To Heaven
Open thy gates
To him who weeping waits,
And might come in,
But that held back by sin.
Let mercy be
So kind, to set me free,
And I will straight
Come in, or force the gate.
Robert
Herrick A 17th century English poet
Sin
Eating refers to 'a person who, through ritual means, takes on, by means of
food and drink, the sins of a household, often because of a recent death, thus
absolving the soul and allowing that person and their relatives to rest in
peace'.
According
to folklore, the term 'Sin Eater or Sin Eating' is classified as being the
performance of an apotropaic, which comes from the Greek (apotrepein
"to ward off" from apo- "away" and trepein
"to turn") ritual
which falls under the category of religious magic, an important practice in
many cultures around the world.
A
Little History
Dating
back to the Meso-American culture we find the Aztec Goddess, Tlazolteotl, a
mother goddess and bestower of gifts on her followers; The Redeemer of her
people. One of her greatest attributes could be bestowed when a devotee was
dying. Pleading to her directly, the
dying person or family member named their transgressions and begged that they
be removed in order to have a good death, removing their sins from themselves
and family members. Hearing the cries
Tlazolteotl descended, entering the home in spirit form, to 'eat the filth' of past
deeds, cleansing the passage for the dying.
We
also see the practice elsewhere in a different form throughout parts of Europe
and the British Isles. John Bagford, (ca.1650–1716) a British
antiquarian, writer, bibliographer, ballad-collector and bookseller accounts a
sin-eating ritual in his letter on Leland’s Collectanea, (Brewer's Dictionary
of Phrase and Fable, 1898)
“Notice was given to an old sire before the
door of the house, when some of the family came out and furnished him with a
cricket [low stool], on which he sat down facing the door; then they gave him a
groat which he put in his pocket, a crust of bread which he ate, and a bowl of
ale which he drank off at a draught. After this he got up from the cricket and
pronounced the case and rest of the soul departed, for which he would pawn his
own soul.”
Folklore
states that sin eaters lived on the fringe of society. Avoided and cut off from conversation,
hospitality or a simple gaze. Yet when
the death of a loved one occurred the sin eater was sought out to perform the
abominable rite so desperately needed in order to 'makes things right with
God'.
By
the simple yet courageous act of eating part of the feast laid out at the wake
or funeral, a piece of bread, bowl of ale or wine was left on the body either
directly or on a wooded plate to absorb their sins. Entering the home, the sin eater avoided eye
contact, approached the dead, and consumed that which was purposely set aside. The corpse's misdeeds, were swallowed, leaving
the person absolved. A coin might also
be left on the body, gratuity for the act performed; peace descended and the
burial could now take place. There would be no wandering ghost or ghastly visage
to haunt the living.
Sin-eating
survived into the 19th century and was witnessed at Market Drayton, Shropshire. As the
story goes, following the funeral service, the lady of the house poured a glass
of ale wine for each pallbearer, purposely handing it to them along with the
'funeral biscuit' over the body of the deceased. Those individuals partook in the eating of
the food, garnished with sin, and completed the rite. The custom of burial bread or cakes are still
made and used in the same way as part of English custom in rural areas today.
In
Upper Bavaria 'the corpse cake' has been the
usual practice at funerals and lovingly placed on the breast of the dearly
departed; eaten in silence by the nearest relative giving all who attend
reassurance.
In
Demark, 'doed-koecks', translated as 'dead-cakes' were made with the initials
of the deceased cut with a knife on the surface; this custom survived with the
immigrants settling in America
as early as the 17th century in Old New York.
The custom also evolved into initialed cakes being given to attendants
at the funeral today.
The
Balkan Peninsula customs describes the making of a small bread image of the
deceased, baked and eaten by the departed's relatives in honor of a life-lived
and through this act, relieved of 'all the burden'.
A
sin eater's reputation precedes them; thought to be destined for hell due to
their chosen occupation or calling, they were themselves 'lost souls'. Not sanctioned by the Catholic Church, sin
eaters were most often excommunicated; not due to weight of the sins they
carried, but for the act of crossing into unsanctioned territory of the parish
priest, ignoring Church Doctrine concerning Last Rites.
Are
there still sin eaters in modern culture?
Perhaps, in remote areas few of us venture into; and is it a custom that might find its way into mainstream society once again? Perhaps...
.
Walford Davies, Richard Marggraf
Turley, Damian (2006). The Monstrous Debt: Modalities of Romantic Influence in
Twentieth-century Literature.
The Sin Eaters' Grave at
Ratlinghope
Ferguson, Linda J.
(2011). Staying Grounded in Shifting Sand: Awakening Soul Consciousness for the
New Millennium. Balboa Press. p. 52. ISBN 1452541221
SacredTexts.com: Food
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Hilda Ellis Davidson (1993)
Boundaries & Thresholds p.85 quotation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/
Funeral Customs by Bertram S.
Puckle
