Page:Popular medicine, customs and superstitions of the Rio Grande, John G. Bourke, 1894.pdf/6

124 The Mexicans still have the same faith in the beautifying properties of a lotion of urine which Strabo relates as one of the characteristics of their Celtiberian grandmothers.

Young ladies will first rub their faces and hands with fresh beef tallow, and then, just before going to bed, apply a lotion of the warm urine of a little boy. (M. A.)

Cosmetics to remove Freckles.—Scrape some white potatoes into a bowl of cold water, and there let them remain for eight days. Wash with the water and the freckles will disappear. But an infallible specific for imparting beauty to the complexion is some of the first urine of a male child.

Crispillæ.—In the week before Christmas, the Mexican women busy themselves in the preparation of a cup-shaped, sweetish, greasy fried cake, which is given form by being patted over the cook's knee. This cake can be identified with the "crispillæ" of the Normans, described by Ducange in his Glossarium. Long before the time of the Normans, long before the time of Christ, it was made by the shepherd-bandit comrades of Romulus and Remus, in honor of the goddess Fornax. On the Rio Grande, it is called "Buñuelo."

Cross.—When a woman has consented to an interview with an old lover, but does not wish to be led into any criminality, she will have her good resolutions strengthened if she make the sign of the cross on the inside of the lower hem of her dress skirt. This should be made by placing four large pins in the necessary positions. (M. A.)

"Thorns, in the form of a cross, were either laid in the window, or should be put in a window, to keep witches from entering." "Roman Etruscan Remains," Charles G. Leland, New York, Scribners, 1891, page 108.

"In a Tuscan incantation to break love:" ... "When you wish to prevent a young man from visiting a girl, in any house, take shoemaker's wax and four nails. Make of these a cross, and put such crosses under the seat whereon the lover and maid sit. And the end will be that they will quarrel, and he will no more come to the house." Idem, page 296. Such crosses are again mentioned when you wish to bewitch a man. Page 354.

An obstructive power is also ascribed by the Bretons to the figure of the cross:—

"Une petite pieèce placée sur une route avec certaines paroles, fait verser les charrettes; il en est de même des croix tracées sur la poussière du chemin, si elles ont aussi été accompagnées de conjurations." "Additions aux Coútumes, etc., de la Haute Bretagne," in "Révue des Traditions Populaires," Paris, 1892, Paul Sébillot.