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In simple cultures sin is often considered an entity and can be expelled orally from the body by confession and thereby the individual escapes death. Emetics are taken in many rituals to produce a similar cleansing. In both, the cleansing is made through the lips and is accompanied by breath passing out. This breath may become personified, and in an Australian tribe women fear to be struck by a whirlwind for they think the spirit in the whirlwind enters the womb to be reborn as a child.
Vomiting as a means of confession may be associated originally with having eaten the forbidden totem animal.
In some African tribes sexual sins, especially sins against the totem taboos, have to be confessed, and in addition the delivery of the child also plays a part. Difficult labour is believed to be due to an illicit union and the child can be delivered only when the mother utters the real name of her lover. Thus her body is cleansed in two directions, by the spoken confession through the lips and by the delivery of the child through the labia. An illegitimate child is a falsehood parading under ancestral names to which he has no right and therefore cannot be born until the stolen name is brought forth by confession. Several related customs are described, all of the data being from African tribes. However, a few similar situations are reported from other parts of the world.