ion that might cling to them.[965]

+598+. _Industrial taboos._ The customs of certain Polynesian chiefs,
described above, cannot be said to aid industry, but there are taboo
usages designed to protect and further popular occupations. These
doubtless have a natural nonmagical basis--the necessity of making good
crops and protecting private property would be recognized everywhere,
and would call forth legal enactments; but it was inevitable, in certain
communities, that such enactments should be strengthened by supernatural
sanctions such as those offered by the conception of taboo.

+599+. Protective arrangements of this sort abound in Oceania and
Indonesia. In Samoa the sweet-potato fields are taboo till the crop is
gathered.[966] Hawaiian fisheries are protected by the simple device of
forbidding the taking of certain fish at certain seasons; here the
economic motive is obvious, but taboo penalties are annexed.[967] During
planting time in New Zealand all persons employed in the work were taboo
for other occupations and obliged to give all their time to the
planting; and the same rule held for hunting and fishing.[968] The
Borneo Kayans refrain from their usual occupations during planting,
harvesting, and the search for camphor.[969] Similar restrictions, of an
elaborate kind, are in force in Sumatra,[970] and in Assam.[971]

+600+. The property of private persons was protected: the common man
might impose a taboo on his land, crops, house, and garments, and these
were then safe from depredation. It was true, however, in New Zealand as
elsewhere, that the potency of the imposed taboo depended on the
influence of him who imposed it; chiefs, as uniting in their persons
civil and religious authority, were the most powerful persons in the
community, and taboos ordered by them were the most effective. In
Melanesia taboo is largely employed for the protection of private
property--curses are pronounced against trespassers, and the authority
of the tabooer is reenforced by that of the local spirit or ghost
(_tindalo_);[972] here taboo has become definitely an element of civil
law, in which it tends to be absorbed.

+601+. _Taboos connected with other important social events._ It appears
that all occurrences supposed to affect the life of the community have
been, and often still are, regarded as bringing with them, or as
attended by, supernatural influences (resident in mana or in spirits)
that may be dangerous. Against the