Proscribe

Ostracize, banish (v.)

guilt

O.E. gylt "crime, sin, fault, fine," of unknown origin, though some suspect a connection to O.E. gieldan "to pay for, debt," but O.E.D. editors find this "inadmissible phonologically." The mistaken use for "sense of guilt" is first recorded 1690. Guilt by association first recorded 1941. Guilty is from O.E. gyltig, from gylt.

There was once a time that no religion or theory of science mentions when Ostriches were the dominant species on earth. They ruled with a mighty wing and had a great, intricate system of social relationships: governments, economies, familial and work-related castes. Their populations were densest in Western Europe, Ostrich cities rising in mounds of feathery brick along what's now the English channel: modern-day France, Germany, the United Kingdom were populated solely by the Ostrich cosmopolis.
The ostriches co-existed peacefully with other, lesser animals. Wild herds of Homo Erectus, for example, roamed the many undeveloped countrysides grunting and hunting and gathering and staying in their caves of dirt.
In one such cave right outside the Ostrich cosmopolis, a set of Homo Erectus parents gave birth to a strangely hairless and upright son with a large head. The first years of his life were normal. The parents cared for him and raised him, feeding him nuts and berries and small mammals and showing him the Ostrich cities and teaching him about the boundaries of their world. But after what we would call sixteen years, the son began to act very strangely. This son made many strange noises that his parents didn't recognize and squinted at everything with a perplexed face. He pointed at many things, looking perplexed, and made so many different kinds of sounds that his parents, though caring and nurturing, couldn't understand what he was trying to communicate. They shrugged at him when he made these noises and continued with their business, patting him on the head and walking away.

One night the son returned to his parents' cave carrying the body of what looked to be a dead baby chimpanzee. Its face was multilated and its arms were twisted and covered in dried blood. He shoved the corpse in their faces, shaking it back and forth and yelling many noises they could not comprehend. A look of concern came to his mother's eyes, and she reached out to her son, whose eyes were bloodshot and spilling tears. But the son, in a rage, threw the carcass at his mother when she reached for him. Then he grabbed her arm and she winced, her eyes now filled with horror at her child as he gripped her. He began to scream at her, lunging at her with every scream.
The son's father, confused, never before confronted with such a thing, threw himself at his son and yelled to protect his wife. The son didn't stop. He continued yelling and hurting his mother. Then his father grabbed his son by the neck and dragged him to the entrance of their cave and thew him to the ground. Then he grunted again and his eyes darted back and forth as if he were taking a new step into a new world and was looking at the horizon for guidance, as if this was a new step in evolution, as if he was unprepared for the change that he and his kind were undergoing at that very moment. He blinked and pointed his hairy finger to the fields, away from his home, toward the Ostrich cities.
The son rose to his feet, a look of terror and confusion on his face, and he ran in the direction his father pointed.

One custom of the Ostrich cosmopolis should be mentioned specifically. Crimes occured in the cities of Ostriches, but crimes were more indicative of an individual's forgetfulness or absent-mindedness than their maliciousness. It was therefore not society that punished its criminals--the criminals punished themselves because as soon as they committed a crime they remembered the rule that had slipped their mind. Such an individual, immediately after committing a crime, would go out to the outskirts of the city, into the forests and fields, find a nice earthy spot, and bury his or her head in the ground. Since the Ostriches communicated by blinks and weaves of their necks, they instinctually punished themselves through isolation. In those moments buried in the dirt and soil, the criminals would wait until their time was up. They knew when this was--every individual knew how much time to spend proscribed, every crime had its own appropriate period of separation. After a recalcitrant individual spent a proportionate amount of time without interacting socially, he or she would lift his or her head out of the ground and return, resocialized, to the city. The Ostriches didn't know why or how they did this. There were no explanations or books or speeches or justifications in their community. They all naturally obeyed the social order.

After several days of delirious wandering through valleys, in meadows, and across rivers, the son found the top of a small hill and looked down into an Ostrich city. The paths and mounds that composed the city glistened in the sun, and he was attracted to its complexity. Surely, he thought, animals that could build this would understand him.
On his way to the city he saw a strange thing. In several fields, very far apart, he saw three ostriches with their heads buried in the ground, their chests expanding and retracting with their breaths. He stopped to consider these and muttered several noises to himself. He walked on without disturbing them.
When the son reached the edge of the city he was exhausted from his experience at home and his days of desultory travel. He was met by a delegation of Ostriches, who circled around him. He stood completely still during this process and the birds, because of his stillness, found him acceptable. They brought him to the hut of one individual who had a spare bed and gave the son water and grain to eat. They showed him a mattress next to the resident's mattress where he could sleep. After eating and making many noises to the Ostriches, he laid down on the mattress and fell into a deep slumber. The group looked at one another, blinked and swayed their necks in approval, and left the son in peace.

That night there came a piercing shriek from the tent where the son slept. It was not mammalian, but avian. It echoed through the streets of the Ostrich city, and a herd of individuals ran to their guest's tent. They found the son beating his host with his fists, his face calm, his eyes closed and tense. Blood stained the dirt beneath the now inert corpse of the host ostrich, its body quivering limply after each successive strike.
The herd blinked and weaved at one another frantically and two of them ran to the son and pushed him back with their necks and legs. The son's eyes opened and he gasped and was overwhelmed by the chaotic flapping and kicking all around him. Through the legs of the ostriches he saw the corpse of the bird that had been so kind to him and felt a surge of confusion and pain in his chest. He began to make noises, pitiful and sad noises, and cried, choking on his noises. He repeated them over and over again while the other Ostriches kicked and flailed at him.
After several minutes of blink and weave discussion, the birds decided what they would do with the son. One of the stronger birds kicked the son in the head and the son passed out, his screams silenced and his body hitting the floor. The herd dragged him into the night to the outskirts of their city. They dragged him over rocks and in between trees and through streams. They found a flat meadow and then they buried the son's head in the dirt according to their custom.
After an hour, the son woke up. His eyes, ears, nose, and his mouth were filled with soil. He experienced the blackness of his proscription and lifted his head out of the ground in terror. He coughed, the dirt fillinf every orifice of his face. He made a noise as he did this, looking out into the night and finding that he was alone, and he coughed and began to cry. The noise he made as he sobbed and coughed sounded like "gylt, gylt."