Taboo (book)

Taboo is a

Structure of the Book

Steiner traces the rise of scholarly interest in taboo, from the age of British exploration of the Pacific islands, through to

‘The word has been used in situations differing markedly from those in which it was derived by many who were either ignorant of or disregarded the varieties of usage it had in Polynesia; and that it has been redefined to suit the thought systems of the users.' [3]

It was therefore the generalized application of a specific indigenous term to encompass phenomena from other societies that Steiner found deeply problematical. He took particular note of

’the name given to a series of religious prohibitions which attained its fullest development in Polynesia, but of which under different names, traces can be discovered in most parts of the world.'^[4][5]

The customs that lie behind taboo represent neither a single institution nor a sociological problem. The word was used to describe many distinct practices, such as one’s right over objects, a royal minister’s power to select what crops were to be sown and farmed, and the relations of supreme chiefs to petty dignitaries ‘in terms of delegated interdiction rather than delegated authority’. The essential function of taboos was, in Steiner's view, that of narrowing down and localizing danger.^[6][7]

Steiner’s own definition of taboo is incomplete. Indeed, the title is somewhat misleading since there is little positive information about taboo, as Steiner essentially devoted most of his exposition to a critical survey of the methodology employed by writers on the topic since the time of Captain Cook down to his time.^[8] His untimely death did not allow him to provide a complete elaboration of his own theory, and the elliptic summary of his approach towards the end of the book is rather obscure in that it is there defined as “an element of all those situations in which attitudes to values are expressed in terms of danger behaviour”.^[7][9][10] That certain defined situations are imbued with danger is not in itself the product of some intrinsic relations between the organism, its state of mind, and the environment, but rather as often as not such dangerous situation are, for Steiner, so defined purely as a consequence of sociological processes. He emphasizes the primacy of taboos as performing a function in the maintenance of social structures over subjective attitudes that might be considered the cause of taboos themselves.^[3]

Taboo, for Steiner, is concerned with four things, (1) with social mechanisms of obedience having ritual significance (2) specific restrictive behaviour in situations that are deemed dangerous (3) with the protection of individuals exposed to such danger, and (4) the protection of society at large from those of its members who are both endangered by taboo violations and therefore, in turn, dangerous. Hence Steiner’s general definition that ‘taboo is an element of all those situations in which attitudes to values are expressed in terms of danger behaviour’^[8][11]

In the first three chapters, Steiner describes taboo in Polynesia, surveying how Captain James Cook first used the term on his third voyage to the area, and the way in which it was gradually incorporated into

According to Joseph Politella, Steiner, in equating taboo with the Hebraic concept of qadosh ('separated unto God'), makes an inference that taboos of this kind may 'have been originally inspired by awe of the supernatural, and that they were intended to restrain men from the use of that of which the Divine power or powers were jealous.^[5] Politella would therefore interpret Steiner’s position as marked by a certain duality, in which taboo was at times imposed by charismatic kings and priests on objects, and yet, at times, emerged from social life as restrictive sanctions. This distinction, he argued, can be seen in Steiner’s approach, which discriminates on the one hand between taboos at a lower level as powers exercised by rulers and priest-kings in antiquity, that invest and proscribe certain objects as sacred property, and, on the other, taboos that, more commonly, function as restrictions which derive their power from the sanctions of social life.^[5]

Critical reception

Reviewers, from a variety of critical perspectives, are unanimous in noting that Steiner’s premature death was a loss to scholarship given the erudite trenchancy of his analytical acumen.

• Mana as in ‘mana and tapu’ on page 41 should read ‘noa and tapu’[13]
• Mare/more are used for marae^[15]
• Atooi Island is identified as Atui, whereas it refers to Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands.
• The idea that commoners could give the names of important chiefs to their pet animals to prevent them from being killed is improbable, since the King would kill both the person and his pet for equating him with an animal^[13][16]
• S.G.F. Brandon wondered why Steiner failed to pay attention to the work of Rudolf Otto, esp. his influential Idea of the Holy (1917).^[8]
• S.G.F. Brandon argues that, curiously for someone with a background in Semitic philology, Steiner omitted analysing the ‘striking examples of taboo-peril in
  Leviticus.’^[12]

References