National Geographic’s documentary series Taboo is excellent material that has broadened my horizons considerably. My first exposure to taboo culture came through Freud’s writing, which introduced me to many curious anthropological customs. Of course, times have changed, and many taboos are no longer confined to remote mountain villages — plenty exist right around us too.

Taboo is substantial in scope, with seven seasons in total, each containing a number of episodes. After only a few episodes, it already feels like a vast and impressive undertaking. I’ve read a number of anthropology and sociology books before, but content delivered through the sound and image of film appeals to me even more. This series has almost no boring stretches — both the hooks and the substance are there in full. Let me jot down notes on a few episodes worth remembering:

6.2 Societies differ, but gender categories converge in surprising ways. Most people believe there are only two genders, male and female, yet in India a man can become a “third gender” through castration, while Indonesia recognizes five social genders. In Albania, too, there are “sworn virgins” — women who become men, giving up their original gender and undergoing a complete transformation in voice and bearing. Even so, for most societies, the third gender remains taboo.

5.14 I’ve always believed that people who love sociology and anthropology cannot help but care deeply about life. This documentary aligns with that belief — for all the subcultures it touches on, simply having a hook would make it no more than a circus act, something to watch and forget. This episode, “Outsiders,” struck me hard. It tells the story of a leprosy village in Nepal, the “anti-consumerist” new generation of Sydney, and the rat-catching caste of Sulurghimi village in India, sketching out the lives of these marginal figures across cultures. Beyond simply learning about these subcultures, it also pushed me toward some reflection on this kind of taboo.

4.6 I’ve personally seen, in person, a people who wear bronze rings around their necks. The reason we find this strange is that, within our own culture, it’s taboo. And yet such taboos are increasingly crossing over from subculture into the mainstream. Split tongues, eyeball tattoos, artificial horns… will these various forms of body modification — momentarily painful to us now — become some kind of mainstream in the future?

p.s. As the pandemic spreads, Shuanghuanglian is flying off the shelves — I wonder when traditional Chinese medicine might itself become some kind of “taboo”? :)