular little digging in the side of a hill where they worked
to get these lumps of reddish gray clay, and soon caught some of
the old men eating it. They declared that they enjoyed it." Clay-
eating seems to be quite general among the Dayak (see also Altheer,
pp. 85-87).

Among the Kayan of Borneo "it frequently happens that the
woman begins to crave to eat a peculiar soapy earth (batu krap),
and this is generally supplied to her" (C. Hose and W. McDougall,
Pagan Tribes of Borneo, II, 1912, p. 153).

I. H. N. Evans (Among Primitive Peoples in Borneo, 1922,
p. 114) writes, "At Tuaran the women have the abnormal habit of
eating earth, which is also found in other parts of Borneo, in Java,
and the Federated Malay States. Not far from the Chinese shops
at this station there is a gully, which at the time of heavy rains has
a small stream running at the bottom of it. The sides of the gully
are made of a bluish gray clay with one or two bands of a hard dark
purplish red clay running through it. At about six o'clock in the
evening it is usual to see anything up to about a dozen women
digging out this red clay with pointed sticks or small knives, and
putting it into baskets. I have been told that the clay is roasted
before being eaten, and that some women consume very large quan-
tities. It is said to be a good medicine for women who are enceinte.
I have several times dug out a sample and eaten it myself; it has
rather the consistency of chocolate, but is almost tasteless."

With reference to the same locality 0. Rutter (The Pagans of
North Borneo, 1929, p. 72) supplies the following interesting infor-
mation: "The women of the Tuaran group have a habit of eating
a dark red clay which is found near the Chinese shops at the Tuaran
Government Station, and tastes something like unsweetened choco-
late. Mr. E. A. Pearson, who was stationed at Tuaran for some
time, tells me that this earth is eaten by women who wish to bear
children, since it is supposed to have particular effect at or about
the time of the menstrual periods. That is, it is eaten as a means
of securing pregnancy and not as a medicine during pregnancy, as
Mr. I. H. N. Evans states. It seems to be rather a stealthy habit

Malaysia and Polynesia 133

and the women (naturally enough) are shy about admitting that
they eat it; they dig it out of the ground quite openly, but it is al-
ways 'for someone else.' Some women undoubtedly become addicts
and cannot give up the habit, even when they are long past child-
bearing. One elderly Dusun crone told Mr. Pearson that she would
rather give up her betel-nut than her daily whack of clay."

The analysis of an edible clay from Borneo is given in Zeitschrift
fur Ethnologie, III, 1871, p. 273.

In the Moluccas, a grayish white clay is eaten at Abubu in
Nusalaut and in Saparua, notably by women during the period of
pregnancy, and as stated by one informant "for the purpose of giv-
ing birth to white children" (K. Martin, Reisen in den Molukken,
1894, p. 55).

No case of genuine geophagy has become known to me from the
Philippines. The following instances in which earth is used cere-
monially and medicinally by the Tinguians have been kindly com-
municated to me by Dr. F. C. Cole.

The second day following a marriage is known as sipsipot ("the
beginning or the start"). The couple go with their parents to the
fields, and after the boy has cut grass along the edge of the land, he
takes a little of the soil on his headaxe. Both bride and groom taste
of this, "so that the ground will yield good harvests for them."

As a cure for dysentery and cholera, leaves of the sobosob
(Blumea balsamifera) are placed in a jar of water. Above this a ball
of clay is suspended, and banana leaves are placed over the mouth
of the jar to prevent escape of the steam. The leaves are boiled for
a time, and then the ball of clay is crushed and mixed with water,
and this is given the patient to drink.

At the beginning of the rice harvest, the woman of the family
goes alone to the fields until she has cut a hundred bundles of rice.
During this time she uses no salt in her food, but sand is used as a
substitute.

Throughout the Islands it is a common thing to mix the earth
taken from nests of "white ants" with water and give it to patients
troubled with bowel complaints. It is also mixed with water and
applied to sores.

The nest of the nido (a small cave bird) is mixed with water, and
is used as a cure for coughs and consumption.

As regards Polynesia, some forms of geophagy are reported from
New Zealand, and possibly it was anciently known in Tahiti.

134 Geophagy

A. S. Thomson (The Story of New Zealand, I, 1859, p. 157)
refers to "a clay called kotou, with an alkaline taste and an unctuous
feel, which was eaten by the New Zealanders when pressed by
hunger."

E. Best (The Maori, I, p. 432, Wellington, 1924) writes that "in
times of great scarcity a kind of clay (uku) was eaten, as during the
long siege of Kura-a-renga at Te Mahia; hence that fortified village
was afterwards known as Kai-uku ('clay eating')."

The same scholar, a well-known authority on Maori agriculture
and life, has been good enough to favor me with the following notes:

"In 1824 the Puke-karoro fortified village at Te Mahia was
occupied by some hundreds of the Ngati-Kahu-ngunu tribe, when it
was surrounded and besieged by a large force of raiders of the Tuhoe,
Ngati-Maru, and other tribes. The siege continued for some months,
until the besieged were reduced to cannibalism, families exchanging
children so as to be guiltless of eating their own. Other non-com-
batants were also eaten, also quantities of the bluish diatomaceous
clay called uku. Hence the siege and fort are often referred to as
Kai-uku ('clay eating'). Cf. Journ. Polyn. Soc, X, 1901, p. 26; XIII,
1904, p. 2; XVI, 1907, p. 20; Transactions New Zealand Institute,
XXXV, p. 81.

"Some form of mud or clay was eaten in the Rotorua District in
times of scarcity; a favored deposit of it was at Rotomahana.

"The Rev. R. Taylor mentions an unctuous clay or earth of a
yellowish color that was eaten under similar circumstances."

The Maoris living around Taupo Lake are said to have eaten a
fine, gray yellow ooze ejected by the volcanoes of the north island
and called "native porridge" by the English settlers (Lasch, p. 217).

J. C. Crawford (Recollections of Travel in New Zealand, 1880,
pp. 135, 139), who visited Lake Taupo, mentions mud springs the
deposit from which is chiefly siliceous, and writes that the Maoris
employ steam and mud springs for stewing food and the boiling
springs for boiling it and for scalding pigs, but he does not say that
this substance is eaten.

No accounts of edible earth are available for the other Polynesian
islands, but from a legend given by W. Ellis (Polynesian Researches,
1, 1831, p. 68) it would appear that a kind of red earth was formerly
consumed in Tahiti. The tradition in question is an attempt at ex-
plaining the origin of the breadfruit. Under the reign of a certain
king, when the people ate red earth (araea), there were a husband
and wife who had an only son whom they tenderly loved. The

Malaysia and Polynesia 135

youth was weak and delicate; and one day the husband said to his
wife, "I compassionate our son, he is unable to eat the red earth. I
will die and become food for our son." He died, and from his organs
planted in the ground sprang a breadfruit tree. The mother directed
her son to gather a number of fruits, to take the first to the family
god and to the king; to eat no more red earth, but to roast and eat
the fruit of the tree growing before them.

Earth is used by the Polynesians for industrial purposes. Red
ochre is found in several islands, and in Rurutu and some others its
color is so strong as to enable the people to form a bright red pig-
ment for staining or painting their doors, window-shutters, canoes,
and mixed with lime, the walls of their houses (Ellis, I, p. 24). This
presents another example for the fact that industrial utilization of
earth does not necessarily lead to earth-eating.

MELANESIA AND AUSTRALIA

R. Bruce (Annual Report on British New Guinea from 1899 to
1900, p. 102, Brisbane, 1901) saw white clay eaten in New Guinea.
The cakes looked like white sausages, with a string running through
their center which joined a lot together. After many inquiries as to
the use of this clay he found that it was scraped down with a shell
and used as a relish to food. He tasted it and fancied that it contained
arsenic. He adds that "many natives of Torres Straits and New
Guinea eat red-fat earth which contains iron; the women of the
Straits eat it when pregnant so as to make the child light-skinned,
etc." W. N. Beaver (Unexplored New Guinea, p. 144, Philadelphia,
1920), alluding to the report of Bruce (he locates the edible white
clay at Tapamone on the Bituru River), writes that this clay is also
found near Sui, a small village near the mouth of the estuary; there
are one or two villages located on the northwestern side on Mount
Lamington in the valley of the Kumusi River, the inhabitants of
which are clay-eaters and invariably carry supplies of this "food"
about them. In fact, from all accounts they pine away when deprived
of it.

R. Neuhauss (Deutsch Neu-Guinea, I, 1911, p. 275) informs us,
"Everywhere in Kaiser- Wilhelmsland [former German New Guinea]
the blacks eat earth; it is an exceedingly fine-grained gray, yellow,
or reddish material. In Bukaua the gray white clay comes from the
mouth of the Bulesom; it is eaten, without special preparation,
mainly by pregnant women. At the Sattelberg it is a reddish, fer-
ruginous clay which is taken in a dried state. At Sissanu this delicacy
has a gray yellow color, and is swallowed without further prepara-
tion. These clays are devoid of any nutritive values, but are agree-
able in taste, especially the clay from the Sattelberg."

L. M. d'Albertis (New Guinea: What I did and what I saw, II,
1881, p. 89) writes that a red clay is chewed and even eaten by some
of the people of Hall Sound and that he found this red clay.

Edible clays were located by P. Wirz (Die Marind-anim, pt. 1,
1922, p. 96) in Dutch Southern New Guinea. He describes them as
gray or yellowish white and of acid taste. According to appearance,
flavor, or origin various sorts are distinguished; they are partially
much appreciated and used for barter. A white clay found and dug
near Senajo is especially popular. It serves both as a cosmetic for
painting face and body and as a relish. When the people of Senajo
visit the coast, they will bring this clay along and exchange it with

136

Melanesia and Australia 137

the people of the coast. Another gray, recent marine clay, called
dave, occurs in many places on the beach; it has likewise an acid
flavor and is said to be good for the stomach; it is particularly eaten
by expectant mothers. At Mevi Wirz saw a pregnant woman fashion
this clay into loaves and dry these in the sun; she stated that con-
sumed they are good for the foetus and must be eaten daily till the
day of delivery. Wirz also refers to Bali where an edible clay found
in the western part of the island is offered for sale in the bazars and
is likewise enjoyed by the pregnant.

0. Finsch (Samoafahrten, 1888, pp. 295, 346) observed edible
clay on the north coast of what then was Kaiser- Wilhelmsland
(now Australian mandated territory) ; it was offered in the shape of
flat cakes 20 cm wide and perforated in the center for the passage of
a cord.

The title of the brief article of Meigen (see Bibliography) is
misleading, for the edible earth analyzed by him did not come from
New Guinea, but from New Mecklenburg. According to a communi-
cation of Dr. Hahl, then governor of German New Guinea, this
sample came from Lakurefange on the east side of New Mecklen-
burg, and the natives ascribe to it healing powers in stomach and
intestinal troubles. It is a fat clay of ochre yellow color, a terra
rossa, of a camphor-like odor and of a not disagreeable spicy flavor.

E. Stephan and F. Graebner (Neu-Mecklenburg, 1907, p. 10)
mention the eating of earth in New Mecklenburg with reference
to the Gazelle Expedition of 1874-76, but offer no more recent
information.

In New Caledonia geophagy was formerly widely practised, and
partially it is still in vogue. As early as the eighteenth century it is
reported by Labillardiere (Account of a Voyage in Search of La
Perouse, II, p. 213), who visited New Caledonia in 1793. The
natives approached the ship's landing-place and received bits of bis-
cuit for which they asked. He then gives the following interesting
account: "I saw, however, one of them come up who already had
his stomach well filled, but who nevertheless ate in our presence a
lump of a very soft steatite of a greenish color and as big as his
two fists. We afterwards saw a number of others eat quantities
of the same sort of earth. It serves to deaden the sense of hunger
by filling their stomach, thus supporting the viscera attached to
the diaphragm; and although this substance does not afford any
nutritious juice, it is yet very useful to these people, who must be
often exposed to be long in want of food, for they apply themselves
little to the culture of their lands, which besides are very sterile.

138 Geophagy

It is to be remarked that undoubtedly the inhabitants of New Cale-
donia have made choice of the steatite only because from its great
friability it does not remain long in their stomach and intestines.
I should never have imagined that cannibals would have recourse
to such an expedient when pressed by hunger."

Vauquelin, the chemist, found in this steatite from New Cale-
donia a not inconsiderable proportion of oxid of copper. In the
northern parts of the island steatite occurs abundantly in the
ancient slate formation. According to some authors, earth is merely
eaten in times of scarcity to appease hunger; according to others,
only women take it in doses of the size of a hazel-nut, and children
imitate the practice. Among the people of Tiari, near Baladea,
Gamier found a few geophagists, but only women who he says were
prompted by a morbid craving to eat but a little earth, which is
insipid in taste and is called by them pagute (Globus, XIII, 1868,
p. 102). Lemire mentions balls of steatite which are dissolved in the
saliva and have a somewhat sweetish flavor (F. Sarrasin, Ethnologie
der Neu-Caledonier, 1929, p. 64).

According to Glaumont (Revue d'ethnographie, VII, 1888,
pp. 85-86, not cited by Sarrasin), the inhabitants of New Caledonia
chew a friable grayish earth found on the sides of the mountains.
This author holds that the custom of earth-eating is on the same
level as betel-chewing or opium and tobacco smoking. Sarrasin
was informed by a native of the isle of Baaba in the north of Cale-
donia that baskets full of gray soft earth were collected there. He
refers to another account that women on the march finished a whole
basketful of earth, giving preference to it to real food. As steatite
is not found everywhere in the island, many tribes must be content
with clayish and marly minerals. This is also the case in the Loyalty
Islands which consist merely of chalk. In a cave near La Roche on
Mare\ Sarrasin found weathered yellow marl of which the natives
told him that it is crushed and eaten, particularly by women, as a
dainty; red earth, too, they said, is eaten there after it has been
burnt. This seems to refer to the weathered product of chalk which
is colored red by iron.

V. de Rochas (La Nouvelle Catedonie, 1862, p. 140) reports
that in the Loyalty Islands people eat an aluminous earth full
of organic detritus, which is gathered in caves abounding in
humus and which is kneaded into hard balls; these are dissolved
in the saliva without leaving a bad taste. Sarrasin thinks that this
substance may contain a trace of nutritive value, which is not the
case with steatite, marl, and clay.

Melanesia and Australia 139

Earth is eaten in North Santo and Malekula in the New Heb-
rides. This is a tough, dark brown clay apparently mixed with
organic substances and particularly coveted by pregnant women.
In East Santo it is said to be flattened out like a biscuit and dried
in the smoke. In Malekula the earth is shaped into small balls
which are dried and sucked like a sweet-meat; the clay has indeed
a sweetish flavor (F. Speiser, Ethnographische Materialien aus den
Neuen Hebriden, 1923, p. 133).

Some authors, quite in general, assign geophagy to aboriginal
Australia. It seems certain that it occurs among some tribes, but
not among others. The following specific cases have come to my
notice.

R. Brough Smyth (The Aborigines of Victoria, I, 1878,
p. XXXIV) writes, "There is nothing in the records relating to
Victoria respecting the use of any earth for the purpose of appeasing
hunger; but Grey mentions that one kind of earth, pounded and
mixed with the root of the mene (a species of Haemodorum), is eaten
by the natives of West Australia." Seven or eight species of this
genus occur in Australia, all of them furnishing roots which are eaten
by the natives; they are acrid when raw, but mild when roasted (E. L.
Sturtevant, Notes on Edible Plants, p. 297). The case therefore
is analogous to what is found among the Ainu, Porno, and Hopi.

The aborigines of Queensland use huge clay or mud pills, one or
two of which at a time are prescribed for diarrhoea (W. E. Roth,
Ethnological Studies among the North- West-Central Queensland
Aborigines, 1897, p. 163).

E. Eylmann (Die Eingeborenen der Kolonie Sudaustralien, 1908,
p. 448) mentions medicinal employment of earth, ashes, and sand;
women rub their breasts with a pap made of gypsum for the pur-
pose of causing a secretion of milk.

INDIA, BURMA, AND SIAM

In India clay is generally eaten by women and children, rarely
by men; by women usually during the period of menstruation and
pregnancy, by others habitually at all times.

Examinations and analyses of Indie edible clays have been
conducted by Ehrenberg (I pp. 116-177) and by Hooper and
Mann (pp. 260-263).

The fact that clay is eaten in India was known in Europe early
in the nineteenth century. Curiously enough, the edible clay of
India was then designated "clay of the Mogol." G. I. Molina
(Saggio sulla storia naturale del Chili, 1810, p. 50), therefore, wrote
at that time that the Peruvian women are in the habit of eating
pottery sherds as the Mogol women eat the dishes of Patna (como
le Mogolesi mangiano il vasellame di Patna). This Indie pottery
is described as being gray in color with a yellow tinge, known under
the name "earth of Patna" and found principally in the environ-
ment of Seringapatnam. From this clay were manufactured vases
so light in weight and so delicate in shape that "a breath from one's
mouth was sufficient to turn them upside down on the table."
Water poured into these vessels assumed a pleasant flavor and
odor; and the ladies of India when they had emptied them would
break them to pieces, swallowing the sherds with pleasure, especially
in the period of maternity (Camilli, p. 188).

The clay consumed by the women of Bengal is a fine, light
ochreous-colored specimen fashioned into thin cups with a perfora-
tion in the center and then baked in a kiln. In other words, it is
ready-made pottery which they consume and which emits a curious
smoky odor. It is this particular odor which makes it such a favor-
ite with delicate women. The cups are strung on a cord and sold
by the potters at so many pieces for one pice. Formerly these cups
were hawked about in the streets of Calcutta, but this is no longer
customary. Such a street vendor of baked clay cups once figured in
a Bengali play staged in a Calcutta theatre; she recommended her
ware in a song, pointing out that her cups are well baked, crisp to
eat and yet cheap, and that delicate ladies about to become mothers
should buy them without delay, as eating them would bless them
with sons (Mitra, p. 286).

Saucer-shaped chips of partially baked clay are sold in the
Calcutta bazar for eating (G. Watt, Commercial Products of India,

140

India, Burma, and Siam 141

1908, p. 330). Burnt earth is considered less injurious in India than
fresh earth.

The habit of clay-eating, though at present universal in India,
cannot be proved to be of ancient date in that country. The
earliest literary references to it, first pointed out by Mitra, occur in
Kalidasa's Ragkuvamga. In one case, the question is of a queen
who partakes of baked clay to render her breath fragrant and
pleasing to her lord. In another case, the queen of Ayodhya, before
giving birth to Raghu, feels a hankering for baked clay (Sanskrit
katikd, Hindi khariya). Mallinatha, in his commentary to the
poem, observes that it is well known that pregnant women eat
earth. These allusions contain nothing that would warrant the
belief that clay-eating then (fifth or sixth century a.d.) was a gen-
eral and habitual practice. In Vedic literature, no reference is made
to it, nor in the Arthacastra. In such encyclopaedic works, as
Varahamihira's Brhat-Samhita, where we might expect to find a
trace of it, it is not mentioned either. Likewise in the literature on
alchemy it appears to be absent, as evidenced at least by Ray's
"History of Hindu Chemistry." Notably the Chinese pilgrims who
traveled in India have not recorded the practice. Also so keen an
observer as Garcia da Orta maintains silence about it, and W.
Ainslie, in his "Materia Indica" (1826), ignores it; no reference to
it is made in early Portuguese and English accounts of India. While
this negative evidence is not in any way conclusive, it must be
admitted that the wide diffusion of geophagy, though sporadic
cases are on record for earlier periods, is only the result of more or
less recent times.

In ancient prescriptions occurs earth from the roots of Jambu
trees. This is a vegetable mold or black soil formed with decaying
vegetal matter, such as is found in ponds and round the foot of
trees (Hoernle, The Bower Manuscript, p. 149). A baked clod of
clay with other ingredients was kept in water to relieve morbid
thirst (ibid., p. 137).

Indian physicians mention a kind of chlorosis (panduroga) as
being caused by the consumption of earth (Jolly, Indische Medicin,
p. 86, who unfortunately does not say which physicians, the older
or more recent ones).

The symptoms which appear in confirmed and habitual geopha-
gists in India are usually reported as the face being unnaturally
swollen or puffed, the abdomen distended, the limbs shrunk except
at the joints which appear enlarged and are said to be painful.

142 Geophagy

Swelling-up of the face and abdomen may result from clay-eating
for a period of twelve months.

White-ants' nests constructed of soft, fine earth, generally of a
reddish black color, are consumed in India in the same manner as
in Africa. Coolies of Assam are disposed toward white-ant soil
taken from the center of the nest, white ants themselves being
included as a delicacy (Hooper and Mann, p. 257). Among the
mountain tribes of Travancore the men, not the women, eat this
earth with the ants inside the cells, sometimes adding honey to it.
It is taken, not in small medicinal doses, but in rather large quanti-
ties. No evil effects have been noticed to follow its use (ibid., p. 259).

Steatite or soapstone ground to powder and mixed with flour
has served in India as a regular famine food, in the same manner as
in China (above, p. 124).

Consumption of small quantities of earth from holy places is
prevalent throughout India. Such sacred earth is supposed to have
healing properties. The followers of the Vaishnava sect keep in
their houses the earth of the sacred river Jumna. At the close of
their daily worship, a pinch of this earth is placed on the tip of the
tongue and swallowed. There is a hill a few miles from Madras;
and one particular spot in it is considered sacred, and the earth
found there is credited with miraculous, curative properties. Those
who visit the hill on a pilgrimage take a handful of this earth along,
making it into pills used for various internal disorders as occasion
arises (Hooper and Mann, p. 259).

He who is especially interested in the subject should not fail to
read the valuable monograph of Hooper and Mann who have dealt
with geophagy in India almost exhaustively.

The following interesting case is reported by E. Thurston
(Omens and Superstitions of Southern India, 1912, p. 38) : "Some
years ago Mr. H. D. Taylor was called on to settle a boundary
dispute between two villages in Jeypore under the following
circumstances. As the result of a panchayat ('council meeting'), the
men of one village had agreed to accept the boundary claimed by
the other party if the head of their village walked round the bound-
ary and eat earth at intervals, provided that no harm came to him
within six months. The man accordingly perambulated the bound-
ary eating earth, and a conditional order of possession was given.
Shortly afterwards the man's cattle died, one of his children died
of smallpox, and finally he himself died within three months. The
other party then claimed the land on the ground that the earth-

India, Burma, and Siam 143

goddess had proved him to have perjured himself. It was urged in
defence that the man had been made to eat earth at such frequent
intervals that he contracted dysentery, and died from the effects of
earth-eating."

According to W. C. Smith (The Ao Naga Tribe of Assam, 1925,
p. 33), "the Ao eat a whitish clay which they say is salty. The
women use it more than the men. The Lakhers eat it and declare
it can sustain a man without food for thirty-six hours, and women
soon to become mothers are very fond of it."

L. and C. Scherman (Im Stromgebiet des Irrawaddy, p. 55,
Munchen, 1922), visiting a bazar at Yawnghwe in the Southern
Shan States, found among the articles offered for sale also edible
earth or more exactly gray, yellow and reddish clays.

Among the Chin of Upper Burma it is customary to eat earth as
a sign of swearing to tell the truth, and earth is administered to
witnesses giving evidence in a criminal case. This is considered a
very binding oath and more likely to extract the truth from a Chin
than anything else (Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States,
I, pt. 1, p. 472, Rangoon, 1900). In a similar manner it was formerly
customary among the Angami Naga tribe in rendering an oath to
snatch up a handful of grass and earth, and after placing it on the
head, to shove it into the mouth, chewing it and pretending to eat
it (J. H. Hutton, The Angami Nagas, 1921, p. 146; cf. also J. P.
Mills, The Lhota Nagas, 1922, p. 103).

In Siam, it is said, people consume steatite which consists of
65.6 per cent silic acid, 30.8 per cent magnesia, and 3.6 per cent
oxid of iron (Altheer, p. 90).

N. Annandale (Fasciculi Malayenses, Anthr., pt. II, p. 62) has
observed that both Malay and Siamese women eat a kind of earth
dug out of the banks of a river and roasted; this is administered as
a tonic.

CENTRAL ASIA AND SIBERIA

The Tibetan Kanjur contains a translation of the Buddhistic
work Vinayavastu in which is embodied a curious story concerning
the earlier periods of the world. In the course of these supposed
periods a gradual deterioration of man and his foodstuffs is believed
to have taken place. First there was the "sap of the earth" (Tibetan
sa-i bcud, Sanskrit prthivirasa) of excellent color, fragrance, and
flavor, in color resembling butter, in taste like honey. The bodies
of the spiritual beings who partook of this substance waxed hard
and heavy and lost their fine luster, whereupon darkness arose in
the world. Then originated sun, moon, and stars, and in conse-
quence day, night, months, and years. Men subsisted on that
earthly food and reached a high old age. Those who consumed but
little were beautiful in appearance, but those who ate too much of
it were ugly. The former grew haughty and despised the ugly.
The sap of the earth vanished in the wake of this quarrel, and was
replaced with an "earth grease or oil" (Tibetan sa-i lag, Sanskrit
prthivi-parvataka, Mongol gadzar-un tosun, "earth oil or butter"),
which served as food. The same happens as previously, and the
earth oil disappears to give way to vegetable foods. This legend
has first been excerpted from the Kanjur by A. Schiefner (Uber die
Verschlechterungsperioden der Menschheit nach buddhistischer
Anschauungsweise. Bull, histor.-philol. de FAcademie de St.-P£ters-
bourg, IX, No. 1, 1851).

A kind of eatable clay is reported from Tibet by Ma Shao-yun
and Sheng Mei-k'i in their Wei Ts'ang t'u shi, an account of Tibet
written in 1792. Near the monastery rDo-rje-'dra, not far from
the celebrated temples of bSam-yas (southeast of Lhasa), there is
a mountain with a cavern containing an eatable white clay, which
has a taste like tsamba ("roasted barley-flour," the staple food of
the Tibetans). Whenever clay is removed, it will grow again. The
cavern must be entered with candles. Behind it there is a large lake
(Bitchourin and Klaproth, Description du Tubet, pp. 131-132;
Rockhill, J.R.A.S., 1891, p. 267). According to Rockhill, this clay
is styled sa rtsam-pa ("earth tsamba").

Earth is also used as a medicine in Tibet; sa smug is a dark red
earth employed medicinally.

The Mongol chronicler Sanang Setsen relates in regard to
Oljai Ilduchi, who lived toward the end of the sixteenth century,

144

Central Asia and Siberia 145

that he and his army, while on a warlike expedition, suffered from
want of food, and were compelled to sustain their lives by eating
of a stone, called barkilda (I. J. Schmidt, Geschichte der Ost-Mon-
golen, p. 217). The editor and translator of Sanang Setsen's work
remarks (p. 413) that he does not feel certain whether this eatable
stone or earth is identical with the Siberian "stone butter" described
by Pallas. He also alludes to the earth eaten by certain tribes of
South America. Nothing can directly be inferred from the Mongol
term, which is isolated in this passage and is not known otherwise.
Golstunski, at least, with reference to this word in his Mongol-
Russian Dictionary, cites solely the text here in question. The
word barkilda, which cannot be derived from any known Mongol
stem, and which does not occur in Turkish, means also "aerolith,"
and is correlated with Tibetan ka-tu or ke-tu (that is, Sanskrit ketu) .
It may be, therefore, that the stone mentioned by Sanang Setsen
was believed to be of celestial origin. It certainly is not identical
with the "stone butter" of Siberia, which is a substance of vitriolic
origin, first described, as far as I know, by P. J. von Strahlenberg
(Das nord- und ostliche Theil von Europa und Asia, 1730, p. 384).

P. S. Pallas (Reise durch verschiedene Provinzen des russischen
Reiches, II, 1771, pp. 88, 656, 697; III, 1776, p. 258) found this
"stone butter" in the Ural, near Tomsk, on the Yenisei and the
Chilok. He explains it as plume alum or stone alum, a white yellow-
ish substance of vitriolic origin flowing out of slate. Some inhabi-
tants of Tomsk boiled from it an impure yellow vitriol which assumed
a sand-like hardened shape and which was sold on the market — for
industrial purposes only, as, for example, for dyeing leather black
(Strahlenberg). According to Pallas, the "proper natural stone
butter" is not so frequently gathered that Tobolsk and other Siberian
towns could be supplied with it. At Krasnoyarsk only it was offered
for sale in abundant quantity, being collected in the neighborhood
of the town. It is described by him as very white and light in weight;
when burnt at a flame, it flows easily, and when boiled, it emits red
vitriolic fumes, while a light, very white and savory earth remains.
Several puds of this earth were annually collected and sent to Kras-
noyarsk, where the pound sold at from fifteen to twenty kopeks.
The common people used this substance chiefly as a remedy in cases
of diarrhoea and dysentery or for copious bleeding of lying-in women
(cf. also Pallas, Neue nordische Beitrage, V, 1793, p. 290).

J. B. Miiller (Les moeurs et usages des Ostiackes, in Nouveaux
Memoires sur l'£tat present de la Grande Russie ou Moscovie, II,
p. 160, Amsterdam, 1725) writes, "On the highest mountains and

146 Geophagy

rocks of Siberia is found an extraordinary mineral called by the
inhabitants of the country kamine masla or stone butter. The heat
of the sun causes it to flow down the rocks to which it is attached
as chalk to walls. It is dissolved in water like salt, and is as strong
as vitriol. They attribute to it many virtues and use it in several
diseases, especially in dysentery. I believe that we ought not to get
accustomed to this remedy, and I know of no one who has ever made
use of it."

According to J. G. Georgi (Bemerkungen einer Reise im russi-
schen Reiche im Jahre 1772, St. Petersburg, 1775), the stone or rock
butter served also as a specific against syphilis. He reports also that
there is in Kamchatka near the river Olontora and in several other
localities a lithomarge clay which both the Tungusian tribes and the
Russians eat, either alone or dissolved in water or milk. This sub-
stance, he concludes, produces in those people merely a light con-
stipation which perhaps is wholesome to them in the spring when
they eat an abundance of fish, which will cause diarrhoea. Georgi
informs us also that in the countries located between the Volga,
Kama, and Ural there is a sort of powdered plaster termed by the
inhabitants "rock flour" or "celestial flour." This substance was
mixed with flour in times of scarcity, but those who ate such bread
almost always experienced fatal effects.

The Sungar picked up earth during earthquakes which do not
infrequently occur around the Altai mountains, and placed it on the
tongue of a parturient woman, believing that it was a good means of
expediting birth and expelling the after-birth (P. S. Pallas, Samlungen
histor. Nachrichten iiber die mongolischen Vblkerschaften, I, p. 166).

G. W. Steller, in his famous "Beschreibung von dem Lande
Kamtschatka" (1774, pp. 72, 324), speaks of Sory officinarum or so-
called Siberian kamenna masla ("stone butter") and a soft bolus
earth which tastes like cream and which is eaten; the latter he calls
semlanoi smetana ("earth sour cream"). Like the Tungus around
Okhotsk, he continues, the Italmen and Koryak eat a kind of fine
white clay which looks like cream and which is not devoid of an
agreeable flavor, but is at the same time astringent. According to
A. Erman (Zeitschrift filr Ethnologie, III, 1871, p. 150), who him-
self visited Kamchatka, the so-called flowing clay or earth cream (i.e.
the gelatinous detritus of a trachytic rock) was eaten there but ex-
ceptionally and only in certain places.

Mr. I. Lopatin, who has devoted many years of his life to inves-
tigations of the native tribes of eastern and northeastern Siberia,

Central Asia and Siberia 147

kindly informs me that in his experience clay-eating is not practised
by any of these, but that some Tungusian tribes, such as the Oroche,
Udekhe, and Olcha make use of clay as a medicine. He did not
observe this practice, however, among the Golde with whom he is
particularly familiar and to whom he has devoted a very interesting
monograph. "Many times during my expeditions into the countries
of these peoples," Mr. Lopatin writes me, "I saw small pieces of clay
fashioned into cakes, about one and a half inch square and a quarter
of an inch thick, and suspended from the roofs of their huts. On two
occasions I watched the preparation of these clay cakes. An Udekhe
woman made a sort of dough of the clay, and after having kneaded
it well, she turned out two or three dozens of cakes somewhat
resembling American crackers. When these clay crackers were suffi-
ciently dried, she perforated each piece in the center and on both
sides made four rows of cavities by pressing, about four or five in a
row, whereupon she strung the cakes through the perforations in the
center and suspended them under the roof of the hut. On another
occasion I saw a man of the same tribe make such cakes which were
of the same size and shape as previously. He said that a particular
kind of clay, which is yellowish gray in color, must be used for this
purpose. The clay cakes must be thoroughly dried before being con-
sumed. They are kept under the roof for at least five or six months
and in fact for two or three years before they are ready for use.
Udekhe, Oroche, and Olcha believe that these cakes are very helpful
in stomachic troubles and diarrhoea. In the event of such complaint
these cakes are taken internally for a period of six or seven days.
I wish to stress the point that these clay cakes are but seldom eaten
by these people and exclusively as a remedy in case of illness."

It is certainly possible that this remedy is apt to stop diarrhoea;
it is so employed elsewhere, for instance, in Sumatra (Heringa,
p. 186), and as has been stated, by the natives of Queensland in Aus-
tralia (above, p. 139). In our own time powdered clay has been
recommended as a remedy for cholera (Berliner Klinische Wochen-
schrift, 1905, p. 750), and clay pills have been used for hemorrhoids
(Hahneman, Chronic Diseases, II; Hooper and Mann, p. 269).

During his excavations conducted in Kamchatka in 1910-11 W.
Jochelson (Archaeological Investigations in Kamchatka, p. 66,
Carnegie Institution, 1928) found pieces of white clay in some of the
excavations of dwellings, which he is inclined to think was eaten by
the inhabitants. He refers to Krasheninnikow's "Description of
Kamchatka" as mentioning white clay as a remedy for diarrhoea.

148 Geophagy

The edition consulted by him is the third in Russian, published at
St. Petersburg, 1818. I have a German edition of this work (Lemgo,
1766) in which this passage is not contained, neither in the chapter
on Diseases and Remedies nor in the chapter on Food and Drinks
of the Kamchadal; in discussing the different kinds of earth found
in Kamchatka (p. 97) no reference is made either to clay-eating.
Of course I do not doubt that in the edition consulted by Jochelson
the passage in question is contained, but what I venture to call into
doubt is that the clay pieces found by him in the deserted dwellings
were really intended for internal medicinal use. Unfortunately,
Jochelson has neglected to state the essential point, and this is, of
what shape these clay pieces were, whether they were shaped into
a certain form by human hand or just odd pieces in their natural
state. If, for instance, they were like the clay cakes described by
Lopatin, this would constitute sufficient evidence for his conclusion;
but if not artificially fashioned in some way or other, the hypothesis
is not convincing, or the case remains at least doubtful.

According to W. Bogoras (The Chukchee, p. 200, Jesup North
Pacific Expedition, VII, 1904), "the Reindeer Chukchee as well as
the Lamut and the Koryak in Kamchatka occasionally use as food
a kind of white clay, which is called 'earth fat' (nute-echen). This,
of course, is eaten only in moderate quantities, mixed with broth or
with reindeer-milk." If this be true, the clay consumed cannot, of
course, be designated as a food, but is rather a condiment added
to articles of food.

L. J. Sternberg (The Gilyak, Ethnograficheskie Obozrdnie, 1905,
p. 17) mentions a dish of the Gilyak consisting of the gluey broth
of fish-skins, seal's fat, berries, rice, and sometimes of minced
dried fish, being mixed with dissolved white clay; this dish is favorite
for treating guests.

H. von Siebold (Ethnol. Studien iiber die Ainos, 1881, p. 37,
Suppl. Z. Ethn.) was told that the Ainu occasionally eat a clay
mixed with herbs and roots; he had no occasion to see this himself.
Hooper and Mann (p. 251), without citing any source, assert,
"Among the Ainu, the aborigines of Japan, there is a kind of clay
which is eaten to a considerable extent, mixed with fragments of the
leaves of a plant and used as an ingredient in the preparation of soup.
The clay occurs in a bed in the valley of Tsie-tonai ('eat-earth valley')
on the north of the coast of Yezo. It is of light-gray color and fine
consistency, and is consumed, not as a matter of necessity, but be-
cause it is believed to contain some beneficial ingredient." The
above name should be written Chi-e-tonai; chi means "earth," e "to

Central Asia and Siberia 149

eat"; but a word tonai is not given in the Ainu Dictionaries of
Batchelor and Dobrotvorski. In the works of J. Batchelor, the best
informed authority on the Yezo Ainu, no reference is made to con-
sumption of earth in a pure state, nor have I learned anything to
this effect among the Saghalin Ainu. This, of course, does not mean
that the habit does not exist, or might not formerly have existed.
There is, however, an Ainu practice recorded by Batchelor which
offers a striking parallel with what is found among the Porno and
Hopi, as well as among the natives of western Australia (above,
p. 138).

The bulbs of Corydalis ambigua (Ainu toma, Japanese engosaku)
are extensively eaten by the Ainu, especially those in the Ishikari
valley of Saghalin Island and in the southern Kuriles. The bulb has
a slightly bitter taste which is removed by repeated boilings in
water. In Etorup, the Ainu boil the bulbs with a certain kind of
earth to remove its bitterness. They are eaten either simply boiled
or mixed with rice. In Saghalin, it is said, they are cooked generally
with the fat of seals (J. Batchelor and K. Miyabe, Ainu Economic
Plants, No. 48, Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, XXI,
1893, p. 215). The Ainu also feed on acorns (ibid., No. 108) which
are usually boiled and occasionally roasted, but earth is not applied
to these as by the Porno and the peasants of Sardinia.

The Ainu have traditions of famines in early times when people
were dying from want of food, and this seems to be one of their
typical forms of legend two of which are recorded by J. Batchelor
(Specimens of Ainu Folk-lore, Transactions of the Asiatic Society of
Japan, XVI, 1888, pp. 112-122). In these no allusion is made to
earth-eating; in fact, no famine food is mentioned. It is known,
however, that the ancient Ainu subsisted a great deal upon the stem
and leaves of the mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) which has been the
means of keeping them alive throughout more than one famine (J.
Batchelor and K. Miyabe, Ainu Economic Plants, No. 78).

In mixing earth with certain foodstuffs there is agreement
between the Ainu, Gilyak, and Chukchi; and this perhaps may be
regarded as an ancient feature of the culture of the Palaeo-Asiatic
tribes. Considering the further fact that earth is still eaten by
Tungusian tribes and that a certain kind was consumed by the
ancient Kamchadal, there is a continuous area in northeastern
Siberia for the practice of earth-eating. It will be seen that this
continues in points of the far north of North America.

PERSIANS AND ARABS

One of the infernal punishments of the Parsis was that a man,
who used false measure and weight and who adulterated his mer-
chandize, was compelled to eat dust and earth meted out to him
on a scale (M. Haug, Uber das Ardai Viraf nameh, 1870, p. 25).

Ibn al-Baitar (1197-1248), an Arabic scholar born at Malaga,
Spain, and author of a famous work on pharmacology, discusses
eight kinds of medicinal earth (L. Leclerc, Traite" des simples, II,
1881, pp. 421-427; for a general appreciation of this work see Baron
Carra de Vaux, Les penseurs de Flslam, II, 1921, pp. 289-296).
The eight kinds are the terra sigillata, Egyptian earth, Samian
earth, earth of Chios, Cimolean earth or pure clay (cimolite), earth
of vines called ampelitis (Pliny XXXV, 56) or pharmakltis from
Seleucia in Syria, Armenian earth, and earth of Nishapur. A great
deal of the information given by the Arabic scholar is derived from
Dioscorides and Galen. Earths used in medicine were but rarely
taken internally, but usually applied locally; these cases, therefore,
do not come within the subject of this monograph. Reference is
made here only to Ibn al-Baitar's notes as far as they relate to
earths administered internally. It appears that the sigillated earth,
which will be more fully discussed under the heading "Europe,"
was regarded by Avicenna as an antidote and having the tendency
to eject poisons from the system when taken before or after the act
of poisoning. Under Cimolean Earth, Ali Ibn Mohammed is quoted
as saying that this soft earth, called al-hurr, green in color like ver-
digris, is smoked together with almond bark to serve as food when
it will turn red and assume a good flavor and that it is but rarely
eaten without being smoked. The Cimolean earth is named for
Cimolus (Greek Kimolos), one of the Cyclades, also called Argen-
tiera (cf. Dioscorides V, 175; Pliny XXXV, 57; E. Seidel, Mechithar,
1908, No. 204).

The Armenian earth (boje armenic), according to Ishak Ibn
Amran, was salutary in cases of bubonic plague, being administered
both externally and internally. The same is affirmed by Leo Afri-
canus (in Ramusio, 4th ed., 1588, fol. 10b; French ed. by Schefer,
I, p. 114) with reference to Barbary, save that there the Armenian
earth was applied externally to the bubos. At present no longer
used, this article (Latin bolus armena) was renowned in ancient
times and extensively traded from Armenia, where it is abundant.
It was introduced into medical practice by Galen (Seidel, Mechithar,

150

Persians and Arabs 151

No. 132). It is a soft earth, greasy to the touch, strongly adhering
to the tongue, very fragile, generally of a yellowish brown color,
sometimes of a fine flesh red. According to J. Chardin (Travels in
Persia, ed. Sykes, p. 164), it also occurred abundantly in Persia,
where it was especially used by women in washing their heads.
According to W. Ainslie (Materia Indica, I, 1826, p. 43), it was
brought from the Persian Gulf to India, where the Tamul practi-
tioners prescribed it as an astringent in fluxes of long standing and
supposed it to have considerable efficacy in correcting the state of
the humors in cases of malignant fever. Its constituent parts,
according to Ainslie, are silica 47 per cent, alumina 19 per cent,
magnesia 6.20 per cent, lime 5.40 per cent, iron 5.40 per cent,
water 7.50 per cent.

The most celebrated of all edible clays was that found near
Nishapur in Persia. The Arabic historian al-Ta'alibi (a.d. 961-
1038), who calls it al-naql, writes that it occurred exclusively at
Nishapur and was exported from Zauzan into all quarters of the
globe to places near and distant; a rati of this clay was sometimes
valued at a dinar in Egypt and in the Maghreb (E. Wiedemann,
Zur Mineralogie im Islam, Sitzber. phys.-med. Soz. Erlangen, 1912,
p. 242). According to Edrisi (Jaubert, G^ographie, I, pp. 452, 454),
there was two days' journey from Canein, or Cain, on the road lead-
ing to Nishapur, a kind of brilliant white clay, called tin el-mehaji
and exported for purposes of consumption to distant regions. The
same fact is mentioned by Ibn Haukal (W. Ouseley, Oriental Geo-
graphy of Ebn Haukal, 1800, p. 223).

Ibn al-Baitar devotes much space to the clay of Nishapur,
chiefly relying upon Ali Ibn Mohammed and the celebrated physi-
cian Mohammed Ibn Zakkariya al-Razi (i.e. born at Rei, the
ancient Rhages), known as Razes, of the tenth century. This clay
is described as being white, of an agreeable taste, taken either in
its natural state or roasted. It is sweet to the taste, and soils the
lips on account of its great softness; on the other hand, it is said
that its flavor is somewhat saline, but that exposed to a fire it will
lose this saline property and grow sweet. There are people who
pound it and soften it with rose-water and a little camphor and who
then shape this compound into bread loaves, tablets, or other forms.
Others scent the clay with musk, camphor, or some other aromatic,
and thus take it after having indulged in wine to perfume their
breath and to assuage the heat of the stomach.

According to Razes, the clay of Nishapur fortifies the heart and
combats nausea. It stops vomiting (or is used as an anti-emetic)

152 Geophagy

and especially counteracts nausea provoked by sugared and greasy
foods. Razes holds that the Nishapur clay is not apt to cause
obstructions in the reins and bladder, as it happens with other clays.
In his "Treatise on Clays" Razes tells an interesting story of how
he cured an individual seized by a very grave choleric affection
accentuated by violent fits of vomiting and cramps. The usual
remedies were of no avail; he administered to the patient powdered
Nishapur clay in doses of thirty drams, three times, twice in a
decoction of sweet apples and once in a decoction of sweet rush
(Andropogon schoenanthus) , and his nausea and indigestion were
immediately relieved. What was still more marvelous was that the
patient found himself stronger and merrier than before as though
the medicine had nourished him.

Razes further maintains that he employed Nishapur clay in
treating affections of the stomach, as well as in cases of nausea and
indigestion caused immediately after a meal. This convinced him
that it was necessary to administer a small dose of clay after a meal,
which relieved the indigestion, chills in the abdomen, and the tend-
ency to vomit. He considers Nishapur clay as a capital remedy for
the treatment of affections of the stomach especially with patients
who apparently have no obstruction of the liver or contraction of
the bowels. In these cases this remedy is rarely harmful; on the
contrary, it seems that the body gains weight. He administered
this clay also to individuals who suffered from a considerable secre-
tion of saliva and to all patients seized by a ravenous appetite — all
these were radically cured.

The modest and unadorned report of Razes inspires confidence
and merits full credence.

At present, the habit of clay-eating is widely diffused over Persia.
It has developed into a passion among those people who have taken
to it, and these swallow considerable quantities of clay. The habit
extends to both sexes, notably to women, and is said to be restricted
to common people, while it is rare among the better classes. The
reasons advanced by the people are that "it tastes well" and "sati-
ates their hunger." The clay fiends are characterized by leanness
and sallow, earth-like complexion. Edible clays form a not unim-
portant article of trade, and are sold in the bazars of most cities.
Two edible clays are especially reputed — one traded from Kirman
and called ghel-i-giveh, and another from Kum under the name ghel-
mahallat. The two sorts have been analyzed and described by Goebel
(see also Ehrenberg I p. 184; II p. 36). According to Goebel, these
clays contain no nutritive substances, but some agents which have

Persians and Arabs 153

an effect on the nervous system. Their action is mechanical, not
chemical. They leave the organism without exerting a disturbing
influence on the composition of the blood in case indulgence has not
been excessive. Tietze (Die Mineralreichtiimer Persiens, Jahrbuch
der k.k. geol. Reichsanstalt Wien, 1879, p. 654) gives an analysis
of three kinds of earth from Persia.

J. L. Schlimmer (Terminologie m£dico-pharmaceutique francais-
persane, p. 299, Teheran, 1874) writes that "geophagy is a general
habit among the women of Persia, even when they are not pregnant.
The Persian physicians attribute this 'idiosyncrasy' to the presence
of intestinal worms, which for the rest is far from being proved.
Among young children, however, this particular habit is often con-
nected with the existence of intestinal worms, and in this case vermi-
fuges administered in small doses continued for a long time and the
simultaneous use of wine will overcome this 'depraved appetite' ; but
a cure becomes difficult in cases where geophagy is the concomitant
symptom of scrophulous diathesis when the young patients assume
a cachectic appearance, which is quite characteristic of their
condition."

Polak (Persien, II, p. 273) observes that the Persians have trained
their taste to such an extent that they discriminate between various
kinds of clay without hesitation.

An earthy, soap-like substance that the natives term chunniah is
obtained from lakes not far from Halla. It is largely eaten by the
women of Sind (J. Wood, Journey to the Source of the River Oxus,
1872, p. 19). In Lasch's article (p. 220) this chunniah has been
transformed into tschamiah.

Hajaj, a military officer, who served under the Caliph Abdul
Malik (a.d. 685-705), was in the habit of eating clay. Determined
to wean himself from this habit, he consulted Theodocus (Theodunus
or Tiaduq), a renowned physician, as to the proper remedy. "The
will of a man of your mold," Theodocus responded. Hajaj then
ceased to eat clay (L. Leclerc, Histoire de la m£decine arabe, I,
1876, p. 83).

As in China, earth-eating was also connected with religious
beliefs among the Arabs and the Mohammedans of India. Hooper
and Mann (p. 259) inform us that dust from the tomb of the prophet
is an auspicious article, said to be a cure for every disease. Accord-
ing to E. W. Lane (Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians,
5th ed., I, p. 323), who received such specimens from a Mecca pil-
grim, they come in oblong, flat cakes of a grayish earth, each about

154 Geophagy

an inch in length and stamped with an Arabic inscription, "In the
name of Allah! Dust of our land [mixed] with the saliva of some of
us." They are alleged to be composed of earth obtained from the
surface of the grave of the Prophet and to be a cure for every disease,
and are sold at Mecca. A cake of this kind is sometimes worn as an
amulet in a leather case. It is also formed into lumps of the size
and shape of a pear, and is suspended from the railing which sur-
rounds the monument erected over the grave of a saint.

Sir Richard Burton (Pilgrimage to Al-Madineh and Mecca, I,
p. 415) found in Arabia a yellow loam or bole being eaten by anaemic
women. It was used as a soap in some parts of the East, and was
supposed to have some miraculous properties owing to the Prophet
having employed it with success as a medical agent.

In 1612 William Lithgow visited the cave near Bethlehem in
which the Virgin Mary, at the time of the persecution of Herodes,
took refuge, and gives this account (Totall Discourse of the Rare
Adventures and Painefull Peregrinations, p. 247 of the edition
reprinted at Glasgow, 1906): "The earth of the cave is white as
snow, and hath this miraculous operation, that a little of it drunke
in any liquor, to a woman, that after her childbirth is barren of
milke, shall forthwith give abundance: which is not onely availeable
to Christians, but likewise to Turkish, Moorish, and Arabianish
women, who will come from farre countries, to fetch of this earth.
I have seene the nature of this dust practised, wherefore I may
boldly affirme it, to have the force of a strange vertue: Of the
which earth I brought with me a pound weight, and presented the
halfe of it to our sometimes Gracious Queene Anne of blessed mem-
ory, with divers other rare relicts also, as a girdle, and a paire of
garters of the Holy Grave, all richly wrought in silke and gold, hav-
ing this inscription at every end of them in golden letters, Sancto
Sepulchro, and the word Jerusalem, etc."

The legend goes that the milk of the Virgin when she took refuge
in that grotto spurted against the rock, and ever since this earth has
been capable of increasing the milk of both women and animals. In
the first place, of course, the question is here of earth-eating (cf . the
analogous custom in Australia of using earth externally as a means
of promoting lactation, above, p. 139).

The Italian designation for diatomaceous earth, latte di luna
("lunar milk"), may be connected with this belief (other Italian
terms for it are agarico minerale and farina fossile).

In an interesting study entitled "Mohammedan Saints and
Sanctuaries in Palestine" (Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society,

Persians and Arabs 155

V, 1925, p. 188), T. Canaan writes, "Christians as well as Moham-
medans use the soft whitish stones of the milk-grotto in Bethlehem
to increase mothers' milk. The stones are rubbed in water and given
to the nursing women. It is supposed that the holy family took
refuge in this cave where a drop of Mary's milk fell to the floor."

The same author reports that plaster, stones, and sweepings of
many shrines are used medicinally. Some of the earth of a certain
locality made with oil into a paste cures sores of the head. Earth
gathered from another holy place is dissolved in water, and given to
cattle will guard them against disease. Everything that belongs to or
comes in contact with a saint or his shrine is believed to receive some
of his power which may be transmitted to others. Thus the earth
of a saint's tomb (likewise stones, water, grass and trees) is believed
to possess supernatural power.

AFRICA

T. F. Ehrmann (Geschichte der merkwiirdigsten Reisen, VII,
1793, p. 70; after J. Matthew's Journey to Sierra Leone 1785-87)
speaks of a white, soap-like earth found here and there in Sierra
Leone and so fat that the Negroes frequently eat it with rice, because
it melts like butter; it is also used for white- washing their houses.
Ehrmann adds, "A curiosity which merits a closer investigation."
The same clay was also reported by Golberry (1785-87) from Sene-
gambia and described by him as a white, soap-like earth as soft as
butter and so fat that the Negroes add it to their rice and other
foods which thus become very savory. This clay is said not to
injure the stomach (Lasch, p. 216).

In the third edition of his "Ansichten der Natur" (1849, I,
p. 167), A. von Humboldt writes, "In Guinea the Negroes eat a
yellowish earth which they call caouac. When carried as slaves to the
West Indies, they try to procure there a similar earth. They affirm
that earth-eating is quite harmless in their home country. The
caouac of the American islands, however, makes the slaves sick.
Therefore, earth-eating was forbidden there, though in 1751 earth
was secretly sold in the markets of Martinique. The Negroes of
Guinea assert that in their country they eat habitually a certain clay
whose flavor gratifies them without being harmed by it. Those
addicted to eating caouac are so fond of it that no punishment can
prevent them from swallowing earth." Humboldt's information is
derived from Thibault de Chanvallon (Voyage a la Martinique,
p. 85).

Ehrenberg (II pp. 15, 53) has refuted the idea propounded by
Thibault de Chanvallon that the Guinea Negroes generally and
habitually eat a red earth, without endangering their health. Ehren-
berg's conclusions are based on the observations of many mission-
aries stationed at many points of the Gold and Slave Coasts during
more than thirty years. On the whole, earth-eating occurs there but
seldom, chiefly on the part of children and thoughtless persons.
Ehrenberg (p. 19) has also analyzed a clay specimen from Cuba and
arrived at the conclusion that the caouac substitute of the West
Indies alleged to be so harmful does not appear to be more harmful
than the earth of Guinea.

In regard to the Congo region we are well informed by Catholic
missionaries who have paid special attention to this subject. It is
noteworthy that geophagy prevails among some tribes of the Congo

156

Africa 157

and is absent among others. F. Gaud (Les Mandja, p. 151, Brussels,
1911) writes, "At the present time it is only during famines that the
Mandja (in the French Congo) gather the earth of termites'-nests
and consume it mixed with water and powdered tree-bark. This
compound is said to assuage the tortures of hunger in a singular man-
ner. We think that this effect must be attributed not only to the
physical action resulting from the filling of the stomach, but also
to the absorption of organic products existing in the clay. It is in
fact known that the walls of the termites'-nests are built by the
female workers with tiny clay balls kneaded by them by means of
their saliva. It would not be surprising that this saliva contains
formic acid."

The buildings of the great ants (Termes bellicosus) are constructed
from red ferruginous clays in the shape of mushrooms (see illustra-
tion in G. Schweinfurth, The Heart of Africa, I, p. 349).

C. van Overbergh (Les Basonge, p. 151) gives the following
information: "The Baluba frequently eat pembe or white earth.
Result: appalling leanness and swelling of the abdomen. Pregnant
women do not eat white earth. In general women eat earth; I have
never seen men eat it, but I do not guarantee that men will not eat
it. Another observer, Michaud, states that he saw men and women
alike eat earth. It appears that a person who has once tasted this
earth becomes infatuated with it, but dies in consequence."

Another missionary among the Baluba, R. P. Colle (Les Baluba,
Congo beige, I, p. 131), states, "A certain number of children dis-
play a very lively desire to eat the embers of the hearth and clay.
It is that firm, fat, white and unctuous clay which serves for the
manufacture of pottery. Perhaps they are driven to this by the
need of salt. The embers in fact contain potash; and the clay in
question, a slight quantity of magnesia. The result of this habit is
the disease called le carreau."

While among the Baluba, as stated, pregnant women do not con-
sume earth, it is eaten by pregnant women of the Mayombe (C.
van Overbergh, Les Mayombe, p. 121).

"At Nouvelle-Anvers in the Belgian Congo, it is reported by
eye-witnesses, can be procured for five Centimes the kilo a sort of
clay of which the natives are very fond. This is a yellow earth of
agreeable odor which contains silicic acid, oxid of aluminum,
sodium, and a little iron" (C. van Oberbergh, Les Bangala, £tat
indigene du Congo, p. 123).

R. Schmitz (Les Baholoholo, Congo beige, p. 65) writes, "Earth
is not alimentary. Once in a while one encounters a case of geo-

158 Geophagy

mania, a sick person who has a passion for the wall of a hut or an
ants'-nest and who eats of it till he dies."

On the other hand we read, "Not the slightest indication of
geophagy among the Mangbetu, Mangbellet, and Mobadi" to which
another observer adds, "Save among a few sick" (C. van Overbergh,
Les Mangbetu, p. 181).

"The Ababua does not eat any species of earth" (J. Halkin, Les
Ababua, Congo beige, p. 151). "No case of geophagy exists among
the Warega" (Delhaise, Les Warega, Congo beige, p. 87).

According to Winwood Reade, the famous author of "The
Martyrdom of Man," a white clay is frequently chewed or drunk in
solution on the Gold Coast, the young people taking it as a sweet-
meat, and the old people as a medicine (Journal Anthrop. Institute,
X, 1881, p. 467).

The following interesting account of geophagy with reference to
the people of Batanga is given by W. L. Distant (Journal Anthrop.
Institute, X, 1881, p. 467) :—

"A somewhat curious instance of this custom came before me at
Batanga in May, 1880; and subsequent inquiry has enabled me to
throw some light upon it. From what I could gather while at Small
Batanga, the custom seems to prevail all along the coast as far as
the island of Corisco, where I believe it is also known, and perhaps
it extends farther south. I met with it first at Babani, where there
occurs a deposit of yellowish red clay, containing about 15 per cent
of iron and a considerable quantity of mica and some quartz par-
ticles, but there is evidently a large quantity of organic matter in it.
This clay is made up into balls of about five inches in diameter, and
baked over a slow fire. When quite dry and ready for use, a small
portion is broken off, and placed in the hollow of any smooth leaf
and reduced to powder between the finger and thumb. The leaf is
then gently shaken in order to cause the harder and more gritty par-
ticles to fall aside. These are carefully removed, and the residue,
consisting of a fine powder, is transferred to the mouth, masticated,
and swallowed. I was informed that the men use it while on a long
journey, when they do not wish to stop in order to cook food. As,
however, they travel far without carrying something in the way of
provisions that can be eaten readily, this scarcely accounts ade-
quately for the origin of the custom. Some inquiries made at
Camaroons elicited the following additional information. The cus-
tom is known there, but does not exist to the same extent, or in the
same manner as at Batanga. The material used is a very dirty

Africa 159

earthy clay, with but little iron and no mica, and is derived from a
deposit on the banks of the rivers. When baked in the sun, it
becomes very hard; and, indeed, is sometimes used in the construc-
tion of houses. The men sometimes, but seldom, eat it; but I am
told the women, during the time of pregnancy, when they are sup-
posed to be assailed by very unnatural appetites, use it largely. Is
it the result of inheritance, or merely from the force of imitation,
that the custom is almost universal among the Camaroons children?
I am told that all of them eat it, even those belonging to the mission,
who are well fed, and are strangers to the sensation of hunger. By
way of test, I showed some of them a small piece of the Batanga
earth. They looked at it for a moment as if to make sure of it, then
eagerly besought me to give them some. I gave them what I had
in my hand, and they greedily swallowed it, afterwards expressing
a desire that, as the kind I had given them was so nice, they would
like some more. These children had just supped, and their evident
appreciation of the clay could, therefore, hardly be connected with
hunger, and would seem to indicate an appetite, or at least a liking,
however unnatural, not much related to the desire for food. One of
those children, I was informed, usually took a piece of the clay to
bed with her, but this child, though well-fed, was always hungry."
The Negro slaves imported from West Africa to America con-
tinued the habit of earth-eating, especially in the West Indies. P.
Browne (Civil and Natural History of Jamaica, 1756, p. 64), who
estimated the number of Negroes living in the island at that time at
120,000 (p. 24), describes a peculiar sort of earth that runs in veins,
and is chiefly found in marly beds. "It is of different colors," he
writes, "but these generally answer to that of the layer wherein it
is found; it is apparently smooth, and greasy, and somewhat cohe-
sive in its nature; but dissolves easily in the mouth. The Negroes,
who make frequent use of this substance, say, that it is sweetish;
and many get a habit of eating it to such excess, that it often proves
fatal to them. It is the most certain poison I have known, when
used for any length of time; and often enters so abundantly into
the course of the circulation, as to obstruct all the minute capillaries
of the body; nay, has been often found concreted in the glands, and
smaller vessels of the lungs, so far as to become sensibly perceptible
to the touch. It breaks the texture of the blood entirely; and for
many months before they die, a general languor affects the machine,
and all the internal parts, lips, gums, and tongue, are quite pale,
insomuch, that the whole mass of their juices seems to be no better
than a waterish lymph. It is probable they are first induced to the

160 Geophagy

use of this substance (which is generally well known among them)
to allay some sharp cravings of the stomach; either from hunger,
worms, or an unnatural habit of body."

It is even suggested that Negro and Indian slaves took to earth
in despair as a means of slow suicide and that the Carib slaves ate
earth whenever they were punished or mistreated (Ehrenberg II
p. 16, after W. Irving, Columbus). What is more interesting to us is
the ceremonial use of earth on the part of American Negroes.

G. Hughes (Natural History of Barbados, 1750, p. 15), speaking
of the ordeals of the Negroes of Barbados, writes, "They take a piece
of earth from the grave of their nearest relations, or parents, if it can
be had ; if not, from any other grave. This being mingled with water,
they drink it, imprecating the divine vengeance to inflict an immedi-
ate punishment upon them; but in particular, that the water and
mingled grave-dust which they have drunk (if they are guilty of the
crime) may cause them to swell, and burst their bellies. Most of
them are so firmly persuaded that it will have this effect upon the
guilty, that few, if any (provided they are conscious of the imputed
crime), will put the proof of their innocency upon the experi-
ment."

In the disease known as cachexia africana (mal d'estomac of the
French), common among the Negroes of the West Indies and Guiana,
an essential symptom is a generally depraved appetite and an un-
governable determination to the eating of dirt. According to Cragin
(p. 358), "the only appreciable signs of mental activity during the
course of this disease are the crafty and cunning plans which the
patient most subtly matures and as stealthily executes to procure
his desired repast. This consists usually of charcoal, chalk, dried
mortar, mud, clay, sand, shells, rotten wood, shreds of cloth or
paper, hair, or occasionally some other unnatural substance. The
patient, when accused of dirt-eating, which is too often urged as a
voluntary crime rather than an irresistible disease, invariably denies
the charge. As curative means, neither promises nor threats (even
when put in execution), nor yet the confinement of the legs and hands
in stocks and manacles exert the least influence and their preventive
effect is as temporary as their employment; so great is the depravity
of the appetite, and so strongly are the unfortunate sufferers under
this complaint subjected to its irresistible dominion. A metallic
mask or mouthpiece secured by a lock is the principal means of
security for providing against their indulging in dirt-eating, if left
for a moment to themselves, nor does this effect a cure or save the
life of the patient."

Africa 161

Cragin quotes from a work "Practical Rules for the management
and medical treatment of Negro slaves in the sugar colonies, by a
professional planter" (London, 1811) the statement, "We find that
Negroes laboring under any great depression of mind, from the
rigorous treatment of their masters, or from any other cause, addict
themselves singularly to the eating of dirt."

Cragin is inclined to think that the disposition to eat chalk, clay,
and earth arises from a purely physiological cause, an acidity of the
stomach, not from a melancholic or any other affection of the mind.
He concludes that the effect has been mistaken for the cause. As
one of the facts to prove his position he cites the following: persons
living on the same plantation, perhaps on the identical section of
the same plantation, on which they were born and reared, with all
their friends around them, and by indulgent masters and owners,
who are themselves the real slaves, while the owned are only
nominally so, provided with ample food, raiment, and if necessary,
medical aid, are also subject to this malady.

Dr. Melville J. Herskovits of Northwestern University informs
me that the Bush Negroes and the Negroes of the coastal region of
Surinam eat earth only on ceremonial occasions. Many times he
saw women who were possessed by the spirit rolling lumps of a
white sacred clay (pemba doti) in their hands during the time of
possession and repeatedly licking their hands or the clay.

According to Major J. 0. Browne (The Vanishing Tribes of
Kenya, 1925, p. 104), "instances occur from time to time of earth-
eating, but they are always associated with an outbreak of ankylos-
tomiasis, of which, of course, it is a well-known symptom."

F. Fulleborn (Das deutsche Njassa- und Ruwuma-Gebiet, 1906,
p. 115) has the following notice: "In the south of German East
Africa earth is eaten, although not so generally as it is reported with
reference to Asiatic and American peoples. The fact that pregnant
women among the Wakissi are said to eat earth once in a while
would mean nothing, since the pregnant often have desires for
strange things. I was witness of how at Wiedhafen on the Nyassa
relatives brought to a prisoner together with his daily ration a piece
of loam (not a special kind, but a quite common one apparently
detached from the wall of a hut) of which he ate with seeming en-
joyment. This, it is true, was the only case observed by myself, but
Elton reports in regard to the Wassangu that he saw there young
children and women emaciated into skeletons who had contracted a
disease from earth-eating, and Johnston reports similar cases from
British Central Africa."

162 Geophagy

Ehrenberg (II p. 19) received also a clay from Abyssinia with
the remark that it was eagerly eaten by women.

In Morocco the earth from the tombs of saints is used in the
healing of disease. It is called the hanna or henne of the saint.
It is made into plasters to be applied to the skin or into amulets. It
is also moistened with the water of the sanctuary, and then becomes
a potion which will cure the most obstinate evils. It is known that
the objects concealed in a sanctuary are never stolen, thanks to the
protection of the saint who would blind, paralyze or instantly slay
thievish intruders. By making a bag containing earth from a saint's
tomb and suspending it in a tree, on the walls surrounding a garden,
in the flour-chest, or in a shop which remains unguarded at night,
the saint is obliged to protect these places; he is transformed into a
veritable guardian and is compelled to punish the thief as though
his own sanctuary had been violated (Legey, Essai de folklore maro-
cain, 1926, p. 10).

During her stay in Taourirth Abdallah, which is one of the
Kabyl towns in the foothills of the Atlas, in Algeria, in 1928, Miss
Georgiana B. Such, as she kindly informs me, noticed numerous
cases of clay-eating and always in individuals obviously suffering
from some more or less obvious polyglandular disturbance or insuf-
ficiency— many had goiter; all those examined by her were suffer-
ing from intestinal parasites, many had tapeworms, and all were
undernourished .

L. Rauwolf (Beschreibung der Raiss inn die Morgenlander, 1583,
p. 32) writes that in Tripoli an ash-colored earth called malun was
used for washing the head and that another earth called iusabor was
frequently eaten by women as among us the pregnant eat coal and
other things.

R. F. Burton (Lake Regions of Central Africa, II, p. 28) writes
that clay of ant-hills, called "sweet earth," is commonly eaten on
both coasts of Africa. According to Major Tremearne (The Ban of
the Bori, p. 80), the women of Nigeria eat white earth during the
first three months of pregnancy to insure a successful delivery, but
earth is not used as food during a famine.

EUROPE

In his Naturalis Historia (XVIII, 29) Pliny discusses alica, a
preparation or a kind of porridge made from peeled spelt for which
Italy was famed. It was manufactured in several localities, for in-
stance, in the territories of Verona and Pisae, but the product of
Campania was most renowned. Pliny describes in detail how the
grain was dealt with in Campania for this purpose and that three
kinds of alica, the finest, the seconds, and the coarse were distin-
guished; none of these, however, had as yet the white gloss for
which they were reputed. For this purpose, Pliny continues — and
expresses his surprise by adding a mirum dictu ("strange to relate")
— a white marl or chalk (creta) is mixed with the grain, and this
chalk well embodied in the mass lends it color and tenderness (postea,
mirum dictu, admiscetur creta, quae transit in corpus coloremque
et teneritatem adfert). This chalk, he writes, is found between
Puteoli and Neapolis upon a hill called Leucogaeum (a Greek name
meaning "white earth"). He refers to a decree, then still in existence,
of the emperor Augustus, in which the latter ordered an annual allot-
ment of twenty thousand sesterces to be paid from his exchequer to
the Neapolitans for the lease of this hill. The reason for this con-
tribution, the emperor stated, was that the people of Campania
alleged that their alica could not be made without this mineral.

It must be emphasized that what Pliny reports with reference to
the alica of Campania was not a regular, but an exceptional practice
at which Pliny himself marvels as a very singular fact. In other
places of Italy as well as in Egypt the alica was prepared without
the addition of creta. Accordingly we face here a purely local custom
whose principal object was to whiten the meal or to intensify its
whiteness. Nothing like improving its flavor or pleasure in eating a
clayish substance is mentioned by Pliny. This passage is not con-
clusive in attributing to the ancients the habit of earth-eating, as
has rashly been done by Ehrenberg (II p. 2).

Pliny further mentions an adulterated kind of alica produced in
Africa, over which gypsum, in the proportion of one fourth, is
sprinkled. No reason therefor is given. Fee, one of Pliny's com-
mentators, wonders how the African mixture accommodated itself
to the stomachs of those who ate it. I believe, very well, and that
F£e himself with millions of others has numerous times consumed
flour adulterated with gypsum and perhaps worse ingredients.

163

164 Geophagy

I know of no passage in Greek or Roman literature to warrant
the opinion that earth, clay, or chalk was occasionally or habitually
consumed, either for pleasure or as a necessity. Various renowned
clays like those of Samos, Chios, and Selinos were only employed
medicinally or for industrial purposes (Pliny XXXV, 16, 53-56).

Galen (a.d. 129-199) has left an interesting account of his
journeying back and forth between Rome and Pergamum in order
to stop at Lemnos and procure a supply of the famous terra sigillata,
a reddish clay stamped into pellets with the sacred seal of Diana.
He describes the solemn procedure by which the priestess from the
neighboring city gathered the red earth from the hill where it was
found, sacrificing no animals, but wheat and barley to the earth.
He brought away with him some twenty thousand of the little disks
or seals which were supposed to cure even lethal poisons and the bite
of mad dogs. Berthelot believed that this earth was an oxid of
iron more or less hydrated and impure. During the middle ages and
later Greek monks replaced the priestess of Diana, and the religious
ceremony was performed in the presence of Turkish officials (L.
Thorndike, I, p. 130).

The learned Dr. Covel, in his Diary (1670-79), gives us an in-
teresting account of what he saw in connection with the terra sigil-
lata of Lemnos, the sacred earth with supposed curative properties:

"On the side hills, on the contrary side of the valley, directly
over against the middle point betwixt this hill and Panagia kotzinatz
is the place where they dig the terra sigillata. At the foot of a hard
rock of gray hard freestone enclining to marble is a little clear spring
of most excellent water, which, falling down a little lower, looseth
its water in a kind of milky bogge; on the East side of this spring,
within a foot or my hand's breadth of it, they every year take out
the earth on the 6th of August, about three hours after the sun.
Several papas, as well as others, would fain have persuaded me that,
at the time of our Saviour's transfiguration, this place was sanctifyed
to have his virtuous earth, and that it is never to be found soft and
unctuous, but always perfect rock, unlesse only that day, which they
keep holy in remembrance of the Metamorphosis, and at that time
when the priest hath said his liturgy; but I believe they take it onely
that day, and set the greater price upon it by its scarcenesse. Either
it was the Venetian, or perhaps Turkish policy for the Grand Signor
to engrosse it all to himself, unless some little, which the Greeks
steal; and they prefer no poor Greek to take any for his own occa-
sions, for they count it an infallible cure of all agues taken in the
beginning of the fit with water, and drank so two or three times.

Europe 165

Their women drink it to hasten childbirth, and to stop the fluxes
that are extraordinary; and they count it an excellent counter-
poyson, and have got a story that no vessel made of it will hold
poison, but immediately splinter in a thousand pieces. I have seen
several finganes (Turkish cups) made of it in Stamboul; we had a
good store of it presented to us by Agathone and others, all incom-
parably good. We had some such as it is naturally dig'd out and
not wash'd . . . Thus they take it out: before day they begin and
digge a well about 1 Y^ yards wide, and a little above a man's height
deep; and then the earth is taken out soft and loomy, some of it
like butter, which the Greeks say, and the Turks believe, is turned
out of rocky stone into soft clay by virtues of their mass. When
they have taken out some 20 or 30 kintals for the Greeks' use, they
fill it up again, and so leave it stop't without any guard in the
world . . .

"We came down to a town called Hagiapate, where there is a
great large fountain, where they wash and prepare the hagion choma
(sacred earth) for the Turkish seal. They first dissolve it in water,
well working it with their hands; then let the water pass through
a sive, and what remains they throw away. They let the water
stand till settled, then take of the clear, and, when dry enough, they
mould in their hands; and most of this we have is shaped from
thence. It is all here white, yet I had some given me flesh-coloured.
I enquired diligently about it, and they all told me it came out of
the same pit; but I expect some of these fellows have found some
other place which they conceal. We had some little quantity given
us of several people, but very privately, for fear of the Avani&s.
Agathone, being the Pasha's favourite, feared nothing, but gave us
at least 20 okes before 20 people. They tell a story that the earth
is hollow from the holy well, when dig'd, to the fountain, where they
wash it; and that a duck once dived in the water there and was
taken up here; but it seemed an impossible thing to me, there being
not water enough in the first place to cover a duck, and the water
in the bogge so very shallow, and the earth not sinuous."

J. T. Bent, editor of Covel's Diary (Early Voyages in the Levant,
1913, p. 285), adds the following comments: "Dr. Covel's remarks
on the sacred earth of Lemnos are particularly valuable, as this is
one of the clearest instances of a pagan superstition being carried on
through the influence of Christianity down to our own times. Pliny
mentions it (XXIX, 5) ; also Dioscorides (V, 113) ; and Galen made
an expedition to Lemnos on purpose to see it, and gives us an
account of it (De simpl. med., IX, 2). He mentions the disorders

166 Geophagy

for which it was considered beneficial; he also gives us the cere-
monies and mode of operation; on certain occasions a priestess of
Artemis came, and after certain rites carried off a cartload to the
city; she mixed it with water, kneaded it, and strained off both the
moisture and gritty particles, and when it was like wax, she im-
pressed it with the seal of Artemis. During the middle ages, the
reputed virtues of this earth remained unimpaired as a remedy for
the plague."

Pierre Belon witnessed the ceremony on August 6, 1533. When
Tozer visited Lemnos in 1890, the ceremony was still performed
annually on August 6, and was to be completed before sunrise, or
the earth would lose its efficacy. Mohammedan Khojas then shared
in the religious ceremony, sacrificing a lamb. In the twentieth cen-
tury the entire ceremony was abandoned. In western Europe the
terra sigillata continued to be held in high esteem, and was included
in pharmacopoeias as late as 1833 and 1848. C. J. S. Thompson
has given a chemical analysis of a sixteenth-century tablet of the
Lemnian earth, with the result that no evidence therein of its pos-
sessing any medicinal property could be found (L. Thorndike, II,
p. 131).

Hegiage Ben Josef al-Thakefi, governor of Arabia at the time of
the Caliphs, is said to have died of phthisis caused by overeating of
terra sigillata, called by the Arabs tin makhtum, lutum and lutum
sigillatum (D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque orientale, II, 1777, p. 229).
This earth is also mentioned in the pharmacological literature of the
Arabs, for instance, in Serapion's Liber de semplici medicina (P.
Guigues, Les noms arabes dans Serapion, Journal asiatique, 1905,
p. 85) and by Ibn al-Baitar (L. Leclerc, Traite" des simples, II,
p. 421).

Peter of Abano, in his Treatise on Poisons (Tractatus de venenis,
about 1316), mentions the terra sigillata which, he says, causes
vomiting if there is any poison in the stomach. Kings and princes
in the west take it with their meals as a safeguard, and it is called
terra sigillata because stamped with the king's seal. Now, however,
the seals are no longer trustworthy, and Peter cautions the Pope
against what may be offered him as terra sigillata (Thorndike, II,
p. 909).

Earth dug from a grotto in Malta, where St. Paul spent a night,
was formerly used for the cure of many ailments, being esteemed a
cordial, a sudorific, and a certain remedy for the bites and stings of
venomous animals. In the eighteenth century this earth was dis-

Europe 167

tributed from Malta, made up in small round cakes and stamped
with the impression of a winged cherub and the words terra sigillata
(Hill, History of the Materia Medica, p. 206).

In a few wretched villages of Sardinia bread is still prepared
from the meal of acorns, which is mixed with a ferruginous argil-
laceous earth, in order to counteract the tannic acid of the acorns.
This earth is called trokko; and the bread, pan' ispeli (M. L. Wagner,
Das landliche Leben Sardiniens, p. 60, Heidelberg, 1921). This
practice corresponds exactly with the acorn bread of the Porno of
California (below, p. 173).

Altheer (p. 93) writes that at Ogliastra in Sardinia a porridge of
acorn meal is mixed with a fat clay and that this compound is made
into cakes which are sprinkled with ashes or smeared with a little
grease and taken as daily food.

The women of Spain and Portugal take pleasure in munching a
pottery clay styled bucaro from which vases of a yellow reddish
color are made; when dissolved in water or wine, it imparts to these
a very agreeable flavor and odor. The bucaro clay is found near
Estremoz in the province of Alemtejo, Portugal, and in the province
of Estremadura. The almagro, a very fine clay which occurs near
Cartagena in the province of Murcia, Spain, is mixed with powdered
tobacco in order to render it less volatile and to give it that sweet
flavor which is the characteristic of the tobacco of Seville (Camilli,
p. 187). Mixed with powdered chili pepper, the same clay is fre-
quently eaten in southern Spain (Altheer, p. 93). The word almagro
(also almagra or almagre) is derived from the Arabic al-maghra
("red ochre*) ; this clay is still employed in painting and known in
France as rouge indien ("Indian red") or rouge de Perse ("Persian
red").

Deniker states that it is asserted by women that the eating of
earth gives a delicate complexion to the face and that the same cus-
tom has also been pointed out among women in several countries of
Europe, more especially in Spain, where the sandy clay which is
used for making the alcarrazas is especially in vogue as an edible
earth. The Spanish word alcarraza, derived from the Arabic al-
kurraz ("earthenware vessel, pitcher"), denotes a porous, unglazed
earthenware jar for cooling the water; in the southwestern United
States such a jar is commonly called olla.

It is said that the ladies of the Spanish aristocracy in the seven-
teenth century had such a passion for geophagy that the ecclesiastic

168 Geophagy

and secular authorities took steps to combat the evil (Morel-Fatio,
Comer Barro. Melanges de philologie romane d£di£s a Carl Wahlund,
p. 41, Macon, 1896).

In Macedonia magnesia was sold in the markets and baked in
the bread. Another sort of earth was so much in use there that
some Ulemas from Anatolia once offered the Grand Vizier various
specimens of it as a cheap means of nutrition for the Turkish troops
(Altheer, p. 93).

Saint Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) describes a complicated
cure of leprosy by use of the earth from an ant-hill (L. Thorndike,
II, p. 147).

A fossil flour was used in Saxony in times of famine, and its con-
sumption had fatal results. A similar substance was found in Italy,
notably in the territory near Magognano in the beginning of the
nineteenth century, but it is not on record that this substance styled
in Italy "mineral agaric" and "lunar milk" (above, p. 154) was
actually consumed (Camilli, p. 188).

The miners in the sandstone mines of the Kyffhauser ate fine
clay placed like butter on bread (known as "stone butter"). The
same is reported for miners near Kelbre in Thuringia who used to
eat a lithomarge called "stone marrow" (steinmark), a fine clay
made liquid or spongy by a small quantity of water (Camilli, p. 187).
"Mountain meal" (bergmehl) was resorted to in Germany during
the Thirty Years' War for feeding man and cattle (see Hopffe
and Zaunick in Bibliography).

"In Finland a kind of earth is occasionally mixed with bread.
It consists of empty shells of animalculae, so small and soft that
they do not crunch perceptibly between the teeth; it fills the stomach,
but gives no real nourishment. In periods of war, chronicles and
documents preserved in archives often give intimation of earths con-
taining infusoria having been eaten; speaking of them under the
vague and general name of 'mountain meal.' It was thus during
the Thirty Years' War in Pomerania (at Kamin or Cammin) ; in the
Lausitz (at Muskau); and in the territory of Dessau (at Klieken);
and subsequently in 1719 and 1733 in the fortress of Wittenberg"
(A. v. Humboldt, Aspects of Nature, I, p. 196). Ehrenberg (II p. 5)
adds Miihlhausen and Oberburgbernheim in Alsace according to
the Chronicle of Basle, where earth was baked into bread, and says
that the earth-cakes of Klieken served as bread in the fortress
Wittenberg, so that the government then found it profitable to sell
this treasure of the earth as fiscal property.

Europe 169

During a famine in 1832, the foodstuffs used in the parish Degerna
on the frontier of Lapponia contained a meal-like silicious earth
mixed with real flour and tree-bark, according to analyses of Ber-
celius, Retzius, and Ehrenberg. For a long time it has been custom-
ary at Umea, Sweden, to add such earth to wheat flour, and this
is said to have no injurious effect on health. Hundreds of car-loads
of such earth, especially from Lillhaggsjbn Lake in Umea, mixed
with foodstuffs, are said to have served as a nourishment to the
Lapps about the same time. Such earth is likewise utilized in
Finland; near Laihela, in the region of Vasa in Oesterbotten, Fin-
land, a powder-like white clayish earth (according to Retzius, inor-
ganic) is used as an addition to flour (Ehrenberg II p. 5; and
Berichtiiber dieVerhandlungen der Berliner Akademie, 1837, pp. 41-43;
1838, p. 7).

NORTH AMERICA

It is commonly believed (and science also has its conventional
traditions sometimes half true, sometimes untrue or unproven) that
Alexander von Humboldt was the first who drew attention to geo-
phagy among American tribes or even to the subject at all; and
when geophagy is spoken of, it is usually Humboldt's illustrious
name which is remembered. Humboldt made the subject of geophagy
fashionable; his account certainly retains its value, and is still en-
titled to the interest which it at first aroused, but he was neither
the first who discussed the subject (many European writers of the
eighteenth century were quite familiar with it as far as Africa,
Siberia and Europe are concerned), nor was he the first to point it
out with reference to American tribes.

As early as 1527 earth-eating was mentioned by Alvar Nunez
Cabeza de Vaca. Speaking of a tribe called by him Iguaces, who
live on wild roots and are much exposed to starvation, he relates
that "now and then they kill deer and at times get a fish, but this
is so little and their hunger so great that they eat spiders and ant-
eggs [the pupas], worms, lizards, salamanders, and serpents, also
vipers the bite of which is deadly. They swallow earth and wood,
and all they can get, the dung of deer and more things I do not
mention; and I verily believe, from what I saw, that if there were
any stones in the country, they would eat them also." In another
passage the same explorer states that the fruit of the mesquite tree
(Prosopis juliflora) was eaten with earth, and then became sweet
and very palatable (F. Bandelier, Journey of Cabeza de Vaca, 1905,
pp. 89, 127).

Sir Samuel Argoll, in a letter on his voyage to Virginia in 1613,
speaks of "the discovery of a strange kind of earth, the virtue of
which he did not know; but the Indians eate it for physicke, alleag-
ing that it cureth the sicknesse and paine of the belly" (Purchas,
XIX, p. 92).

In reference to clay-eating among the present-day Virginia In-
dians Dr. Frank G. Speck, professor of anthropology at the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania, has been good enough to send me the
following information: "I recall from my notes that the Pamunkey
and the Catawba would confess to eating a little clay at times when
they are engaged in making pottery. This they do not as a practice
nor, as I recall, for medicinal purposes, but because it tastes agree-

170

North America 171

ably to them; but they do not make a regular practice of it. They
say that it is commenced when they are children, playing about in
the clay which has been gathered and cleaned for pot-making by
their mothers. Both sexes eat clay. It does not seem to have be-
come a habit among the Indians as among the whites. And I believe
there is a connection between it and pot-making, as a theory in its
history in the southeast. The Pamunkey mix powdered mussel-
shells (Unio) with their pot-clay, and the Catawba sometimes blood,
which may be worth considering in the development of the taste."
A similar example of women potters enjoying clay while at work is
given below (p. 190) for Colombia.

At a later date Dr. Speck communicated to me the following
personal observation: "The Catawba women who still make clay
pots are given to eating clay in small quantities, because they like
the taste of it. This is done when building pots. They say it is
good for the health in small measure, acting as a laxative. I found
it so too upon trial. Their children also eat it and would be apt to
eat too much of it if not controlled by their mothers."

The Zuni eat the tuber of Solatium fendleri (so-called native
potato) raw, and after every mouthful a bite of white clay is taken
to counteract the unpleasant astringent effect of the potato in the
mouth (M. C. Stevenson, Ethnobotany of the Zuni Indians, Bureau
Am. Ethn., 30th Annual Rep., p. 71).

It seems, however, that this procedure was not general among
the Zuni. At least F. H. Cushing (Zuni Breadstuff, p. 226, repr. in
Indian Notes and Monographs of the Museum of the American
Indian, VIII), in speaking of the preparation of a diminutive wild
potato, which is poisonous in the raw state or whole, but rendered
harmless by the removal of the skin, writes that such potatoes were
stewed and eaten usually with the addition of wild onions as a
relish. He does not refer to clay in this connection, nor to any kind
of clay used by the Zuni in reference to any other food.

The Oraibi of Arizona use a kind of clay which is mixed with
potatoes and eaten, hence known as potato-clay (specimen in Field
Museum).

J. G. Bourke (The Snake-dance of the Moquis of Arizona, 1884,
pp. 70, 252) refers to the Moqui's eating of clay with wild potatoes
as a condiment. He adds that the Navaho to a very marked extent
and the Apache, Moqui and Zuni to a smaller degree may be classed
among clay-eaters.

172 Geophagy

Mr. C. Daryll Forde has kindly sent me the following informa-
tion on the edible clay used by the Hopi: "The edible clay known
and used by the Hopi is a white compact material as hard as chalk,
but more 'greasy' to the touch and taste. Two sources were known
to my informants: (1) the larger supply is obtained from Navaho
who bring it in from the Chinlee District, (2) a small local supply
also exists in a low hill of sand and shale debris on the west side of
Second Mesa near the Mishongnovi spring, Toreva (tojiva). My
informants thought that the Navaho themselves did not use it (I
was unable to corroborate this with Navaho informants). The Hopi
name is tomontcoka. It is always used in association with wild
vegetables or berries. The following are two standard recipes:

(1) Kevepsi (berries of a low bush, keptcoki, not yet identified) are

boiled, the clay is mixed in with them as they cook, and the
whole mashed into a paste.

(2) Tumna, the tubers of a wild bush collected in April and May,

are boiled and eaten with powdered clay (au gratin, so to
speak), or the tubers and the clay are mashed together after
cooking, or, again, one nibbles at a lump of the clay while
eating the main dish."

Mr. E. Simpson and others of the Department of Geology,
University of California, have made a physical examination of this
clay, with the following report communicated to me by Mr. Forde: —

"The Hopi edible clay is a cream-colored, very fine material with
a speckled appearance due to the presence of small, whiter-colored
mud ovules. The latter appear to be clay pellets which may have
been formed by coagulation in a saline solution, such as would
obtain in a saline lake.

"On treating the specimen with water it immediately began to
'dissolve' and rapidly colored all the water in the beaker. In a few
hours it had swelled to more than twice its original volume, and had
the consistency of soft jelly. The colloidal clay was decanted off
and the residue, of which there was extremely little, examined under
the microscope. A few very angular grains of quartz, none over a
tenth of a millimeter in diameter, were observed together with a
few weathered grains of medium plagioclase felspar. Most of the
residue, however, was a fibrous chlorite apparently pseudomorphic
after biotite.

"The clay was undoubtedly deposited in a lake which was
probably saline. It is possibly 'bentonite' or altered volcanic ash,
but this cannot be proved by physical examination.

North America 173

"The property of swelling by taking up considerable quantity of
water when immersed suggests that perhaps this clay was of value
in giving a sense of repletion to a relatively empty stomach."

W. Hough (in Handbook of American Indians, I, p. 467) writes
that "in some localities (among the Pueblos) clay was eaten, either
alone or mixed with food or taken in connection with wild potatoes
to mitigate the griping effect of this acrid tuber." In this case,
accordingly, the clay serves as a soothing medium as among the
Ainu in combination with the bulb of a Corydalis (above, p. 149).

In acute indigestion the Papago boil for a little while some of the
red earth taken from beneath the fire; after being strained a little
salt is added, and the mixture is then given to the patient to drink.
He has to take this remedy three times, always at mealtime, and he
gets nothing or at most very little to eat (A. Hrdlicka, Physiological
and Medical Observations among the Indians, 1908, p. 241).

The Porno of California, in making bread, mix red earth with
acorn meal. Dr. S. A. Barrett has been good enough to give me the
following information on this point: "The fact of the matter is that
they make white bread, as it is called, without a mixture of earth,
but this is not esteemed as highly as the black bread, which is as a
matter of fact a very dark brown and heavy bread. The two are
made, as I recall it, in exactly the same manner, except for this
mixture of a very small quantity of a reddish earth, which the
Indians say serves as our yeast does. There is nothing, however, in
the way of 'raising' of the dough, but the red earth is simply mixed,
and the dough is placed in the oven to bake at once. The oven, of
course, is nothing more or less than a hole in the ground, which is
lined with leaves and filled with layers of this dough and hot stones,
the latter being separated from the dough by layers of leaves. It
bakes slowly, but is really a very palatable food. I am not sure
how this earth actually affects the dough, as I have never had an
opportunity to look up the actual chemical composition of this red
earth. I cannot state definitely the geographical distribution of
this particular custom in California, but as I recall it now, it is not
found among the Miwok with whom I have worked to a considerable
extent, though not as fully as among the Porno. The Miwok method
of handling acorn meal and bread is quite different from that of the
Porno in several respects. I might add that there is a certain whitish
or bluish white clay which was to a certain extent used by the Porno,
though this was not used with anything else and is said by them to
be a food of itself. I do not now recall having encountered the use of

174 Geophagy

this whitish or bluish white clay among any of the other Californian
tribes with which I came more or less in contact, though it may be
that it is such a slight part of their food supply that unless one was
specifically hunting for it, it would be very easily overlooked."

In a creation myth of the Cahuilla of California an incidental
allusion to earth-eating on the part of the first people is made.
Mukat, in a dispute with Temaiyauit, says, "There will not be
enough food for all of them." "They can eat earth," said Temaiyauit.
"But they will then eat up all the earth," answered Mukat, and
Temaiyauit replied, "No, for by our power it will be swelling again"
(W. D. Strong, Aboriginal Society in Southern California, p. 135,
University of California Press, 1929). Of course, it is rather the
possibility of eating earth than the fact itself, which is here alluded
to; but if eating earth was regarded as possible, actual tests ap-
parently must have been made.

Sir John Richardson (Arctic Searching Expedition, 1852, p. 118)
writes, "A pipe-clay is very generally associated with the coal beds,
and is frequently found in contact with the lignite. It exists in beds
varying in thickness from six inches to a foot, and is generally of a
yellowish-white color, but in some places has a light lake-red tint.
It is smooth, without grittiness, and when masticated has a flavor
somewhat like the kernel of a hazel-nut. The natives eat this earth
in times of scarcity and suppose that thereby they prolong their
lives."

With reference to this passage, Frank Russell (Explorations in
the Far North, p. 133, publ. by University of Iowa) remarks, "I
found the bed of edible clay, mentioned by Richardson, near the
base of the cliff. It is used for whitewashing at Norman, and is
said to have been used as a substitute for soap by the Indians before
the introduction of that article by the traders. Norman stands at
the mouth of the Bear River near the Bear Rock, a solitary butte
over four thousand feet in height." The Indians here in question
are Athabascans of northwestern Canada.

V. Stefansson (Arctic Expedition of the American Museum,
Anthr. Papers Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., XIV, 1914, p. 395) has the
following entry in his diary under the heading "Edible Earth": —

"Bought to-night a tin full of 'edible clay' from a cutbank on the
Kanianirk part of the Colville (S. bank) between the Killirk and
Ninnolik branches. The specimen is in flakes and powder. Seller
considered the clay a true food, but says it is eaten in large quantities

North America 175

only at times of scarcity or when travelers run out of food. Many
eat a little now and then, seller (Kanianirmiut woman) says she puts
a little on her tongue almost every day and lets it soak up there
till soft. She gets presents every year now of similar stuff up the
coast, but the sample sold me has been treasured for years. When
clay is to be used in earnest as food, it should be let soak in water
over night or longer; it then disintegrates and swells into a thick
paste, seems to increase in bulk rather more than rice does in boil-
ing. When about to be eaten, this paste is mixed up in a little more
water to make it thinner, and then it is poured into hot water in a
pot and cooked 'like flour soup,' i.e., brought to a boil. 'This is
good food if one has oil with it; otherwise it constipates you.' The
seller, however, considers the clay to be rich in a tasteless and smell-
less oil which she says the old men say is old whale-oil that soaked
down the cutbank from whales whose bones (lower upper jaws,
shoulder-blades, ribs, backbone, etc.) are seen near the top of the
cutbank far above."

The Iglulik Eskimo have a tradition relating to the early history
of mankind when men had only earth for food. "In earliest times
it was very difficult for men to hunt. They were not such skilful
hunters as those who live now. They had not so many hunting im-
plements, and did not enjoy an abundance and variety of food such
as we have now. In my childhood I heard old people say that once
long long ago men ate of the earth. Our forefathers ate of the earth;
when halting on a journey and camping, they worked the soil with
picks of caribou-horn, breaking up the earth and searching for food.
This happened in the days when it was very difficult to kill a caribou,
and it is said that they had to make a single animal last all summer
and autumn. Therefore they were obliged to seek other food. . . .
In those days earth was the principal food of man" (K. Rasmussen,
Intellectual Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos, p. 253, Copenhagen,
1929).

A certain outward resemblance of this tradition to the Indie one
in the Vinayavastu (above, p. 144) is obvious, as is also the diversity
of the two stories. In the Indie one earth is considered a superior
food of the golden age, in the Eskimoan one it is an inferior food
resorted to for lack of better staples in the beginning of life. Of
course, such a stage of living, as visualized in the Eskimo tradition,
has never existed; it is an afterthought reconstruction, but maybe
at the same time a vague reminiscence of earth having formerly
been consumed on a larger scale than at the present time.

176 Geophagy

Lieutenant G. T. Emmons, who has had a thirty-five years'
experience with the tribes of the Northwest Coast, assures me that
he has never seen or heard of a single case of clay-eating among any
of these. Clay or earth is not mentioned either by Harlan I. Smith
in his article "Materia Medica of the Bella Coola and Neighboring
Tribes of British Columbia" (Annual Report for 1927 of National
Museum of Canada, Ottawa, 1929).

It would be erroneous to believe that earth-eating is a privilege
of the Indians. It is found among the whites as well, especially in
Georgia and Carolina. In 1709 T. Lawson (History of Carolina,
p. 206, London, 1714) recorded this observation: "The children [of
the Indians] are much addicted to eat dirt, and so are some of the
Christians, but roast a bat on a skeiver and make the child that eats
dirt eat the roasted rearmouse (bat), and he will never eat dirt
again." In 1857 J. R. Cotting published the analysis of a species
of clay found in Richmond County, Georgia, which, as announced
in the title of his article, "is eagerly sought after and eaten by
many people, particularly children." This substance, in its external
characters, he writes, resembles lithomarge, or rock marrow; its
colors are dark red, yellow, yellowish red, yellowish white, purple
and reddish white. He found it associated with other minerals in
many parts of the survey, in both the counties of Burke and Rich-
mond, but the purest and most abundant was on land of David F.
Dickinson near M'Bean Creek, Richmond County, on the east side
of the great road leading from Augusta to Savannah, about fourteen
miles from the former place. Here large excavations had been made
to obtain this clay, indicating that the demand for it must have been
heavy. It has a slight sweetish taste, not unlike calcined magnesia.
Its action on the stomach is mechanical, as it contains nothing cap-
able of being decomposed and nothing on which the gastric juice can
act. It is composed of silex, oxid of iron, alumina, magnesia, and
water.

A boy about fifteen years of age, who was taking his favorite re-
past at that locality, informed Cotting that he was in the habit of
eating daily of that substance, "as much as he could hold in his
hand." Cotting asked the boy whether his parents did not inform
him better. He replied that he had only a mother and that she ate
it too when she was well, but that she was almost always sick.
Cotting was informed by people living in the vicinity of the localities
where this clay occurs that many deaths have resulted there from
no other perceptible cause than from persisting in the use of this

North America 177

clay as a luxury. Cotting adds that this peculiar species of clay is
said not to be found north of the Potomac and that a species in
some respects similar is found at Bare-hills, Maryland, which, how-
ever, is deficient in the proportion of iron and magnesia.

The Redbones (see Handbook of American Indians, I, p. 365) of
Carolina are reputed to be clay-eaters.

MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA

The use of earth in ancient Mexico is particularly interesting,
especially in its relation to religious ceremonies.

"A peculiar food of the ancient Mexicans seen by the conquerors
consisted of cakes made from a sort of ooze which they get out of
the great lake, which curdles, and from this they make a bread
having a flavor something like cheese" (T. A. Joyce, Mexican Archae-
ology, p. 155). The source is not quoted by Joyce. Ehrenberg (II
p. 3) writes, "Earth-eating was reported in Mexico as early as 1494
and in 1519 by Bernal de Diaz as the relish tecuitlatl from the Lake
of Mexico, which was confirmed by Hernandez in 1580."

The following documents have reference to this matter. Sahagun
(book XI, chap. 3, at end of §5) informs us that "on the Lake of
Mexico is found a substance (urronas) called tecuitlatl, clear blue in
color; when it forms a thick layer, it is gathered, spread out on ashes,
and formed into cakes which are baked and then eaten."

Bernal Diaz refers to the same matter in two passages (chaps.
92 and 153; translation of A. P. Maudslay, II, p. 73; IV, p. 160).
In the former he speaks of fisherwomen and others who sell small
loaves made from a sort of ooze gathered on the Lake of Mexico;
this ooze curdles or coagulates, and can be cut up into slices the
taste of which reminds one a little of our cheese. In the other chapter
he writes, "They gathered on the Lake a sort of ooze which when
dried had a flavor like cheese." D. Jourdanet (in his French transla-
tion of Diaz' work, p. 517) comments that "the Indians of the pre-
sent time still collect on the banks of the lagoon a mass said to
consist of the eggs of gnats mixed with a gelatinous substance which
comes from the swarms of these insects (called agua-utle); it has
indeed a strong flavor like bad cheese."

F. Lopez de Gomara (Historia de Mexico, p. 118, Antwerp,
1554), describing the market, relates, "They eat everything, even
earth. At a certain time of the year they sweep up with nets of a
fine mesh a fine substance which grows on the water of the lakes of
Mexico and coagulates. It is not a plant or earth, but is like mire.
There is a lot of it, and they collect much of it, and spreading it
out in the way salt is prepared, they empty it out, and there it
coagulates and dries. They make of it cakes like bricks. Not only
do they sell it in the market, but also they take it to other markets

178

Mexico and Central *\merica 179

outside the city far away. They eat it as we eat cheese, and it has
a slightly saltish taste; with chilmolli it is savory. They say, too,
that so many birds crave this article on the lake that during the
winter they cover many parts of its surface." Chilmolli is a ragout
or soup in which chili dominates.

F. Juan de Torquemada (Monarchia indiana, 1723, book XIV,
chap. 14; II, p. 557), evidently depending on Gomara, has this
account: "On the surface of the water of this lake grow some things
like finely ground slime, and at a certain time of the year when they
are more solidified the Indians gather them with fine meshed nets.
They take them out of the water onto the earth or sand of the shore
and spread them out till they dry, and then make cakes of them
two fingers thick, which subsequently dry out to one finger-breadth
when they are ripe. When they are well dry, the people cut them
like small bricks, and eat them as though they were of cheese.
The Indians think they have a very fine flavor, but they are rather
salty. Of this they send a goodly quantity to the markets, and of
another food which they call tecuitlatl, although at present these
two kinds are lost and no longer appear, and I do not know whether
the reason is that the Indians have taken to our food and no longer
care for their own." The word tecuitlatl is listed in the "Diction-
naire de la langue nahuatl ou mexicaine" (p. 404) of R. Simeon with
the following definition: "A viscous substance (lit. 'excrement of
stones') gathered amidst of the plants of Lake Tezcuco; this sub-
stance is dried at the sun, and is preserved to be eaten like cheese.
The Indians consume it at present and confer upon it the name
cuculito del agua."

Cf. also the notes of D. Jourdanet in his translation of Sahagun
(p. 854).

Midwives give to pregnant women the advice that they must
abstain from eating earth and ticatl ("a sort of white earth"), for
fear that the infant when born might be sick or disfigured by a
bodily defect (Sahagun, book VI, chap. 27) . This rule seems to imply
that pregnant women in ancient Mexico were in the habit of long-
ing for earth.

Joseph de Acosta (Historia natural y moral de las Indias, p. 382,
book V, chap. 28, Madrid, 1608) describes a ceremony in ancient
Mexico in honor of Tezcatlipoca, god of the night and particularly
night winds. During the ceremony the priest blew a pottery flute,
and after playing it toward the four points of the compass whereby
he meant to indicate that both those present and absent heard him,

180 Geophagy

he placed his finger in the soil, and seizing earth, shoved it into his
mouth and ate it as a sign of adoration; the same was done by all
who were present (Y aviendo tanido hazia las quatro partes del
mundo, denotando que los presentes y ausentes le oian, ponia el
dedo en el suelo, y cogiendo tierra con el metia en la boca, y la
comia en serial de adoracion, y lo mismo hazian todos los presentes,
etc.). This ceremony was performed ten days before the feast, for
the purpose that all might attend this worship in eating earth and
demand from the god whatever they pleased. Torquemada (Mon-
archia indiana, 1723, book X, chap. 14, II, p. 256) describes the
same ceremony as follows: "Ten days before the big feast to Tezca-
tlipoca, in the month Toxcatl, the priest came out of the temple
with a flute with a shrill note, and facing in turn all four directions,
played it. This was to call all men's attention to the coming feast.
Then there was silence, and putting his finger on the ground, he used
to take earth, and used to put it in his mouth and eat it as a sign of
humility and adoration. Every one did the same, weeping bitterly,
throwing himself prostrate on the ground, invoking the obscurity
of the night and the wind and asking them with fervor not to leave
them shelterless or forget -them."

F. Lopez de Gomara (Historia de Mexico, p. 100, Antwerp, 1554)
reports that when three thousand nobles came out from Mexico to
meet Cortes, "each one as he reached Cortes touched his right hand
to the ground, kissed it, bowed down, and passed forward in the order
in which they came" (Cada uno, como a Cortes llegaba, tocaba su
mano derecha en tierra, besabala, humillabase, y passaba adelante
por la orden que venian). The Spanish text is somewhat ambiguous:
it is not clear whether they kissed their own hands or the ground,
but more probably the latter as a sign of humiliation and adoration
as in the ceremony previously described. Gomara (p. 305) relates
also that during the ceremonies accompanying the induction of a
new ruler in Mexico, nobles as they approached the image of Hui-
tzilopochtli (Vitzilopuchtli), god of war, touched the ground with
one of their fingers and then kissed this finger.

Juan Suarez de Cepeda, in 1581, reports that the Tarascans on
the west coast of Mexico, on the occasion of an eclipse ("when the
mother goddess playing with sun or moon puts her hands over them
so that the light is shut off") make noises and eat earth and stones
till the eclipse is over ("till the mother goddess returns home").
He further relates, "As soon as the people see the stars which are
known as the Pleiades and which in their due course according to

Mexico and Central America 181

the movements of the heavens appear on the horizon, they run to
eat, and do eat stones and clods of earth, just as if they were turrones
[a kind of candy like nougat, very popular in Spain] and honey cakes,
and they say they do this so that their teeth may be strengthened,
and kept firmly in position so that they do not fall out. And thus
they expect will happen to them, feeling like beasts, the opposite
effect of what they try for and would wish" (De Cepeda, Relacion
de los Indios Colimas de la Nueva Granada. Anales del Museo
Nacional, IV, Mexico, 1912, pp. 516, 517). This last sentence would
appear to be corrupt; it would seem to suggest that if their teeth
do become loosened they are very put out about it.

It was customary among the Aztec that in a certain form of
sworn treaty the person rendering the oath put his finger on the soil
and then lifted his finger to his mouth as though he was eating earth.
In the same manner witnesses also rendered an oath (J. Kohler,
Recht der Azteken, pp. 71, 109; and A. H. Post, Grundriss der
ethnologischen Jurisprudenz, I, p. 483).

The passages quoted have not been revealed by any previous
writer on geophagy, but they are important in showing that the
custom is of ancient date in Mexico and roots deeply in religious
rites and practices. Lasch (p. 217) states merely that earth-eating
is frequent in Mexico, notably among women and children, and
that in Guadalajara, San Luis, Puebla, and other places are sold on
the markets pastils made of white, lightly baked clay and said to be
of good flavor. In regard to the Maya of southern British Honduras
Mr. J. Eric Thompson informs me that "they are fond of eating a
kind of white chalk which they find in the 'fill' of pyramids. In
reply to a question as to why they eat this substance they state
that it tastes good and is good for them. Personally I considered it
absolutely tasteless. Children in the Maya villages are fond of eat-
ing earth. Constant earth-eaters are said to suffer badly from hook-
worm. Medical authorities with whom I discussed this question
differed as to whether hookworm was the cause or the effect of this
earth-eating."

The fact that geophagy is still prevalent in Mexico may be
gleaned from the following very interesting information kindly sent
me by Professor Marshall H. Saville of the Museum of the American
Indian, New York: —

"Thirty years ago I visited the town of Etla in the state of
Oaxaca, in a valley running west from the Oaxaca valley, and some
eighteen miles from the city of Oaxaca. This town is now, and so

182 Geophagy

far as the archaeology is concerned, has always been occupied by
the Zapotec Indians.

"I made this visit in order to collect from the various groups of
Indians from different parts of the state, who assembled here during
the time of the fiestas celebrated annually in honor of the patron
saint of Etla.

"The church in which the saint is preserved was built in early
colonial times on the pyramidal base of an ancient temple, which, in
turn, had been erected on rising ground from which in places the
bedrock projected. The ancient Mexicans often took advantages of
such eminences, and the Christian priests often razed these old
temples to replace them with churches. The fame of the Virgin of
Etla is widespread throughout the Indian country of the state of
Oaxaca.

"Nearing the town I saw many Indians in family groups return-
ing to their own villages, as this was the last day of the fiesta. Many
of them had their faces covered with dust or powder; in fact, they
were very dirty. Others were busily engaged in eating powder from
a gourd held in their hands. Even the little children were thus
engaged. On getting closer to the church I heard the noise of ham-
mering, and saw many Indians industriously hammering off pieces
of the rock in the pyramid upon which the church stood. A con-
siderable section of this base looked like a miniature quarry. The
rock was obtained by means of stone hammers, and the pieces ground
into powder by means of the said stone hammers. I am sorry that
I did not get a sample of the rock, nor do I know to what class it
belongs. However, it was quite soft and easily reduced to dust.

"I afterwards learned that the Indians not only considered it
efficacious for liver troubles, but that coming from this hallowed spot,
probably having reference to olden times, taking this powder which
was endowed with magical powers, insured their welfare for months
to come.

"Father Mayer has just told me that an Indian boy who recently
went with him on a collecting trip for us up the Tapajoz River, from
Santarem, Amazonia, picked up a clay ball from a site where pottery
had been fabricated, and proceeded to eat it, saying that it was
'good to eat.'

"I have seen in the materia medica of native Indian villages in
Mexico and Ecuador pieces of soft stone among the herbs, insects,
etc., which are sold by the primitive Indian woman for medicine."

Mexico and Central America 183

According to 0. Stoll (Guatemala, 1886, p. 133), the custom of
eating certain kinds of earth is generally practised among the Indians
of Guatemala, and they do not keep it secret. The earth principally
used by them is a light yellowish gray, strongly odorous substance
which is a volcanic product weathered away into a powder. It is
perfectly insipid and tastes somewhat like chalk. The Indians prize
it as a spice of excellent quality and call it "white sweetness" (sak
cab). Certain it is that this earth is a substitute for tooth-powder
and contributes to preserve their white teeth. The quantity eaten
at a time is small, as it is merely scattered over the food. Another
way of consuming clayish materials is connected with religious ideas.
The people who travel to the famous place of pilgrimage, Esquipulas,
will take along from there blessed figures of saints made from a
powdered earth by the clergy. These figures (benditos) are eaten by
the devout, or are given away by them to friends and relatives, being
credited with the power of relieving existing diseases and preventing
sickness.

Stoll affirms that geophagy is a genuine Indian custom which is
very ancient; for in the Popol Vuh the two magicians, Hunahpu and
Xbalanque, rub earth into the roasted birds with which they poison
Cabrakan. The fact itself is correct, yet I do not believe that the
story of the Popol Vuh can be invoked as an example of earth-eating
in ancient times. In the text under consideration (translation of
Brasseur de Bourbourg, p. 65, Paris, 1861; Villacorta and Rodas,
Manuscrito de Chichicastenango, p. 206, Guatemala, 1927), Hu-
nahpu and Xbalanque employ the earth as a ruse to overcome
Cabrakan. "This bird," they say, "will be the means of his defeat;
in the same manner as white earth will envelop this bird all over
through our care, we shall knock him down on the earth, and in the
earth we shall bury him." Cabrakan, after eating the bird, staggers
and has no more strength on account of the earth rubbed into the
bird. Moreover, it was only this one bird which was treated in this
manner for the purpose of bringing about Cabrakan's downfall, not,
however, the other birds which were plainly roasted at the fire with-
out application of earth. It cannot even be inferred from this passage
that birds were generally baked in earth at that time; it was merely a
single specific case, a trick devised for the purpose of capturing
Cabrakan. The body of the bird was rubbed in with tizate, and then
white dust was sprinkled around it. The word tizate is explained by
De Bourbourg as being derived from Nahuatl tiQatl, "a whitish
earth, very friable, of which they avail themselves to polish metal,

184 Geophagy

make cement, etc." (see above, p. 179). The Spanish translation
runs, "Y a uno de ellos (pajaros) le pusieron tizate encima, que es
una tierra blanca, que rue" lo que le pusieron." Nevertheless I am
convinced with Stoll that geophagy is very old in Guatemala and
certainly goes back to pre-Columbian times.

With reference to the treatment of the bird in the preceding
legend it may be called to mind that according to A. Skinner (Mater-
ial Culture of the Menomini, 1921, p. 194) meat was often roasted
on coals by the Menomini and that small animals were sometimes
rolled up in clay and baked in the hot ashes; this was a favorite
method of dealing with porcupines; when the clay shell was split
Open, the quills and hide of the animal adhered to the mold, and the
roast came out clean.

Stoll also mentions the morbid geophagy of children and adults
who devour indiscriminately all kinds of earthy substances. Popular
opinion ascribes to this habit a number of pathological symptoms,
which is called into doubt by Stoll; he is convinced that many child-
ren indulge in this habit without risking disease and that others who
acquire the complex of diseases in question do not really eat earth.

The Guatuso Indians of Costa Rica do not use salt, but are
said by Bishop B. Thiel of San Jose* to enjoy a clayish earth in lieu of
it (K. Sapper, Mittelamerikanische Reisen und Studien, 1902, p. 232).

W. Sheldon (Brief Account of the Caraibs who inhabited the
Antilles, Transactions Am. Antiquarian Soc, I, 1820, p. 412) has
the following note: "The Caraibs as well as the Negroes, when in
a state of melancholy, sometimes hanged themselves; or they would
eat earth and filth until they brought on dropsies or other fatal
disorders, which occasioned their death. The pernicious habit of
eating earth appears to be endemical in the Westindia islands.
The white Creoles are not free from a propension to this depraved
appetite; and I have heard it much spoken of as prevailing among
the people of Georgia and the Carolinas. The Caraib slaves would
eat earth whenever they were punished or thwarted."

T. Young (Narrative of a Residence on the Mosquito Shore dur-
ing the Years 1839-41, p. 76, London, 1842) writes, "The Sambo
girls have a custom of eating charcoal and sand to obtain it fresh
and moist, and they have appeared to enjoy it with great gusto."
The Sambo are descendants of Indians and Negroes who escaped
from a wrecked slave ship, and live on the Mosquito Coast, Nicaragua.

Regarding geophagy of the Negroes in the West Indies, see
above, p. 159.

SOUTH AMERICA

Mention has been made of earth-eating as a means of com-
mitting suicide among Negro slaves. The same is reported with
reference to the Tupinamba of Brazil by Gabriel Soares de Sousa
in his interesting "Noticia do Brazil" (chap. 161, Noticias ultra-
marinas, III, pt. 1, p. 289), written in 1587. This is one of the
earliest accounts of earth-eating in America and certainly the earli-
est relative to South America; it has thus far been overlooked by
every one who has written on the subject. "This people," Soares
writes, "has another very great barbarity: when they are seized by
disgust or when they are grieved to such a degree that they are
determined to die, they begin to eat earth, every day a little, until
they emaciate and their face and eyes will swell, and they will
finally die; no one can help them or is able to dissuade them from
committing suicide, as they affirm that the devil has taught it to
them and that he appears to them whenever they are determined to
eat earth."

Alexander von Humboldt's observations were made on June 6,
1800, when traveling down the Orinoco he spent a day in the village
called La Concepcion de Uruana. His account is as follows: —

"In the midst of this grand and savage nature live many tribes
of men, isolated from each other by the extraordinary diversity of
their languages: some are nomadic, wholly unacquainted with agri-
culture, and using ants, gums, and earth as food; these, as the
Otomac and Jarure, seem a kind of outcasts from humanity.

"It was a very prevalent report on the coasts of Cumana, New
Barcelona, and Caracas, visited by the Franciscan monks of Guiana
on their return from the missions, that there were men on the banks
of the Orinoco who ate earth. . . . The earth which the Otomac
eat is a soft unctuous clay; a true potter's clay, of a yellowish-gray
color due to a little oxid of iron. They seek for it in particular
spots on the banks of the Orinoco and the Meta, and select it with
care. They distinguish the taste of one kind of earth from that of
another, and do not consider all clays as equally agreeable to eat.
They knead the earth into balls of about five or six inches diameter,
which they burn or roast by a weak fire until the outside assumes a
reddish tint. The balls are remoistened when about to be eaten. . . .
During the periodical swelling of the rivers, which is of two or three
months' duration, the Otomac swallow great quantities of earth.

185

186 Geophagy

We found considerable stores of it in their huts, the clay balls being
piled together in pyramidal heaps. The very intelligent monk,
Fray Ramon Bueno, a native of Madrid (who lived twelve years
among these Indians), assured us that one of them would eat from
three quarters of a pound to a pound and a quarter in a day. Accord-
ing to the accounts which the Otomac themselves give, this earth
forms their principal subsistence during the rainy season, though
they eat at the same time occasionally, when they can obtain it, a
lizard, a small fish, or a fern root. They have such a predilection
for the clay, that even in the dry season, when they can obtain
plenty of fish, they eat a little earth after their meals every day as
a kind of dainty. . . . The Franciscan monk assured me that he
could perceive no alteration in their health during the earth-eating
season.

"The simple facts are therefore as follows: The Indians eat
large quantities of earth without injury to their health; and they
themselves regard the earth so eaten as an alimentary substance,
i.e., they feel themselves satisfied by eating it, and that for a con-
siderable time; and they attribute this to the earth or clay, and not
to the other scanty articles of subsistence which they now and then
obtain in addition. . . . The earth which we brought back with us,
and which Vauquelin analyzed, is thoroughly pure and unmixed. . . .
That the health of the Otomac should not suffer from eating so
much earth appears to me particularly remarkable. Have they
become accustomed to it in the course of several generations?

"In all tropical countries, human beings show an extraordinary
and almost irresistible desire to swallow earth; and not alkaline
earths, which they might be supposed to crave to neutralize acid,
but unctuous and strong-smelling clays. . . . With the exception
of the Otomac, individuals of all other races who indulge for any
length of time in the strange desire of earth-eating have their health
injured by it. Why is it that in the temperate and cold zones this
morbid craving for earth is so much more rare, and is almost entirely
confined, when it is met with, to children and pregnant women;
while in the tropics it would appear to be indigenous in all quarters
of the globe?"

It must be emphasized that Humboldt himself has not had any
personal experience of the effect of geophagy on the Otomac. As
to this point, he has depended entirely on the opinion of the Fran-
ciscan friar, Ramon Bueno, and the lay brother, Juan Gonzalez, in
whose station he spent the day. The conclusion that the Otomac

South America 187

are the only .people whose health is not impaired by earth-eating
(subsequently repeated by many authors) does not seem very plaus-
ible; no ill effects are reported, for instance, from Java, Sumatra,
Borneo, or Melanesia. Cortambert's observations given below con-
tradict Humboldt's opinion. The conclusion that geophagy is more
prevalent in the tropics than in the temperate and cold zones holds
good no longer, and is plainly refuted by the facts recorded in this
article.

J. Gumilla (Historia del Rio Orinoco, 1791, I, p. 179), said to be
credulous and uncritical, denies that the Otomac ever eat pure
earth, and states that their clay balls are mixed with maize flour
and crocodile's fat; but the two informants of Humboldt affirmed
unanimously that the Otomac never added crocodile's fat to their
clay balls, and as to maize, they had never heard of it at Uruana.

E. Cortambert (p. 218) gives the following account of the earth-
eating habit among the tribes of the upper Orinoco: "This edible
earth is a clay blended with iron oxid, reddish yellow in color. It
is kneaded into balls or cakes allowed to dry and cooked when to be
eaten, rather a ballast for the stomach than a food and commonly
used only in times of famine. Although this clay does not contain
any nutritive properties, it acts on the principal organ of digestion
to such a degree that Indians can subsist on it for several months
without any other resources. They sometimes fry it in seje oil, and
then it offers some really substantial parts. This article of food, in
general, does not affect injuriously the health of those who are
accustomed to it; but the stomachs unaccustomed to it bear it with
difficulty. Obstructions of the viscera and absorption of the chyle
are the consequences most to be dreaded by those who want to
partake of this strange dish. The Indians who lacking in modera-
tion have a passion for earth considerably fall off in weight, and
their reddish color will grow sallow. The taste for clay becomes so
intense in some individuals that from houses made of ferruginous
clay they will break off pieces and take them into their mouth with
avidity. They are discriminating connoisseurs of clay, for not all
kinds have the same pleasant taste to their palate; widely varying
qualities are distinguished. A few whites in Venezuela have imi-
tated the savages and do not despise cakes of fat earth."

W. E. Roth, in his comprehensive study of the Guiana Indians
(Bureau Am. Ethn., 38th Annual Report, p. 225), gives no observa-
tions of his own, but quotes J. Gumilla, Humboldt, and J. Crevaux.
Among the Otomac, children are given earth to lick and suck by

188 Geophagy

their mothers. Their bread made with alligator fat consists, at
least half of it, of chalky earth which, however, does not injure them.

According to J. CreVaux, all the Cayenne Carib are earth-
eaters. In each house are found clay balls which the Indians smoke,
dry, and eat pulverized. An hour after each meal they will take one
of these balls, remove the outer layer that has been blackened,
scrape the inside with a knife, and thus obtain a fine powder of which
they swallow five or six grams in two doses. In an account of
CreVaux's second expedition to South America in 1878-79, given in
Globus (XL, 1881, p. 262), these observations are made in reference
to the Rucuyennes of Guiana. Roth adds that very many children
on the upper parts of the Amazon have this strange habit of eating
earth, baked clay, pitch wax, and other similar substances; not only
Indians, but also Negroes and whites. No conclusion, however, is
drawn from this observation, which goes to show that the habit
roots in a physiological cause.

In his "Additional Studies of the Arts, Crafts and Customs of the
Guiana Indians" (Bureau Am. Ethn., Bull. 91, 1929, p. 18) W. E.
Roth adds the following: "In Surinam De Goeje speaks of a hungry
Trio widow eating clay."

"Near the Orinoco there is a tribe of savages who feed upon a
species of unctuous clay, a practice which, though probably the out-
growth of necessity, is not extremely rare throughout the Amazonian
region. This clay, which is said to have a milky and not disagree-
able taste, is a species of marga, or marl-subpinguis tenax, as it is
called — which is found in veins of varying color. It is smooth and
greasy, dissolving readily in the mouth, and is absorbed into the
circulation" (W. G. Mortimer, History of Coca, p. 288, New York,
1901).

T. Whiffen (The North-West Amazons, 1915, p. 124), who
stamps clay-eating as a "vice," says that geophagy is very common
among all the tribes of the Northwest Amazon, especially with the
non-cocainists, the women and children. "As a rule it occurs among
the very poorest — the slave clan, those who are least able to obtain
such a luxury as salt, and it is found among the female children
most of all . . . I never came across any man who ate clay, though
I know of a boy who suffered from this neurotic [?] appetite. The
clay, if it cannot be otherwise obtained, will be scraped from under
the fireplace, and it is always eaten secretly. The Indians look up-
on geophagy as injurious, but it appears to be ineradicable. I can-
not help thinking it must be due to some great 'want' in Indian diet,

South America 189

a physical craving that the ordinary food of the tribes does not
satisfy. It is instinctive. In the manufacture of coca they add clay.
This suggests that if taken in small quantities it may have a neutral-
izing and therefore a beneficial effect on some more or less injurious
article of daily food. But it rapidly and invariably degenerates into
a vice; and the habit appears to have a weakening and wasting
effect on the whole body. In some parts of the Amazons, though
not with these tribes, the clay is regularly prepared for use, and the
vice is shared by other races than the Indian. Children who suffer
from this extraordinary craving will swallow anything of a similar
character, earth, wax, and Bates even mentions pitch, but they pre-
fer the clay that is scraped from under the spot where the fire has
been burning, probably because the chemical processes induced by
the heat render it more soluble, easily pulverized, and hence more
actually digestive in its action. It has been suggested that this
disease was introduced into America by Negro slaves, and is not
indigenous. This is a question for the bacteriological expert [?]
rather than the traveler to decide, but as it indubitably exists among
tribes that have not come in any contact with Negroes or Negro-
influenced natives, it would seem to argue on the face of things that
the similarity of vicious tastes was due to similarity of causation,
rather than to contamination by evil example, unless the ubiquitous
microbe is to be held responsible for this ill also."

Geophagy occurs not rarely, especially among younger individuals
on the Amazon (P. Ehrenreich, Beitrage zur Volkerkunde Brasiliens,
p. 62).

In regard to the Botocudo P. Ehrenreich (Zeitschrift fur Ethno-
logie, XIX, 1887, p. 29) states merely that geophagy is widely
diffused among them, and quotes St. Hilaire as saying that saline
earths which are not rare in the province of Minas and saline plants
serve them for salt the use of which is unknown to them (cf . above,
p. 107).

The Bakairi make dolls of a red loam which is licked by children.
This loam, it is said by the natives, was eaten by their forebears
before they became acquainted with mandioca. The Bororo drink
water mixed with loam as an invigorating beverage, but do not
eat loam (K. von den Steinen, Unter den Naturvolkern Zentral-
Brasiliens, 1894, pp. 282, 481).

According to T. Koch-Grunberg (Zwei Jahre unter den Indianern,
1910, II, p. 291), edible clay is regarded as quite a delicacy. In his
work "Von Roroima zum Orinoco" (III, pp. 298, 311, 337) Koch-

190 Geophagy

Griinberg mentions balls of dried clay and a fat white clay (probably
kaolin, he adds) in form of balls and wrapped up with leaves, used
as a relish.

The Juan-Avo or Caripuna who live in the proximity of the cata-
racts of the Madeira are described by Acunna as devouring earth
(C. F. P. von Martius, Beitrage zur Ethnographie und Sprachen-
kunde Amerika's, I, 1867, p. 415).

The habit is not confined to the Indians; for Negroes and whites
have the same propensity. At Pebas, in Peru, Mr. Hauxwell found
it impossible to restrain his own children. On the Maranon the
half-breeds are mostly addicted to the practice of dirt-eating. Even
strangers, English, or the white Peruvians, who have intermarried
with Mestizos and have had children by them, find its presence
among their little ones the plague of their life. Children commence
from the age of four or less, and frequently die from the results in
two or three years. Officers there, who have the Indian or half-
breed children as servants in their employ, sometimes have to use
wire masks to keep them from putting the clay in their mouth ; and
women, as they lie in bed sleepless and restless, will pull out pieces
of mud from the adjoining walls of their room to gratify their
strange appetite, or will soothe a squalling brat by tempting it with
a lump of the same material (W. L. Distant, Journal Anthrop.
Inst., X, 1881, p. 468).

Gilij (Saggio di storia americana, II, p. 311) writes that the
Indian women of the village Ranco on the Magdalena River while
engaged in making pottery shove large pieces of clay into their
mouth.

According to Saffray (Globus, XXIII, 1873, p. 8), geophagy oc-
curs rather frequently in some regions on the lower Magdalena River
in Colombia, but is not endemic as on the Orinoco. The edible earth
consists of a very fatty clay of yellowish or reddish color.

Earth-eating is also reported from southern Brazil, Paraguay,
Peru, and Bolivia. In Bolivia a light white clay (called pasa) is
sold in the markets with victuals, and is also consumed by whites,
particularly women. The clay is eaten either in its natural state as
it is dug near Oruro, or is purified and fashioned into jars or images
of saints. Odoriferous resins are sometimes blended with the clay
to improve its taste. J. J. von Tschudi (Reisen durch Sudamerika,
V, 1869) mentions a lady who daily enjoyed the clay figure of a
saint for years.

South America 191

G. I. Molina (Saggio sulla storia naturale del Chili, p. 50, Bologna,
1810) speaks of a potter's clay, called by him Argilla buccherina and
found in the province Santiago, Chile, fine, light in weight, odorous,
brown with yellow dots, dissolving in the mouth and sticking to the
tongue. The nuns of the capital made delicate pottery from this
clay large quantities of which were exported to Peru and Spain
under the name "bucchero (bucaro) ware of South America."
Water kept in these vessels assumes a pleasant flavor. Peruvian
women were in the habit of eating fragments of this pottery (le
donne peruane costumano di mangiarne i frammenti como le Mogo-
lesi mangiano il vasellame di Patna); they were presumably at-
tracted to it by its aromatic properties. Compare above, p. 140.

F. Gautier (see Bibliography) found a white clay used in the
province of Potosi of Bolivia, but did not hear of any disease accom-
panied by clay-eating.

Dr. A. Rengger (Reise nach Paraguay in den Jahren 1812 bis
1826, p. 326, Aarau, 1835) writes, "Mr. de St. Hilaire met men who
ate earth at Paranagua, Guaratuba, and in other parts of the
Province Santa Catharina (in Brazil). He regards it as a degenerate
taste. I do not share this opinion, but rather look upon the devour-
ing of earth as a disease, cases of which frequently occurred to me
in Paraguay and of which I cured a number of persons. In this
country the matter was also looked upon as an evil habit. I have
seen several pregnant women addicted to earth, who after delivery
lost again this unnatural propensity."

A. N. Schuster (Paraguay, 1929, p. 65), discussing geophagy in
Paraguay, regards it as a disease caused by intestinal worms.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Altheer, J. J.— Eetbare aardsoorten en geophagie. Natuurkundig Tijdschrift
voor Nederlandsch Indie, Batavia, XIII, 1857, pp. 83-100.

Geophagen in den Indischen Archipel. Beschrijving en onderzoek
van eenige aardsoorten, uit de Residentie Kedirie, die door inlanders
gegeten worden. Tijdschrift der Vereeniging t. Bevord. der Geneesk.
Wetenschapen in Nederlandsch Indie, Batavia, V, 1857, pp. 808-812.

In the Catalogue of the Surgeon General's Library this article is errone-
ously credited to O. Brummer whose name appears merely in the preface as
one who sent several specimens of edi ble clay to Batavia. These were examined
and analyzed by Altheer whose name as that of the author is printed at the
end of the article on p. 812.

Biot (pere).— Note sur des matieres pierreuses employees a la Chine dans
les temps de famine, sous le nom de Farine de Pierre. Annales de chimie
et de physique, LXII, 1839, pp. 215-219.

Translations of Chinese texts by E. Biot (see also Journal asiatique,
1840, p. 290).

Bouchal, L. — Geophagie [in Indonesien]. Mitteilungen der anthrop. Ges.
Wien, XXIX, 1899, p. [11].

Camilli, S. — Observations physiologiques sur le geophagisme. Bulletin des
sciences medicales, Paris, XVI, 1829, pp. 185-192.

This is the analysis of an article published in Italian in the Giornale
Arcadio of 1842 (not accessible to me). The translator, who signs D., antago-
nizes several of Camilli's theories.

Cortambert, E. — Coup d'oeil sur les productions et sur les peuplades geophages
et les autres populations des bords de l'Orenoque. Bull, de la Society
de Geographie, 1861, pp. 208-220.

Cotting, J. R.— Analysis of a Specimen of Clay Found in Richmond County,
which is eagerly sought after and eaten by many people, particularly by
children. Southern Medical and Surgical Journal, Augusta, I, 1837,
pp. 288-292.

Cragin, F. W. — Observations on Cachexia Africana or Dirt-eating. American
Journal of the Medical Sciences, XVII, 1835, pp. 356-364.

Deniker, J.— The Races of Man, 1906, pp. 145-146.

Ehrenberg, C. G. I— Mikrogeologie. Das Erden und Felsen schaffende
Wirken des unsichtbar kleinen selbstandigen Lebens auf der Erde.
Leipzig, 1854. 2 vols, folio.

II — Uber die rothen Erden als Speise der Guinea-Neger. Abhandlungen
der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1868, pp. 1-55.

Ferrand, E.— Terres comestibles de Java. Revue d'ethnographie, V, 1886,
pp. 548-549.

Gautier, F. — Sur une certaine argile blanche que mangent les Indiens de
Bolivie. Actes de la Societe scientifique du Chili, Santiago, V, 1895,
pp. 85-86.

Goebel, A. — Uber das Erde-Essen in Persien, und mineralogisch-chemische
Untersuchung zweier dergleichen zum Genuss verwendeter Substanzen.
Bull, de l'Academie imp. des Sciences de Saint-Petersbourg, V, 1863,
col. 397-407.

Hamy, E. T.— Les geophages du Tonkin. Bull, du Museum d'histoire naturelle,
V, 1899, pp. 64-66.

192

Bibliography 193

Heringa, J.— Eetbare aarde van Sumatra. Natuurkundig Tijdschrift voor
Nederlandsch Indie, XXXIV, 1874, pp. 186-189.

Heusinger. — Die sog. Geophagie oder tropische (besser: Malaria-) Chlorose
Krankheit aller Lander und Klimate dargestellt. Cassel, 1852. Non vidi.

Hooper, D. and Mann, H. H.— Earth-eating and the Earth-eating Habit
in India. Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Calcutta, I, 1906,
pp. 249-270.

Hopffe, A. — Uber Infusorienerde (Bergmehl). Naturwissenschaftliche
Wochenschrift, XVI, 1917, pp. 286-287.

Humboldt, A. von. — Sur les peuples qui mangent de la terre. Annales des
voyages, II, 1809, pp. 248-254.

Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America.
London, 1852-53, II, pp. 196, 495.

Ansichten der Natur, third edition, 1849, I, p. 231.

Aspects of Nature. Translated by Sabine. London, 1849, 1, pp. 25, 190.

Lasch, R. — tiber Geophagie. Mitteilungen der anthropol. Gesellschaft
Wien, XXVIII, 1898, pp. 214-222.

Meigen, W.— "Essbare Erde" von Deutsch-Neu-Guinea. Monatsberichte
der deutschen geologischen Gesellschaft, 1905, pp. 557-564.

Mitra, Sarat Chandra. — Note on Clay-eating as a Racial Characteristic.
Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay, VII, 1904-07, pp. 284-290.

Spengler. — Die erdefressenden Menschen. Wochenschrift fur die gesammte
Heilkunde, Berlin, 1851, pp. 321-327.

Thompson, C. J. S. — Terra Sigillata, a Famous Medicament of Ancient Times.
Proceedings of the XVIIth Internat. Congress of Medical Sciences, Section
XXIII, London, 1913, pp. 433-444.

Thorndike, L. — A History of Magic and Experimental Science during the
First Thirteen Centuries of our Era. 2 vols., New York, 1923.

Thurston, E. — Earth-eating. In his Ethnographic Notes in Southern India,
pp. 552-554, Madras, 1906.

Zaunick, R.— tiber "Mehlerde" im Anhaltischen 1617. Naturwissenschaft-
liche Wochenschrift, XVI, 1917, p. 496.

INDEX

Abyssinia, 162

acorn-meal, mixed with clay by Pomo

and peasants of Sardinia, 108, 167,

173
Acosta, J. de, 179
Africa, 156-162
Ainslie, 151
Ainu, 148-149
alcarraza, 167
Algeria, 162

almagro, clay found in Spain, 167
al-Ta'alibi, 151
alica, 163

Altheer, 129, 132, 143, 167, 168
aluminous earth, 138
Amazon tribes, 188-189
America, 170-191
ampo, 129
anaemia, in its relation to geophagy,

105
Andamans, 110
Angami Naga, 143

ankylostomiasis, 104, 105, 106, 128, 161
Annamese, 127, 128
Annandale, 143
ants'-nests, earth from, eaten, 133, 142,

157, 158, 162, 168
Ao Naga, 143
Arabs, 153-155
Argoll, 170
Armenian earth, 150
Australia, 139
Aztec, 181

Bakafri, 189

Bali, 137

Bandelier, 170

Barbados, geophagy of Negroes in, 160

bark, as food-substitute, 120

Barrett, S. A., 173-174

Batchelor, 149

Beaver, 136

Beccari, 131

Belon, 166

Bent, 165

bergmehl, 168

Berthelot, 164

Best, E., 134

Bethlehem, earth from cave near, 154,

155
Biot, 111, 114, 119, 124
Bogoras, 148
Bolivia, 190, 191
Borneo, 131-133
Botocudo, 189
Bourke, 171
Brazil, 185

bread, mixed with earth, 168

Browne, J. O., 161

Browne, P., 159

Bruce, 136

bucaro pottery, eaten by Peruvian and

Portuguese women, 108, 191; eaten

in Spain and Portugal, 167
Burma, 143
burnt earth, 141
Burton, R., 154, 162

Cabeza de Vaca, 170

cachexia africana, 160

cachexy, 128

Cahuilla Indians, 174

Camilli, 140, 167, 168

Canaan, T., 155

cannibalism, in China, 120; in New

Zealand, 134
Carib, 160, 184, 188
Caripuna, 190
Carolina, 177, 184
Catawba Indians, 170, 171
Central America, 183-184
Cepeda, 180

chalk, mixed with grain, 163
Chang-kung Grotto, 112
Chanvallon, T. de, 156
Chardin, 151
Chavannes, 125
Ch'en Nan, 119
Cheyenne, 110
chili, mixed with clay and eaten in

Mexico, 179; in Spain, 167
chilmolli, 179
Chin of Upper Burma, 143
China, clay-eating in, 111-126
cholera, earth eaten as remedy for, 133;

powdered clay for, 147
Chou li, 124
Chukchi, 148, 149
Cimolean earth, 150
clay, used as a cosmetic in China, 126;

in New Guinea, 136
coca, eaten with clay, 189
Cole, F. C, 133
Colle, 157
Colombia, 190
Congo, 156-158
Cortambert, 187
Cortes, 180

Corydalis ambigua, 149
Costa Rica, 184
Cotting, 176
Couvreur, 122, 125
Covel, 164
Cushing, 171

194

Index

195

Cragin, 160, 161
Crevaux, 188

d'Albertis, 136

Davis, J. F., 118

d'Azara, 107

Delhaise, 158

Deniker, 106, 167

De Rochas, 138

De Vaux, 150

diarrhoea, clay pills for, in Australia,

139; clay cakes for, among Tungusian

tribes, 147
diatomaceous earth, 102, 110, 154
Diaz, 178

Dioscorides, 150, 165
Distant, 158, 190

dog bites, cured by Lemnian earth, 164
dragons, supposed to feed on clay, 113
Du Halde, 125
Dumoutier, 127
Dyaks, 130-132
dysentery, earth eaten as remedy for,

133, 145

earth, used as tooth-powder, 183

earth-rice, 102, 113, 114

Edrlsi, 151

Egypt, clay-eating in modern, 153;
geophagy not practised in ancient,
103; Nishapur clay in mediaeval, 151

Egyptian earth, 150

Ehrenberg, 101, 124, 140, 156, 160, 162,
163, 168, 169, 178

Ehrenreich, 189

Ehrmann, 156

Ellis, 134

Emmons, 176

Erman, 146

Eskimo, 174, 175

Esquipulas, 183

Europe, 163-169

Evans, 132

Eylmann, 139

face powder of clay, 126

famines, in China, 117

Fauvel, 124

Fee, 163

Finland, 168, 169

Finsch, 137

food-substitutes in famines, 120-124

Forde, C. Daryll, 172

Ftilleborn, 161

Galen, 150, 164, 165
Gaud, 157
Gautier, 191
Geerts, 116
Georgi, 146
Georgia, 176, 184
Germany, 168
Gilij, 190

Gilyak, 148, 149

Glaumont, 138

Golberry, 156

Gomara, 178, 180

Gordon, 123

grass, as food-substitute, 120, 121

graves, earth from, eaten, 154, 155, 160,

162
Guatemala, 183-184
Guatuso Indians, 184
Guiana, 187
Guinea, 156
Gumilla, 187
gypsum, mixed with alica, 163

Haemodorum, root of, eaten with earth

in Australia, 139
Hajaj, 153
Halkin, 158
Hamy, 127
Hanbury, 125
Haug, 150
Hegiage, 166
helminthiasis, 128
hemorrhoids, clay pills for, 147
Heringa, 129, 147
Herskovits, 161
Hildegard of Bingen, 168
Hill, 167
Hoernle, 141
Honduras, 181

honey, mixed with earth, 111
Hooper and Mann, 101, 104, 106, 107,

125, 140, 142, 147, 148, 153
Hopi edible clay, analysis of, 172-173
Hopi Indians, 172
Hose and McDougall, 132
Hrdlicka, 173
Hughes, G., 160

Humboldt, 129, 156, 168, 185-187
Hutton, 143

Ibn al-Baitar, 150, 151

Ibn Haukal, 151

Ibn Zakkariya, 151

Iguaces, 170

India, 140-143; Persian earth in, 151

indigestion, clay eaten for, 173

Indo-China, 127-128

infusorial earth, 102

intestinal diseases, clay-eating in, 137

Iroquois, 106

Irving, 160

Ishak Ibn AmrSn, 150

Italmen, 146, 147

Japan, geophagy not practised in, 103

Java, 129-131

Jochelson, 147, 148

Jolly, 141

Jourdanet, 178, 179

Joyce, 178

Juan-Avo, 190

196

Geophagy

Kai-uku, 134

Kamchatka, 146-148

Kanjur, 144

Kenya, 161

Ki Shu-ye, 112

kieselguhr, 102, 114

King chou ki, 112

Kiu hwang hwo min shu, 121

Kiu Wu tai shi, 120

Ko Hung, 112

Koch-Griinberg, 189

Kohler, 181

Koryak, 146

Krickeberg, 106

Kwangyuki, 111, 112

Kyffhauser, stone butter of, 168

Labillardiere, 129, 137

lactation, earth eaten to promote, 139,

154
landslips, 112, 115
Lane, E. W., 153
Lapland, 169
Lasch, 103, 125, 156, 181
Lawson, 176

laxative, clay-eating as, 171
Leclerc, 150, 153, 166
Legey, 162
Legge, 125

Lemnos, sigillate earth of, 164-166
Leo Africanus, 150
Leucogaeum, 163
Li Shi-chen, 114, 117
Li-su, eating earth mixed with honey,

111
Lin-ngan fu, edible earth of, 111
Ling piao lu i, 126
Lithgow, 154

liver troubles, clay eaten in, 182
loam, drunk with water, 189
Lopatin, 146-147

Macedonia, 168

Madagascar, geophagy not practised in,

103
Magdalena River, 190
Malaysia, 129-133
Malta, earth from grotto in, 166
Maori, 134
Martin, 133
Martinique, 156
Martius, 190
Maya, 181
Medicinal earth, 144
Meigen, 137
Melanesia, 136-139
Mely, F. de, 114, 115
Mexico, 178-182
Mills, 143
mineral flour, 114

Mitra, S. C., 104, 125, 128, 140, 141
Molina, 140, 191

Moqui Indians, 171
Morocco, 162
Mortimer, 188
Mosquito Coast, 184
mountain meal, 102, 123, 168
Muller, J. B., 144

Nan chao ye shi, 111

Navaho, 172

Negroes, 156-161, 184, 189, 190

Neuhauss, 136

New Caledonia, 137-138

New Guinea, 136-137

New Hebrides, 139

New Mecklenburg, 137

New Zealand, 134

Nicaragua, 184

Nieuwenhuis, 131

Nishapur, edible earth of, 150

North America, 170-177

oath, earth-eating in, 142, 143, 181

Oaxaca, 181, 182

ochre, in Polynesia, 135

olla, 167

ooze, from lakes, consumed in Mexico,

178-179; in New Zealand, 134
Oraibi Indians, 171
ordeals, earth eaten in, 131
Otomac, 185-187
Ouseley, 151
Overbergh, 157, 158

Pallas, 145

Pamunkey Indians, 170, 171

Papago Indians, 173

Paraguay, 190, 191

Patna, pottery of, eaten, 140

Paucot, 127

Pen ts'ao kang mu, 114

Pen ts'ao kang mu shi i, 117

Peri, 127, 128

Persia, Armenian earth in, 151; clay-
eating in, 150-153

Peru, 190

Peter of Abano, 166

Philippines, ceremonial earth-eating in,
133

plague, Lemnian earth as remedy for,
166

Pliny, 150, 163, 164, 165

P'o, T'ai tribe, indulging in earth, 111

poisons, cured by sigillate earth, 164

Polak, 153

Polynesia, 133-135

Pomo Indians, 108, 173

Popol Vuh, 183

Portugal, 167

Post, 131, 181

pottery-making and clay-eating, 170,
171, 190

Index

197

pottery sherds, consumed in India, 140;

in Peru, 190
pregnancy, clay-eating during, 109, 136,

137, 140, 141, 157, 159, 161, 179
Prowe, 104
Przyluski, 125
Pueblos, 173
Purchas, 170

Raghuvamca, 141

rains of earth, 119

Rasmussen, 175

Rauwolf, 162

Razes, 151

Read and Pak, 116

Reade, 158

Rengger, 191

Richardson, Sir John, 174

Rigg, 129

Rockhill, 119, 144

Roth, H. L., 131

Roth, W. E., 139, 187, 188

Russell, F., 174

Rutter, 132

sacred earth, 142

Saffray, 190

Sahagun, 178, 179

saints' tombs, earth from, 155

saline earth, 106, 107

salt, in its relation to clay-eating, 106,

157, 184, 189
Sambo, 184
Samian earth, 150, 164
Sanang Setsen, 144
sand, as substitute for salt, 133
Sapper, 184
Sardinia, 167
Sarrasin, 138

Saville, Marshall H., 181-182
Saxony, fossil flour used in, 168
Scherman, 143
Schiefner, 144
Schlimmer, 153
Schmitz, 157
Schott, 114
Schurtz, 107
Schweinfurth, 157
Seidel, 150
Semites, geophagy not practised by

ancient, 103
Senegambia, 156
Shan States, 143
Shan-tung t'ung chi, 115
Sheldon, 184
Shen sien chuan, 112
Sheng shwi yen t'an lu, 117
shi mien, stone meal, mineral flour,

114-116
Shu king, 124
Siam, 143
Siberia, 145-148

Sierra Leone, 156

sigillate earth, 150, 164-166

Siebold, 148

Simpson, E., 172

Skinner, 184

Smith, Harlan I., 176

Smith, W. C, 143

Smyth, R. B., 139

soap, clay used as, 174

soapstone, eaten with flour, 124, 142

Soares de Sousa, 185

Solanum fendleri, tubers of, eaten with
clay, 171

South America, 185-191

Spain, 167

Speck, Frank G., 170, 171

Speiser, 139

St. Hilaire, 189, 191

steatite, mixed with wheat flour, in
China, 124; in India, 142; in New
Caledonia, 137, 138; in Siam, 143

Stefansson, 174

Steinen, K. von den, 189

Steller, 146

Stephan, 137

Sternberg, 148

Stevenson, M. C, 171

Stoll, 183, 184

stone butter, 145, 146, 168

stone meal, 102, 114

Strahlenberg, 145

Strong, W. D., 174

Such, Georgiana B., 162

suicide, earth taken in, 160, 184, 185

Sung shi, 115

Sung shu, 115, 120

Surinam, geophagy of Negroes in, 161

Sweden, 169

syphilis, 146

Tahiti, red earth formerly eaten in, 134

T'ai-hang Mountains, 112

tana ampo, 129

Tang shu, 115, 120

Tarascans, 180

Taupo Lake, in New Zealand, 134

tecuitlatl, 178, 179

termites'-nests, earth of, eaten, 157

terra sigillata, 150, 164-166

Tezcatlipoca, 179, 180

Thompson, C. J. S., 166

Thompson, J. Eric, 181

Thorndike, 164, 166, 168

Thurston, 105, 106

Tibet, 144

ticatl, 179, 183

Tietze, 153

Timor, 131

tizate, 183

Torquemada, 179, 180

Tremearne, 162

Tripoli, 162

198

Geophagy

Tschudi, 190
t'u fan, 113
T'ung chi, 115, 119
Tung Wei, 121
Tungus, 146, 147
Tupinamba, 185

Vauquelin, 186

Venezuela, whites of, indulging in clay,

187
Veth, 131
Vinayavastu, 144
Virgin, milk of, 154; of Etla, 182
Virginia, Indians of, 170
vitriol, 145, 146
vomiting, stopped by eating clay, 109,

151, 166

Wagner, M. L., 167
Walker, 132

Wang Lie, 112

Wang P'i-chi, 117

Watt, 140

Wei Ts'ang t'u shi, 144

West Indies, geophagy among Negro

slaves of, 159
Whiffen, 188
Wiedemann, 151
Wirz, 136, 137
Wood, J., 153
Wu Tai shi, 122

Yao Sheng, 112
Yi-hing hien chi, 112
Young, T., 184

Zapotec Indians, 182
Zuni, 108, 171

7 woftk

• * mo