Captain Cook brought taboo into English after a dinner nobody would eat
In 1777 James Cook invited Tongan nobles aboard his ship for a meal. None of them would sit or touch a bite, explaining that they were taboo. Cook learned the word covered anything forbidden, sacred or off limits, and English has used it ever since.
The word comes from tapu in Polynesian languages, with relatives such as Maori tapu, Hawaiian kapu and Fijian tabu, all traced back to a Proto-Oceanic ancestor, tabu. Linguists reconstruct its original sense as forbidden or off limits because of awe before spiritual powers. Cook heard it glossed as consecrated, inviolable, unclean or cursed. In Tongan today it leans towards sacred, which is why the main island's name, Tongatapu, is read as Sacred South rather than Forbidden South.
In social science a taboo is any strong ban a group places on a word or action it finds repulsive, holy or reserved for certain people. They exist in nearly every society, sometimes written into law or religion, sometimes enforced only by custom. Common targets include killing and hunting, sex and reproduction, the dead and their graves, and food, from dietary codes such as kashrut and halal to cannibalism. Madagascar's system of fady is unusually fluid: new rules form from fresh experience, and each region, village or clan may keep its own.
Why do taboos exist? Many have ecological or medical logic behind them, even when framed as spiritual, and some help conserve resources. They also bind a group together and mark it off from outsiders. But rules imposed on only part of a community can be used to keep that part down. Albert Schweitzer described how, among peoples of Gabon, the birth of twins was considered unlucky and the children lived under special rules.
Thinkers have stretched the idea in different directions. Sigmund Freud proposed that incest and killing one's father were the only universal taboos and the foundation of civilisation. Joseph Campbell saw mythological taboos as tests: a hero is told not to look, eat or speak, and breaking the ban brings consequences.
Source: Taboo
