Chapter V: Totemism and Taboo (4)

+619+. A closer relationship between magic and taboo has been assumed in view of the fact that both rest to some extent on the principle of the association of ideas, the principle that like procedures produce like results. It is true that some taboo rules depend on this conception:[1019] the flesh of timid animals is avoided, that of courageous animals is eaten, under the belief that the man partakes of the character of the food he eats; association with women is sometimes supposed to make a man or a boy effeminate. It is to be expected that in the immense number of taboo prohibitions and precautions some should be found in which the association of ideas is the determining factor. But for the majority of taboo regulations this explanation does not hold. In the economic and sexual taboos mentioned above, in the dread of corpses, in the fear of touching things belonging to a chief, and in other cases there are customs that can only be referred to a belief in an injurious potency residing in certain objects.[1020] Practically, savage tribes distinguish between taboo and magic.

+620+. Contamination of customs has always been the rule in human communities, early and late, savage and civilized. We have seen how there has often been a coalescence between taboo regulations proper and ordinary civil law. To state the case more fully, these have been fused into a unity of social life with individual initiative, magical notions, arbitrary enactments. The actual social constitution even of slightly developed tribes is composite, the outcome of long experience and experiment in which all the lines of social feeling and thought have gradually drawn together and been compacted into a more or less unitary mass. While these lines have influenced each the others, it is possible, to a considerable extent, to distinguish the sphere of each. Thus we can, in many cases, see where ordinary civil law comes in to adopt, modify, or set aside taboo rules, and so we can generally recognize the line of demarcation between definite taboo and the conception of association of ideas. In some cases the explanations offered of taboo customs are afterthoughts--imagined hypotheses to account for things already in existence.[1021]

+621+. The despotism exercised by taboo systems over certain Polynesian communities is one of the extraordinary facts of human history. In New Zealand and Hawaii the restrictions on conduct were so numerous and were carried out so mercilessly that life under these conditions would seem to us intolerable.[1022] In addition to a great number of particular prohibitions and to the constant fear of violating the sacredness of the persons of chiefs and trenching on their prerogatives, we find in New Zealand the amazing rule that on the occasion of a great misfortune (as a fire) the sufferer was to be deprived of his possessions--the blow that fell on him was held to affix a stigma to all that he owned. Besides the traditional taboos there were the arbitrary enactments of chiefs which might constantly introduce new possibilities of suffering. Yet with all this the people managed to live in some degree of comfort, somewhat as in civilized communities life goes on in spite of earthquakes, epidemics, bank failures, the injustices of law, and the tyranny of the powerful.

+622+. The duration of certain taboo periods among various peoples in various ages has varied greatly. Taboos relating to foods, chiefs, and the intercourse of the sexes are usually permanent everyday customs; those that relate to economic procedures are in force for the time demanded by each industry. In Hawaii the catching of certain species of fish was forbidden for half the year, and the Borneo harvest taboo (carrying prohibition of other work) lasts sometimes for weeks. There is mention in a Maori legend of a taboo of three years.[1023] According to the later Hebrew law, in every seventh year all agricultural operations ceased.[1024] A portent may demand a long period of restriction, as in the case of the Roman nine-day ceremony (_novendiales feriae_).[1025] As has been remarked above, economic taboos are often dictated by convenience--they are prudential rules to which a supernatural sanction has been attached.

+623+. _Diffusion of taboo._ Polynesia, particularly New Zealand and Hawaii, is the special home of taboo--the only region in which it is known to have taken the form of a well-compacted, all-embracing system. It exists in Melanesia, but it is there less complicated and general,[1026] and the same thing is true of British New Guinea.[1027] In parts of Borneo it is found in modified form: there are two sorts of taboo, one, called _mali_, absolutely forbidding work on certain occasions, the other, called _penti_, allowing work if it is begun by a person not _penti_; before the birth of a child the latter form of taboo rests on both parents.[1028] The Land Dyaks have their _lali_ days and the Sea Dyaks their _pemate_,[1029] these terms being the equivalents of _taboo_.

+624+. Though there is no proof of the existence of all-pervading taboo systems among the peoples of Asia and America, there are notices of taboo regulations in particular cases in these regions. At the birth of a child the Hindu father was subject to certain restrictions along with the mother, and his taboo was removed by bathing.[1030] Among the Sioux Indians on the death of a child the father is taboo for a period of six months or a year.[1031] In West African Calabar there are taboos (called _ibet_) on individuals, connected with spirits, the guardians of children.[1032] In Assam economic and other taboos are elaborate and well organized.[1033] Such observances, in connection with death, are found among the Kafirs[1034] and the Eskimo.[1035]

+625+. For the ancient civilized peoples there is no proof of the existence of general taboo systems. Various particular prohibitions, involving a sense of danger in certain things, are mentioned above; they relate chiefly to corpses, to infected houses, to women in connection with menstruation and childbirth,[1036] to certain official persons (as the Roman flamen dialis). There are also the lists of unlucky days (Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, Roman). The origin of food prohibitions (Hebrew, Pythagorean) is uncertain;[1037] they may have arisen, as is suggested above, from general regard for sacred animals and plants, or from totemistic relations, or from other conditions unknown to us; the Hebrew lists of forbidden animals may have been gradually expanded under the guidance of antagonism to surrounding non-Yahwistic cults. Whether the ancient taboo usages are the remains of older more extensive systems or represent the extreme point to which tabooism was carried by the communities in question the data do not enable us to decide.

+626+. In various places, outside of the Polynesian area, we find terms that bear a more or less close resemblance in signification to taboo.[1038] Melanesian _tambu_ is that which has a sacred character.[1039] The Borneo terms (_lali_, _pemate_, _mali_, _penti_) are mentioned just above, and there is the _pomali_ of Timor (in the Malayan Archipelago). The Malagasy _fady_ is defined as 'dangerous, prohibited.'[1040] In Gabun (West Africa) _orunda_ is said to mean 'prohibited to human beings.'[1041] The Hebrew _tam[=e]_ is used of things dangerous, not to be touched, ritually defiling,[1042] and this sense sometimes attaches to the term _qadosh_ (rendered in the English version by 'holy'), which involves the presence of a supernatural (and therefore dangerous) quality.[1043]

+627+. From all the facts known it may be concluded that the conception of taboo exists or has existed in some form in a great part of the world,[1044] though its development has differed greatly in different regions. In general its prevalence appears to have been in inverse proportion to that of totemism--it is lacking or feeble in the chief totemic centers, Australia and North America, and strongest in Polynesia, where totemism is hardly recognizable. It may be said that, while totemism appears in those forms of social life that have been created by hunting communities,[1045] taboo is the product of more settled societies, in which agriculture plays an important part. But while this is true, at least in a general way, we are not able to trace all the influences that have determined the development of totemism and taboo; some of these are lost in the obscurity of the remote past, and, unfortunately for purposes of investigation, both taboo and totemism, as we now meet them in actual operation, are in process of decay. Why, for instance, taboo has flourished in Hawaii with its fishing industries and has not flourished in certain half-civilized, partly agricultural North American tribes we are unable to explain precisely. We may fall back on the vague statement that every community has accomplished that for which its genius fitted it, but how the genius of any one people has fitted it for this or that particular task it is not always possible to say.

+628+. _The disappearance of the taboo system_ in civilized nations is to be referred to the general advance in intelligence and morality. Usually this movement is a gradual and silent one, marked by a quiet dropping of usages as they come to be held unnecessary or oppressive. Sometimes a bold individual rebels against the established custom and successfully introduces a new era: thus in Yoruba, under an old custom, when a king died his eldest son was obliged to commit suicide; this custom was set at defiance by a certain Adelu in 1860, and has not since been observed.[1046] All the influences that tend to broaden thought go to displace taboo. The growth of clans into tribes, the promotion of voluntary organizations, secret societies, which displace the old totemistic groups, the growth of agriculture and of commercial relations--all things, in a word, that tend to make the individual prominent and to further family life lead naturally to the abrogation of oppressive taboos.

+629+. Doubtless also among lower tribes intercourse with higher communities has had the same result. One of the most remarkable episodes in the history of taboo is its complete overthrow in the Hawaiian Islands in the year 1819 by a popular movement.[1047] The movement was begun by members of the royal family, particularly by one of the queens, and was eagerly followed by almost the whole population--the result was the final overthrow of the system. This was before the arrival of Christian missionaries; but as foreigners had visited the islands many years before (Captain Cook first came in 1778), it is possible that the suggestion of the reform came from observation of the fact that the taboos were disregarded by those men without evil effects. In any case it was the acceptance of better ideas by the people that led to the revolutionary movement.

+630+. _Rôle of taboo in the history of religion._ The relation of taboo to morality and religion and to the general organization of society appears from the facts stated above. It has created neither the sense of obligation nor the determination of what is right or wrong in conduct. The sense of obligation is coeval with human society--man, at the moment when he became man, was already potentially a moral being (and a religious being as well).[1048] His experience of life induced rules of conduct, and these, with the concurrence of some hardly definable instincts, became imperative for him--the conception involved in the word 'ought' gradually took shape. The practical content of the conception was determined by all sorts of experience; the decisive consideration was whether or not a given thing was advantageous. The belief arose that certain disadvantageous things were to be referred to extrahuman influences, and such things were of course to be avoided--this belief produced the taboo system.

+631+. The prohibitions of morality sprang from social relations with human beings, the prohibitions of taboo from social relations with superhuman beings--duties to both classes of beings were defined by experience. The rule "thou shalt not kill thy clansman" was a necessity of human society; the rule "thou shalt not touch a corpse" sprang from the fear of a superhuman, malign, death-dealing Power. Avoidance of poisonous herbs was an obligation founded on common experience; avoidance of a chief's food and certain other foods arose from dread of offending a spirit or some occult Power. And so with all taboo prescriptions as contrasted with others relating to conduct.[1049]

+632+. Taboo is in essence religious, not moral. In so far as it supplies a supernatural sanction for moral conduct proper and maintains rational social relations (as when a man's wife and other property are made taboo to all but himself), it is often beneficent. On the other hand, it is antimoral when it elevates to the rank of duties actions that have no basis in human relations or are in any way antagonistic to a healthy human instinct of right. This it has often done, and there has accordingly resulted a conflict between it and morality--a conflict that has formed no small part of the ethical history of the race, its echoes remaining to the present day. In all religions it has been hard to bring about an intelligent harmony between the moral and the ritual. Taboo was not originally irrational--it sprang from the belief (rational for the early time) in the presence of the supernatural in certain objects, and this belief was held to be supported by early experience, according to which it seemed that violations of taboo were followed by sickness or death or other misfortunes. It came to be thought irrational with the progress of knowledge and reflection.

+633+. Taboo, being a religious conception, has been adopted and fostered by all popular systems of religion. It has been set aside not by religion as such but by all the influences that have tended to rationalize religion. Religious leaders have modified it so far as modification has been demanded by public opinion. So enlightened and spiritual minded a man as the apostle Paul declared that an unworthy participation in the eucharistic celebration produced sickness and death.[1050] Innumerable are the taboos that have passed silently into oblivion.

+634+. Taboo, then, is a concomitant of man's moral life that has sometimes opposed, sometimes coalesced with natural morality. Like all widely extending institutions it has tended in part to weld men together; like all irrational restrictions it has tended also to hold men apart. Like all positive law it has fostered the sense of moral obligation, but like all arbitrary law it has weakened the power of intelligent and moral obedience. It has been not the guardian of morality, but a temporary form (useful in a primitive stage of society) in which a part of the moral law expressed itself. The real moral force of society has been sympathetic social intercourse, which, under the guidance of an implicit moral ideal, has been constantly employed in trying to spiritualize or to reject those enactments of taboo that have been proved by experience, observation, and reflection to be injurious.[1051]