" Care of the mouth. — Technique of coughing and of spitting. Here is a personal observation.
A little girl did not know how to spit and each of her colds was aggravated as a result. I gathered this information. In her father's village and in his family in particular, au Berry, no one knows how to spit. I taught her how to spit. I gave her four sous per spit. As she wanted to have a bicycle, she learned how to spit. She was the first in the family to know how to spit.


(Marcel Mauss, "Les techniques du corps," in Anthropologze et Sociologze. [Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1935, p. 383.) "

― Marcel Mauss ,