Note 36 — Chapter I · TABOOED DAYS AT CRITICAL EPOCHS

Not only was all work prohibited at the time of the inachi, but even any one’s appearance abroad, unless for the purposes of the ceremony, was interdicted (Martin-Mariner, op. cit., p. 383 n.²). The Tongans observed a like restriction after a death. When a corpse was being taken to the burying-ground, all persons in the roadway or the adjacent fields were obliged to keep out of sight, under pain of becoming tabooed. Those who showed themselves at such a time were generally killed on the spot (ibid., pp. 243 sq., 394).