In Nepalese culture it's considered very offensive to touch anything or to point with one's feet. It's unclear whether this also applies to one's stump.
posted by Stuart at 07:12
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Previous Posts
- Namaste from Kathmandu, one of the most captivatin...
- No sooner am I back from Norway than it's time t...
- The Boston Globe reports on the technology being u...
- Salon looks at Fox News's pisspoor coverage of the...
- A gaggle of God-botherers have been cluttering u...
- Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime was overthrown on th...
- The International Committee to Ban Landmines has a...
- Fellow Cheetah-user Marlon Shirley's appearance ...
- Back in London, like the new father of twins, with...
- The Guardian profiles Iraqi Kurdish film director ...
4 Comments:
Does it also apply to an artificial foot? What if the foot isn't attached to the stump at the time and is being used as a general pointing implement? So many questions!
That's because Nepal is the 'Hindu kingdom' as most people there are Hindus (or Buddhists). In Hindu culture, the feet are the least sacred part of the body and the head is the most sacred, so much so that whilst living there, if anyone accidentally stepped on my foot, they would touch their head and then bend down and touch my feet - this was their way of saying the most sacred part of them was lower than the least sacred part of me - a very humbling apology to receive.
Incidentally, young girls are revered as goddesses until they hit puberty, which makes their head even more sacred, so if they were lying on the ground and you walked past their head, you'd be upsetting their relatives rather a lot.
I did a Tibetan Buddhist retreat last year, and our retreat master told us that it was considered rude in Tibetan culture to point at someone with the feet.
I am unclear why one would do this however. Still you may note with interest that in Tibetan statues of the Buddha the "palm" of his right-foot is often sky-facing. This is part of the 7-Point Posture of Vairocana.
A similar rule of social etiquette holds true in Japan, which is Buddhist, but not Hindu. Japanese take their shoes off before entering a house, but touching anything with the feet is considered extremely impolite (if it's not done accidentally), or worse a direct insult. It's a miracle that soccer ever took off here!
Post a Comment
<< Home