The Sin Eater

There is a legend of our early times when society was made up of small rural communities both here in America and back in our old countries in Europe and elsewhere. The legend is of the Sin Eater. This was the man who, outcast and shunned by his fellows, came to the funeral of the newly dead and ate a bowl of food placed either on the coffin or the chest of the deceased. This person, in the act of eating the food, took into himself the sins of the dead, releasing them from purgatory or hell. Once the Sin Eater had done his job, the villagers would then hound the wretch out of their midst with beatings and abuse to live a life of poverty and loneliness until the next death occurred. Then they would entice their Sin Eater back into their midst with blandishments of food and drink in order to have him perform his fell duty again.

The Sin Eaters are still in our midst. They are buried in our consciousness' but there just the same. They are the people we heap our fears and despair upon so that we can feel good about ourselves and pure in our sullied existence. Usually they are family members, sometimes they are acquaintances. The truth is that they are the unwilling repositories of those feelings about ourselves which we find it inconvenient to feel about ourselves. We project our shadows upon these persons and we shun them until such a time as we need them to "eat" our sins.

We spend little time worrying about them, but these poor blighted souls are necessary for our un-regarded lives to be lived. We hate them, we put our sins on them, but we need them and when they refuse to eat our sins any longer we get angry.

Consider the Sin Eater, consider his pain and feelings of hopelessness. A role was thrust upon him which he is unable to break free of without resorting to violence or fleeing his companions. He has the choice of cutting ties with his fellows even though his very existence is painful or clinging sadly to an unsatisfying life in order to have a portion of those human affections we all find necessary. One is reminded of those sad monkeys raised without the necessary loving touch of a mother who cling to the surrogate furry post in a pitiful effort to find some sort of connection to affection.

We need to stop this. We need to bring our shadows into ourselves and wrestle with our demons ourselves and cease making others carry them for us. If we do not, then when our Sin Eaters rise up and strike us, we will have no others but ourselves to blame.