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