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The mountain people especially those of Irish decent believed that the sin eater could come just before a person died or just after and they would be able to take the sins of the person about to die or the person who had just died upon themselves. The sin eater would do this by requesting a plate of food to be prepared and the plate of food would be set on the chest of the person who was soon to die or who had just died.

The Sin Eater would then say a ritual of words and then he or she would take the plate of food over into a corner of the room and eat it taking the sins of the dying or dead person away from them and placing them on the sin eater.

Quite often especially in western North Carolina the identity of the sin eater was kept hidden so that no one in the community knew who the sin eater was. And my grandmother told that in her community when she was a young girl the sin eater wore a costume[a hooded, ragged-edged, black robe.] She said that the sin eater that came to her community also went to other communities around in the same area where she lived as a young girl. She told us that she remembered seeing the sin eater come up until the time she married at age 19.

My Grandmother said that the sin eater would be sent for when someone was near death or when someone was killed or died suddenly and the sin eater would come at sundown on the day before the person was to be buried and he would place a white handkerchief on the ground in front of the door of the house where the person had passed away and the man of the house or the closest living male relative would place a money payment on the handkerchief. My Grandmother said that when she was a girl the payment was usually $2.

She said that the sin eater brought a wooden plate , a wooden cup , and his own fork and spoon and it was these that he would use when he performed the ritual of eating the deceased persons sins up on himself. My Grandmother used to say that at that time $2 was a good sum of money. She always told us the sin eater would carry his eating utensils tied up in a brown cloth and that he also carried a big black bible.

She told us that to the best of her memory that the sin eater would ask for his plate to be filled with food and his cup with what ever beverage was around and that then after placing his wooden plate on a dead persons chest that the sin eater would say. " I pledge my soul for your sins and ask that God Almighty remove those sins from you and place them up on me and I eat this food and drink from this cup to show that I have taken your sins upon me. If I lie may God strike me dead before I eat from this plate or drink from this cup " And with that the sin eater would go over in the corner and eat everything on the plate and drink everything in the cup and then the sin eater would tie his eating utensils back up in the brown cloth and with that he was gone never speaking to anyone in the house again that night.