Maschalismos

The maschalismos is the habit to physically prevent with deaths to return in the world of alive and to haunt them in the death-alive form of . The word comes from the old Greek and was also the term for the laws and rules governing this habit in the Greek common law.

The acts considered maschalismos are not limited to the physical returns to the life, but also aim to escape the ill will from those assassinated. A current method is to cut the Pied S, the Main S, the Oreille S, the Nez, etc, and to attach them with a cord to the Aisselle S, surrounding the chest of the corpse.

The drilling of the feet of Oedipus child when it is given up can be considered a maschalismos on an living being. In the tragedies Choephori and Electra (of Eschyle and Sophocle, respectively), Clytemnestre makes a maschalismos on the corpse of Agamemnon after the murder of this one to avoid any revenge.

The term of maschalismos extended to include the habits of other cultures implying the mutilation of the corpses of deaths to prevent that those do not affect the alive ones.

In the islands Moluques a woman having deceased during a childbirth is buried with pins forced in the Articulation S and a Oeuf under the Menton or the armpits. This is due to the belief which deaths steal like the Oiseau X and which the eggs will revive the maternal instincts, making that the dead will not give up eggs and will thus remain in her old body. In Europe it was times current to bury the people committed suicide with a pile perforating the heart, the body put at back, or the cut head and setting between the legs. The Omaha, Amerindian of the North America, notched the feet of the people killed by the Foudre. The Basuto and Bechuana of Africa cut the Ligament S and Spinal-cord their deaths. The Aborigènes of Herbert River in Australia beat the corpses until breaking the Os and fill of the incisions with stones.

Appendices

Reference

Maria Leach; The Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary off Folklore, Mythology, and Legend ; To grip; San Francisco; 1984; .

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