TABOO' (Samoan tape, Hawaiian hope, for bidden). An object or act religiously interdicted, and the religions system based upon such inter diction. Under various names and in one form or another, the practice of taboo is found all over the earth; but it has nowhere else been so sys tematized as in Polynesia. Primarily, taboo is something forbidden because the tabooed object is regarded as potent to injure owing to its mane, or mysterious (spiritual) power, which may be either holy, as a priest's possession, or unclean, as a corpse. There is at first no moral signifi cance in taboo. and in many cases the interdict is due merely to fear of spirits. Thus in New Zealand there are a mann taboo and an atua taboo, the latter arising from a belief in spirits, (Etna, or a more personal embodiment of maim. Even in rites of purification the object is simply to keep off evil spirits. Taboo in many cases re verts to another phase of primitive philosophy, which sees retained in blood, nails, hair, etc., though severed from the body, the spiritual power of the individual. But in sonic cases taboo is merely the expression of conservatism, which may be religious or social. An instance of the fanner is the taboo of iron in religious cere monies. Thus in such ceremonies both the an cient Romans and the modern Pawnee Indians put a taboo on iron, since the gods dislike innova tions. Even without the fear of divinities, the same religious conservatism prevents the Austra lians from using stone implements in circum cision, for which they employ the still more antique burnt-wood knife. But there is also a social conservatism resulting in taboo. Foreigners and new things generally at•e dangerous and are regularly tabooed by many wild tribes (as in Africa), though the taboo is easily removed ex cept in the ease of chiefs. In such cases the foreign person. thing. or act is tabooed because of the unknown and dreaded mana. But, on the other hand, there are taboos which are simply in the interest• of old practices. Thus the Hindu laws give the bed-hours of kings, and it needs only the right environment of superstition and antiquity to make such laws seem to be the ef fect of taboo, as in Egypt. though there can he no question that this is not the ease in Taboo may be permanent or temporary, pri vate or public. Especially stringent are all royal and priestly taboos, because kings and priests control the weal of the people and must, for the people's sake, be guarded against danger in food and the like. In some eases a king becomes a mere slave bound by the rules thus laid upon him. In others he makes taboos for his own interest. The king is gnarled from tabooed acts and ob jeets; lint the people too must guard themselves from the mysterious divine mane of the king, and it is this latter aspect of taboo which king and priest alike find it for their idcrest to main tain.
What is not taboo is non, common, and in this antithesis lies the germ of the conception of per sonal property as applied to many persons and things. Thus taboo became in ninny cases merely an assertion of proprietary rights, as may be seen from the fact that a lesser chief's taboo was disregarded in New Zealand by a stronger chief, hut a stronger chief's taboo was feared and re spected by one weaker. Isolation was the ob ject of taboo and this was the first stage to ownership. Food-taboos are often totemistie or hygienic, and the taboo of knots, which is very common, is a temporary taboo imposed because of the belief in mimetic magic. But it is not necessary that the imitative act be due to a wish to injure. Thus in Africa, Greece, and else where there is a taboo on knots, locks, crossed arms and legs—in short, on all that suggests an impediment. Another common taboo is the
hlonipa o• name-taboo of the Kafirs, with the woman-language found among the Kafirs (as also among the Semites and the Caribs), certain names and words being tabooed. for example, the names of fearful beasts in India, of kings in Africa, and of the dead in Australia and else where, as well as words used only by Sex-taboo is very common. Thus the belief that a woman's blood is fatal to a man leads at stated periods to a temporary taboo of women even among civilized Hindus, and in many countries men may not eat with women. Other common examples of taboo are as follows: To be ill, or to touch a corpse or grave, a king or a priest, or anything divine (such as royal blood) renders one taboo. A priest's or a king's clothes are so filled with mane that it would kill any one else to wear them, and to enter a chief's house or even in some cases to look at a great chief would be destructive. A priest's house is taboo even to himself, so far as eating in it goes. The taboo of part of one's self is often recognized. Thus, when a person is under taboo he may not touch his own head and has to be fed by another or eat with chopsticks. Such a person may not touch a drinking vessel lest be render it also taboo and dangerous. For whatever comes in contact with a tabooed object becomes itself tabooed. The private o• public taboo of places for certain prac tical reasons is also noteworthy. A river is tabooed by a king until the fishing-season is over: a wood, till the game is caught; a field, till the harvest is gathered. A public taboo is where, as in New Zealand, a whole community is made taboo while getting in their crops. This renders it impossible for any member of the tribe to do anything else till the taboo is re moved, and prevents any stranger from approach ing the tabooed ground. The removal of a public taboo is made by a priest who repeats a spell and performs certain rites over the tabooed peo ple. if a chief wants anything for himself he taboos it by calling it part of himself. Women, if of high rank, may taboo an object as effectively as do chiefs of the tribe.
Taboo has been explained either as a priestly trick o• as a religious observance, required by the chief for political reasons. But neither ex planation will suffice, though many taboos may he referred to the arbitrary enactment of priest or king, and again some taboos are not religions at all. Others explain taboo as due to a cate gorical imperative. and deduce from it all moral laws as well as most of the practices of civil ized communities, such as caste, the wearing of ornaments, the carrying of umbrellas, the wash ing of new-born babes, etc. On the other haml, oaths, the punishment of murderers and thieves, and marriage restrictions may be developed out of a taboo system, which recognizes no moral sin, only the danger of 'breaking taboo.' But in that ease we have to do not with a categorical impera tive, but with a belief in a mysterious spiritual potency and the fear of its effect. An extension of this belief results in its becoming purely for mal. Taboo itself then may be divided into pure ly religious and formal taboo; while, if every thing 'forbidden' is to be called taboo, there must be added a mass of detailed regulations arising from different sources, some of them hav ing tio eonneetion with what is strictly called taboo; and it is evident that for such a combina tion of effects there can be no one explanation. Consult: Taylor. Tc Ika A Maui, or New Zealand and Its Inhabitants (2d ed., London, 1870) ; Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites (2d ed., ib., 1SO4) ; Jevons. Introduction to the History of Religion (ib., 1806) ; Frazer, The Golden Bough, (2d ed., ib., 1900).