Apropos of pigs as waste removal devices, but alas not Spanish 
Colonial pigs, there are good quotes from travelers such as Mrs. 
Frances Trollope (Domestic Manners of the Americans 1832) and Charles 
Dickens (American Notes 1842) that pigs were allowed to run free in 
frontier cities such as Cincinnati and in urban centers such as New 
York City specifically because they were scavengers who cleaned up 
waste. A photo taken in Washington, Arkansas, after a tornado in 1907 
shows a pig walking un-bothered in an empty main street.

I have no knowledge of free-running pigs in nucleated Hispanic 
settlements. Perhaps George Avery ([log in to unmask]) who was in 
charge of the Los Adaes Mission complex in NW Louisiana can 
comment.  His analysis of illustrations of material culture for 
evidentiary inclusion in Spanish Colonial court records is brilliant, 
and I'm sure disposal of human waste came up somewhere in those records.

  At 09:41 AM 6/29/2012, you wrote:
>All,
>
>Let me second Bunny's suggestion and add another possibility. In 
>remote coastal Ecuador, there are a number of communities where 
>there are not privies, but where business is done in the surrounding 
>woods. It may be dogs that get rid of the human waste, but, at least 
>in one community that I can think of, pigs were considered the 
>sanitation specialists.
>
>Cheers,
>Ben
>
>On 6/28/2012 6:35 PM, BERNARD FONTANA wrote:
>>I wouldn't be too hasty about the ability of dogs to get rid of 
>>human waste. I have lived within fifteen feet of the boundary of an 
>>Indian reservation for 56 years, and believe me, anything that's 
>>edible quickly disappears due in no small part to the hunger of 
>>free-roaming dogs.
>>    When I lived in Alaska anthropologist Margaret Lantis told me 
>> she had been sent on assignment by the Alaska Native Service to 
>> Nunivak Island to she if she could find out why there had been a 
>> spike in illnesses among the native population.  What she 
>> discovered was that in former times, Nunivak's inhabitants used 
>> sinews to fashioned leashes with which to tie their dogs 
>> up.  Inevitably, the dogs chewed through the leather and ran free 
>> for short periods of time -- cleaning up the community while they 
>> were at it.  It was only after chain leashes were introduced and 
>> the dogs were unable to go on offal patrol, human waste included, 
>> that the resulting unsanitary surroundings caused a jump in 
>> illnesses among the human population.
>>    Bunny Fontana
>>
>>
>>
>>----- Original Message ----- From: "John M. Foster, RPA" 
>><[log in to unmask]>
>>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>>Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2012 10:04 AM
>>Subject: Re: Spanish Colonial wells/privies
>>
>>
>>I'm with Bob on this. I've worked on bits and pieces of seven 
>>California Missions and never found a privy, well, or any other 
>>similar facility that could be dated to the mission period. We just 
>>finished work at Missions Soledad and Ventura, and did not find 
>>evidence of either. We also used GPR at both. This lack of evidence 
>>could be a function of sampling as well but I doubt it. There had 
>>to be (check your assumptions) some type of institutional method of 
>>waste management. There is tangential evidence in Laird, Carobeth. 
>>1975, Encounter with an Angry God: Recollections of My Life with 
>>John Peabody Harrington ( Malki Museum Press, Banning, California) 
>>in which she references dogs providing such services on a 
>>reservation. I find it difficult to believe that dogs were the 
>>primary or even secondary means of waste disposal in a mission setting.
>>
>>In terms of wells, there is a photograph at Ventura that shows 
>>shafdufs behind the mission but none has been found to my knowledge 
>>nor have the ones in the photograph been excavated or reliably 
>>dated to the mission period. I think this needs more discussion.
>>
>>John M. Foster, RPA
>>Greenwood-Associates.com
>>310.454.3091 tel/fax
>>310.717.5048 cell
>>
>>
>>________________________________
>>From: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>Sent: Friday, June 22, 2012 5:41 PM
>>Subject: Re: Spanish Colonial wells/privies
>>
>>I have not yet encountered any definite Spanish privies in my work in
>>Hispanic California, though there are plenty from Anglo and 
>>Asian-American ones
>>in later phases of occupation at the Presidio of Santa Barbara. We did find a
>>well of still yet undetermined date at the same site.   I suspect that the
>>privies are more likely in military sites which are early and in the
>>Southeast, at a point less remote from the center of civilization, 
>>such as St.
>>Augustine or other sites in Florida.
>>
>>The major question for me is what did the Spanish do about waste disposal
>>at mission sites such as San Antonio de Padua where there were up to 1300
>>Indians.   Chamber pots worked well for the 2 padres, five soldiers, and
>>possible one or two others of European or mestizo origins, but were 
>>impractical
>>for the large numbers of neophytes.   With the health ramifications of this
>>issue, I cannot believe that this was just left to informal chance.
>>In the
>>1790s, the Spanish were learning much more about the nature of disease and
>>the role of public health.   However, so far we have found no 
>>traces of trench
>>latrines anywhere.   I believe chemical analysis of the soil is the best
>>bet for revealing this, as it leaves little visible trace behind.
>>
>>Bob Hoover
>


Mr. Leslie C. "Skip" Stewart-Abernathy, Ph.D.
Arkansas Archeological Survey
Winthrop Rockefeller Institute
Petit Jean Mountain
1 Rockefeller Drive
Morrilton, AR 72110
501 727-6250, cell 479-264-8149
email: [log in to unmask]