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“grooves” or “furrows” had been inexplicably carved into the outside brick walls and sometimes the mortar of many churches, usually on the south side, near entrances. The reason for the association between European “ecclesiastical structures” and these cupmarks was a mystery to him. Rau seems to have viewed it as the continuation of a pagan custom (which it may very well have been); however, knowledge of the medical phenomena of pica and geophagia in humans might have added support to another perspective about this unusual behavior impacting the sides of religious buildings across Germany and Sweden. Rau recorded that “the cups on churches in Germany seem to have been thought to possess healing qualities. Fever-sick people blew, as it were, the disease into the cavities. According to other accounts, the patients swallowed the powder produced in grinding out the cups” (Rau 1882:88). Rau also described two stones in France into which people ground holes. These stones were attached to or were actually inside churches. The people who ground the holes drank the rock powder to cure fever and impotency (Rau 1882:88). He identi¤ed a location in Switzerland where “ailing persons drill into the stones of a certain chapel, and swallow the dust thus obtained” (Rau 1882:88–89). He then mentioned a citizen of Greifswald who reported “that the cups were still resorted to in his time for charming away the fever” (Figure 4.4) (Rau 1882:89). In at least one African study, similar behaviors were observed. The walls of houses were actually the ¤rst place nonfood items were sought by those Figure 4.3. A cupmarked sandstone block, discovered in Lawrence County, Ohio, and later moved to Cincinnati (Rau 1882:¤g. 42). 68 Kevin L. Callahan practicing pica. Johannes Loubser has seen multiple rows of cupules on the sides of painted shelters in Namibia (Johannes Loubser, personal communication , 2000). Cupules can be found on the sides of the Easter Island heads and are also present on the top of Olmec heads in Mexico. Animal studies on the etiology of geophagia concluded that the phenomenon “may be a response to mitigate the effects of toxic agents that have been introduced into the body” (Mitchell et al. 1976; quotation from Simon 1998:654). In similar studies in 1977, Burch¤eld and colleagues (in Simon 1998:654) reported results in rats “that indicated geophagia increased when rats were made acutely ill. [Burch¤eld et al.] concluded that geophagia ‘may occur in response to any . . . (stress state).’ In particular, the authors noted that geophagia occurred in response to induction of arthritis and as a response to acute gastrointestinal illness.” Ethnohistoric information in North America directly associates some cupmarked rock-art with couples seeking to enhance fertility. Breck Parkman, for example, working in California, has reported that in Pomo society the powder resulting from cupmark production was sought after by couples facing sterility and childlessness who wished to have a baby (Parkman 1995:8–9). Some production of cupmarks has also been reported to have occurred near the time of births (Parkman 1995:8–9). In Pomo and Shasta ethnographic accounts, cupmarks were sometimes equated with fertility and were referred to as “baby rocks” (Parkman 1995:8–9). According to Merriam (1955), the powder from cupmark production was ingested by women in the belief that it made them more fertile. The production process for cupmarks was thought Figure 4.4. Cups and furrows on the wall of Saint Mary’s Church at Greifswald, Pomerania (Rau 1882:¤g. 61). Rock-Art in the Eastern United States 69 to release the underworld’s spiritual power that resided in the rock. The action of making the cupmarks was also believed to be able to bring bene¤ts such as game and rain (Merriam 1955; see also Gillette 1998). In Sweden, women wishing to become mothers deposited small gifts at cupmarked stones. In that country, cupmarked stones are called elfstenar and, unlike the good-natured elves in some children’s stories, elves in Sweden are described as “the souls of the dead” who “frequently dwell in or below stones” (Rau 1882:86). “If their quiet is disturbed, or their dwelling-place desecrated, or if due respect is not paid to them, they will revenge themselves by af®icting the perpetrators with diseases or other misfortunes. For this reason people take care to secure the favor of the ‘little ones’ by sacri¤ces, or to pacify them when offended” (Rau 1882:86). In many...

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