Sanitation Companions
Consuming our most intimate waste
"How can pigs eat shit yet taste so good?" a friend in Northeast India once asked. A paradox and a truly important question. Pigs eat what they want - and what they eat (almost everything, rubbish, sometimes humans!) is a continuous subject of fascination. Especially when their diet revolves around human faeces.
Throughout history, in parts of Europe, East Asia, South Asia and elsewhere, pigs were used to clean up people's poop, and in some cases pig sties were integrated into toilet architecture. While less popular now, communities still employ pigs for sanitation work - for example, in India areas include Goa, Kerala, and some northeastern states.
For those who grew up with or experienced pig toilets, defecating could be remembered as an intimate, if sometimes awkward, space of interspecies interaction. Where a toilet goer was distracted by hungry eyes peering through the hole in the outhouse. Or those (not so) private moments squatting while feeling eager hot breath against one's cheeks, the pressure mounting to finish by an impatient pig. Some considered it wise to go to the toilet in pairs - a friend to act as an obstacle to the eager swine and allowing the other to meditate on their inner workings in peace.
Joseph C. Dias is an architect and a cartoonist who grew up in Goa. On his facebook page, Jodi's Art, Dias occasionally draws about pigs and pig toilets. These illustrations are often recollections filled with reflexive amusement and warm fondness of his youth and his family home while growing up in Goa. Pig toilets are also some of the ways in which Dias reconnects with a certain time and place through his drawings - including reflections about people, regional architecture, and a sense of Goan identity shared with others who also had similar experiences.
Dias has kindly given permission to repost some of his sentimental, insightful and humorous illustrations below. The images are also posted along with the captions that originally accompanied the Facebook post. Each image can be expanded for a closer look.
Most old houses in Goa had 'outhouses' which were large-ish huts with walls built out of mud, aggregate, 'lall val'(crushed gluey creeper as binder). The roof was made of dried palm leaves placed in several layers. These outhouses had multiple uses - firewood and old furniture store, farm implement storage, and some even had the 'cumão' ( pig-toilet!). The windows and doors were very roughly made out of battens ( for grilles) and planks (for doors). The creepy thing about the toilet was that often, a cobra or two would take up residence in the same space! ( ... and of course...the piggy who would sometimes 'snout your behind' if his ' meal' was delayed!!!
Growing up in my gran's house in Margao meant that i had to use the 'pig toilet'. The frustrating thing was that the 'bog' was not deep enough and sometimes, the pig would get frustrated by the long wait for his 'food' ... So, the only way to keep it away from my 'behind' was to poke its snout with a burning 'veer'( A dry stick from the broom made from palm leaves). Note that in those days, we had to take a hime-made kerosene lamp in case the electricity got cut ( Which is usual to this day in Goa!). Yeah, yeah laugh your guts out guys ... You have not seen our days!
You laugh? 40 years ago it hurt a hellovalot! About Goan pig toilets: I was part of a team of architecture students that 'measure-drew' the Menezes-Braganca house in Chandor. I was amazed to see a huge unpartitioned 'pig-scavenged' toilet. Apparently, in those days, the ladies loved to gossip whilst downloading! Some crap talk it must have been, huh?
Had a hearty laugh at breakfast today when our dear amigo Rolan, who returned last night from Goa, gave me this cartoon idea. Hope you guys like it too! ...translation: One pig to another: "Dukroo, these days we have 'formalin' in our food, isn't it?"
...I am sure, those of you who had pigs in those days may have heard them being called by names by your servants, or your grandparents. It was weird how each pig responded to it's own name! In those days, we used to have 'pig toilets' and each household had to rear pigs for scavenging (and for sausages!!!)