n the same way tabooed food or property of any kind is
held sacred and can not be touched by the inferior. To break a taboo is
to challenge a contest of strength--that is, to declare war.

As the basis of the taboo right lay in descent from the gods, lineage
was of first importance in the social world. Not that rank was
independent of ability--a chief must exhibit capacity who would claim
possession of the divine inheritance;[4] he must keep up rigorously the
fitting etiquette or be degraded in rank. Yet even a successful warrior,
to insure his family title, sought a wife from a superior rank. For this
reason women held a comparatively important position in the social
framework, and this place is reflected in the folk tales.[5] Many
Polynesian romances are, like the _Laieikawai_, centered about the
heroine of the tale. The mother, when she is of higher rank, or the
maternal relatives, often protect the child. The virginity of a girl of
high rank is guarded, as in the _Laieikawai_, in order to insure a
suitable union.[6] Rank, also, is authority for inbreeding, the highest
possible honor being paid to the child of a brother and sister of the
highest chief class. Only a degree lower is the offspring of two
generations, father and daughter, mother and son, uncle and niece, aunt
and nephew being highly honorable alliances.[7]

Two things result as a consequence of the taboo right in the hands of a
chief. In the first place, the effort is constantly to keep before his
following the exclusive position of the chief and to emphasize in every
possible way his divine character as descended from a god. Such is the
meaning of the insignia of rank--in Hawaii, the taboo staff which warns
men of his neighborhood, the royal feather cloak, the high seat apart in
the double canoe, the head of the feast, the special apparel of his
followers, the size of his house and of his war canoe, the superior
workmanship and decoration of all his equipment, since none but the
chief can command the labor for their execution. In the second place,
this very effort to aggrandize him above his fellows puts every material
advantage in the hands of the chief. The taboo means that he can
command, at the community expense, the best of the food supply, the most
splendid ornaments, equipment, and clothing. He is further able, again
at the community expense, to keep dependent upon himself, because fed at
his table, a large following, all held in duty bound to ca