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This is turning out to be the STRANGEST POST I have ever written!  Never could I have imagined where my writing on the subject of “TABOO” would end up going today!  I feel at this instant like I found a mystery I never knew existed because I just found its solution.

It makes me think at this instant of all the strange twists and turns everybody’s life takes, and about how we all take our place somewhere in the long march of human history.  Our lives, and therefore our life stories, touch one another in consequential and seemingly inconsequential ways.

These seemingly random intersections in pathways, these transient transits can have meanings that nobody even notices at the time, but these random acts of touching do mean something even though we can’t comprehend the impact we have on changes that happen continually as the history of our species unfolds itself in space and over time.

Today I am experiencing how this same process can operate within the realm of thought.

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What on earth am I talking about?  I started out today writing this:

TABOO:  What an interesting and unexpected origin for this word, a very latecomer into the modern English language – in 1777!  How did English get this word from a Tongan language?

TABOO

Function: adjective

Etymology: Tongan tabu

Date: 1777

1 : forbidden to profane use or contact because of what are held to be dangerous supernatural powers
2 a : banned on grounds of morality or taste <the subject is taboo> b : banned as constituting a risk <the area beyond is taboo, still alive with explosives — Robert Leckie>

Function: noun

Inflected Form(s): plural taboos also tabus

Date: 1777

1 : a prohibition against touching, saying, or doing something for fear of immediate harm from a supernatural force
2 : a prohibition imposed by social custom or as a protective measure
3 : belief in taboos

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I began my searching to find out what was happening in the world around this 1777 date that might have contributed to the ‘birth’ of this word TABOO from the Tongan  language into the English language at this specific time, and found what seems to be to be a very interesting (strange) and unique connection to my own childhood.

Perhaps ONLY because I grew up around Anchorage, Alaska for much of my childhood did I recognize the name of Captain James Cook as it appeared here and there within my wandering internet information search.

Anchorage sits on the shores of an inlet named Cook Inlet after this famous British Naval officer seafaring explorer.  All fine and good, but how could I possibly know that he would make an appearance in my search through history for the origins of our English word – TABOO?

WHO WAS THIS MAN?

Well, for starters, here’s an account of his wanderings according to THE ENCHANTED LEARNING WEBSITE:

“James Cook (October 27, 1728 – February 14, 1779) was a British explorer and astronomer who went on many expeditions to the Pacific Ocean, the Antarctic, the Arctic, and around the world.

Cook’s first journey lasted from August 26,1768 to July 13, 1771.  He sailed on the Endeavor from Plymouth, England, to Brazil, around Cape Horn (the southern tip of South America), and to Tahiti (April 11, 1769), where he stayed for months in order to observe the transit of Venus as it passed between the Earth and the Sun (in order to determine the distance from the Earth to the Sun).  Cook was also searching for a large, southern continent that was thought to exist (but does not).

“Cook sailed to New Zealand on October 6,1769, where he and his crew fought with the Maori (the earliest inhabitants of New Zealand) and mapped much of the two major islands (the strait between these two islands is now named Cook Strait) and showed that is was not part of a larger southern continent.

(See also:  Discontentment Brews Over The Genographic Project — “Along with other indigenous populations, the Maori of New Zealand have objected to the use of their DNA on the grounds that it might disprove some of the stories about their origins that have been passed down from generation to generation.”)

“He then sailed to and mapped eastern and northern Australia (The Endeavor was stuck for a day on the Great Barrier Reef off northeastern Australia; the ship was damaged by coral and almost sank). They repaired the ship in northern Queensland, Australia (the site of Cooktown and the mouth of the Endeavor River), completing the repairs on August 6, 1770.

“Cook’s second expedition (1772-1775) took him to Antarctica and to Easter Island on a voyage intended to show there was no large southern continent. Cook’s two ships on this voyage were the Resolution and the Adventure.

“Cook’s last expedition (1776-1779) was a search for a Northwest Passage across northern North America to Asia – he searched from the Pacific Ocean side of the continent.  Cook sailed from England on July 12, 1776, on the Resolution. Officers on the ship included George Vancouver and William Bligh (who would later be the captain of the Bounty and have his crew mutiny).

“Cook arrived at Capetown, South Africa, on October 18, 1776, and sailed to the Indian Ocean and on to New Zealand (in early 1777), the Cook Islands, and Tonga. Heading for Alaska, Cook sailed to and named the Christmas Islands (arriving on December 25, 1777, hence the name). He then sailed to and named the Sandwich Islands (named for the Earl of Sandwich, one of Cook’s patrons). Cook searched for a Northwest Passage in Alaska, but was unsuccessful.

“Cook was killed by a mob on Feb. 14, 1779, on the Sandwich Islands (now called Hawaii). At the time, he was trying to take the local chief hostage to get the natives to return a stolen sailboat. The ship returned to England without Cook on October 4, 1780.

“Cook was the first ship’s captain to stop the disease scurvy (now known to be caused by a lack of vitamin C) among sailors by providing them with fresh fruits. Before this, scurvy had killed or incapacitated many sailors on long trips.”

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This next description of Cook’s travels comes from the writing of Murray Lundberg, in her paper, Captain James Cook in Alaska:

“Captain Cook is universally regarded as one of the most ambitious explorers of all time – in particular, his three expeditions in 1768-1771, 1772-1775, and 1776-1779 accomplished an impressive list of “firsts,” including the first European sighting of Hawaii. While his exploration of the coast of Alaska in 1778 was not one of his greatest accomplishments, it added an enormous amount of information to the blank spots on the maps of the northern coast.

“Born on October 27, 1728, Cook rose rapidly through the ranks after joining the Royal Navy in 1755. He received his promotions the hard way, through sheer determination and ability, with no powerful connections to assist him. After serving in several battles against the French, his mapping abilities earned him a posting as surveyor of Newfoundland, and for the same skill, he was appointed to his first expedition command in 1768. During this first voyage he conducted the first detailed mapping of Tahiti and New Zealand.

“On his second voyage, Cook had made one of the great non-discoveries of the age, arriving home with proof that Terra Australis Incognita, the continent that was imagined to be in the southern hemisphere to balance the Earth, did not exist. He was also able to conclusively prove that with a high level of cleanliness and a proper diet, scurvy could be prevented, regardless of the length of time spent at sea.

“The primary reason for organizing another expedition for 1776 was to find the fabled Northwest Passage, a trading route across the top of North America, from Europe to the Orient. Over the previous 280 years, dozens of unsuccessful expeditions had been launched – so important was the discovery of this route that a £20,000 prize had been offered by Britain. Although Cook had been given an honourary shore posting in gratitude for his previous service, and was not initially considered to lead this new expedition, the prize money must surely have been a consideration in his offer on January 9, 1776 to lead the expedition.

“The 462-ton Resolution finally left England on July 12, 1776, eight days after the Declaration of Independence had been signed on the opposite side of the Atlantic. At Plymouth Sound on June 30th, Cook had encountered 3 warships and 62 troop transports heading for the revolution on the east coast of North America.

“Following months exploring the South Pacific, the coast of New Albion was sighted on March 6, 1778, south of present-day Newport, Oregon. Three weeks later, after fighting violent weather, Cook arrived at Nootka Sound (he named it St. George’s Sound) on March 29, making the Resolution the first British ship on the Northwest Coast.

(For the detailed 1778 dates of Cook’s Alaskan route see HERE.)

The Demise of Captain James Cook

“October 30 – the last view of Alaska for Cook, as they pass Umnak Island in a storm.  November 26 – sights Maui.  On February 14, 1779, Captain James Cook was killed at Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii, along with Royal Marine Corporal John Thomas, Privates Theophilus Hinks, John Allen and Tom Fatchett, and many Hawaiians. Cook’s body was dismembered and burned, but the remains were returned to Captain Clerke, who had taken over command on the Resolution and the expedition, despite being so ill that he could barely stand. On February 21, 1779 as much of Cook’s remains as could be recovered were buried at sea.”   VIEW IMAGE HERE

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Where on EARTH was Captain Cook in 1777, the year Webster’s dictionary states the word TABOO appeared in the modern English language?

It turns out that in this year in question, given all of the extremely important historical events that were taking place on America’s shores during this time period, Captain James Cook was a long ways away – on our very small world.

In 1777 Captain Cook and his crew were in the Kingdom of Tonga (today’s population about 101,000) in the South Pacific about one-third of the way from New Zealand to Hawaiʻi.

– The Maoris of New Zealand were first encountered by Europeans during Captain Cook’s 1772-73 voyage.

– February 10, 1777 – Captain James Cook with Resolution and Discovery sighted New Zealand just south of Cape Farewell on his third voyage

– February 12, 1977 – Captain James Cook’s Resolution along with the Discovery arrived at Queen Charlotte Sound

– February 26, 1777 – Captain James Cook’s final departure from New Zealand on the Resolution along with Discovery (on his 3rd voyage)

(The above three date-related facts are cited here from The New Zealand chronology compiled by John Mitchell)

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Before I finally realized how significant  the travels of Captain James Cook actually WERE in regard to the history of the word TABOO’s appearance into English, I had compiled the following 1777-era information:

– 1777 – Napoleon Bonaparte celebrated his 8^th birthday this same year his father Nobile Carlo Buonaparte, an attorney, was named Corsica’s representative to the court of Louis XVI in France.

– 1777 – The first step was taken by playwrights in 1777 that led to the French Assembly passing the first law in the world to officially recognize authors’ rights to their written words.

– January 1777 – In Salzburg, Austria, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (born January 27, 1756) wrote a piece that, for the first time, proclaimed him to be not merely one of the best composers in Europe, but one of music’s greatest geniuses.

– 1777 – The Organization of the Atlantic Slave Trade in Yorubaland, ca.1777 to ca.1856 – (see:  African bondage in the colonies north of the Mason-Dixon Line)

In America:

– September 5, 1774 – The First Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia’s Carpenters Hall

– March 6, 1775 – Prince Hall and fourteen other Free Blacks became members of the British Army Lodge No 441.  Prince Hall faced discrimination and was not allowed to join the White Masonic lodges in America, “Even though these Masons preached brotherhood, they insisted on keeping Blacks out of their lodges.”  In response to their refusal, Prince Hall turned to the British Masons stationed in America. The creation of the first African Masonic Lodge came about due to the unrelenting efforts of Prince Hall and these fourteen others who were taking the “initial steps to form America’s first Black institution”.  Prentice Hall drafted the 1777 petition for a Gradual Process of Emancipation for slaves in America.

(Our family-history rumor mill has it that we have Free Mason involvement on both my father’s and my mother’s sides of the family orchard.)

– April 19, 1775 – The American Revolution began in 1775 with the “shot heard round the world” fired at Lexington on April 19, 1775. The Revolution lasted eight and a half years and finally ended on September 3, 1783, with America and the King of England signing the Treaty of Paris.

– July 4, 1776 – The United States Declaration of Independence is a statement adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain were now independent states, and thus no longer a part of the British Empire. Written primarily by Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration is a formal explanation of why Congress had voted on July 2 to declare independence from Great Britain, more than a year after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. The birthday of the United States of America—Independence Day—is celebrated on July 4, the day the wording of the Declaration was approved by Congress, even though it was not until after the American Revolution ended that we won our independence.

– 1777 – “The year 1777 was probably the most perilous period in the “beginning of the nation,” and marked one of the great crises of the world’s history.”

– January 1777 –  Considered to be a month of epochal events in world history. In the bitter cold of New Jersey, George Washington and his ragtag band of soldiers saved the American Revolution from collapse.

– 1777 – Vermont becomes the first U.S. territory to abolish slavery.

– January 13, 1777 –  Prince Hall and seven other African American men petition the Massachusetts legislature for freedom based on the stated principles of the Declaration of Independence and military service in the Revolutionary War.  They directly challenged the commonwealth of Massachusetts’ government to live up to the principles of liberty and rights which had been set forth less than a year before in the Declaration of Independence. (see:  Slavery in Early America 1777-1829)

– June 14, 1977 – The Marine Committee of the Second Continental Congress passed the Flag Resolution which stated: “Resolved, That the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation.”

– November 15, 1777 – Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, customarily referred to as the Articles of Confederation, which was the first constitution of the United States of America and legally established the union of the states. The Second Continental Congress, as the government of the new United States of America, appointed a committee to draft the Articles in June 1776 and sent the draft to the states for ratification in November 1777. Under the Articles, Congress was the sole authority of the new national government.

1777 – Most of the world was skeptical about the effectiveness and of vaccinations. Still, George Washington had the entire Continental Army vaccinated against smallpox. Having only 1,000 men at the time he couldn’t afford to lose any to sickness.
December 17, 1777 – At Valley Forge in Pennsylvania, the Continental Army led by Washington sets up winter quarters.

– 1777 – Morocco became the first country in the world to grant diplomatic recognition to the United State.

My father’s ancestors on his mother’s side were already living on this land.  (His mother was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution.)

– 1778 – Virginia abolishes the slave trade

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So here I reach a point where I have to wonder, for all the important contributions Captain James Cook made in his life, is it the introduction of this TABOO from its Tongan roots the most noteworthy of them all?

Did Captain Cook pick up this word on his voyage, or did some member of his crew?  Was it carried as a living yet invisible cargo across the seas to English speaking lands so that it planted itself into our language and sprouted into the powerful concept that it is in governing the moral behaviors of our people?

I cannot imagine that accepted social and cultural beliefs didn’t already exist to govern behavior before this word appeared in our language, but what word did we use prior to 1777 to name them?

I find this as I look at Tongan related languages at Wickipedia:

Tongan is one of the many languages in the Polynesian branch of the Austronesian languages, along with Hawaiian, Maori, Samoan and Tahitian, for example. Together with Niuean, it forms the Tongic subgroup of Polynesian. By comparing Tongic to the other subgroup, Nuclear Polynesian, it is possible to reconstruct the phonology of Proto-Polynesian, the theoretical source of the Polynesian languages.

There are three registers which consist of

• ordinary words (the normal language)
• honorific words (the language for the chiefs)
• regal words (the language for the king)

There are also further distinctions between

• polite words (used for more formal contexts)
• derogatory words (used for informal contexts, or to indicate humility)

And yet, 233 years after TABOO supposedly appeared as a formal member of the modern English family, when I typed the word into this site nothing came back to me.

FREELANG Tongan-English and English-Tongan online dictionary

That’s like calling an important and familiar telephone number and receiving the recording, “The number you have dialed has been disconnected or is no longer in service.”

Yet, again at Wickipedia, I found an entire page devoted to the facts about our English word TABOO and its origins in the Tongan language:

A taboo is a strong social prohibition (or ban) relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and forbidden based on moral judgment and sometimes even religious beliefs. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society. The term comes from the Tongan language, and appears in many Polynesian cultures.

In those cultures, a tabu (or tapu or kapu) often has specific religious associations. When an activity or custom is taboo, it is forbidden and interdictions are implemented concerning it, such as the ground set apart as a sanctuary for criminals.

Some taboo activities or customs are prohibited under law and transgressions may lead to severe penalties. Other taboos result in embarrassment, shame, and rudeness. Although critics and/or dissenters may oppose taboos, they are put into place to avoid disrespect to any given authority, be it legal, moral and/or religious.

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Well, will you look at this!  I would have completely missed this entire amazing adventure and thrilling journey I just completed (coming full circle in my search and ending up ‘back home’ – Play song from Lala.com) had I just searched on Wickipedia for this word TABOO in the first place!  This MAKES ME REALLY CHUCKLE (I must be easily entertained!)

Etymology

Common etymology traces taboo to the Tongan word tapu^[1][2] or the Fijian word tabu^[3] meaning “under prohibition”, “not allowed”, or “forbidden”.^[3]

In its current use in Tonga, the word tapu also means “sacred” or “holy”, often in the sense of being restricted or protected by custom or law.

In the main island of the Kingdom of Tonga, where the greater portion of the population reside within the capital Nuku’alofa, the word is often appended to the end of “Tonga”, making the word “Tongatapu”, where local use it as “Sacred South” rather than “forbidden south”.

The use of taboo in English dates back to 1777 when English explorer, Captain James Cook, visited Tonga

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I was RIGHT, though.  I feel like I was challenged to a quest, without being given any clues about how to successfully complete it and accomplish my mission – and I DID IT RIGHT!

In the process I used an invisible resource:  My personal connection to Captain James Cook as his name has been assigned to Cook Inlet that hugs the mudflat shore of Anchorage, Alaska.

What, in the end here, strikes me personally as most critically important on my search to understand the word TABOO and its relationship ESPECIALLY to abuse and maltreatment of newborn infants and very young children, is that this word, now living in BOTH languages of Tongan and English – belongs within the realm of  – “sacred” or “holy” – and cannot be severed in its roots, origin, meaning or truth from the states of being it refers to.

As I pursue my writing, I realize that social and cultural relationships to what is “restricted or protected by custom or law” does change over time.  The information available in the mainstream about infant-child abuse in the 1950s during my earliest years of childhood was no doubt nearly nonexistent.

That does not mean that the moral, commonsense, instinctive awareness of right and wrong did not exist.  That does not mean that the nervous system-brain connections, especially in relation to the human vagus nerve system did not alert MOST people to actions that stimulated shame, embarrassment – and most importantly for my topic of severe infant-child abuse – REMORSE – for millennium before TABOO traveled its long watery journey into modern English.

What I feel as one branch of my personal ‘mission’ as a severe infant-child abuse survivor is to help people understand that without the physiological ability to feel remorse, behavior toward and treatment of children (and adults) will not be governed in anything like a normal way by any social standards – TABOO ones or not.

These people DO exist, and it’s time for all of us to realize that they are not JUST lurking in the shadows with axes in their hands waiting to butcher the unsuspecting masses.  We need to remove the TABOO against the IDEA of sociopathy and psychopathy (as we need to remove the taboo-based concepts about ‘mental illness’ as a whole).

At this point in my life, both as a survivor of an 18-year childhood of severe abuse and trauma and as a fairly intelligent researcher-thinker, I understand that the issue is NOT helped by asking questions about whether someone has a so-called ‘conscience’ or not.

That, to me, is a stupid and useless position to assume in one’s thinking about perpetration of crimes against humanity.  On the other hand, it is most realistic and useful in my opinion to start learning about trauma-altered developmental changes that happen during early infant-childhood years that cause people to grow into a body that is NOT PHYSIOLOGICALLY capable of experiencing REMORSE (or related physiologically-based states like true embarrassment).

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My mother was an educated, articulate, gregarious, gorgeous ‘socially acceptable’ woman.  My professional father fit a similar profile.  That my mother was a hair’s breadth away from axe murdering me was an invisible fact to the world.  She never, not one single time in 18 years of severely abusing me, EVER considered that what she was doing was wrong.  Not once.  Her brain did not process the right information to reach that conclusion.  She was not built that way.

As a consequence, OF COURSE she never felt remorse.  In her world any TABOO that might have existed for everyone else did not even cast a shadow into the universe of her mind or her home.

Along with my intention to broadcast this fact as widely as I possibly can, I also want to say that our societal and cultural TABOO against thinking anything ‘bad’ about one’s parents HAS GOT TO GO!  It has to die a permanent cultural death.

In fact, we need to rise to a new cultural height where it will be considered TABOO NOT to tell the truth about abuse of children (and I know parental abuse of children can continue for the lifespan of both the parent and their offspring).

We need to overcome our cultural TABOOS against recognizing the fact that there are adults who TERRORIZE children.

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