Taboo, tabu a. and sb.

Also tapu, tambu, tabou. [ad. Tongan ta˙bu (see A).

  Ta˙bu is also the form in several languages of Melanesia and Micronesia, as in some of the New Hebrides, Banks Is., Gilbert Is., Papua (South Cape), etc. The general Polynesian and Maori form (also in some of the New Hebrides) is ta˙pu, in Hawaiian ka˙pu. Some of the Melanesian langs., as those of Fiji, and some of the Solomon Is., have ta˙mbu, New Britain ta˙bu and ta˙mbu. Various cognate forms occur in Melanesian and cognate langs. The Tongan form was that first met with by Captain Cook, in 1777, from the narrative of whose voyages the custom with its name became known in England. In Fr. spelt tabou. The accentuation taboo˙, and the use of the word as sb. and vb., are English; in all the native langs. the word is stressed on the first syllable, and is used only as adj., the sb. and vb. being expressed by derivative words or phrases.]

  A.  adj. (chiefly in predicate). a. As originally used in Polynesia, Melanesia, New Zealand, etc.: Set apart for or consecrated to a special use or purpose; restricted to the use of a god, a king, priests, or chiefs, while forbidden to general use; prohibited to a particular class (esp. to women), or to a particular person or persons; inviolable, sacred; forbidden, unlawful; also said of persons under a perpetual or temporary prohibition from certain actions, from food, or from contact with others.

1777.  Cook, Voy. to Pacific, II. vii. (1785), I. 286. [At Tongataboo] Not one of them would sit down, or eat a bit of any thing…. On expressing my surprize at this, they were all taboo, as they said; which word has a very comprehensive meaning; but, in general, signifies that a thing is forbidden. Why they were laid under such restraints, at present, was not explained. Ibid., ix. 338. As every thing would, very soon, be taboo, if any of our people, or of their own, should be found walking about, they would be knocked down with clubs. Ibid., xi. 410. When any thing is forbidden to be eat, or made use of, they say, that it is taboo.

1826.  Scott, Diary, 24 Oct., in Lockhart. The conversation is seldom excellent amongst official people. So many topics are what Otaheitians call taboo.

1845.  J. Coulter, Adv. in Pacific, xiii. 171. As soon as ever the anchor is down, if the ship is not a taboo or restricted one, she will be at once boarded, not by a few, but hundreds of women.

1873.  Trollope, Austral. & N. Z., II. 419. Priests are tapu. Food is very often tapu, so that only sacred persons may eat it, and then must eat it without touching it with their hands. Places are frightfully tapu, so that no man or woman may go in upon them.

1888.  C. M. Woodford, in Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc., New Monthly Ser. X. 372. The human heads … are reserved for the canoe-houses. These … are tambu (tabooed) for women—i.e., a woman is not allowed to enter them, or indeed to pass in front of them.

  b.  transf. and fig.

1826.  Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. II. 63 (Touchy Lady). The mention of her neighbours is evidently taboo, since … she is in a state of affront with nine-tenths of them.

1891.  Spectator, 2 May, 611/2. A … pledge that that Wednesday should not be absorbed by the Government, but should be taboo.

1901.  R. Garnett, Ess., viii. 224. The legendary history of Ireland is … taboo to the serious historian.

  B.  sb. 1. The putting of a person or thing under prohibition or interdict, perpetual or temporary; the fact or condition of being so placed; the prohibition or interdict itself. Also, the institution or practice by which such prohibitions are recognized and enforced; found in full force in the islands of the Pacific when first visited by Europeans, and still prevailing in some of them, as also, under other forms and names, among many other races in early stages of culture.

  The institution is generally supposed to have had a religious or superstitious origin (certain things being considered the property of the gods or superhuman powers, and therefore forbidden to men), and to have been extended to political and social affairs, being usually controlled by the king or great chiefs in conjunction with the priests. Some things, acts and words were permanently taboo or interdicted to the mass of the people, and others specially to women, while temporary taboo was frequently imposed, often apparently quite arbitrarily.

  a.  As originally used in Polynesia, New Zealand, Melanesia, etc.

1777.  Cook, Voy. to Pacific, II. xi. (1785), I. 410. When the taboo is incurred, by paying obeisance to a great personage, it is thus easily washed off. Ibid. Old Toobou, at this time, presided over the taboo.

1778.  King, in Cook’s Voy., III. xii. (1785), II. 249. The taboo also prevails in Atooi, in its full extent, and seemingly with much more rigour than even at Tongataboo. Ibid. (1779), V. iv. III. 81. The taboo, which Eappo had laid on it [the bay at Hawaii] the day before, at our request, not being yet taken off.

1817.  Southey, in Q. Rev., XVII. 14. This taboo was now to be taken off, by a large slaughter of hogs.

1831.  Tyerman & Bennet’s Voy. & Trav., I. xix. 423. The priests [in Oahu] recommended a ten days’ tabu, the sacrifice of three human victims [etc.]. Ibid., xx. 440. A pole, ten feet high, on which was suspended a bit of white stick,… having remnants of the bones of a fowl attached to it. This … was a tabu, prohibiting any body from stealing the canes growing there.

1851.  Mrs. R. Wilson, New Zealand, etc., 24–5.

1862.  M. Hopkins, Hawaii, 89. One of the great instruments used by both king and priests for maintaining their power and their revenue, was the system of ‘tabu’ or ‘taboo.’

1870.  H. Meade, New Zealand, 319. A tambu has been laid on the trees for a certain number of years.

  b.  Extended, as a general term of anthropology, to similar customs among other primitive races.

1883.  A. Lang, in Contemp. Rev., Sept., 417. The hero Cuchullain … came by his ruin after transgressing this totemistic taboo.

1896.  F. B. Jevons, Introd. Hist. Relig., vii. 72. The very conception of taboo, based as it largely is on the association of ideas, is one peculiarly liable to extension by analogy. Ibid., viii. 89. The irrational restrictions, touch not, taste not, handle not, which constitute formalism, are essentially taboos.

1905.  Athenæum, 21 Jan., 87/1. Tabus connected with animals and plants are common, and such tabus are part of totemism. Ibid. (1906), 17 March, 332/1. There are many tabous on food which are certainly not totemic in origin.

1918.  S. Freud (title), Totem and Taboo.

  2.  transf. and fig. Prohibition or interdiction generally of the use or practice of anything, or of social intercourse; ostracism.

1833.  R. Mudie, Brit. Birds (1841), I. 366. There are subjects which appear to be under the taboo of nature.

1852.  Lytton, My Novel, XI. ix. Under what strange taboo am I placed?

1853.  S. Wilberforce, in R. G. Wilberforce, Life (1881), II. v. 190. To labour hardest as a Bishop is to incur certain taboo.

1894.  Mrs. Fr. Elliot, Roman Gossip, 281. French officers … found themselves placed in such a painful taboo at Rome.

  3.  attrib. and Comb.

1870–4.  Anderson, Missions Amer. Bd., II. i. 6. Interwoven with the tabu system.

1896.  F. B. Jevons, Introd. Hist. Relig., vi. 66. Before a great feast, a taboo-day or days are proclaimed. Ibid., vii. 78. They remove their hair before entering on the taboo-state. Ibid., viii. 88. The terror … with which he viewed the taboo-breaker.

1897.  Edin. Rev., July, 238. The taboo custom, which is a prohibition with a curse.

1903.  R. Kipling, in Windsor Mag., 368/2. Remember you’re a tabu girl now.

  Hence Tabooism, the system of taboo; Tabooist, one who practises or believes in taboo.

1885.  J. Fitzgerald, trans. Schultze’s Fetichism, iii. ad fin. Here is the fetichist become a tabooist, supposing that the description of tabooism heretofore given is correct.