"Don't shit where you eat"

[Laurence Horn]

At 3:46 PM -0500 7/6/07, Barbara Need wrote:
>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

This is still the tradition in Nepal, parts of India, and various
other places in South and Southeast Asia as well, persisting even
after the advent of toilet paper.

LH

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