[2] As part of funerary ritual, certain Aboriginal cultures in Central Australia, Arnhem Land and Cape York Peninsula prohibit anyone from speaking a person's name during the mourning period after their death.
[6][7][8] Ethnologist Philip Jones says that adherents to this taboo believe that the spirit of the deceased is "potentially dangerous, toxic, wicked and mischievous" and must be encouraged to return to its source in the spirit-land.
[10] In Judaism, contact with a corpse causes a person to become ritually impure, and thus unable to enter the Temple until purified using the ashes of the red heifer.
Kohanim (Jewish priests) are further restricted, being forbidden from intentionally coming into contact with the dead or from walking too closely to a grave.
Exceptions are made for a Kohen's seven closest relatives that have died (father, mother, brother, unmarried sister, son, daughter, or wife).
This fear, to Freud, is the explanation for ceremonies aimed at keeping the ghost at a distance or driving it off,[16] with the taboo remaining intact until the body of the dead person has completely decayed.