"Don't shit where you eat"

Barbara Need nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU
Fri Jul 6 20:46:26 UTC 2007


At 23:11 -0400 03/7/07, sagehen wrote:
>  >Sorry for the crude title.
>>
>>Has anyone searched to find out what the earliest version of this must
>>have been?  I would doubt that it was that phrasing.
>>
>>Anyone suggest what the original sentiment might have been?
>>
>>Sam Clements
>  ~~~~~~~~~~
>I remember reading about the Essenes or some similar group --  associated
>with the Dead Sea Scrolls, perhaps? -- that had strictures concerning the
>roles of the two hands: the one that went into the communal pot at mealtime
>would never be the one that wiped one's bottom.   Whether the left was the
>"clean" and the right the "unclean" I don't remember, but I believe the
>roles were immutable.
>AM

I remember a month-long Sunday school sequence on the Arab world
(mid-70s, Unitarian Church) in which we were instructed to eat with
the right hand (no utensils!) because the left hand was traditionally
used to wipe oneself.

Barbara

Barbara Need
UChicago

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