Ritually destroying the placenta symbolized an individual’s detachment from maternal dependence.

Evidence

For the primitives, childbirth is surrounded by strict taboos; in particular, the placenta must be carefully burned or thrown into the sea, because whoever might get hold of it would hold the newborn’s fate in his hands; this envelope in which the fetus is formed is the sign of its dependence; in annihilating it, the individual is able to detach himself from the living magma and to realize himself as an autonomous being. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 326

Categorization

• SHARE: The placenta-taboo detail as a concrete instance of cutting maternal ties would land well with anyone interested in anthropology of ritual or symbolic systems.