Can Animals Break Taboos?: Applications of ‘Taboo’ Among the Nage of Eastern Indonesia
2007; Wiley; Volume: 77; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1002/j.1834-4461.2007.tb00013.x
ISSN1834-4461
Autores Tópico(s)Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies
ResumoABSTRACT Like several other Malayo‐Polynesian speaking peoples, the Nage of central Flores apply a word meaning ‘taboo’ to certain undesirable behaviours by animals. Since ‘taboo’ is usually understood to incorporate the idea of prohibition and thus to refer specifically to human action, this application might appear to reflect either a polysemous usage, such that with reference to animals, ‘taboo’ does not really mean ‘taboo’, or a cosmology in which humans and animals are ultimately not distinct. An analysis of Nage ‘animal taboos’, however, demonstrates that the idea of breaching a prohibition is not necessarily absent from these applications of ‘taboo’, and that in this context ‘taboo’ cannot simply be understood as ‘omen’ or a reference to inauspiciousness. Rather than Nage ‘animal taboos’ implying an equivalence or identity of humans and animals, they express their crucial opposition and a disapprobation of anything that compromises their conceptual separation.
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