When a Choctaw had killed an enemy and taken his
scalp, he went into mourning for a month, during which he might not
comb his hair, and if his head itched he might not scratch it except
with a little stick which he wore fastened to his wrist for the
purpose. This ceremonial mourning for the enemies they had slain was
not uncommon among the North American Indians.
Thus we see that warriors who have taken the life of a foe in battle
are temporarily cut off from free intercourse with their fellows,
and especially with their wives, and must undergo certain rites of
purification before they are readmitted to society. Now if the
purpose of their seclusion and of the expiatory rites which they
have to perform is, as we have been led to believe, no other than to
shake off, frighten, or appease the angry spirit of the slain man,
we may safely conjecture that the similar purification of homicides
and murderers, who have imbrued their hands in the blood of a
fellow-tribesman, had at first the same significance, and that the
idea of a moral or spiritual regeneration symbolised by the washing,
the fasting, and so on, was merely a later interpretation put upon
the old custom by men who had outgrown the primitive modes of
thought in which the custom originated.
Pages:
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621