Hi Sadie!

I saw this question yesterday and it got me thinking...

I guess I took too many Anthropology classes when I was younger, but I find the Thai-Burmese women beautiful in their own right. And @jfletchers's Kubo Tribe don't look that different from some piercing friends of mine.



Then I thought about the definition of the word 'taboo'.

~quote~
taboo also tabu n. , pl. , -boos , also -bus . A ban or an inhibition resulting from social custom or emotional aversion.
~end/quote~

Most of these taboos are shunning body modification that are completely acceptable in other cultures. It almost seems Victorian of us to list the 'weird' and the 'creepy' from other tribes and peoples.

I also grew up with the understanding that the word 'Taboo' had more to do with sex, than what's 'weird' or 'unknown' to us.

~quote~
n.

A total prohibition of intercourse with, use of, or approach to, a given person or thing under pain of death, -- an interdict of religious origin and authority, formerly common in the islands of Polynesia; interdiction. also tabu.

~end/quote~

Here's a taboo for our culture. NAMBLA, or "North American Man Boy Love Association".
I was going to go to their actual website and put it in the source area, but I don't want to be associated with them in any way shape or form. To me... THAT is a taboo. A disgusting nasty taboo that I wish didn't exist in our society.

I would personally like to hurt any man who touches a child inappropriately.

The kubo tribe uses bamboo and pig husks to pierce the men upon entering manhood which is about 11 to 13 years old. (first photo)

The second photo is of a woman from the Mursi tribe in Ethiopia; these women are also pierced upon reaching puberty. A clay disk is placed in the piercing.

My father actually lived amongst the Kubo tribe for 8 years in the rain forest of Papua New Guinea, and in our home there is a picture of me as an infant with two warriors dressed in their traditional garb. Wish I could put in on here.

There's this really weird taboo in the Aboriginal language Dyirbal that I learned about in a "Language & Gender" class in college. It's difficult to describe, Wikipedia has kind of summed it up pretty nicely:

"In Dyirbal there is the regular speech style (called 'Guwal') and the avoidance style 'Dyalngui' consisting of a special set of lexical items that are substituted for Guwal words in the presence of opposite-sex parents-in-law, opposite-sex children-in-law, and opposite-sex cross-cousins."

Basically, you talk regularly 90% of the time, but the moment your mother-in-law (if you're a man) or father-in-law (if you're a woman) steps into the room (or even into range of hearing!), you can't say certain words, so you have to replace them with completely different ones. Like, they'll have a Guwal word for "cup," but when you're mother-in-law's around, you use a completely different Dyalngui word - they're not even related, it's not like you suddenly say "cuppa" instead, you say something like "mug."

We have this law in English too, I think, though to a lesser degree... ;)

Chinese lilly foot binding was another bizarre taboo .
As chinese use to think little foot more beautiful most of the chinese women use to undergo foot binding process to impress men . This process is very painful and getting infection is very common .
and victorian corsets . they use to wear to make their boobs swell and to make their waist thin . some times women use to faint because of suffocation it creates.
and chastity belts

I find any sort of taboo placed upon eating the humble pig to be absurd. Be it no touching, no eating, no keeping,.. whatever, I just cannot understand the modern day relevance in certain religions with the pig taboo.

2 examples..

"He hath only forbidden you dead meat, and blood, and the flesh of swine, and that on which any other name hath been invoked besides that of Allah. But if one is forced by necessity, without wilful disobedience, nor transgressing due limits,- then is he guiltless. For Allah is Oft-forgiving Most Merciful" (Al-Baqara, 2:173) (1)

"Of the "beasts of the earth" (which basically refers to land mammals with the exception of swarming rodents), you may eat any animal that has cloven hooves and chews its cud. Lev. 11:3; Deut. 14:6. Any land mammal that does not have both of these qualities is forbidden. The Torah specifies that the camel, the rock badger, the hare and the pig are not kosher because each lacks one of these two qualifications. Cattle, sheep, goats, deer and bison are kosher." (2)

I will never get why anyone for any reason would not eat bacon.