Note 3 — Introduction

The word taboo as understood among ourselves, and as most often used among the Ifugaos, denotes a thing rather arbitrarily forbidden. It seems likely that moral laws—from which most criminal laws are an outgrowth—originate thus: the social conscience, learning that some act is antisocial, prohibits it (often in conjunction with religion) or some feature of it, or some semblance of it, arbitrarily, harshly, and sometimes unreasonably. Thus the first taboo set forth above has the semblance of being aimed against interruption in the business or serious occupation of another, or against his worship. The mere passing near a rice field when it is being harvested or the mere entrance into a village during the period of ceremonial idleness are arbitrarily seized upon as acts constituting such interruptions. The second taboo arose from the purpose of the social consciousness to prevent marriage or sexual intercourse between near kin.3 It is most sweeping and unreasonable in its prohibitions. A third person may make no remark in the presence of kin of the opposite sex as to the fit of the girl’s clothing; as to her beauty; nor may he refer to her lover, nor play the lover’s harp. Many ordinary things must be called by other than their ordinary names. Even the aged priests who officiate at a birth feast must refer in their prayers to the foetus about to be born as “the friend” and to the placenta as “his blanket.” A great number of things are forbidden in the presence of kindred of opposite sex that would not shock even the most prudish of our own people. The third taboo seems to be aimed against the bandying or the taking in vain of the name of the dead.