Extreme Taboos?

This one's idle curiosity. It might not appeal to everyone, but for those who enjoy surveying beliefs, it might.

Every culture has its taboos. Many are religious, spiritual or superstitious in nature. [Even atheists have taboos, though they're not always sure why they have them. How many atheists are comfortable speaking ill of the dead, for instance?]

Taboos also make things sacred -- they proscribe how we may deal with certain things, and prescribe what we must do in certain circumstances. They also make certain things impure, contaminated and offensive.

I love taboos -- I'm fascinated by them. To my mind they seem at once absurd yet strangely compelling. We all have them, yet some are really notable in how much they expect of us.

After a comment in another thread over how many taboos the Navajo have (apparently they have so many that they're always breaking them), I was wondering who gets the record for Extreme Taboos? I.e. more taboos on a single thing than anyone else, or taboos notably stronger than anyone else's. Here are some I know of...

Among the people of Vanuatu there's a particular fern which they call the 'taboo fern'. If you put that fern on something, it makes that thing taboo and nobody else can touch it (literally). This is how they mark property for instance, rather than posting 'keep out' signs. But it works symbolically too: if you put the taboo-fern on a coconut shell by a coconut grove then every coconut in the grove becomes taboo. (But they don't tie taboo-ferns down much -- they just leave them resting on things. I always wanted to ask: what happens when the wind blows a taboo fern off the coconut-shell? What if it touches something else?). This one gets my record for its ability to make anything taboo.

The Jewish god has a name, but you can't utter it. (I've always wondered how did they transmit it before writing?). But it's an interesting taboo in its own right: what good is a name nobody can use?

The Muslim god has 99 Most Beautiful names. The number of names is known (Mohammed said that it's 99), and if the faithful enumerate them then they'll get into heaven. But the actual list of names isn't supplied and Muslims don't agree on what they all are. Moreover, because they're Allah's names you can't give those names directly to your children. So the names are taboo, numerous and obscure, which is perhaps one up on the Jewish god.

The Christian god is perhaps even more sacred. He's so sacred that your very birth is an offence -- you don't have to do anything, existing at all is an affront and you spend the rest of your life in expiation. That gets my record for a prioriness: A Taboo You Broke Before You Even Knew It.

But for sheer volume and complexity of taboo, my favourite to date is Chinese Ghosts.

The Chinese have a profound fear of ghosts. There are scores of different kinds of ghosts in Chinese myth, and they have more taboos around them than anything I've ever heard of. Chinese people spend a lot of time propitiating angry ghosts, or else trying to avoid their attention -- there's even a Hungry Ghost Festival. The slightest slip of behaviour can bring ghosts down upon you -- like walking outside with wet hair, or whistling in the dark. Even well-educated Chinese can take these beliefs seriously -- I've had Chinese University colleagues advise me not to whistle at night. You have to clean your house on New Years Eve to keep the ghosts out for another year. You should avoid the number "four" on important occasions (the Chinese think it sounds like "death"). Mirrors should be kept away from coffins, lest they bring about other deaths. After a funeral, don't go straight home, since ghosts can follow you. Cutting your toenails at night will certainly bring a ghost visitation upon you. Ghosts congregate in hotel rooms (because people don't live there permanently) -- it's always safer to knock before entering. Socks or shoes laid neatly by the bed will certainly make it easier for ghosts to find you at night. Don't turn around if someone taps you on the shoulder -- it's probably a ghost. Don't write your name on your clothing -- ghosts will see the name and call you by it. Don't shine a light into a tree -- ghosts hide there. Patting people on the head or shoulder puts out the fires in their body that help keep ghosts away. Likewise, putting your chest on the floor in a dark room will pretty much guarantee that a ghost will try and possess you (I'm not sure how often people want to do that). Fortunately, red underwear or shoes will certainly help keep ghosts away.

Chinese ghosts get my record for Most Taboos On a Single Subject.

Does anyone have any other Extreme Taboos? What makes them Extreme?

Since anathema is so universal and has been around so long, what's the most Extreme use of anathema?

The most Extreme use of taboo-fern I've seen was more a use in spirit than practice. A graffito seen on the side of a weather-station on the island of Espiritu Santo, in black paint: I CAN FAK ANYONE WHO DESTROYS MY CANOE. That's pretty much the taboo-fern message, rendered logographically -- and a graffito has the advantage of not blowing away in a moderate on-shore wind; you just need to remember to park your canoe near the weather-station.

Naturally, I looked around for the author's canoe but it wasn't there (hopefully he was happily using it, and not out fakking whoever had destroyed it). I was interested to see too that he hadn't said for nobody else to use it. The target of his ire was just prospective canoe-destroyers... which is more specific than the taboo-fern itself can be I think.

I also wondered how prospective fakkage would work. Would he take a spear and go talk to all the culprits until he found the guilty party? Was there a ceremonial fak-magic that would land upon the guilty, anathema-style? I'm pretty sure that if you take a coconut from a taboo grove, Bad Stuff will land on you whether the owner hears of your transgression or not... But the message on the weather-station was clear: he, the canoe's owner had the fakking power. He wasn't trusting to the Natural Order to do his fakking for him. But clearly, it's also a discretionary power. He may show clemency if, say, you were a dear relative and any canoe-destruction was an accident.

That of course made me think of gang-tags to mark turf in cities -- another secular application of the taboo-fern perhaps. We don't get them much in Australia, and I generally can't decipher them anyway, but I hope they're as creative and symbolically complex as the message I saw in Santo.

Not to pick on the Chinese, but another Extreme taboo from that land is marriage proscriptions. In China it's taboo to marry someone of the same surname as oneself -- it's considered a form of incest because you're believed to have the same ancestor. What makes this Extreme and not just Quaint is that 85% of China use only 100 surnames, so if you're Chinese then there's about 113M mainland Chinese (and who knows how many ethnic Chinese expats) you can't marry. This gets my record for the best Blood is Thicker than Crazyglue taboo.

Interestingly, the Chinese government is thinking of issuing more surnames to make its people-identification more practical. I'm not sure what will happen to this taboo then. Will they add the State-Approved surname and keep their old one, or will it replace the old and thus destroy this venerable taboo?

Higgins said:

If I remember correctly, in the original use (what the Septuagint translates into Anathema, ie the Hebrew term heren) is kind of like the Oriflamme, the orange banner that the French successors to Charlemagne kept in St. Dennis and it meant roughly "take no prisoners"...

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Apparently according to legend, the Oriflamme was dipped in the blood of St. Denis of Paris -- a converter of the pagans who died by beheading and according to legend, picked up his head and walked two miles, preaching a sermon. Here he is depicted at Notre Dame de Paris, with a halo where his head should be.


Oriflamme: definitely an Extreme taboo. It gets my T.E. Lawrence award for 'No Prisoners'.

St Denis: definitely one who can fak anybody who destroys his canoe.

Another secular Extreme taboo I think is our 'man' phobia, in which we are ashamed or uncomfortable to use words with 'man' as a prefix or suffix (like 'chairman' or 'manhole-cover'). This is a Political Correctness initiative that might have begun in the 70s, but flourished through the 90s and remains with us today.

I can't think of a language taboo that arrived so quickly, took so readily or had so sweeping an impact on the English lexicon since the Norman invasion of England. So assiduous was it that even words like 'manual' (whose linguistic roots have nothing to do with words for 'male') were challenged.

'Man'-phobia gets my record for Pandemic Linguistic Hysterics in the English language.

Sometimess lesser taboos can club together and make an Extreme taboo. I think that this has happened with two taboos that have been with us for time immemorial:

1. You Can't Laugh at me cos I'm In Charge -- the privilege of monarchs, presidents, ruling classes, parents, older siblings and dominant religions throughout the ages, the taboo of Laughing At Power is often met with charges of sedition, blasphemy and insubordination.
2. You Can't Laugh at me cos I'm a Victim -- the privilege of tribal minorities, youngest siblings, the poor, the disabled and anyone who's ever won a compensation case, a harrassment suit, or lodged an antiviolence order, the taboo of Laughing About One Thing can at the sole discretion of the Victim, be met with the tactic of Blame for Callous Neglect About Another.

Somehow in the 90s I think these two taboos came together under an umbrella of pluralism to form a new, Extreme taboo that I call 'You Can't Laugh at Me Till I Laugh First'.

The taboo-rules for humour are now very strict. If the sort of person you're laughing about isn't in the room, you can tell whatever jokes you like -- as long as you end with 'and of course I'm married to one'. If the sort of person you're laughing at is in the room, you have to say first how much you love those people and how great they are. Then you can tell jokes about them -- unless of course, they're not smiling.

I think that this is an Extreme taboo simply because shared laughter is one of our great humanisers -- it bridges all kinds of cultural differences. In a pluralistic society the strains of mutual tolerance can get very high. Paradoxically, I think we're actually making it harder to relieve those stresses by imposing complex taboos on how to express our humour. So this taboo gets my award for Welding Shut the Pressure-Valve.

-- Ruv (who's a heterosexual atheist married to a Chinese Australian, and has Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Bah'ai, Zoroastrian, GLBTQI and PC friends -- currently seeking a Muslim friend for companionship, mutual understanding and the right to tell the occasional Islamic joke)

Higgins said:

Another odd thing is the occurance of Anathema and Oriflamme as "band names"...apparently any taboo aura can be taken by some band or other. So what's lost in taboo translation in one area is gained in another.

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I'm still trying to work out who decided where the halo goes on a beheaded Saint...

'The head. The halo goes on the head.'

'No, the halo goes above the body. It represents...'

'Dude, you're putting a halo on a guy's neck-stump.'

'But metaphysically...'

'Neck-stump.'

'Why don't we go ask my Uncle Pious where we should put it?'

'Fine then. Neck-stump is fine.'

In a vain effort to turn this conversation off beatified neck-stumps and numbi (aren't they an Australian marsupial?) and return it to Extreme Taboos, I went hunting for more examples to post. Unfortunately, when you google "Extreme taboo" it just sends you off to Xtube.

A lot.

But that in itself is sorta interesting. Why is it that religions, Political Correctness and pornography all have Extreme Taboos in common? What does this say about our minds?

And horror too. Can you think of any horror story that didn't break a taboo-boundary? Every horror story I can think of from slasher flicks (Body Parts where they Oughtna be), through to giant ants (But Insects Shouldn't Get That Large, Martha!) to Misery (Why Authors should never Get Too Close to Literary Fans) and of course the Exorcist (Innocent Kids with Nasty Demons) and the Blob (The Crap in our Sink is Coming Back to Get Us!)

Sex, Horror, Death, Religion and Political Correctness... All taboo-ridden. But... why?

Melisande said:

OK, here goes;

I think, and believe, that masturbation might be one of the most extreme taboo's in any culture, religion and maybe even history, (not that I've investigated it too much).

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Since sex invariably has taboos around it, I'm not surprised that masturbation does too (presumably you mean the autoerotic kind). The taboos themselves are quite varied though. For example, the following from Wikipedia's commentary on it:

Wikipedia said:

Among some cultures, such as the Hopi in Arizona, the Wogeno in Oceania, and the Dahomeans and Namu of Africa, masturbation is encouraged, including regular masturbation between males. In certain Melanesian communities this is expected between older and younger boys. One interesting twist is the Sambia tribe of New Guinea. This tribe has rituals and rites of passage surrounding manhood which involve frequent ejaculation through fellatio. Semen is valued and masturbation is seen as a waste of semen and is therefore frowned upon even though frequent ejaculation is encouraged. The capacity and need to ejaculate is nurtured for years from an early age through fellatio so that it can be consumed rather than wasted. Semen is ingested for strength and is considered in the same line as mothers' milk.[28]

Other cultures have rites of passage into manhood that culminate in the first ejaculation of a male, usually by the hands of a tribal elder. In some tribes such as the Agta, Philippines, stimulation of the genitals is encouraged from an early age.[29] Upon puberty, the young male is then paired off with a "wise elder" or "witch doctor" who uses masturbation to build his ability to ejaculate in preparation for a ceremony. The ceremony culminates in a public ejaculation before a celebration. The ejaculate is saved in a wad of animal skin and worn later to help conceive children. In this and other tribes, the measure of manhood is actually associated more with the amount of ejaculate and his need than penis size. Frequent ejaculation through masturbation from an early age fosters frequent ejaculation well into adulthood.[30]

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So we have taboos making masturbation sacred as well as polluting.

We humans obviously have a drive, not to mention need, for bodily satisfaction. So why is it, that if we can not receive it elsewhere, it it considered 'taboo' to give it to ourselves?

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Sex and death always seem to have taboos. Why? I dunno. I'd love to hear an answer.

Is there a connection between perversion and taboo? Certainly, every taboo invites a perversion. But does every perversion (here I mean 'a reversal of accepted values') suggest a taboo?

Would the people who like seeing hamsters trampled no longer like it if everyone else did? My guess is that they'd still like it for other reasons.

Animal bloodsports are condemned in many Western countries, but not in Spain of course, where bullfights are celebrated -- and not for their perversity but for the skill required. Likewise, cockfighting is celebrated in parts of Asia and South America.

Is every value a taboo? I'd argue no: values that it's okay to question aren't taboos. Values that aren't challengable, are. So bullfighting may be an Extreme animal bloodsport, but that doesn't make its condemnation an Extreme taboo.

Likewise, hamster-trampling. Offensive perhaps, illegal in many jurisdictions certainly, but it'd only be taboo if we couldn't talk about it. (That doesn't stop its promoters from calling it taboo to attract bigger crowds.)

rugcat said:

I don't think that's a taboo so much as it is a simple recognition of social mores, and a desire to not have people think you're a jerk.

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And what creates the mores?

I don't believe that all mores derive from taboos, but the mores one can't explain seem like good candidates. I suspect that the 'don't speak ill of the dead' is too inconsistent to be wholly explanable by common courtesy.

This particular taboo applies very strongly to ones own tribe, but less strongly to the dead of other tribes. Compare US behaviour to Michael Jackson's death to that of Saddam Hussein, for example. The argument 'he had loved ones' applies perhaps more strongly to Hussein (who had a huge family, many of whom loved him), than it can to Jackson (who had a moderate family who largely disliked him). Then there's the fact that the taboo applies regardless of who is present. These inconsistencies suggest to me that it's not a more of compassion for the living so much as a tribal taboo -- almost a superstition. And meanwhile, desecration of the enemy dead is tolerated and sometimes even encouraged -- consider the recent US desecration of Muslim bodies in Afghanistan for instance, calculated to provoke Taliban attacks.

To speak ill of the dead of one's tribe is certainly treated as some sort of dishonour to the tribe. But it's more than that -- people outright dissemble at eulogies; a fact that has been commented on by various satirists. So we're obliged not just to refrain from stating facts that we were allowed to state when the deceased lived; we're also obliged to lie (or at least refrain from challenging hyperbole) to support the creation of myths around our tribal departed.

"Being forced to eat one's own children."

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Extremely offensive, but is it a taboo? There's a broader taboo about harming children -- though what 'harm' means seems to vary between societies. But eating children? Other than some horror stories about adults who do eat children (e.g. Kronos, or the witch from Hansel and Gretel), I can't think of anything to suggest that we're all carrying some fear about it.