“Corporeal Mentality”: The Book of Blood, Universal Human Rights, and the Body

Abstract

New ways of looking at texts may help to protect the basis of human rights: that all people are recognized as people. This article develops an interpretative convention, the “corporeal mentality,” to compel consideration of the corporeal nature of human beings when reading human rights texts. Attention is paid to the status and history of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as well as to an artwork that writes this text in human blood: The Book of Blood. By considering the meaning of blood as both signifier and index, I argue that blood and the body it indexes can inform a new interpretative convention that recognizes that all people have something in common: blood and bodies. This convention can also be justified by acknowledging that all texts are both visual and corporeal. A reading of a single article of the UDHR shows how the corporeal mentality functions in practice.

Acknowledgements

This work was presented at the Critical Legal Conference, 2012. Comments from participants were of great assistance. This work was made possible through support of the University of Roehampton's sabbatical scheme and the generous support of the University of Washington Law School's visiting scholar program. The author would also like to acknowledge the very kind of assistance of one of the Directors of The Book of Blood, Dr. Ernst Fischer, and the very helpful comments from anonymous referees. Thanks also to Dr. Betsy Evans and Dr. Christopher Marlow for constructive comments. All errors are naturally mine.

Notes

¹A commentary on this Article explains: The core and central rights in the Bill should be enjoyed by citizens and non-citizens alike; but it may be desirable carefully to consider whether some of the rights which are more civic in nature ought to extend to non-citizens. In this regard it might be appropriate to make a distinction between non-citizens who are lawfully present in the United Kingdom and those who are not. The reference to the political activities of non-citizens reflects Article 16 ECHR. (Howe 2012: 214)

²Anyone interested in hosting a performance of The Book of Blood should contact the Live Art Development Agency in London, [email protected]

³For example, The Human Rights Act in the United Kingdom can be seen as direct descendent of the UDHR, by way of the European Convention on Human Rights (Klug 2009: 216). For the purposes of this article, I treat the UDHR as a legal text.

⁴As I have not seen a performance of The Book of Blood, I rely on existing video documentation. The detail in the following is taken from the most complete performance documented: http://blip.tv/dgeorgeb/the-book-of-blood-106871 [11 April 2013]. See also If Not, Then What? (2011) and Accidental Collective (2013).

⁵This rather formal seating arrangement can be understood as representing the significance of giving and blood and the importance of the personal commitment to the UDHR, but it also echoes the bureaucratic apparatus that drove the final solution.

⁶The consent form was not always used, but the intention was to add the names of donors to The Book of Blood as an appendix. Completed forms have been retained, however, and will be made available when the book is finished (Fischer 2013).

⁷Not all performances involve so many people.

⁸I have, however, seen the book thanks to Dr. Ernst Fischer.

⁹Andres Serrano's photograph “Piss Christ” is perhaps the best known example of this.

¹⁰Courtesy of the University of Washington. The database was searched using index terms relating to blood and confined to the peoples in the Probability Sample Files (see Naroll 1967).

¹¹The convention adopted for references to material from HRAF is that the name of the culture is given first, then the relevant original source. “Blood, which includes all bodily liquids, irrigates and gives life to the body as rivers to the earth” (Dogon: Douglas 1968: 19). “‘The nyama’, or element which is spread throughout a man's blood, is the vital force, which is transferred from father to son, from generation to generation” (Dogon: Dieterlen and Granka 1941: 87) “‘Blood’ can be a metaphor of life's power or of life poured out” (Bemba: Maxwell 1983: 29). “If the head of a person is cut off, one is left with a headless corpse, kiwududu, suggesting that the essential life of a person is in the head, but the explanation of this is that if the head is cut off, then the blood escapes and the heart dies and it is for this reason that the person ceases to be” (Ganda: Orley 1970: 1). “Schebesta states that the Mbuti place this sky God in the moon and thus even deus otiosus is involved in dualism, for the moon by its brightness is associated with fire, and by its periodicity with menstrual blood—the two symbols of life and death. (Both fire and menstrual blood have the dual association)” (Mbuti: Turnbull 1965: 193). “Now the Toradja localizes the life or the soul of a person in his liver, the largest organ in the abdomen, into which the food for life is taken; and in his blood, the sap of life” (Eastern Toraja: Adriani and Kruijt 1950: 664). “An informant's mother said that an Indian who gets a nosebleed in a fight will collect the blood in his own hand and drink it, lest he lose years of his life; and enemies’ blood is sometimes drunk out of hatred and to incorporate their strength” (Aymara: La Barre 1948: 46). “The symbols of life are blood and breath” (Lapps of Finland: Itkonen 1948: 676).

¹²“When men are on a long-distance stage, as, for instance, during a drought, when water is scarce and the sun is relentlessly fierce, they are occasionally obliged to resort to the old tribal custom of drinking each other's blood to escape perishing of thirst. They open a vein in the arm and collect the blood in a cooleman, or they allow one or more of their companions to drink straight from the wound. In certain cases of sickness blood is also given to the patient to drink” (Aranda: Róheim 1945: 233).

¹³“Tribal life is directed by the chieftain, and the murder of a member or the theft of property by an outsider is never permitted to go unavenged” (Kurds: Masters 1953: 338).

¹⁴“Menstrual blood is considered a symbol of fertility and is not contaminating. Men have an aversion to it, feeling ashamed and even sick should they see it” (Kapauku: Pospisil 1958: 45). “Functionally, the blood's most specific association is with procreation, for maternal blood is necessary to nourish the homonculus to infancy. Because the required [4] amounts of blood are continually renewed in fertile women, menstrual effluence is necessary to shed blood not needed between pregnancies” (Amara: A. Young 1972: 3–4).

¹⁵“In the belief system of the Asante, blood (mogya) was the vital force which, transmitted from generation to generation, bound the living and the ancestors together in a web of kinship (abusua). The shedding of blood was therefore seen as fundamentally antithetical to the natural order and was regulated by the Seventy-Seven Laws of Okomfo Anokye.…The same Laws addressed the matter of menstrual blood. Menstruating women were forbidden from entering any regular dwelling house and were provided with special buildings for the duration…Pollution was the issue” (Akan: Wilks 1993: 335). “In another connection Ogotemmêli compared this blood with that shed in circumcision which is regarded as the payment of a debt to the earth: woman, having been made of earth, owes the earth this debt. God imposed on her a debt of blood, and she has to pay it in the ‘water of God's bosom’. Such was the name he gave to menstrual blood out of respect for women” (Dogon: Griaule 1965: 146). “For the Pygmies, the people of the forest, it is a very different thing. To them blood, in the usual context in which they see it, is equally dreadful. But they recognize it as being the symbol not only of death, but also of life. And menstrual blood to them means life. Even between a husband and wife it is not a frightening thing [187] though there are certain restrictions connected with it. In fact, the Pygmies consider that any couple that really wants to have children should ‘sleep with the moon’” (Mbuti: Turnbull 1961: 186–187).

¹⁶“A further reason for fearing menstruation is that the main ingredient of ‘love medicines,’ which will cause either insanity or bad luck, is menstrual blood. Consequently, one should not indiscriminately take a drink from a stranger. There are also certain special dangers to the menstruating woman herself. For instance, she should not walk in the woods, for snakes would follow her, and she should not comb her hair, for it would fall out” (Iroquois: Shimony 1961: 65). “A menstruating woman was considered unclean, and the chief restriction placed against her was that she should in no way come in contact with the sacred bundles nor approach the objects contained in them” (Pawnee: Dorsey, Murie, and Spoehr 1940: 5).

¹⁷“Menstrual blood, in addition to embodying hebu [a supernatural force] in its negative and harmful sense, attracts the nabarao, river inhabitants who, driven by a predilection for menstruating women, abduct them and carry them off as wives to their homes at the bottom of the water” (Saramaka: Price 1993: xix). “Blood is considered to be extremely polluting. Menstrual blood is only much more so and in the same class as other bodily excretions such as spittle (kele), feces (gu), and urine (mu). Semen is very dirty but very ‘powerful’ (sarai), for reasons that will be seen, and milk is held to be at the opposite extreme: it is very pure and auspicious and must be respected” (Sinhalese: Yalman 1971: 137). “People talked about dirty substances in two basic ways. One approach was to consider any discharge from the body dirty; menstrual blood, semen, urine, feces, pus, and mucus are all dirty. … The other approach to unclean substances was to divide them into two major types, the dirt associated with happy events (births) and the dirt associated with unhappy events (deaths)” (Taiwan Hokkien: Ahern 1978: 271).

¹⁸“Similarly, the term ‘black dog’ is found in the expression ‘black dog's blood’ (o-kau-hueq), which refers to human menstrual blood—the most potent ingredient in magic charms that give power over other people. Black dogs are thus associated with unclean sexuality: in fact, a ladies’ man in Taiwan is called a ‘black dog’ (o-kau)” (Taiwan Hokkein: Seaman 1981: 392). “According to various legends, menstrual blood is also possessed of magical force” (Mbuti: Turnbull 1965: 192). “It may be noted that menstrual blood was placed near the cradled child to negate forces whose mere presence could harm the inexperienced” (Klamath: Spencer 1952: 223). “Disease also came about from improper contact with sources of power, not through a breach of ethics but an unintentional contact with powers beyond the person's control, for example, menstrual blood which could cause illness in men and obstruct hunting. Although menstrual blood was not evil—it possessed curing properties—it contained powers which should not come into contact with men too weak to associate with them” (Ojibwa: Vecsey 1983: 146).

¹⁹“There is no ‘taboo’ of any sort on menstruation, except that some medicines should be kept away from menstrual blood” (Tiv: Bohannan, and Bohannan 1969: 73).

²⁰This is especially apparent in the area of HIV and AIDS where a “fear of magical blood contagion” is alive and well (Clark 1999: 22).

²¹“Universal Precautions is the term applied to treating all blood, tissues and some body fluids as potentially infectious…The appropriate level of precautions necessary is determined according to the extent of possible exposure to blood and body fluid and NOT because of the speculation of the infectious status of the patient. The most likely means of transmission of blood borne pathogens is direct percutaneous inoculation of infected blood/body fluid. Therefore healthcare workers should routinely use appropriate barrier methods to prevent contamination” (Central and North West London NHS Trust 2011, emphasis in original).

²²“In a primitive society, it is easy to draw the lines between individual clans, but because of that, there is a need for institutions by which the different individual groups can be welded into a higher social structure. Blood brotherhood is such an institution. It counteracts the disorganizing frictions which weaken an individual clan in its relationship to the outside world. Therefore, clan feuds are mediated by contracting blood brotherhood between the parties principally involved” (Azande: Czekanowski 1924: 47). “Blood-Brotherhood is a pact or alliance formed between two persons by a ritual act in which each swallows the blood of the other. The pact is one of mutual assistance and is backed by powerful sanctions. It may bind only the two participants to certain obligations, or it may also involve the social groups of which they are members” (Azande: Evans-Pritchard 1933: 369).

²³Despite the sexed term, some, though certainly not all, groups also allow women access to this practice (Kuna: Stout 1947: 28). “I have never come across an instance of a man making blood-brotherhood with a woman, though I have been told that rare alliances have been made between a man and a much loved and trusted wife. This is the only situation in which a pact between members of opposite sexes could occur since all other situations would involve an alliance either with some one else's wife, which would be an adulterous union, or with a female relative, which would be absurd, since they are already united by ties of kinship” (Azande: Evans-Pritchard 1933: 373).

²⁴Benjamin's distinction between mythical and divine violence is worth noting here, especially in terms of Benjamin's argument about blood and law (1986). Given that the full founding (legal and otherwise) of human rights entailed by a corporeal approach is not considered in this article, Benjamin's work will not be considered here. While the violence of law itself must be considered, Benjamin does offer hope of a more open, more ethical, less violent legal order (see de Wilde, 2011).

²⁵All Peirce's work taken from Peirce (2003). Citations given in that source are included here.

²⁶This analysis need not be confined to gender. The construction of bodies in this way also helps explain why, for example, only “able” bodies matter.

²⁷Žižek argues that “sexual difference” and the “nation” are the best contemporary examples of the zero institution that without which nothing else has meaning (2001: 222).

²⁸This autonomy is commonly associated with literacy generally (Ong 1982: 78) and the binary distinctions between oral and literate culture are well known (see Ong 1982, 37 ff). This is, however, questioned by work in linguistics (Brice Heath 1983; Street 1984).

²⁹The golden rule requires taking the cotext, that is, the piece of legislation as a whole, into account in construing the meaning of any particular part.

³⁰The mischief rule asks the judiciary to look to the “mischief’,” the problem, that the legislature sought to remedy with the law. For a succinct account of conventions in the United Kingdom, see Slapper and Kelly (2004: 191 ff).

³¹The Book of Blood itself has been written in different hands.

³²While this particular Article is not included in the Human Rights Act, the right of recognition before the law is implicit in other procedural rights, such as the right to a fair trial (Human Rights Act 1998: Article 6).

³³Smith explains Article 6 as follows: “the right to recognition as a person before the law entails not only recognition of legal personality, but also equality of treatment and a right of effective access to courts for the judicial determination of disputes” (2007: 239). “In essence, the right to be a person before the law means that once national law recognizes you as a person (usually after birth…), then you assume the rights and duties of all people” (Smith 2007: 237).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Annabelle Mooney

Annabelle Mooney is a Reader in Sociolinguistics at the University of Roehampton.