Sin-eater

A sin-eater is a person who consumes a ritual meal in order to magically take on the sins of a person or household. Traditionally, the food was believed to absorb the sins of a recently deceased person, thus absolving that person's soul. Consequently, sin-eaters supposedly carried the sins of all people whose sins they "ate."

In anthropology and the study of folklore, sin-eating is classified as apotropaic ritual[1] and a form of religious magic.

History

Although the figure of the sin-eater has had various references in modern culture, the questions of how common the practice was, what regions of the world in which it was most common, and what the interactions between sin-eaters, common people, and religious authorities were, remain largely unstudied and in the realm of folklore.

In mythology, Tlazolteotl, the Aztec goddess of earth, motherhood and fertility, had a redemptive role in the religious practices of the Meso-American civilization. At the end of an individual's life, he was allowed to confess his misdeeds to this deity, and according to legend she would cleanse his soul by "eating its filth".

Jesus of Nazareth has been interpreted as a universal archetype for sin-eaters, offering his life to atone or purify all of humanity of their sins.[2]

John Bagford, (ca.1650–1716) includes the following description of the sin-eating ritual in his letter on Leland’s Collectanea, i. 76. (as cited in 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.

A local legend in Shropshire, England, concerns the grave of Richard Munslow, who died in 1906, said to be the last sin-eater of the area:[3]

By eating bread and drinking ale, and by making a short speech at the graveside, the sin-eater took upon themselves the sins of the deceased". The speech was written as: "I give easement and rest now to thee, dear man. Come not down the lanes or in our meadows. And for thy peace I pawn my own soul. Amen.[4]

The 1926 book Funeral Customs by Bertram S. Puckle mentions the sin-eater:

Professor Evans of the Presbyterian College, Carmarthen, actually saw a sin-eater about the year 1825, who was then living near Llanwenog, Cardiganshire. Abhorred by the superstitious villagers as a thing unclean, the sin-eater cut himself off from all social intercourse with his fellow creatures by reason of the life he had chosen; he lived as a rule in a remote place by himself, and those who chanced to meet him avoided him as they would a leper. This unfortunate was held to be the associate of evil spirits, and given to witchcraft, incantations and unholy practices; only when a death took place did they seek him out, and when his purpose was accomplished they burned the wooden bowl and platter from which he had eaten the food handed across, or placed on the corpse for his consumption.[5]

Howlett mentions sin-eating as an old custom in Hereford, and thus describes the practice: "The corpse being taken out of the house, and laid on a bier, a loaf of bread was given to the sin-eater over the corpse, also a maga-bowl of maple, full of beer. These consumed, a fee of sixpence was given him for the consideration of his taking upon himself the sins of the deceased, who, thus freed, would not walk after death."

The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica states in its article on "sin eaters":

A symbolic survival of it (sin eating) was witnessed as recently as 1893 at Market Drayton, Shropshire. After a preliminary service had been held over the coffin in the house, a woman poured out a glass of wine for each bearer and handed it to him across the coffin with a 'funeral biscuit.' In Upper Bavaria sin-eating still survives: a corpse cake is placed on the breast of the dead and then eaten by the nearest relative, while in the Balkan peninsula a small bread image of the deceased is made and eaten by the survivors of the family. The Dutch doed-koecks or 'dead-cakes', marked with the initials of the deceased, introduced into America in the 17th century, were long given to the attendants at funerals in old New York. The 'burial-cakes' which are still made in parts of rural England, for example Lincolnshire and Cumberland, are almost certainly a relic of sin-eating.[6]

References

  1. ↑ Hilda Ellis Davidson (1993) Boundaries & Thresholds p.85 quotation:
    It is this fear of what the dead in their uncontrollable power might cause which has brought forth apotropaic rites, protective rites against the dead. (...) One of these popular rites was the funeral rite of sin-eating, performed by a sin-eater, a man or woman. Through accepting the food and drink provided, he took upon himself the sins of the departed.
  2. ↑ Walford Davies, Richard Marggraf Turley, Damian (2006). The Monstrous Debt: Modalities of Romantic Influence in Twentieth-century Literature. Wayne State University. p. 19. ISBN 0814330584.
  3. ↑ "Last 'sin-eater' to be celebrated with church service". BBC News. 19 September 2010. Retrieved 2010-09-19.
  4. ↑ The Sin Eaters' Grave at Ratlinghope
  5. ↑ SacredTexts.com: Food
  6. ↑  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Sin-eater". Encyclopædia Britannica. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 146–147.

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