Scholars have been trying to explain taboo customs ever since Captain Cook discovered them in Polynesia over 200 years ago. The subject has been treated at length, but none of the theories has more than a limited validity, so numerous are the taboos recorded and so diverse the societies in which they occur. This book contains chapters on: · Taboo as a Victorian invention · The complicated taboos in the Pentateuch · Taboos in Polynesia Originally published in 1956.