Taboo

Indigenous communities in Australia are well known for thabul (better know as taboo), which basically means they're not supposed to use some words. The thing is that people don't really have an idea about what those words are.

I reckon the first things that pop into most people's mind is private parts, 'sex' and similar, but there's much more to it. Honestly, I had my concern about it when I first started doing a bit of a background research, and after I realised how much more lay behind it.

The interesting part starts with figuring out all the numerous situations occur, when you’re supposed to follow the rules or suffer the consequences.

• Avoid family relations – a man doesn’t have any relations whatsoever with his mother-in-law, which can prove to be very difficult when I’m supposed to pick them up in the same car; also sister and brother after he’s been initiated etc.
• Hunt totem animals/plants – a person gets a certain totem depending of his family background, place of conception or birth, where she/he lives etc.
• Avoid saying certain things out loud – usually closely regarded to initiation, but also widely used in men-only or women-only situations, e.g. men will discuss men stuff and women will simply scatter around, and vice versa.
• Women are not to play the didgeridoo – this is especially noticeable in social situations, which are regulated by the Dreaming Law; some ethnomusicologists believe the situation is changing, especially in the contemporary development; even though the taboo is supposed to refer to Aboriginal women only, Nicole Kidman was said to have broken that taboo by blowing into the didgeridoo on German television (and thus cast a shadow on that custom, making others think it was okay to do so), and was said to be barren due to that.
• Avoid naming the deceased – saying the deceased person’s name brings grief of the family and friends, and is thus replaced by a replacement word which is, amazingly enough, “replacement” (or, in some cases, this and this person's mother; someone's neighbour etc); the struggle starts when you’re dealing with names like Friday, Alice and Rose, and you’re trying to say you’re meeting your friend in Alice Spring on A Friday – what you’d say would quite literally be “I meeting replacement on replacement in replacement’, and you won’t be able to use the words rose, rosebush etc; it is thus a common practice to use more and more really exotic names (Binbeal, Dorak, Mearann, Pindan, Ungud, Gymea, Lournea, Apanie, Oranta etc)…

And on that note, I shall tell you a story about the name I’m being called.

Being that my name is rather unusual (and my surname even more), there's an incredibly slight chance that it might become taboo. Nevertheless, it's unfamiliar and hard to pronounce, so I figured I'd be baptised something else.

Even though I had already done a couple of surveys before, it was the big meeting we had up in the desert that was supposed to be the moment I actually get introduced to the community. Everyone was gathered around, the women, the elders and the initiated men, while kids ran around and made quite an admirable amount of mess.

One of the lawyers said she wanted to introduce me, but as soon as she said my name, we realised it's not going to be as easy. Because they rely on their family relations, they wanted to know more about my background – a bit about where I come from, what my history is and, finally, what my full name is.

I tried pronouncing it as slow and understandable as I could, but it didn't work, even with the help of a microphone. Our lawyer found it funny and used the chance to giggle at me and make me repeat it a couple of times. To make up for it, I had to make a round and show my face to everybody, after which a new topic was started. The community was, nonetheless, immensely intrigued by the whole thing and, even though we would meet each other more often in the future, they wanted to sort that out.

They told the lawyer they wanted to sort it out, so – based on my initials, which are MM – they would call me M&M. Everyone agreed, there was a bit of a murmur and that was it. I was in!

Being that I'm a bit of a newb out there, the nickname would work out just fine. After all, initials are often used as a way of referring to someone or calling after them. And it's not even the first time I got called that (previous trips resulted in some people calling me M&M), so it kind of made sense.

Until everyone else picked it up and my new name was spread around the office and stating that M&M – being I'm white and all that – is actually Eminem, after which I've been dubbed Slim, Double M, Marshall etc.

And something tells me it's not going to stop there...