CUSTOMS: THE HUMAN METAMORPHOSIS

Abstract

This paper primarily is attempting to enhance the understanding of how a custom begins, and the journey of that custom until it becomes useless. This paper is to understand how to determine if a custom is relevant in the modern times, and to know if it has not become toxic adherence to some law which no one knows how it started. Most of us listen to our grandmothers say not to leave the house for some time after sneezing, or not to leave the house when a black cat crosses our path, these are often regarded as superstitions, but they do had a reasoning, like in ancient India, after preparing butter and curd, mothers often used to forget tying them in a certain height so that no cats or kids could steal the butter, so whenever a cat crossed the path while leaving the house it was wise to check if the butter and curd were tied above in a height. After knowing the reason, now we know that this custom has no relevance in contemporary world where large amounts of curd is not prepared in majority of households, and even if a small proportion of curd is made it is stored in the refrigerator this could be how this custom originated. What did we just do to understand if something is a simple superstitious custom or if it had a contemporary relevance? We will analyze how we did it in this paper. As I have mentioned in my earlier papers also that to understand the origin of anything we must understand its origin, so primarily we will start with the investigation of how customs originate.