I had always this fascination on this subject. As a person with amateurish interest in History, I like to know the sanitation of our ancient people. What kind of toilets they used, how did they wash, was all "business" conducted near lakes and river beds? If some conducted "business" inside forts, towns and cities; then how was it cleaned and drained.
Though I have read the "Internet" about these, most of the info pertains to Europeans; and one has to dig real hard to find things about Indians.
Bathrooms in every house with chutes leading to drainage channels.
Bathing platforms with drains were often situated in rooms adjacent to the wells. The floors of the baths were made of tightly-fitted bricks, often set on edge to make a watertight floor. A small drain cut through the house wall out into the street directed the dirty water into a larger sewage drain. Drains and water chutes in the upper storeys were often built inside the wall with an exit opening just above the street drains. Tapered terracotta drainpipes were used to direct water out to the street.
Many houses had distinct toilets, separate from the bath areas. Commodes were large jars or sump pots sunk into the floors and many of them contained a small jar. Sometimes the sump pots were connected to drains to let the sewage flow out and most had a tiny hole on the bottom to allow the water to seep into the ground. Drains were made of burnt bricks and connected the bathing platforms and latrines of private houses to medium-sized open drains in the side streets. These open drains flowed into the larger sewers in the main streets which were covered with baked bricks or dressed stone blocks. Separate garbage bins were provided along the major streets.
Did I miss something, or is nothing said about what to do with the feces? In Changa, GUJ all was left in an attractive line along the side of our road each morning. Kathie
Kathie, coming back after a break, did not expect to jump in on this dicussion :))
Anyway in olden days ash made from burning cow dung was used to cover up and discard faecal matter. There were people who came in every day in the morning with bags of ash and gathered up the faecal matter from each household - they were called 'thottan' and 'lacchi' (names for profession). Of course these were poorest among the poor and often deemed untouchable with hygeine as excuse. My grandmother created great stir in the brahmin community when she asked our 'lacchi' to take bath and come into the house for a navratri day event. In areas with more anglican influence there were septic tanks way back into 60s itself. In other areas the 'lacchi' custom was in vogue even until late 70s.
Looks like your olden days is matter of few decades or centuries. I am looking little beyond that, say 1000 years ago. Or for that matter 2000 years ago? What were the conditions before the Europeans arrived?
// In other areas the 'lacchi' custom was in vogue even until late 70s. //
In my hometown (Rasipuram), I have seen them even during mid 80s. Even after that I saw them cleaning the public toilets till early 90s. This custom disappeared only from mid 90s.
Not sure in this thread anybody else mentioned it, Jeyamohan's "Oomai chennai" story describes how the servants helped cleaning the british officials..
Yes our 'lacchi' used to say their family went back 6-8 generations doing the same job.
Plumbing and water inside homes happened only after anglican invasions, before that people relied on public waterways and wells in their backyards. There are not that many creative ways to dispose human waste when there is no running water - either one used areas near rivers or the system of human disposal in homes.
Kathie, yes my grandmother was progressive. Her answer to those who called toilet cleaners untouchable was that any human who cleans my waste is not untouchable - he/she is God incarnate.
It is my theory that the scavenging/cleaning the toilet system came because of the Britishers. That is one reason I wanted to find what kind of toilets/bathrooms we had 500,1000....yrs ago.
I read that with the advent of toilets in the European cities during Renaissance; people used to throw out waste water/products out their window. IIRC, "throwing the baby with the bath water" was an expression that came around that period.
I have Alberuni's India book. He mentions people who were outside the caste system - he mentions about 7-9 guilds - who I consider doing some of the dirtier jobs (in any period). One of them was killing/skinning animals (leather products). But I do not recollect reading anywhere about people cleaning toilets being mentioned in any traveler's narrations.
The above aligns with the possibility that people used the lakes and river banks as an open toilet - thereby requiring nobody to clean the waste.
So with the advent of modern toilets, a new set of people began doing the particular job and they got entrenched in the existing chaturvarna. Just my theory.
any human who cleans my waste is not untouchable - he/she is God incarnate - That is a very interesting line. Motherhood is such too right, as fetus does what we speak here, inside the her. Yet she accepts it and loves her child as much. Earth is also termed as Mother coz she gives all that she can, yet accepts what we junk on her too.
Read somewhere online that Harappans had the first toilet (western that too ;-) )
waking up from hibernation (Detroit is cold)... - R
It is quite possible that some systems came bcoz of the British but it is hard to say in this regard that nobody was cleaning toilets before them. For one thing, not all towns and cities had lakes/ponds/rivers. Many had wells in their backyard, and how did they take care of the sick and infirm? Without running water it is impossible to do without a human disposal system. It might be worth seeing what travellers have to say about healthcare, or even women delivering children at home and so on. In principle it may be similar.
Yes Ravi. Wonder how you michigan-ites up north survive this cold!! I live down south and it is bad enough here, that too this year with visitors from home going every half an hour aiyo, kuluru appa etc etc. :)
I live in a place that gets colder than Detroit. In my experience the body just gets used to the climate and adapts accordingly.
Yes not everybody lived near lakes and rivers. For example inside what about the people that lived in the Forts? What about the Kings and Queens?
In USA we see a pattern: The Janitors are mostly poor Hispanic immigrants, or elderly and/or poor White Americans. There is some kind of rigidity there, but unlike the guild system in India.
The Harappan plumbing though well touted can not be considered to be available through out the sub-continent.
I guess rich and poor, over privileged and under privileged is sort of the order of the world in different ways. I was reading a fictional book on Taj Mahal which quotes some sources saying mughal emperors had slaves disposing toilet. To my mind to imagine an automated system of some sort is a far cry there had to be human labor of some kind. How divisive/rigid that was is another story.