taboo, theprohibition of an action based on the belief that such behaviour is either toosacred andconsecrated or too dangerous and accursed for ordinary individuals to undertake. The termtaboo is of Polynesian origin and was first noted byCaptain James Cook during his visit toTonga in 1771; he introduced it into theEnglish language, after which it achieved widespread currency. Although taboos are often associated with thePolynesian cultures of the South Pacific, they have proved to be present in virtually all societies past and present.

Generally, the prohibition that isinherent in a taboo includes the idea that itsbreach or defiance will be followed by some kind of trouble to the offender, such as lack of success in hunting or fishing, sickness, miscarriage, or death. In some cases proscription is the only way to avoid this danger; examples include rules against fishing or picking fruit at certain seasons and against walking or traveling in certain areas. Dietary restrictions are common, as are rules for the behaviour of people facing important life events such asparturition,marriage, death, andrites of passage.

In other cases, the danger represented by the taboo can be overcome throughritual. This is often the case for taboos meant to protectcommunities and individuals from beings or situations that are simultaneously so powerful as to be inherently dangerous and so common that they are essentially unavoidable. For example, manycultures require persons who have been in physical contact with the dead to engage in a ritual cleansing. Many cultures also circumscribe physical contact with a woman who ismenstruating—or, less often, a woman who ispregnant—because she is the locus of extremely powerful reproductive forces. Perhaps the most familiar resolution to this taboo is the Jewish practice of bathing in amikvah after menstruation and parturition.

Taboos that are meant to prevent the sacred from being defiled by the ordinary include those that prohibited ordinary people from touching the head—or even the shadow—of a Polynesian chief because doing so would compromise hismana, or sacred power. As the chief’smana was important in maintaining the ritual security of thecommunity, such actions were believed to place the entire population at risk.

There is broad agreement that the taboos current in any society tend to relate to objects and actions that are significant for the social order and that, as such, taboos belong to the general system ofsocial control.Sigmund Freud provided perhaps the most ingenious explanation for the apparently irrational nature of taboos, positing that they were generated by ambivalent social attitudes and in effect represent forbidden actions for which there nevertheless exists a strong unconscious inclination. He directly applied this viewpoint to the most universal of all taboos, theincesttaboo, which prohibits sexual relations between close relatives.

Other important researchers or theorists on the topic wereWilliam Robertson Smith, Sir James G. Frazer, andWilhelm Wundt; important books have includedFreud’sTotem and Taboo (1913), Franz Baermann Steiner’s classicTaboo (1956), and Mary Douglas’s enduringPurity and Danger(1966).