PURIFICATION. Purification denotes the processes em ployed to prepare individuals or communities for contact with persons or things otherwise dangerous, or to prevent the conse quences of contact with such persons or things. To deal first with the latter aspect, a man may unwittingly violate a tabu and such is the sense of social solidarity that the whole community feels itself menaced with calamity. He must be purified. The soci ety must be protected. All conditions of diminished social activ ity on the part of an individual are dangerous. (Andaman Island ers, p. 303.) Thus, "among most or all African tribes a sin, wrong doing or breach of custom is not merely a matter demanding punishment or redress but it imparts a bane or evil influence which remains unless the necessary purification follows. The point to be emphasized is that this mysterious force affects not the evil doer but the person injured, so that it is he who must be purified. For instance, a man who is wounded is purified by the one who wounded him." (C. Dundas, Kilirnanjaro and its People, 1924, p. 155•) Contact with persons and things possessing this danger ous potency is often essential. In this sense cleanliness is very close to godliness. In general food is regarded as something that may only be approached with ritual precautions. (Andaman Islanders, p. 273.) The savage must come to his meals clean.
Primitive communities insist on the purification of the successful warrior. (Andaman Islanders, p. 133 ; Ila Speaking Peoples, I., 179; Akamba 198, see note; The Sema Nagas, p. 175; and 42nd Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology, p. 423.) The sacrificial priest must be purified before he touches the holy ob ject. He must be purified again when the rite is over.
It is evident that the dangerous qualities whose effect has to be neutralized are in one aspect of a spiritual nature and that inten tion, motive, purpose are not essential elements. The automatic effect of a breach of the law gives strength to the social order since, where the results of sin may affect all or any of the members of the society it is the business and interest of each man to keep the law and to see that his neighbour keeps it.
Whenever and wherever sin has come to be viewed as a breach of a divine order, punished by the Divinity, a judge of the heart of man, a just judge, motives and purposes assume importance.
Purification is here directed to the conscience. The preventive action of the rites of purification comes in course of time to include deep, permanent modifications of the personality of the sinner, so that he sins no more. Coercion comes from within and is self-determined. See Bibliography to article ANTHRO POLOGY.