I believe in one of the Indian Schools (in Banning) we worked at a lot of 
the human waste went into the hog enclosures.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Benjamin Carter" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, June 29, 2012 7:41 AM
Subject: Re: Spanish Colonial wells/privies


> 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


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