The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter/Sputum in charms
CHAPTER 131. “Then she kneaded dust and spittle and, dipping her middle finger into the mixture, she crossed my forehead with it.”
Since the Fairy Tale Era of the human race, sputum has been employed to give potency to charms and to curses. It was anciently used as anathema and that use is still in force to this day. Let the incredulous critic spit in some one’s face if he doubts my word.
But sputum had also a place in the Greek and Roman rituals. Trimalchio spits and throws wine under the table when he hears a cock crowing unseasonably. This, in the first century. Any Jew in Jerusalem hearing the name of Titus mentioned, spits: this in 1903. In the ceremony of naming Roman children spittle had its part to play: it was customary for the nurse to touch the lips and forehead of the child with spittle. The Catholic priest’s ritual, which prescribes that the ears and nostrils of the infant or neophyte, as the case may be, shall be touched with spittle, comes, in all probability from Mark, vii, 33, 34, viii, 23, and John, ix, 6, which, in turn are probably derived from a classical original. It should be added that fishermen spit upon their bait before casting in their hooks.