Again, not Spanish, but in VA, Thomas Jefferson at Monticello had large pots on a rope and pulley system that were slid out the side door of his elevated privy, if memory serves. William Byrd II of Westover had two elevated privies, of which the survivor privy is a 5 seater that undoubtedly had pots below that were removed out of the side door. Disposal after that is unknown. In the 20th century, the western privy was known as the garden shed while the eastern retained its function, primarily as a tourist attraction, although some idiot tourists have used it. That brings up the question of how elevated privies might be interpreted from the archaeological record if there was no mapping, and no other trace visible apart from four foundation walls. Placement relative to the main house would point in that direction but wouldn't be dispositive. Chemical analysis of soil would probably push the interpretation in the right direction, though.

Lyle Browning


On Jun 29, 2012, at 11:32 AM, Susan Walter wrote:

> Here in SD County in California, lilacs don't do well.  We had hollyhocks and cannas traditionally planted around privies here for screens rather than for odor control.
> The removable box is fascinating!  Something new for me.
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tim Bennett" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Friday, June 29, 2012 6:18 AM
> Subject: Re: Spanish Colonial wells/privies
> 
> 
> At the Warner site in Brighton, MI they used an outhouse that had a removable box in the bottom.  The box was removed via a side panel and dragged out into the fields and emptied.  The outhouse was a "deluxe" three-seater that was purchased around the 1920's and in use until the mid 1960's.  It stood on the farm until demolished around 2003, with only the poured cement foundation remaining.  Lilac bushes were often planted nearby to help deal with the odor.  Prevailing wind direction was also a factor in the location of the privies in relation to the house.  It is interesting to look at the artifact distribution maps around structures like these, basically forming an obvious "halo".  The Warner site dates back to 1841 and has been in my family for the past 170 years.
> 
> Tim Bennett
> Warner Site
> 
> 
> 
> --- On Fri, 6/29/12, Stottman, Michael J <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
>> From: Stottman, Michael J <[log in to unmask]>
>> Subject: Re: Spanish Colonial wells/privies
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Date: Friday, June 29, 2012, 1:06 AM
>> Is it possible that the pail system
>> was being used? Sometimes pails or other containers
>> were placed in the privy to collect the waste. These
>> containers would have been emptied daily via a door in the
>> back of the superstructure, perhaps the contents were dumped
>> outside of the mission. This system would not leave
>> much of an archaeological signature.
>> 
>> Jay
>> 
>> M. Jay Stottman
>> Staff Archaeologist
>> Kentucky Archaeological Survey
>> ________________________________________
>> From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [[log in to unmask]]
>> on behalf of Susan Walter [[log in to unmask]]
>> Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2012 11:23 PM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: Spanish Colonial wells/privies
>> 
>> My mom's country cousins, in Montana, were horrified that
>> people went to the
>> bathroom INSIDE their homes.
>> 
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Elizabeth Newman" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2012 8:14 PM
>> Subject: Fw: Spanish Colonial wells/privies
>> 
>> 
>> Oops, meant to reply to the list....
>> 
>> ----- Forwarded Message -----
>> From: Elizabeth Newman <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: BERNARD FONTANA <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2012 10:54 PM
>> Subject: Re: Spanish Colonial wells/privies
>> 
>> 
>> I have to agree, too. I worked on a multi-year
>> ethnoarchaeological study in
>> a rural village in central Mexico. As part of the research,
>> we did a
>> complete architectural study of 5% of the households (20) in
>> a village with
>> a population just under 2,000. Out of the twenty households,
>> two had a
>> dedicated "latrine" area, though these were usually just
>> disused and
>> partially ruined buildings in the household's compound. The
>> norm was that
>> you just found a quiet place in the compound that was
>> generally agreed upon
>> and did what you had to do. Everybody else would make a
>> point of not
>> noticing. Each compound had zones of habitation, buildings,
>> cleaned patios,
>> space for animals, and an area for trash (an open sheet
>> midden, basically).
>> People used a discrete space in the trash area and often
>> near the animals.
>> Dogs, chicken, turkey, goats, and sheep roamed at will,
>> donkeys, pigs, and
>> horses were more restricted in their movements. The dogs
>> especially were
>> not fed, and both they and the goats (along with other
>> animals) foraged for
>> food in the midden. Generally, the organic remains of all
>> sorts were quickly
>> disposed of. After a time, when the inorganics in the midden
>> became a
>> problem everything was sort of collected up (including
>> recent organics) and
>> transported to a secondary dump, usually in a dry stream bed
>> out in the
>> fields where feral dogs would continue to scavenge. When
>> excavating the
>> neighboring hacienda later, I didn't go looking for a privy,
>> but honestly I
>> would have been shocked to find any such thing.
>> 
>> I myself lived in a more rural community (on the outskirts
>> of another
>> village). I was one of only a handful of households in the
>> community that
>> had indoor plumbing (which drains into the cornfield in
>> which my house is
>> located). As a rule, my neighbors just take a stroll out
>> into their corn
>> field and find themselves a quiet spot. Many of them have
>> the financial
>> resources to put in plumbing, but have deliberately chosen
>> not to. They are
>> totally disgusted that some of us actually do such things
>> inside our homes.
>> It is actually something that is a source of teasing at
>> neighborhood
>> parties.
>> 
>> Elizabeth Newman
>> 
>> 
>> ________________________________
>> From: BERNARD FONTANA <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2012 6:35 PM
>> Subject: Re: Spanish Colonial wells/privies
>> 
>> 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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