Taboo, Personal and Collective Representations

Origin and Positioning within Cultural Complexes

Elizabeth Brodersen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781351039888
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psicologia
• Subtopic: Salute mentale in psicologia

Taboo, Personal and Collective Representations examines the symbolic nature of taboo, asking what is the purpose of a taboo and how does it vary cross-culturally? The book focuses on the concept of taboo as an in-between, organizing principle which separates and differentiates stages through a ritual process of separation of order as clean/blessed from disorder as polluted/disassociated.

This book uses an interdisciplinary approach which compares the anthropological, ethnological, sociological, and depth psychological perspectives of renowned scholars in their examination of taboos. Unconscious/conscious taboos influence how we perceive transitional, indeterminate states across margins in the maturation and individuation processes. The book argues that a taboo embodies the perilous, symbolic meaning of such a rite of passage and that its emotional value and intensity in the form of symptomology varies across cultures.

Taboo, Personal and Collective Representations will be of great interest to researchers, academics and post-graduate students in the fields of anthropology, ethnology, origins of religion, race, gender, and depth psychology.

Chapter 1

Introduction

The term taboo attracts academic interest for two main reasons: first, its ambiguity of meaning leads to the concept being wedged between academic disciplines such as anthropology, myth, religion, sociology, politics, and psychosocial and psychoanalytic studies that include Jungian and post-Jungian studies on the rites of passage, liminality, and indeterminate states. The original definition, as a result, needs more clarification. This new enquiry attempts to create more interdisciplinary space within and between these approaches. Second, the term taboo has taken a negative turn during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with its focus on inhumane racist and misogynist prohibitions attached to miscegenation taboo. I aim to understand the original subtlety and complexity of the term taboo and release its original indigenous meaning as a creative potential for analysing danger and its contagious nature imbued in taboo as an individual and collective term. The term taboo, itself, denotes untouchability, which reflects the difficulty of pinning down the term.

Background to the study of taboo

The term taboo has been the subject of intense controversial anthropological scrutiny since the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which I describe in detail in chapter 2. Taboo has been analysed at some length by idiographic and nomothetic anthropologists including Fraser (1910; 1922) Robertson Smith (1889), Radcliffe-Brown (1952), Eliade, (1958a), Douglas (1966), van Gennep (1960), Levi-Strauss (1963), Steiner (1956), and Turner (1964; 1969). I expand the frame to include psychosocial-psychanalytical perspectives of Freud (1912–13), Kristeva (1982), and Jungian/post-Jungian contributions on associative, archetypal medicine such as Jung (1911–12/1952a), Hillman (1979; 1997), Ziegler (1983), Woodman (1982; 1985), Starr Costello (2006), Harris (2009), Haule, (2011) and Merchant (2012). I show progressive interpretive links between Fraser, Radcliffe-Brown, Steiner, Douglas, van Gennep, Levi-Strauss, Turner, Jung and post-Jungians on taboo in their emphases on rites of passage, associative thinking and symbol formation within taboo.

Ethnological idiographic enquiry from factual, direct observation or contact of people differs from history, as it is not derived substantively from written records. The theoretical or nomothetic study of social institutions that practice taboo is usually referred to as sociology; in 1908, Fraser, in his inaugural lecture as the first professor of social anthropology, defined social anthropology as a branch of sociology that deals with premodern societies (Radcliffe-Brown, 1952, pp. 2–3). Therefore, initially, taboo was studied under social anthropology and later under comparative sociology. Social anthropology as an empirical pursuit was represented as field monographs mainly by students of anthropology whereby field techniques were discussed and debated. Comparative sociology made use of ethnography and field data from various cultures and underwent a double scrutiny, that of the collector and that of the theorist. Steiner (1956, pp. 21–30) explains that comparative sociology has retained its term, but the earlier term of social evolutionary anthropology was reinvented and named analytical and descriptive sociology. Radcliffe-Brown (ibid, p. 3) emphasises that comparative or analytical sociology, of which social anthropology is one branch, now combines theoretical or nomothetic studies to provide structural comparisons of different single types of societies to arrive at an accurate description and meaning of taboo. Structural comparisons of taboo practices that include differences as well as similarities importantly add the psychological, symbolic, affective dimension. Such considerations have led to socioanthropological interdisciplinary perspectives that partially or out-rightly disagree on the properties contained within taboo to better clarify its usage.

The definition of taboo, itself, can be explored under various ethnological and social aspects: first, as social mechanisms of obedience that have ritual significance; second, as specific and restrictive behaviours in dangerous situations that could be interpreted as the sociology of danger itself; third, as the protection of individuals who are in danger; and fourth, the protection of society from those endangered and therefore dangerous persons. Steiner, (1956, p. 21) suggests that taboo has elements of all the above situations where values are expressed in terms of dangerous behaviour. One salient feature of taboo is its untouchability: if a forbidden taboo is touched, be it involving a person or object, both become taboo and untouchable, until the appropriate rite is performed.

Early voyages into taboo

The term taboo first came to notice in Europe through Captain James Cook's 1784 description during his exploratory world voyages carried out under British Royal patronage, the Royal Navy, and the Royal Geographical Society to describe the mysterious significance of certain practices of South Sea Islanders in the Polynesian archipelago during the last quarter of the eighteenth and the first part of the nineteenth centuries. Cook noted that the people of Atooi were particularly concerned about whether a particular item was taboo and applied it to all cases where things were not to be touched. Steiner (1956, p. 23) notes that Cook is the first European to take note of the term: no Dutchman or Spaniard had used the term before, and Cook's log book from his first voyage bears witness that taboo was more often seen than spoken. Cook's successor, James King, in writing Cook's travel logs after his death, observed that taboos created social stratification and social distance. King also noticed that women were particularly tabooed, ate alone, forbidden to feed themselves or others, or eat certain kinds of meat, particularly during menstruation and funeral rites. King observed that the term taboo was multifaceted in its application and used to express social distance as well as anything deemed sacred, eminent, or devoted. For example, the king was Eree-taboo; a human victim tangata taboo, and the island Tonga, where the king resided was named Tonga-taboo (Cook III, pp. 163–164).

Other explorer-ethnologists’ expeditions to the South Sea Islands under different royal patronages (Russian; German) added to the knowledge of the practice of taboo, such as von Krusenstern, commander of the Nadjehad and Neva, accompanied by Captain Lisiansky and naturalist von Langsdorff in 1802. Each produced a separate account of taboo: von Langsdorff (1812), considered a reliable ethnographer, gave a 21-point list of taboo customs showing a mix of social and religious elements; von Krusenstern (1812) stressed its religious implications; while Lisiansky (1914) described taboo as a sacred prohibition. In 1817, von Kotzebue, accompanied by ethnologist de Freycinet, wrote arguably the best account of taboo (1839), describing both civic and religious aspects (von Kotzebue, 1821). A later voyage headed by Wilkes in 1836, under the British flag, produced a largely unread five-volume ethnography of the South Sea Island (Wilkes, 1845).

Etymology of taboo

The etymology of taboo reveals a linguistic problem of meaning. Steiner (1956, pp. 31–40) offers a clear etymology of the word taboo based on the work of Shortland (1851) and Lehmann (1930). One possible root is the combination of ta (to beat) and pu (as conch), linking the word to a chieftain's proclamations of taboo as heralded by conch blowing and drum beating. A popular etymology is that taboo means ‘marked off’ or ‘marked thoroughly’ and only came to signify sacred or prohibited in a secondary sense. Steiner suggests that the common form of the word is tapu, which in some cases can sound like tafu; the Hawaiian form is kapu; and the Tongan form is tabu. The word is also used outside Polynesia: in Fiji tabu means unlawful, sacred, and superlatively good; in Malagassy, tabaka means profaned or polluted. Steiner...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The nature of taboo in indigenous practices
• 3 Taboo, order, disorder, abjection, and dirt
• 4 Totem and taboo, animal categories, and kinship structures
• 5 The origin and positioning of incest taboo
• 6 Taboo and emotional ambivalence
• 7 Taboo, rites of passage, and indeterminate states
• 8 Taboo, shamanism, and Jungian psychoanalysis
• 9 Conclusion
• Index