Taboo

The word taboo designates an immoral or unacceptable behavior for a society, individual, human group or religion. It is the prohibition of something supposedly strange or incorrect (in some societies), of commonly religious, economic, political, social or cultural content for a reason that is not usually justified or does not require understanding. Breaking a taboo is considered a serious offense by society. Some taboos are, in effect, crimes punishable by law, so taboos are a direct antecedent of law. There are taboos strongly incorporated into the traditions of certain cultures, while others respond to political interests.

Taboos may include:

• Food restrictions (such as halal and kosher).
• Restrictions affecting sexual activities and relationships (masturbation, necrophilia, pedophilia, zoophilia, etc.)
• Restrictions on the use of language (words, oaths, words that may offend individuals or groups). A historical example of this type of taboo is the taboo on the names that was widespread in Chinese culture.

To avoid some words considered or taboo, euphemisms are used. In other cases, dysphemisms are used.

Etymology

The word taboo comes from Hawaiian or Tahitian (tapu, in both cases), languages of the same family, and passed into Western languages through French, English and Danish.

Origins

In primitive societies, the behaviors capable of causing a tribal reaction were those that offended the magical taboo, that is, the prohibitions in force in the tribe, derived from superstitions, sorcery and ancestral customs, whose watchmen were magicians or priests. There is not in these primitive human groups a clear concept of what today we consider to be a crime, since the violations of magical taboos had rather the nature of what positive religions have considered sin. The sanctions that followed the violation of the taboo also had a religious character, since they consisted in the deprivation of the protective powers of the gods of the community. However, in those primitive times, it is already observed that what we now call a crime was an act carried out individually and that, because it involved a violation of customs, it injured the prohibitive norms of the tribal community that constituted the taboo. Punishable behavior arose from habits and superstitions, usages and rites; it was considered as a breach of the internal or external peace of the clan; and in his conception prevailed an accused priestly religious character of collective physical, objective and blind defense of the ancestral principles on which the very existence of each tribe or community was based.

Primitive man thought that if he committed certain acts he would inevitably suffer certain consequences. He accepted them without demanding that the cause-effect relationship had a logical content, nor an ethical and moral basis. Tradition and custom had taught him that if he did this or that (since taboos applied to actions, not omissions), he would suffer such and such punishments. Not because they were inevitable, because he had violated a legal precept, or because he had caused damage, but simply because he had violated a taboo, that is, an atavistic prohibition. For example, committing an act of suicide in the Middle Ages.

In most primitive societies, taboos were represented by a series of negative rules, each of which provided for, and sanctioned, a form of prohibited conduct, the realization of which would inevitably determine damage to the culprit or, in some cases, to the entire group to which he belonged. They served to accustom man to obedience, and prepared his mind so that in later stages of civilization he would accept the punishments derived from the violation of human laws. They helped to maintain the rule of the norms of morality current within each social group, which could be applied not only to an arbitrary relation of man to the divine, but also to ordinary, everyday conduct. The weight of the taboos made itself felt in an effective way in the primitive peoples, extinct or present, because the degree of knowledge of its members did not allow them to understand nature. The peoples that make up the "civilized world today" they made an intelligent selection within the domain of taboos. Consequently, they allowed only those who, according to experience, showed to have a social utility to subsist. They survive under the aspect of rules of etiquette or moral precepts, or adopted the most solemn form of civil or criminal laws. The passage from the magical taboo to the concept of a reasoned and reasonable prohibition or sanction followed a path parallel and equivalent to the progress of the human mind. Thus, the fear of the supernatural was replaced by the concrete fear of the sanctions of human laws.

Evolution in Ancient Greece

Ideas about taboo affected the entire life of primitive man, accumulating mainly around the critical points of human life: birth, death and marriage, in which man is most exposed to "powers" supernatural calls. These same beliefs were in turn embodied in the Greek religion. The presence of death implied the existence of dangerous forces against which one had to protect oneself, generally through purifications. Thus, the woman in labor and the human corpse were considered infected: a container with water was placed outside the house of the deceased so that those leaving the mourning could cleanse themselves. This transformation of taboo ideas into ideas of purity or impurity would have occurred when associated with the belief in the gods. These demanded purity in those who entered their temples, hence the lustral water at the entrance to be able to wash. Already in the Iliad, Hector will not sacrifice Zeus with dirty hands upon his return from battle. However, women in labor were always prohibited from entering the temple for forty days; those whose family member had died, between twenty and forty days; even having sexual intercourse left a man or woman unclean for a short period of time. In short: being born, dying or being conceived was forbidden within the sacred enclosure. Some temples could only be accessed at certain times, and others were only entered by priests. Thus, what was consecrated by the divinity was inviolable: even the place where lightning struck, designated in this way by the god, was fenced off and closed to traffic.

In the big festivals the prohibitions were accentuated (prohibition of wearing rings, jewelry or purple clothing, for example). The ministers of the cult were obliged to observe stricter prescriptions, such as not being able to enter a house of mourning or where there was a woman in labor, visit graves or attend funeral banquets. This type of taboos regarding death or the deceased were common throughout Greece in relation to religious worship and its officiants. The population, in general, also felt a great impression when faced with death: the murderer was considered especially impure and in need of purification, and if someone committed suicide, his body, as well as the rope and the tree on which he had hanged himself, had to be removed outside. from the country. However, the Greeks called those who excessively observed these rituals, regardless of the circumstances, "superstitious" (deisidaimones) in the sense of excessively fearful of the gods.

Examples of taboos

Sexual

• Circumcision (in some religions)
• Castration (in some religions)
• Rape
• Masturbation (in some religions)
• Incest
• Fetishism
• Zoofilia
• Paraphilia
• Sadomasochism
• Sexuality
• Sexual fetishism
• Necrophilia
• Pedophilia
• Prostitution
• Sexual tourism
• Orgias

Forbidden rituals

• Cannibalism
• Torture
• Satanism
• Human sacrifices
• Occultism
• Tattoos
• Suicide
• Brujeria

Taboo Foods

• Human (canibalism)
• Cerdo (in some cultures mainly for religious reasons; case of Judaism and Islam)
• Reef (mainly in India and adventist groups)