Kapu
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The Hawaiian word Kapu is usually translated as "forbidden". In ancient Hawaii, Kapu refers to the ancient system of laws and regulations. An offense that was Kapu was often a corporal offense, but also often denoted a threat to spiritual power, or theft of mana. Kapus were strictly enforced. Breaking one, even unintentionally, often meant immediate death. The concept is related to the tapu or tabu found in other Polynesian cultures.
Most famous are the restrictions placed upon contact with chiefs, but these also apply to all people of known spiritual power. It was kapu to enter a chief's personal area, to come in contact with his hair or fingernail clippings, to look directly at him and to be in sight of him with a head higher than his. Wearing red and yellow feathers (a sign of royalty) was kapu, unless you were of the highest rank. Places that are kapu are often symbolized by two crossed staffs, each with a white ball atop.
The kapu system also governed contact between men and women. In particular, men and women could not eat meals together. Furthermore, certain foods such as pork, bananas (as they resembled a phallus), and coconuts were considered kapu to women. The kapu system was used in Hawaii until 1819, when King Kamehameha II, acting with his mother Keopuolani and his father's queen Ka'ahumanu, abolished it by symbolically sharing a meal of forbidden foods with the women of his court. As these examples might suggest, the sense of the term in Polynesia carries connotations of sacredness as much as forbidden-ness. Probably the best way to translate it into English is as meaning "marked off" or ritually restricted. The opposite of kapu is "noa" meaning "common" or "free."
The ambiguities in the Polynesian concept (from the English point of view) are reflected in the different senses of the word in different national Englishes: In modern usage in Hawaii, "KAPU" is often substituted for the phrase "No Trespassing" on private property signage. In the movie Lilo and Stitch, Lilo has a sign on her door that says "Kapu" for privacy. By contrast, in New Zealand, the comparable word "tapu" is almost always used to mean "sacred." Tapu and tabu are spellings for the related concept in other Polynesian cultures. The use of the word taboo in the English language to describe things forbidden because they are thought to be horrible or disgusting is based on the Polynesian word, but the sense in English is different.
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