ABSTRACT
We all have the same human body, with the same number of orifices, using the same energies and seeking the same biological satisfactions. Yet tribal rituals are highly selective in their treatment of these themes. I cannot think of any physical condition of which the ritual treatment is constant across the globe. Even fear of the dead, even corpse pollution which Malinowski thought to be a universal human experience, has not been taken up universally in ritual. There are cultures, such as the Mae Enga of the New Guinea Highlands, where contact with corpses does not have to be ritually cleansed though they cleanse themselves from sex pollution (Meggitt, 1964). While in other parts, say the Nyakyusa of Tanzania, elaborate washings, seclusions, and fumigations are necessary to make the mourners and burial party fit for normal society again (Wilson, 1957). The same holds good for menstruation: in tribal society it is not universally hedged with ritual taboos. Each primitive culture makes its own selection of bodily functions which it emphasises as dangerous or good. The problem then is to understand the principles of selection.
