of some enemy; but they may also be the result of an infraction
of a taboo. Some part of the funerary taboos may perhaps be
referred to this belief; whatever be the case with taboos of
the dead, there can be no question that the sick are secluded or
even abandoned, subjected to rites of purification and to restrictions
of various sorts, not because their malady is contagious
in our sense, but because they are temporarily taboo
and dangerous to the health of the community. The sick have
imposed on them curative as well as prophylactic taboos; in
Madagascar the sun is said to “die” when it sets; therefore
it is forbidden to a sick man to look upon it as it goes down.
14. Taboos of Women, Sexual Taboos, Avoidance.—The age of puberty is especially dangerous for both sexes; in the case of a woman the danger is not so much for herself as for others, and results from her physiological state; this danger is renewed with each successive menstrual period, and the frequently long seclusion at puberty finds a parallel in the universal practice in lower stages of culture of separating adult females, not only from males, but from the whole of the community at such periods. At puberty girls are confined for months or even years; they may not see the sun nor touch the earth; many foods are forbidden them, and special costumes are prescribed for them, as for mourners. The expectant mother is taboo for months before the birth of her child, and her disabilities are not removed for a long period after delivery. Women may not look upon the performance of rites of initiation nor of secret societies; they may not eat new crops in New Caledonia till long after the men have partaken of them; they may often not approach the men’s club-house. Both parents, but especially the mother, are subjected to restrictions, having for their object the preservation of the health of the unborn or newly born child. Women are often forbidden to eat with their husbands; nor may they share his labours, especially at sea. The relations of the sexes are regulated by complicated rules, but they are not necessarily taboos. In the first place, laws of exogamy and similar regulations limit the field of choice; even where no obstacle on this side is present the intercourse of- the sexes is often, especially at first, hedged round with numberless interdictions and rites. Connected with the rules of exogamy are the customs of avoidance, which prescribe that a man may not speak to nor even look at his mother-in-law, sometimes also his father-in-law, daughter, and other relatives; in like manner the wife must avoid the husband’s relatives, and the brother may often not speak to the sister.
15. Other Taboos.—Taboos of various kinds are imposed on strangers, on sorcerers, and on children. Certain places are taboo; taboos protect the crops and ensure that landmarks are not removed. In fact the number of taboos is so great that it is impossible to mention them in detail.
16. Distribution.—Although taboo is a Polynesian word the institution is far from being restricted to Oceania. Similar prohibitions, though they seldom reached the Polynesian level, are found in America, Africa, and especially Madagascar, North and Central Asia, and among the non-Aryan tribes of India. But taboo and its survivals are not confined to the uncivilized.
17. Developments of Taboo.—It would be remarkable if a feature which has taken such deep root in the custom and belief of savage and barbarous peoples did not leave a marked impress on the faiths of higher cultures. Just as the gods have become moral pari passu with mankind, so the ceremonially clean has become the physically and morally clean, the pure has become the moral, and taboo has changed its name to holiness. At a certain point in evolution the notion of unclean, sometimes positive and implying the possession of dangerous properties, sometimes negative and connoting no more than mere absence of holiness, which is in this case indistinguishable from mana, becomes a prominent element in religion. At a later stage and as a result of the greater weight attached to morality, the positive uncleanness falls into the background, leaving only the negatively unclean, the unholy, which is not in itself death-dealing, but may, like its savage analogue, call down on the community, innocent and guilty alike, the wrath of higher powers, the remedy being, not so much the punishment of the offender, still less mere physical purification, but their moralized analogues, prayer, fasting and repentance.
18. Among the Greeks.—The general word for taboo among the Greeks in ἅγος, which may bear the sense of “sacredness” or “pollution”; derivatives occur in the same meanings. Usually, however, the notions of sacred and unclean are distinguished by the use of different terms from this root, ἁγνός for sacred, ἐναγής for unclean or accursed. The rules of the Greek ἁγνεία (season of taboo) do not differ markedly from those of the Polynesian. Corresponding to the war-taboo of Oceania we find in Homer that the army (Od. xxiv. 81) and the sentinel (Il. x. 56, xxiv. 681) are sacred; and we learn from Plato that Warriors never eat fish, from which indeed there was a general custom of abstinence except under the pressure of famine. The epithets ἱερός, δῖος, &c., which may point to beliefs similar to those of Polynesia, are applied to chiefs and kings, and further to the swineherd, thus suggesting that the pig, which bore a mixed reputation for holiness and uncleanness (ceremonial) both in Egypt and west Asia, was similarly regarded in Greece.
19. Among the Romans.—The term for taboo is sacer; any one who removed a landmark became sacer and was outlawed, any citizen having the right to kill him. Consecratio capitis et bonorum was the term for devotion to the nether gods. The flamen dialis and his wife were hedged in by a perfect network of ritual prohibitions; he might not ride upon nor even touch a horse; his eyes might not fall on an army under arms; he might not Walk under a vine; he might not name a goat, raw meat, beans, ivy, a dog, and so on; his hair might be cut only by a freeman; he might not touch a corpse. The fiaminica might not comb her hair at certain festivals; she was taboo (feriata) after hearing, thunder till she had purified herself by a sacrifice. The Roman feriae were periods of taboo.
20. Among the Jews.–The Hebrew for holy is קֹדֶשׁ which means “separated, cut off,” while its correlative הֹל means “open for common use”; another sense of sacer is conveyed by הדם “accursed, devoted to destruction.” Holiness is transmissible by contact (Ezek. xliv. 19, xlvi. 20; Ex. xxix. 37; Lev. vi. 27). It is distinct from purity in the moral sense; the names of the hieroduli קְדֵשִׁים and hierodula קְדֵשֹׁוֹת are connected with the word קדשׁ. Taboo among the Jews are: (1) things connected with Jehovah, his name is holy and terrible; his arm is holy; holy places are taboo (see Sanctuary); the ark is actively dangerous, and Uzzah, no less than the men of Bethshemesh, pays the penalty for too nearly approaching it; (2) the Nazarite might not partake of certain foods, nor touch a dead body nor shave his head, which was specially sacred; (3) in fact any one who touched a dead body was unclean and could communicate his uncleanness to others; (4) the birth of a child made the mother taboo; she was required to purify herself; (5) leprosy, menstruation, and sexual functions generally occasioned longer or shorter periods of uncleanness; and warriors, who were taboo on a campaign, were required to observe continence; (6) certain foods were taboo, and the uncleanness might be communicated to an earthen vessel, which, under certain circumstances, would be broken, like a pot in Polynesia; (7) the use of iron was forbidden in the construction of the temple; (8) a field sown with different kinds of herbs “becomes holy”; and (9) bystanders are warned not to approach a heathen rite, lest they be “sanctified”; (10) to the Polynesian interdicts, often termed taboos, corresponded certain periods of time, such as the Sabbath and the Jubilee year, but these are not connected with taboo proper.
Bibliography.—For the definition of taboo see E. Tregear, Maori Comparative Dictionary, s.v. On the Polynesian taboo see Waitz-Gerland, Anthropologie der Natur-Völker, vi. 343–363 and the authorities there quoted; Ellis, Polynesian Researches, iv. 385, sq. of the 2nd ed.; Turner, Nineteen Years in Polynesia, p. 294 sq.; do., Samoa, p. 185 sq.; Old New Zealand, by a Pakeha Maori, vii.–xii.; Cook, Voyages (1809), v. 427 sq., vii. 146 sq., &c, On Melanesia see Marillier in Bibliothèque de l’École des Hautes Études Religieuses, vii. 35–74; Codrington, The Melanesians, passim. On
Micronesia see Waitz-Gerland, op. cit. v., ii. 147 sq. On the Malaya