242
Urine was stored for some time to mature and become less burning and acid. It was taken from the storage jars in buckets when needed, and mixed with water. It was then carefully poured by a dipper around the base of individual vegetable plants, or else tipped into the watering can and sprinkled generally over a whole field, usually of vegetables. With rice, the urine and water mix was scattered by dipper-fulls over the field at the appropriate times, particularly the seedbed stage, and then again just before the final maturity stage, that is, after the field had been drained.
Urine was so valued as a fertiliser that it was actually stealable: youths out at night would sometimes try to take a dipper-full from a neighbour's storage jar and add it to their own family jar. For this reason the storage jars would be kept as close as possible to the family home, and under the watchful eye of the family dogs.
While every house had a urinal in the form of the urine bucket behind the main door, none, it would seem, had facilities within the house for defecation. Every village had one or more communal latrines used for this purpose. These latrines were owned by the wealthier villagers. In most cases they consisted of single rooms, 10 or 15 foot square, sometimes attached to cowsheds, and were always associated with a drying ground and rubbish incinerator site. The latrine was expensive to run because so much land had to be surrendered to it.
Within the latrine, which would have a plaster floor, a section was separated off by plank walls some 2 feet or so in height. The area inside these plank walls was prepared by laying down a bed of ashes some few inches deep across the floor. Two planks were then placed across the top, running from side to side of the enclosed space, and about 9 inches apart. Users of the latrine would squat on the planks and defecate on to the ashes below. Much of the rest of the floor space of the latrine was occupied by a heap of ashes with a spade, which allowed ashes to be spread over the feces. By this means, even where, as was usual, 30 or 50 persons used the latrine each day, the smells arising from it were not too offensive, although it is true that most latrines were built a little away from the houses.