Romans and Europeans developed rules to identify safe water, the Yoruba believe that when water comes from the mountains it has a sacred origin and, therefore, it has many qualities that other streams lack. Because a rock represents a mountain, also any water springing under a rock of these streams is believed to be safe. Similarly, rainwater is always regarded as safe because it comes directly from heaven. The local people give movements of flowing water a strong emphasis. They say that it is easy to see if the water is clean and good for human consumption. Flowing water is regarded safe, as the movements will take dirt away.
In fact, all societies have such rules and practices to identify safe water sources, though they may look very different. In a number of cultures, for example, drinking water is as much a spiritual as a physical resource—water can transmit both physical and metaphysical contaminants. As a result, there are specific rules to prevent spiritual pollution of drinking water. Traditional Hindus in India,for example, maintain a complex social hierarchy among separate castes. Reinforcing this order, upper and lower castes actually draw their water from distinct sources. If sources were shared, there would be a risk of the lower caste transmitting their social pollution from the impure to the pure. This extends to food preparation. A Brahman should not even touch food that has been prepared with water by a non-Brahman.
In the United States this practice should look familiar. Less than fifty years ago, resource segregation was commonplace in many parts of the South. Drinking fountains were separated by law, with one for “White” and one for “Colored.” This was accepted as entirely justified under the law. While half a world away, was the anxiety some whites felt over drinking from a fountain that had been used by blacks all that different from the Hindi concern of higher castes drinking from the same sources as lower castes?
A drinking fountain on the Halifax County courthouse lawn in North Carolina, 1938
Most of these rules intuitively seem to make sense. We can see if water comes from fast-flowing waters and appreciate why it would be safer to drink than water from a stagnant pool. By contrast, the Safe Drinking Water Act seems light-years from these sorts of norms. The EPA is currently assessing the adverse health effects of the microbe Helicobacter pylori and the chemical 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene. This hyper-technical approach could not seem more distant from checking whether water emerges from under a rock or whether the person who used the well before you was an Untouchable. Yet these sets of rules all seek the very same end—safe drinking water from a trusted source, whether faucet or stream—and they all make sense to their respective societies. Such norms are essential and they are effective, to a point. Indeed, if such rules have endured over long periods of time, almost by definition they have to work; otherwise, the society that followed them would have been incapacitated by waterborne diseases. The Yoruba preference for clear, flowing water makes some sense in a modern light. It avoids the higher microbial activity in warmer, stagnant water.
Assessing how well such rules work, though, is a complicated matter. To assess that, we need to understand how popular conceptions of disease influence our perceptions of water quality. If water from a particular source is regarded as unsafe, locals have clearly made the connection between drinking the water and some bad result—such as spiritual impurity, blindness, or stomach cramps. But there must also be a causal mechanism lurking beneath this judgment. Today, one might say that people get typhoid because they drink water with typhoid bacteria , of course. But before the microscope revealed an entirely new world beyond our eyes, for most of human history physicians grappled with the problem of people getting sick without any physical contact
In fact, all societies have such rules and practices to identify safe water sources, though they may look very different. In a number of cultures, for example, drinking water is as much a spiritual as a physical resource—water can transmit both physical and metaphysical contaminants. As a result, there are specific rules to prevent spiritual pollution of drinking water. Traditional Hindus in India,for example, maintain a complex social hierarchy among separate castes. Reinforcing this order, upper and lower castes actually draw their water from distinct sources. If sources were shared, there would be a risk of the lower caste transmitting their social pollution from the impure to the pure. This extends to food preparation. A Brahman should not even touch food that has been prepared with water by a non-Brahman.
In the United States this practice should look familiar. Less than fifty years ago, resource segregation was commonplace in many parts of the South. Drinking fountains were separated by law, with one for “White” and one for “Colored.” This was accepted as entirely justified under the law. While half a world away, was the anxiety some whites felt over drinking from a fountain that had been used by blacks all that different from the Hindi concern of higher castes drinking from the same sources as lower castes?
A drinking fountain on the Halifax County courthouse lawn in North Carolina, 1938
Most of these rules intuitively seem to make sense. We can see if water comes from fast-flowing waters and appreciate why it would be safer to drink than water from a stagnant pool. By contrast, the Safe Drinking Water Act seems light-years from these sorts of norms. The EPA is currently assessing the adverse health effects of the microbe Helicobacter pylori and the chemical 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene. This hyper-technical approach could not seem more distant from checking whether water emerges from under a rock or whether the person who used the well before you was an Untouchable. Yet these sets of rules all seek the very same end—safe drinking water from a trusted source, whether faucet or stream—and they all make sense to their respective societies. Such norms are essential and they are effective, to a point. Indeed, if such rules have endured over long periods of time, almost by definition they have to work; otherwise, the society that followed them would have been incapacitated by waterborne diseases. The Yoruba preference for clear, flowing water makes some sense in a modern light. It avoids the higher microbial activity in warmer, stagnant water.
Assessing how well such rules work, though, is a complicated matter. To assess that, we need to understand how popular conceptions of disease influence our perceptions of water quality. If water from a particular source is regarded as unsafe, locals have clearly made the connection between drinking the water and some bad result—such as spiritual impurity, blindness, or stomach cramps. But there must also be a causal mechanism lurking beneath this judgment. Today, one might say that people get typhoid because they drink water with typhoid bacteria , of course. But before the microscope revealed an entirely new world beyond our eyes, for most of human history physicians grappled with the problem of people getting sick without any physical contact
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