Citation

Tinková D. Cesky Lid 2020; 107(2): 167-188.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020)

DOI

10.21104/CL.2020.2.03

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Based on selected archival materials from the Bohemian and Moravian milieus, the study deals with the problems connected to the burial of people who committed suicide. The study seeks to demonstrate the extent to which the concept of 'impurity' and 'tainting' still played a crucial role in the period in question and how it established the legitimacy of a number of 'parajudicial' practices applied to the body of a suicide (cutting off the head and limbs, burning or burial of items that came into contact with the body of the suicide or objects which the person used to kill himself/herself). These practices, usually enshrined only in custom, might be interpreted as rudiments of purifying rituals with elements of protective magic that persisted in some localities up to the 18th century, often independent of the decisions of the secular and ecclesiastical courts. © 2020 The Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, v.v.i.. All rights reserved.

Language: cs

Keywords

Suicide; Impurity; Cemeteries; Czech lands; Late 17th-early 19th centuries