Humor - The History of Saliva

The History of Saliva
by William I. Lengeman III

Here are some fascinating facts about spit, which I’ve gone out and gathered so you don't have to. But first there’s a minor issue of semantics that we need to get cleared up - the difference between saliva and spittle. The dictionary isn't completely clear on this point, but as far as I can tell it appears that saliva does not technically become spittle until it is ejected (or spit) from the mouth.

The word spit is a truncated version of spittle. Obviously those two extra letters make the word entirely too cumbersome and difficult to pronounce and thus had to be done away with. Also, when you get right down to it, the word spittle is pretty gross. For me, it conjures up visions of a slightly rank substance, of disgusting hue, oozing forth from a decrepit old man with boils in his mouth. Not that there's anything wrong with that, if it's what you like.

The New Century Dictionary notes the existence of a bug known as the spittle insect, which is "any of various, small leaping homopterous insects (family Cercopide) whose young exude a frothy secretion called cuckoo-spit." This is also quite repulsive. Now, don't get me wrong, I have nothing against small homopterous insects, especially ones that leap, but when they start excreting frothy secretions that really makes my skin crawl. Of course I'm like that with most frothy secretions. In fact, just the words "frothy secretions" makes my stomach churn, which in turn probably manufactures more frothy secretions – oh, God.

In The Golden Bough, his comprehensive study of magic and religion, Sir James George Frazer related that many chieftains in the Sandwich Islands (Where, many hundreds of years ago, a team of brilliant aboriginal chemists developed a primitive version of the Big Mac. This differed from the contemporary burger only in two minor details. It lacked the ever so crucial sesame seed bun and the special sauce was distilled from a mixture of human brains, monkey rectums, sun-dried tomatoes and olive oil. These same researchers were also thought to have worked on prototypes of the Whopper and the Arch Deluxe, but the historical record is not completely clear on this point.) hired a guy to follow them around with a spittoon. Their spit was buried at the end of the day so it couldn't be used to perform magic against them. The most important conclusion we can draw from this is that Sandwich Island chieftains were dimwits.

Chilote Indians often gathered their enemy's spit, put it in a potato and smoke-dried it, all the while muttering imprecations, incantations and all manner of vaguely scary and mystical sounding things. If no potatoes were available the Chilote would put the spit in a frog (a practice that the frogs didn't really care much for, but since they couldn't talk or form lobbying groups they couldn't really do much about it), and throw it in an inaccessible, unnavigable river. The Chilote probably ingested a helluva lot of hallucinogens.

When it comes to grotesque and pointless spit-related practices, the Wajagga of East Africa take the frothy, secretion-filled cake. Frazer related that when two Wajagga men wanted to seal an agreement, they took milk or beer, muttered the usual imprecations, incantations and assorted malarkey over it, drink the liquid and spit it in the other guy's mouth (gulk, there go my frothy secretions again). If they were in a hurry, then they simply spit in each other's mouth, minus the beverage, a practice from which we derive the slang term "swapping spit." Let me say, for the historical record, that this is one of the most repulsive things I've ever heard. Also, there is absolutely no truth to the rumor that Wajagga tribesmen were inordinately fond of Barbara Streisand and had a real flair for decorating.

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