TABOO is a social prohibition or restriction sanctioned by suprasocietal (innate) means or a socially sanctioned injunction alleged to have the force of such a prohibition. Taboo stands at the intersection of human affairs and the forces of the larger universe. Generally it is determined by divine or animistic mandates; but it may involve "punishment" by inherent circumstances as well, for instance, the real, but exaggerated, danger of genetic damage to the offspring of incestuous unions implied in the incest taboo of American folk culture.

The word taboo (from the Tongan tabu, a variant of the more general Polynesian term tapu and the Hawaiian kapu) reached the West through Captain James Cook's account of his third voyage. He was introduced to the term at Tongatapu, in the Tonga, or Friendly, Islands, and commented that the word had a very comprehensive meaning but generally signified a thing that is...