Names of things and animals tabooed in Celebes.
The Alfoors or Toradjas of Poso, in Celebes, are forbidden by custom to speak the ordinary language when they are at work in the harvest-field. At such times they employ a secret language which is said to agree with the ordinary one only in this, that in it some things are designated by [pg 412] words usually applied in a different sense, or by descriptive phrases or circumlocutions. Thus instead of “run” they say “limp”; instead of “hand” they say “that with which one reaches”; instead of “foot” they say “that with which one limps”; and instead of “ear” they say “that with which one hears.” Again, in the field-speech “to drink” becomes “to thrust forward the mouth”; “to pass by” is expressed by “to nod with the head”; a gun is “a fire-producer”; and wood is “that which is carried on the shoulder.” The writer who reports the custom was formerly of opinion that this secret language was designed to avoid attracting the attention of evil spirits to the ripe rice; but further enquiry has satisfied him that the real reason for adopting it is a wish not to frighten the soul of the rice by revealing to it the alarming truth that it is about to be cut, carried home, boiled, and eaten. It is just the words referring to these actions, he tells us, which are especially tabooed and replaced by others. Beginning with a rule of avoiding a certain number of common words, the custom has grown among people of the Malay stock till it has produced a complete language for use in the fields. In Minahassa also this secret field-speech consists in part of phrases or circumlocutions, of which many are said to be very poetical.[1534] But it is not only on the harvest field that the Toradja resorts to the use of a secret language from superstitious motives. In the great primaeval forest he feels ill at ease, for well he knows the choleric temper of the spirits who inhabit the giant trees of the wood, and that were he to excite their wrath they would assuredly pay him out in one way or other, it might be by carrying off his soul and so making him ill, it might be by crushing him flat under a falling tree. These touchy beings particularly dislike to hear certain words pronounced, and accordingly on his way through the forest the Toradja takes care to avoid the offensive terms and to substitute others for them. Thus he will not call a dog a dog, but refers to it as “the hairy one”; a buffalo is spoken of as “thick hide”; a [pg 413] cooking pot becomes “that which is set down”; the hair of the head is alluded to as “betel”; goats and pigs are “the folk under the house”; a horse is “long nose”; and deer are “denizens of the fell.” If he is rash or careless enough to utter a forbidden word in the forest, a short-tempered tree-spirit will fetch him such a bang on the head that the blood will spout from his nose and mouth.[1535] Again, when the weather is fine and the Toradja wishes it to continue so, he is careful not to utter the word “rain,” for if he did so the rain would fancy he was called for and would obligingly present himself. Indeed, in the district of Pakambia, which is frequently visited by heavy storms, the word “rain” may not be mentioned throughout the year lest it should provoke a tempest; the unmentionable thing is there delicately alluded to as “tree-blossoms.”[1536]
Common words tabooed by East Indian mariners at sea.
When a Bugineese or Macassar man is at sea and sailing past a place which he believes to be haunted by evil spirits, he keeps as quiet as he can; but if he is obliged to speak he designates common things and actions, such as water, wind, fire, cooking, eating, the rice-pot, and so forth, by peculiar terms which are neither Bugineese nor Macassar, and therefore cannot be understood by the evil spirits, whose knowledge of languages is limited to these two tongues. However, according to another and later account given by the same authority, it appears that many of the substituted terms are merely figurative expressions or descriptive phrases borrowed from the ordinary language. Thus the word for water is replaced by a rare word meaning “rain”; a rice-pot is called a “black man”; boiled rice is “one who is eaten”; a fish is a “tree-leaf”; a fowl is “one who lives in a poultry hatch”; and an ape is a “tree-dweller.”[1537] Natives of the island of Saleyer, which lies off the south coast of [pg 414] Celebes, will not mention the name of their island when they are making a certain sea-passage; and in sailing they will never speak of a fair wind by its proper name. The reason in both cases is a fear of disturbing the evil spirits.[1538] When natives of the Sapoodi Archipelago, to the north-east of Java, are at sea they will never say that they are near the island of Sapoodi, for if they did so they would be carried away from it by a head wind or by some other mishap.[1539] When Galelareese sailors are crossing over to a land that is some way off, say one or two days' sail, they do not remark on any vessels that may heave in sight or any birds that may fly past; for they believe that were they to do so they would be driven out of their course and not reach the land they are making for. Moreover, they may not mention their own ship, or any part of it. If they have to speak of the bow, for example, they say “the beak of the bird”; starboard is named “sword,” and larboard “shield.”[1540] The inhabitants of Ternate and of the Sangi Islands deem it very dangerous to point at distant objects or to name them while they are at sea. Once while sailing with a crew of Ternate men a European asked one of them the name of certain small islands which they had passed. The man had been talkative before, but the question reduced him to silence. “Sir,” he said, “that is a great taboo; if I told you we should at once have wind and tide against us, and perhaps suffer a great calamity. As soon as we come to anchor I will tell you the name of the islands.” The Sangi Islanders have, besides the ordinary language, an ancient one which is only partly understood by some of the people. This old language is often used by them at sea, as well as in popular songs and certain heathen rites.[1541] The reason for resorting to it on shipboard is to hinder the evil spirits from overhearing [pg 415] and so frustrating the plans of the voyagers.[1542] The Nufoors of Dutch New Guinea believe that if they were to mention the name of an island to which the bow of their vessel was pointing, they would be met by storm, rain, or mist which would drive them from their course.[1543]
Common words tabooed in Sunda, Borneo, and the Philippines.
In some parts of Sunda it is taboo or forbidden to call a goat a goat; it must be called a “deer under the house.” A tiger may not be spoken of as a tiger; he must be referred to as “the supple one,” “the one there,” “the honourable,” “the whiskered one,” and so on. Neither a wild boar nor a mouse may be mentioned by its proper name; a boar must be called “the beautiful one” (masculine) and the mouse “the beautiful one” (feminine). When the people are asked what would be the consequence of breaking a taboo, they generally say that the person or thing would suffer for it, either by meeting with a mishap or by falling ill. But some say they do not so much fear a misfortune as experience an indefinite feeling, half fear, half reverence, towards an institution of their forefathers. Others can assign no reason for observing the taboos, and cut enquiry short by saying that “It is so because it is so.”[1544] When the Kenyahs of Borneo are about to poison the fish of a section of the river with the tuba root, they always speak of the matter as little as possible and use the most indirect and fanciful modes of expression. Thus they will say, “There are many leaves fallen here,” meaning that there are many fish in the river. And they will not breathe the name of the tuba root; if they must refer to it, they call it pakat abong, where abong is the name of a strong-smelling root something like tuba, and pakat means “to agree upon”; so that pakat abong signifies “what we have agreed to call abong.” This concealment of the truth deceives all the bats, birds, and insects, which might otherwise overhear the talk of the men and inform the fish of the deep-laid plot against them.[1545] These Kenyahs also fear [pg 416] the crocodile and do not like to mention it by name, especially if one be in sight; they refer to the beast as “the old grandfather.”[1546] When small-pox invades a village of the Sakarang Dyaks in Borneo, the people desert the place and take refuge in the jungle. In the daytime they do not dare to stir or to speak above a whisper, lest the spirits should see or hear them. They do not call the small-pox by its proper name, but speak of it as “jungle leaves” or “fruit” or “the chief,” and ask the sufferer, “Has he left you?” and the question is put in a whisper lest the spirit should hear.[1547] Natives of the Philippines were formerly prohibited from speaking of the chase in the house of a fisherman and from speaking of fishing in the house of a hunter; journeying by land they might not talk of marine matters, and sailing on the sea they might not talk of terrestrial matters.[1548]
The avoidance of common words seems to be based on a fear of spirits and a wish to deceive them or elude their notice. Common words avoided by hunters and fowlers in order to deceive the beasts and birds.
When we survey the instances of this superstition which have now been enumerated, we can hardly fail to be struck by the number of cases in which a fear of spirits, or of other beings regarded as spiritual and intelligent, is assigned as the reason for abstaining in certain circumstances from the use of certain words.[1549] The speaker imagines himself to be overheard and understood by spirits, or animals, or other beings [pg 417] whom his fancy endows with human intelligence; and hence he avoids certain words and substitutes others in their stead, either from a desire to soothe and propitiate these beings by speaking well of them, or from a dread that they may understand his speech and know what he is about, when he happens to be engaged in that which, if they knew of it, would excite their anger or their fear. Hence the substituted terms fall into two classes according as they are complimentary or enigmatic; and these expressions are employed, according to circumstances, for different and even opposite reasons, the complimentary because they will be understood and appreciated, and the enigmatic because they will not. We can now see why persons engaged in occupations like fishing, fowling, hunting, mining, reaping, and sailing the sea, should abstain from the use of the common language and veil their meaning in strange words and dark phrases. For they have this in common that all of them are encroaching on the domain of the elemental beings, the creatures who, whether visible or invisible, whether clothed in fur or scales or feathers, whether manifesting themselves in tree or stone or running stream or breaking wave, or hovering unseen in the air, may be thought to have the first right to those regions of earth and sea and sky into which man intrudes only to plunder and destroy. Thus deeply imbued with a sense of the all-pervading life and intelligence of nature, man at a certain stage of his intellectual development cannot but be visited with fear or compunction, whether he is killing wild fowl among the stormy Hebrides, or snaring doves in the sultry thickets of the Malay Peninsula; whether he is hunting the bear in Lapland snows, or the tiger in Indian jungles, or hauling in the dripping net, laden with silvery herring, on the coast of Scotland; whether he is searching for the camphor crystals in the shade of the tropical forest, or extracting the red gold from the darksome mine, or laying low with a sweep of his sickle the yellow ears on the harvest field. In all these his depredations on nature, man's first endeavour apparently is by quietness and silence to escape the notice of the beings whom he dreads; but if that cannot be, he puts the best face he can on the matter by dissembling his foul designs under a fair exterior, by flattering the [pg 418] creatures whom he proposes to betray, and by so guarding his lips, that, though his dark ambiguous words are understood well enough by his fellows, they are wholly unintelligible to his victims. He pretends to be what he is not, and to be doing something quite different from the real business in hand. He is not, for example, a fowler catching pigeons in the forest; he is a Magic Prince or King Solomon himself[1550] inviting fair princesses into his palace tower or ivory hall. Such childish pretences suffice to cheat the guileless creatures whom the savage intends to rob or kill, perhaps they even impose to some extent upon himself; for we can hardly dissever them wholly from those forms of sympathetic magic in which primitive man seeks to effect his purpose by imitating the thing he desires to produce, or even by assimilating himself to it. It is hard indeed for us to realise the mental state of a Malay wizard masquerading before wild pigeons in the character of King Solomon; yet perhaps the make-believe of children and of the stage, where we see the players daily forgetting their real selves in their passionate impersonation of the shadowy realm of fancy, may afford us some glimpse into the workings of that instinct of imitation or mimicry which is deeply implanted in the constitution of the human mind.