“Various classes of taboo in the wider sense may be distinguished: 1. natural or direct, the result of ‘mana’ mysterious (power) inherent in a person or thing; 2. communicated or indirect, equally the result of ‘mana’ but (_a_) acquired or (_b_) imposed by a priest, chief or other person; 3. intermediate, where both factors are present, as in the appropriation of a wife to her husband. The term taboo is also applied to ritual prohibitions of a different nature; but its use in these senses is better avoided. It might be argued that the term should be extended to embrace cases in which the sanction of the prohibition is the creation of a god or spirit, i.e., to religious interdictions as distinguished from magical, but there is neither automatic action nor contagion in such a case, and a better term for it is religious interdiction. “The objects of the taboo are many: 1. direct taboos aim at (_a_) protection of important persons--chiefs, priests, etc.--and things against harm; (_b_) safeguarding of the weak--women children and common people generally--from the powerful mana (magical influence) of chiefs and priests; (_c_) providing against the dangers incurred by handling or coming in contact with corpses, by eating certain food, etc.; (_d_) guarding the chief acts of life--births, initiation, marriage and sexual functions--against interference; (_e_) securing human beings against the wrath or power of gods and spirits[34]; (_f_) securing unborn infants and young children who stand in a specially sympathetic relation with their parents, from the consequence of certain actions, and more especially from the communication of qualities supposed to be derived from certain foods. 2. Taboos are imposed in order to secure against thieves the property of an individual, his fields, tools, etc.” Other parts of the article may be summarized as follows. Originally the punishment for the violation of a taboo was probably left to an inner, automatic arrangement. The violated taboo avenged itself. Wherever the taboo was related to ideas of gods and demons an automatic punishment was expected from the power of the godhead. In other cases, probably as a result of a further development of the idea, society took over the punishment of the offender, whose action has endangered his companions. Thus man’s first systems of punishment are also connected with taboo. “The violation of a taboo makes the offender himself taboo.” The author goes on to say that certain dangers resulting from the violation of a taboo may be exercised through acts of penance and ceremonies of purification.