purificationPurification removes the unclean dirt that is equated with pollution.
Though they are not simply opposites, in order to grasp the nature of
purification, it is necessary to know about the nature of pollution. They
do, however, represent an interconnected notion, although pollution is a
dangerous condition and purity a higher ordered condition more akin to
rightness. In comparison to pollution, purity is temporary and unstable,
and does not flow directly or indirectly like pollution.
Diverse religious cultures have devised different means to perform
purification. Water is probably the most common means of purification.
Bathing in a sacred river is a common form of purification in Hinduism,
while washing one’s clothes and taking a bath is the remedy for an ancient
Hebrew having contact with a person with a venereal disease (Lev. 15).
Even though it can pollute a person in some contexts, blood is another
liquid that can also be used to purify; for instance, a house infected by
mole or a person of leprosy (Lev. 14). The blood of a sucking pig is used
in ancient Babylon to cure a person possessed by evil spirits. Within the
context of ancient Indian Vedic culture, fire is used to purify an area to
transform it into a sacrificial plot. Those possessed by ghosts in ancient
Babylon are purified by sulfur, an agent also used to purify a blood-
stained house in Homer’s Greek epic of the Odyssey (22.481–494).
Three basic methods of purification are used among different Native
American Indians. Plains, southwestern, and eastern woodland Indians
pour water over hot stones within an enclosed space or sweat lodge.
Alaskan Eskimos and Pacific Northwestern California Indians light fires
within closed spaces, while the Pueblos employ heating ducts from an
outside chamber. The general purpose of the sweat lodge is a spiritual and
physical purification. The Sioux sweat lodge is related to the goodness of
the earth and symbolically represents its womb. A participant crawls in
and out of the lodge like a baby from a place within which one is
reborn.
Other forms of purification are evident among other Native American
groups. For instance, the Creeks drink a liquid called the black drink,
which functions as a strong emetic and causes a drinker to vomit and
cleanse themselves. This drink purifies one of all sins, leaves one in a
state of perfect innocence, makes one invincible in war and cements
friendship, benevolence, and hospitality. Among the Zulu of Africa, spit-
ting is a method of purification, which helps one to cleanse oneself of
anger. When a male Zulu fears being secretly treated by certain medi-
cines that can prove harmful to him, he can sleep with a woman not his
wife and emits his semen and thus expel his evil into her.
Further reading: Babb (1975); Berglund (1989); Douglas (1966)