296 PROBLEMS OF HUMAN EVOLUTION 



their life. It is not everywhere called by the Polynesian name 

 Taboo, but the institution is present none the less. The word 

 means "strongly marked" and is applied to anything that is 

 dangerous to come in contact with : things holy are as taboo as 

 things unclean. There are three classes of objects which are 

 inherently taboo, blood, babies, and corpses. And this suggests 

 the origin of the institution : anything that has to do with the 

 mystery of life or death is ex offic'w, so to speak, taboo. 1 Holy 

 persons, chiefs or priests, have this character in a marked 

 degree : they are dangerous to have to do with. And taboo 

 is transmissible. Any person, who has touched or seen or been 

 seen by any person who is taboo, is infected. It is the same 

 with things. What is thus infected, however, is not strictly 

 speaking taboo, it is only tabooed. But for all practical purposes 

 this is the same. 



" Perhaps the most remarkable instance of the contagion of 

 taboo is to be found in the fact that it is capable of infecting not 

 only things but actions, and even time itself. Thus among the 

 Basutos, on the day of a chief's decease, work is tabooed : the 

 corpse defiles not only those who come in contact with it, 

 but all work done on the fatal day." 2 A few more examples 

 of the contagiousness of taboo. A new-born child infects its 

 mother. In West Africa she remains unclean for seven days, on 

 the Loango coast for six months. " Holy persons such as the 

 Selli and tabooed persons, e.g. candidates prepared for initiation in 

 the Eleusinia, may not wash, for fear, probably, lest the sanctity 

 should be communicated by the water to other persons or things, 

 in the same way as the impurity of the murderer in Greece might 

 be conveyed by the offerings used in his purification." 3 " The 

 infection of holiness produces exactly the same results as the 

 pollution of uncleanness, that is to say, it renders the thing 

 touched taboo and, therefore, unusable." 4 



In Tahiti " if a chief's foot touches the earth, the spot which 

 it touches becomes taboo thenceforth, and none may approach it 

 chiefs are, therefore, carried in Tahiti when they go out. If 



1 Jevons, Introducteon to the History of Religion, p. 86. 



2 Loc. cit. p. 65. 3 Loc. cit. p. 78. 4 Loc. cit. p. 62. 



