Sin-eater

A sin-eater is a person who consumes a ritual meal in order to spiritually take on the sins of a deceased person. The food was believed to absorb the sins of a recently dead person, thus absolving the soul of the person. Sin-eaters, as a consequence, carried the sins of all people whose sins they had eaten. Cultural anthropologists and folklorists classify sin-eating as a form of ritual, it is most commonly associated with Wales, English counties bordering Wales and Welsh culture.[1]

For other uses, see Sin-eater (disambiguation).

Attestations

History

Although, there have been analogous instances of sin-eaters throughout history, the questions of how common the practice was, when it was practised, and what the interactions between sin-eaters, common people, and religious authorities were, remain largely unstudied by folklore academics.

In Meso-American civilization, Tlazolteotl, the Aztec goddess of earth, motherhood and fertility, had a redemptive role in religious practices. 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".

In wider Christian practice, 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]

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.[3]

In Wales and the Welsh Marches

The term "Sin-eater" appears to derive from Welsh culture and is most often associated with Wales itself and in the English Counties bordering Wales

Diarist John Aubrey, in the earliest source on the practice, wrote that "an old Custome" in Herefordshire had been

at funerals to hire poor people, who were to take upon them all the sinnes of the party deceased. One of them I remember lived in a Cottage on Rosse-high way. (He was a long, lean, ugly, lamentable Raskel.) The manner was that when the Corps was brought out of the house, and layd on the Biere; a Loafe of bread was brought out, and delivered to the Sinne-eater over the Corps, and also a Mazar-bowl of maple (Gossips bowle) full of beer, which he was to drinke up, and sixpence in money, in consideration whereof he took upon him (ipso facto) all the Sinnes of the Defunct, and freed him (or her) from walking after they were dead.[4]

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.

By 1838, Catherine Sinclair noted the practice was in decline but that it continued in the locality:

A strange popish custom prevailed in Monmouthshire and other Western counties until recently. Many funerals were attended by a professed "sin-eater," hired to take upon him the sins of the deceased. By swallowing bread and beer, with a suitable ceremony before the corpse, he was supposed to free it from every penalty for past offences, appropriating the punishment to himself. Men who undertook so daring an imposture must all have been infidels, willing, apparently, like Esau, to sell their birthright for a mess of pottage.[5]

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:[6]

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.[7]

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.[8]

"The Sins of the Fathers", a 1972 episode of the American television series Night Gallery, features Richard Thomas as a sin-eater in medieval Wales.

Published in 1977 by Duckworth Books, The Sin Eater was the first of British writer Alice Thomas Ellis's many novels. It "exposed the hidden rancours of Irish, Welsh and English," in the words of journalist and writer Clare Colvin.[9] Writing for the Los Angeles Review of Books, Abby Geni comments, "The story orbits around the Captain, a failing patriarch, and the family who have gathered at his bedside. There are no ghosts or disembodied voices here. Instead, lovely Rose organizes meals and cricket matches. Angela, visiting from out of town, vies with Rose for control of the proceedings. Awkward Ermyn searches for her place in the group. Servants lurk on the sidelines. The story is ripe with shadows and terror. An unclassifiable menace seeps through the book like a fog." "The Sin Eater: Alice Thomas Ellis and the Gothic Tradition," in The Los Angeles Review of Books, April 9, 2016.[10]

The 1978 TV miniseries The Dark Secret of Harvest Home features a funeral scene wherein all the mourners in attendance avert their faces as a repudiated fellow designated the sin-eater dines upon a symbolic meal, which includes a coin pressed into a cheese, thereby taking the deceased's transgressions in life upon himself. Margaret Atwood wrote a short story titled "The Sin-Eater".

Sin-Eater is the name of a Marvel Comics villain.

The Sin-Eater was a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio feature from 1981.[11]

The 2003 movie, The Order is a fictional horror story revolving around the investigation of the suspicious death of an excommunicated priest and the discovery of a Sin Eater headquartered in Rome.

The 2004 movie The Final Cut is set in a world where memories are recorded, and then "cut" into positive hagiographies on the person's death; the "cutters" are referred to as sin-eaters.

In the film The Bourne Legacy (2012), the subject is used: Buyer tells Cross that they are "sin eaters", doing the "morally indefensible" but absolutely necessary thing, "so that the rest of our cause can stay pure." The story is that a village has one person who is treated extremely well and whose job is to eat food symbolic of people's sins, so that he assumes all their sins so that they can die in a state of grace. The sin eater is extremely old and weighed down by the sins of hundreds of people. A young man is being groomed to be a sin-eater. The old sin-eater dies and the first task the pure and innocent young man must do is eat the sins of the sin-eater including the lifetime of sins he has consumed which, by extension, includes the sins of all the thousands that have been absorbed by endless generations of sin-eaters. In other words, lured by the comforts to be provided by the adoring villagers, the young man becomes the most damnable person in history. His only hope is that one day, many years later, another young man will be similarly lured into eating all the sins that this young man will have to bear.

The American TV show Sleepy Hollow used the term Sin-Eater as the title of Season 1, episode 6, as a way to introduce another character on the show that is a sin-eater.

The American TV show Lucifer used the term Sin-Eater as the title of season 2, episode 3, to refer to the content moderation employees of a fictional social media company.

In the American TV show Succession, Gerri, Waystar Royco's general counsel, suggests to Tom Wambsgans that he become the family sin-eater and destroy evidence of illegal activities aboard the company's cruise lines, "Have you ever heard of the sin cake eater? He would come to the funeral and he would eat all the little cakes they’d lay out on the corpse. He ate up all the sins. And you know what? The sin cake eater was very well paid. And so long as there was another one who came along after he died, it all worked out. So this might not be the best situation, but there are harder jobs and you get to eat an amazing amount of cake."[12]

The White Wolf publishing company's role-playing game Geist: The Sin-Eaters is named for the concept, though it never directly references the actual ritual practice.

The comic series Finder features a main character who is a sin-eater, and thus despised by his mother's culture as the lowest member of their society.

The 2020 fantasy mystery novel Sin Eater by Megan Campisi is narrated by a woman sentenced to become a sin eater. In the novel different sins are symbolized by different foods, and when foods appear for sins not confessed, the main character takes it upon herself to solve the mystery.

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References
  1. Davidson, Hilda Ellis (1993). Boundaries & Thresholds. p. 85. 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 978-0814330586.
  3. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Sin-eater" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 146–147.
  4. Aubrey, John (1881). The Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme, 1686-87. London: W. Satchell, Peyton.
  5. Sinclair, Catherine (1838). Hill and Valley: Or, Hours in England and Wales. Edinburgh: Robert Carter. p. 336.
  6. "Last 'sin-eater' to be celebrated with church service". BBC News. 19 September 2010. Retrieved 19 September 2010.
  7. The Sin Eaters' Grave at Ratlinghope Archived 8 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  8. SacredTexts.com: Food
  9. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/mar/10/guardianobituaries.booksobituaries
  10. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-sin-eater-alice-thomas-ellis-and-the-gothic-tradition/
  11. printed in ed. Robert Weaver, Small wonders. New stories by twelve distinguished Canadian writers. CBC, Toronto 1982, pp 11 – 22
  12. HBO. (2018, June 24). "Sad Sack Wasp Trap". Succession. New York, New York.
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