Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

PRINCIPLE OF TABOO LANGUAGE 417
dialects were still generally spoken ; or even before
the Malays had gained a permanent footing in the
Peninsula at all, when they perhaps merely visited it
temporarily as traders. The search for camphor has
been going on for many centuries ; it was known
at least as early as the sixth century/ and though
the best known source of supply was North-west
Sumatra, it is mentioned as a product of Johor in the
Chinese history of the Ming dynasty (a.d. i 368- 1643),'and
may have been found there much earlier for
aught that is known to the contrary. If the taboo
language was used by the Jakun while their own
dialects were still commonly spoken, it cannot in its
original form have been identical with their ordinary
speech, but judging by the analogy of other taboo
languages, it is pretty sure to have been some modi-
fication of it.
The root - idea in all these taboo languages is
simple enough : it is merely the avoidance, in an
indeterminate number of cases, of the ordinary every-
day word, and the substitution of something different
and out of the common. The primary motive is not
pecuniary gain or a desire to exclude possible com-
petitors, but a respectful fear of the superior powers,
human, natural, or supernatural, as the case may be,
which creates and enforces as a matter of etiquette,
amounting almost to law, the use in their presence,
and sometimes even when referring to them, of a
special honorific terminology.^ In the case of the
^ J. R. A.S., S. B., No. 26, p. 36. Nicobar Islands, there is a converse
- Groeneveldt, " Notes on the Malay form of taboo which enjoins that the
Archipelago and Malacca " in Mis- names (or jmrts of the names) of high
cellaneoiis Papers relating to Indo- chiefs, relations by marriage, or
China, and series, vol. i. p. 254. deceased ancestors must not be pro-
3 In some parts of the world, e.g. nounced in common speech. This, in
Polynesia, South Africa, and the some languages, from time to time
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