The Blindfold
The custom of blindfolding the victim before an execution is nearly universal. Many believe it to be an act of human kindness, taken in the interest of the victim to spare him/her from having to „look death in the face“, for it is thought that facing an oncoming death must be a particularly traumatic experience. For the same reason, a person who refuses the blindfold is admired for bravery.
Actually, the custom of blindfolding has a very different origin. Its initial purpose was not to protect the victim but, rather, the executioner.
In all animistic beliefs, as well as in modern religions (or at least those parts of modern religions which are reducible to superstitions), there is a primordial fear of the dead, because it is believed that the dead – or rather „their“ souls, being immortal – are able to take their revenge on the living, in many unpleasant ways. Many funeral customs today have their roots in that primordial fear and serve as prophylactic measures to protect the living from the dead. The funeral dress code, such as wearing black and veiling one's face, was initially adopted as a disguise, intended to prevent the deceased's soul to identify the members of the funeral procession and so protect them from the revenge (in some less developed societies, much more drastic measures are still used – e.g., the custom of scaring one's face in sign of grief or growing a beard in sign of mourning). For the same reason, the funeral processions in many countries today take pains to change the route when returning from the cemetery, in order to disorient the revengeful souls.
The most dangerous are the souls of those who die a premature or a violent death, including death by execution, as they are reasonably believed to have the strongest reasons to seek revenge. This makes the executioners particularly vulnerable and it is therefore only prudent for them to blindfold the victim and prevent the soul from identifying the individual responsible for the death. The eyes are specially important in this context, as it was universally believed that „the seat of the soul“ in in the eyes („anime sedem esse in oculis“). Another strategy was for the executioner to wear a mask and so avoid recognition – the classical executioners' costume in the past included a hood that fully covered the face. (Naturally, the executioners had many more earthly reasons to hide, fearing revenge from the victims relatives and followers. In addition, this anonymity through disguise may have protected them from the social stigma attached to their profession.)
The blindfold was but one strategy to protect the executioners and the onlookers from the supernatural revenge of those executed. The same purpose was served by many magical rituals performed by actors and audiences at public executions.
As for the person facing an execution, the blindfold does little to help – on the contrary, it causes spatial disorientation and may increase the fear of a suddenly invisible danger.
1941. sixteen Yugoslav partisans and one German soldier, Josef Schulz, about to be shot at Smederevska Palanka