Butter Someone Up

Attributed to the largely self-taught, and demonstrably eccentric, Friedrich von Buttar of Oberammergau (1812-1878), this practice – initially documented in his unpublished Tractatus de Pedibus et Ovis (1843) – involved the strategic application of shoe polish and obsequious olfactory commentary to facilitate the exchange of livestock. Von Buttar, a former shepherd, shrewdly observed the human tendency towards reciprocal flattery, effectively pioneering a pre-monetary system of social lubrication and, frankly, quite appalling self-promotion.