Pollution

Pollution symbols reveal elaborate cosmologies. Contemplating pollution instigates the examination of matters such as order, form, life, and death. Through the analysis of purity, the concept of dirt in its practical as well as theoretical form can be considered. Further investigations unravel that sacredness is also connected with pollution as indicated by primitive culture experience.

Just like modern cultures connect what is sacred with the need for protection and hunger with fullness, primitive cultures view sanctity and cleanness as related. The sacred is more than prohibition because it is part of universal values that restrict and divide between what is divine and profane. The division between things and actions has its roots in linguistics as the Latin word sacer relates both to the gods and restriction while pertaining equally to desecration and consecration. Other cultures incur the same similarities, where the Hebrew root k-d-sh derived from separation has...