Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/26

Rh years to months or days. In Hawaii there was a tradition of one that lasted thirty years, during which men might not trim their beards, &c. A common period was forty days. A taboo was either common or strict. During a common taboo the men were only required to abstain from their ordinary occupations and to attend morning and evening prayers. But during a strict taboo every fire and light on the island or in the district was extinguished; no canoe was launched; no person bathed; no one, except those who had to attend at the temple, was allowed to be seen out of doors; no dog might bark, no pig grunt, no cock crow. Hence at these seasons they tied up the mouths of dogs and pigs, and put fowls under a calabash or bandaged their eyes. The taboo was imposed either by proclamation or by fixing certain marks (a pole with a bunch of bamboo leaves, a white cloth, &c.) on the places or things tabooed.

On looking over the various taboos mentioned above we are tempted to divide them into two general classes, — taboos of privilege and taboos of disability. Thus the taboo of chiefs, priests, and temples might be described as a privilege, while the taboo imposed on the sick and on persons who had come in contact with the dead might be regarded as a disability; and we might say accordingly that the former rendered persons and things sacred or holy, while the latter rendered them unclean or accursed. But that no such distinction ought to be drawn is clear from the fact that the rules to be observed in the one case and in the other were identical. On the other hand, it is true that the opposition of sacred and accursed, clean and