Strange customs

Fatal attraction

• Traditional Chinese belief holds that the living must tend to the wants and needs of dead relatives, who exist in an afterlife
• The tradition manifests itself in the burning of fake money or paper models of luxury goods
• It is believed by some that an unmarried life is incomplete, leading to the practice of minghun — burying single sons with recently dead young women to provide them with a wife in the afterlife
• Parents of a dead daughter often regard the money received in selling her for minghun as recompense for the dowry that they did not receive in her lifetime, while also posthumously elevating their child’s place in a patriarchal society
• Communist authorities tried to ban the practice, which datesfrom the Zhou dynasty (1122-256BC). It was also forbidden in the Book of Rites, texts that describe religious practices from the eighth to the fifth century BC
• Minghun survives mainly in the poor rural north, particularly in the remote plateau on the upper reaches of the Yellow River

When an action or activity violates behavior considered appropriate by a social group, it is labeled a "taboo," a word that we have borrowed from the Polynesian people of the South Pacific. An act that is taboo is forbidden, prohibited, and those who transgress may be ostracized by others or, in extreme instances, killed.

While the marriage of near-blood relations is prohibited in contemporary civilization, in earlier societies it was quite common. The ancient gods of Egypt, Isis and Osiris, brother and sister, provided an example for royal couples, as pharaohs commonly married their sisters. The Hebrew patriarch Abraham took as a wife his half-sister, and Abraham's nephew Lot committed incest with his own daughters.

Polygamy, the marriage of one man and several women or one woman and several men, is prohibited in modern civilization, but there are still religious groups in nearly every nation who justify plural marriages as being ordained by the deity they worship. The history of every modern culture is replete with accounts of kings, caliphs, emperors, and patriarchs who had numerous wives. The great Solomon, the prototype for the wise ruler and credited with writing some of the world's greatest love poetry, is said to have had 700 wives and 300 concubines.

Adultery, an act of infidelity on the part of a married individual, is one of the most universal of the taboos. The code of Moses condemned both parties involved in the act to be stoned to death. The Hindu religious doctrines order both man and woman, humiliated, mutilated or killed, depending upon their caste. In ancient Egypt, the male offender was castrated, and the woman's nose was cut off. In ancient Greece, the guilty pair might be killed by being dragged behind horses or starved. As the Greek civilization matured, adulterers were seldom killed, but they were deprived of all public privileges and sometimes covered from head to foot with wool to render their guilt easily visible by others. The laws in Old Scandinavia permitted the offended husband to castrate his wife's lover and to kill his spouse.

While adulterers may still be dealt with quite harshly in many societies around the world, in most Western nations the act of infidelity is regarded with great tolerance. Men and women who have been unfaithful to their spouses are seldom ostracized by the public at large, and adultery by one of the marriage partners is no longer considered necessary as grounds for divorce.

There are few universal taboos, for societies continue to evolve. Acts that were considered forbidden at one time have developed into an acceptable social activity. For example, seeing a couple kissing in public would seldom raise an eyebrow today, but in the Puritan New England of the 1690s, such a harmless act would have sent the man and woman to the stocks and public humiliation. On the other hand, kissing a woman in public might still get a man jailed or fined in many of the Islamic nations in the Mid-East.

As the world grows smaller because of modern transportation and its diverse inhabitants encounter people from different cultures more often than ever before in the history of the human species, it becomes increasingly difficult to condemn one person's custom as another's taboo. Within a nation, such as the United States, which has always endeavored to maintain a democratic, pluralistic society, an influx of immigrants from Asia and Africa, which began in the 1970s, has made the task of balancing cultural variety with traditional American mainstream values more and more difficult.

Barbara Crosette, writing in the March 8, 1999 issue of The New York Times, tells of a refugee from Afghanistan who was arrested in Maine when he was seen kissing his baby boy's genitals. The father was exhibiting a traditional expression of love that had long been practiced in his culture, but to his neighbors and the police, he was abusing his child. In another instance, Cambodian parents were accused of child abuse by teachers and social workers because of their traditional cures of placing hot objects on their children's foreheads during an illness.

In this section, the fascinating evolution of the customs and taboos surrounding courtship and marriage, hospitality and etiquette, and burials and funerals is explored. While some of the customs of the past may seem amusing or quaint, primitive or savage, certain elements of such barbaric acts as capturing one's bride have been preserved in many traditions is still practiced in the modern marriage ceremony.

Buying a Bride. Marriage through purchase was quite likely the next stage in the evolution of courtship.


Perhaps even more common than buying a bride was the ancient custom of gaining a wife by working for her father for a certain period of time. Such an exchange of a prized daughter for an agreed-upon term of labor was practiced among many of the early societies and tribes of America, Africa, and Asia. Many are familiar with the Old Testament story of how Jacob worked 20 years for his uncle Laban to gain Leah, a bride whom he did not want, and Rachel, whom he loved (Genesis: 29, 30).

Infant Betrothals. Among early tribal cultures, betrothals were commonly arranged by parents between their infant daughters and their future husbands, sometimes even before the girls were born. Infant males also had their brides selected for them by their families, most often with a girl from a family with whom an alliance would be profitable. Among those societies in which people arranged the marriages of their children in infancy, the betrothals were considered absolutely binding.

In the old traditions of certain Eskimo tribes, as soon as a girl was born, a man who wanted her for a wife went to her father and made an offer of marriage. If the husband-to-be was a child, his father acted on his behalf and made the offer of marriage to the infant girl's father. If the offer was accepted, a betrothal promise was given that was considered as binding as the marriage ceremony, and the girl would be delivered to her husband when she had reached the proper age.

Throwing Rice and Tossing the Bouquet. When wedding guests throw handfuls of rice after the bride and groom, they are enacting an ancient ritual that expressed wishes for the couple's fruitfulness and abundance. However, rice was not always the grain used to throw after departing newlyweds

BURIALS AND FUNERALS

No one can possibly derive an exact date when early humans first began to bury their dead.

As the belief in a spirit and in an afterlife grew, people began to develop fixed concepts about where it was exactly that spirits went to dwell after their life on Earth was completed. In the ancient Greek afterlife beliefs, the dead were ferried over the river Styx by Charon, who charged a fee for his services. If the dead did not have the fee, they would be detained for a hundred years before being permitted to proceed. Therefore, when the Greeks buried their dead, they placed a small coin in their hands so they might be able to pay Charon. A similar idea of the dead needing some ready currency for their advent to the other world is found among the Chinese, who furnish the dead with paper money and passports.

Laying the Body to Rest. The followers of Tao, a Chinese belief system, envision the soul of the deceased crossing a bridge to the next life. Ten courts of judgment await the new soul, and if it passes this series of trials, it may continue on the path to heaven. If it fails because of bad deeds during the person's lifetime, the soul must be punished before it is allowed to go to a better place.

The family and friends of the deceased place the body in a wooden coffin and carry it to the graveyard. Well aware of the trials awaiting the soul of their friend or relative in the afterlife, they pound drums, clang cymbals, and shoot off fireworks to frighten away any evil spirits that might attempt to catch the soul even before it reaches the 10 courts of judgment. Beside the grave as the coffin is being lowered into the ground, paper representations of houses, money, and other material objects are burned, symbolically providing the soul of the deceased with property with which to pay the judges.

After 10 years have passed, the coffin is dug up, and the remains are cleaned and placed in an urn, which is then sealed. A Taoist priest assesses the home of the person's immediate family and decides the most harmonious spot for the urn of bones to be placed. It is of utmost importance that the priest find a place where the spirit of the deceased will be happy among its surviving family members, or the spirit may return to punish those it deems disrespectful of its physical remains.

Remembering the Dead.

Among the original people of Patagonia in South America, it was the custom to open the coffins of the dead and redress them each year on the anniversary of the person's death. The same custom is found among the Eskimo, who annually take new clothes as a gift to the dead. Among many Native American tribes in earlier times, the widow was obligated to remain beside the tomb of her deceased husband for a year, while other family members brought food daily for her and for the spirit of the dead man.

Among various tribes of equatorial Africa, tattooing and mutilating of the bodies of family members are practiced for purposes of indicating that one of their loved ones has been taken by death. The people of the Andaman Islands, in the eastern part of the Bay of Bengal, disinter the body after it has been buried long enough to decompose, then wear the bones of the dead to indicate mourning. While they wear these bones, it is considered taboo to approach them and to interfere with their grief

To this day, certain African tribes are known to grind the bones of their dead and mingle them with their food.

The Zulus burn all of the belongings of the deceased to prevent the evil spirits from even hovering in the vicinity.

So what is, strange or Taboo?