Note 24 — Chapter I · TABOOED DAYS AT CRITICAL EPOCHS

Charles Wilkes, Narrative of the U.S. Exploring Expedition, Philadelphia, 1845, ii, 13. “The tabu system,” wrote an early missionary, “making sacred certain times, persons, and places, and containing many restrictions and prohibitions, may easily be interpreted as a relic, much changed and corrupted, from the ancient ceremonial observances of the Jews” (Sheldon Dibble, History of the Sandwich Islands, Lahainaluna, 1843, p. 27). The resemblances between the Polynesian institution and certain customs recorded in the Old Testament impressed another early writer, who refers to taboo as “ce singulier usage, en partie politique, au moins dans quelques-uns de ses effets, mais éminemment religieux dans son origine, non moins que l’interdit des Hébreux, avec lequel il avait des rapports frappans, qui n’ont point encore été signalés, quoique méritant assurément toute l’attention du philosophe et du moraliste” (J. A. Moerenhout, Voyages aux îles du grand océan, Paris, 1837, ii, 6).