Article

Taboo

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

Taboo

Scope and Historical Definition

The concept of taboo, understood as a system of prohibitions linking specific actions, objects, or statuses to supernatural or social consequences, has been documented across the Malay Peninsula and Borneo in a variety of cultural and political contexts. In the ethnographic literature of the early twentieth century, the term appears in both its indigenous Malay form pantang larang and in the broader English usage, encompassing everything from royal exclusivity in the sultanates of the peninsula to agricultural and domestic restrictions among upland communities in North Borneo. The records preserved in the Society’s journal reveal that taboo was not a monolithic institution but a flexible mechanism whose scope, severity, and social function varied considerably according to the community, the season, and the individual’s position within the social hierarchy.

Royal Taboo in Negri Sembilan

In the Malay state of Negri Sembilan, the practice of pantang larang operated as a system of royal exclusivity that demarcated the Yamtuan’s status through the prohibition of specific architectural features, articles of dress, weapons, and modes of conduct from all non-royal persons. R. O. Winstedt catalogued these restrictions in a short note published in 1929, drawing on the historical record of the state’s former customs [1].

The architectural prohibitions were extensive. Certain features of the house were reserved exclusively for the Yamtuan, including carved dripboards, kitchen annexes, central beams, projecting floors, folding doors, verandahs, turrets, and tiered platforms [1, p. 454]. These were not merely aesthetic preferences but legally and socially enforced distinctions: to build or use such features without royal sanction would have constituted a breach of pantang larang. The effect was to make the Yamtuan’s dwelling visually and structurally distinct from that of any subject, embedding hierarchy into the built environment itself.

The dress code was equally detailed. Winstedt records that yellow clothes, specific skirt colours, silk cummerbunds with a creese thrust through them, scarves worn over the shoulder, ivory-inlaid creeses, gold- or silver-adorned divan mats, and ornamented head-cloths were all prohibited to non-royals [1, p. 454]. The restriction on weapons extended to creeses with bamboo or sago-palm sheaths, gold hilts, and plated daggers [1, p. 454]. Finally, certain styles of tying the head-dress, and the practice of entering palace precincts with an umbrella, scarf, or betel-set carried over the shoulder, were likewise forbidden [1, p. 455].

The significance of these prohibitions lies in their function as a visual and behavioural code that made royal authority legible in everyday life. By restricting particular objects and gestures to the Yamtuan alone, the system of pantang larang ensured that the sovereign’s presence was continuously signalled through material culture, reinforcing the social distance between ruler and subject without the need for explicit proclamation.

Agricultural and Domestic Taboo among the Ulun-no-Bokan

In marked contrast to the political exclusivity of Negri Sembilan, the taboos documented among the Ulun-no-Bokan, a Murut subgroup inhabiting the area between Kampong Kindasan and Kampong Labau in the Keningau District of North Borneo, were predominantly agricultural and domestic in scope. H. G. Keith recorded twenty-two such taboos in a note published in 1936, organising them under their native designations [2].

The general term iliun covered a broad category encompassing death, feast, tuba (a fermented sap drink), trap, kapur (camphor), and food taboos [2, p. 327]. Beyond this general heading, Keith identified specific designations: Mambiang (sickness), Magulid (death), Mampali balui (pregnancy), Sarawang (full-moon), and Talikud (waning moon) [2, p. 327]. The taboos linked prohibited actions to specific misfortunes—crop failure, spoiled camphor crystals, or harm to an unborn child—reflecting a cosmology in which human conduct directly influenced material outcomes [2, pp. 328–329].

The pregnancy taboos, falling under Mampali balui, were the most numerous, with nine entries governing door-closing, fire-keeping, food avoidance, and contact with deformed fruit [2, pp. 328–329]. The prohibited foods included venison, bumbaras meat, pork, and fireback pheasant, and most of these restrictions applied only to a first pregnancy [2, pp. 328–329]. This specificity—limiting the most onerous prohibitions to the initial maternal experience—suggests a system calibrated to the perceived vulnerability of the first pregnancy rather than a blanket restriction across all childbearing.

The seasonal markers of Sarawang and Talikud indicate that certain taboos were tied to the lunar cycle, a feature that would have embedded the prohibition system within the rhythm of agricultural and domestic life. The association of kapur (camphor) with taboo is notable, as it links the system to a commodity of economic importance in the region, suggesting that the production and handling of camphor crystals was subject to ritual regulation [2, p. 327].

Comparative Dimensions

The two sets of records, though separated by geography and social structure, share a common underlying logic: the use of prohibition to manage risk and to encode social order. In Negri Sembilan, the risk managed was political—maintaining the distinctiveness and authority of the Yamtuan through material and behavioural exclusivity. Among the Ulun-no-Bokan, the risk was ecological and bodily—preventing crop failure, the spoiling of a valuable commodity, or harm to mother and child through the regulation of everyday conduct. In both cases, the taboos were not arbitrary but were tied to specific, identifiable consequences, and in both cases they were transmitted as a body of knowledge with its own internal nomenclature and classification.

The contrast in scale is also instructive. The royal taboos of Negri Sembilan were few in number but carried the full weight of political authority; their breach was a matter of social transgression against the sovereign. The Ulun-no-Bokan taboos were more numerous and more granular, governing the minutiae of domestic life, and their breach was understood in terms of personal or communal misfortune rather than political offence. Together, they illustrate the range of the taboo institution across the region, from the palace to the kampong, from the sovereign’s dress to the pregnant woman’s diet.

Research and Documentation

The documentation of taboo in the Society’s journal reflects the broader trajectory of ethnographic interest in the Malay world during the interwar period. Winstedt’s 1929 note on Negri Sembilan was characteristic of the administrative-ethnographic tradition in which colonial officers recorded the customs of the states under their jurisdiction, often with a view to preserving knowledge that was perceived to be in decline as modernisation eroded traditional hierarchies [1]. The brevity of the note—two pages—suggests that it was intended as a catalogue rather than an analysis, and indeed it offers no discussion of the legal or social mechanisms by which the pantang larang were enforced, nor of the period in which they were most strictly observed.

Keith’s 1936 note on the Ulun-no-Bokan taboos, by contrast, was more explicitly ethnographic in its approach, recording the native terminology and the specific conditions under which each taboo applied [2]. The fact that the taboos were organised under their indigenous names—iliun, Mambiang, Magulid, Mampali balui, Sarawang, Talikud—indicates an attempt to present the system in its own terms rather than imposing an external classificatory framework. However, the note’s brevity (three pages) and its focus on a single subgroup in a single district limit its generalisability; it is a snapshot of one community’s practice rather than a survey of Murut taboo systems more broadly.

Both contributions are short notes rather than full-length studies, and neither engages with the theoretical literature on taboo that was developing in anthropology during the same period. The records thus represent a valuable empirical foundation—specific, locally grounded, and terminologically precise—but they do not constitute a systematic analysis of the institution. The absence of any discussion of the social consequences of taboo breach, the mechanisms of transmission, or the historical development of the prohibitions in either case marks a clear limitation of the existing documentation. For the researcher seeking to understand taboo as a living institution in the region, these notes provide essential data points but must be supplemented by more extensive ethnographic work.

MBRAS Sources

References

  1. R.O. Winstedt (1929). Royal tabus in Negri Sembilan JMBRAS 7(3): 454–455.
  2. H.G. Keith (1936). A few ulun-no-bokan (Murut) taboos JMBRAS 14(3): 327–329.