SC - meals for the eating of sins?

[Kekilpenny at aol.com]

In a message dated 9/29/99 9:21:52 PM EST, CorwynWdwd at aol.com writes:

<< If there was such a custom, and reference to it, I'd be interested in 
 knowing.  >>
I don't know why this caught my interest but I've spent the evening 
researching. I first heard of it in the late 70's from a friend who had lived 
in the Appalachians. She said it was still a custom and that the "job" of sin 
eating was passed down through the family. By then was only practiced in 
smaller communities.

This the only a small snippet of what I've been able to find so far.

"Llandybie itself kept many of the old ways for a long time. It was only 50 
years ago that the last Sin Eater in Wales died at Pentregwenlais. Once a 
widespread tradition, a Sin Eater would be attached to a village but would 
live outside it, as a recluse. He was only brought into the village when a 
person died, at which time the body was laid out with bread and salt on its 
chest and coins in its eyes. The bread and salt absorbed the person's sins 
and the job of the Sin Eater was to eat these items, to take on the person's 
sins and to absolve him or her. The Sin Eater's payment was to take the 
coins, whereupon he was hounded out of the village, like a scapegoat. Only 
the Sin Eater's son could absolve him from both his own sins and those of the 
people he had taken on. It must have been a terrible thing for a Sin Eater to 
die without a son. "

Source:
The Legends and Archaeology of the Gwenlais Valley by Jan Fry
Edward Thomas, 1900 - translation of 16th or 17th Century Welsh folk poem
http://www.gn.apc.org/pmhp/dgg/gwenlegn.htm

Molli Rose


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