labourer may go wherever they please. The man is free, he may be
killed, but not sold and not detained."

[22] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vii. 141 _sq._

[23] Tyerman and Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 415.

[24] J. Remy, _op. cit._ p. 167.

Certainly commoners were bound to pay great outward marks of deference
to their social superiors, the chiefs, or nobles. Indeed, the respect
almost amounted to adoration, for they were on no occasion allowed to
touch their persons, but prostrated themselves before them, and might
not enter their houses without first receiving permission.[25] Above
all, the system of taboo or _kapu_, as it was called in the Hawaiian
dialect,[26] oppressed the common people and tended to keep them in a
state of abject subjection to the nobles; for the prescriptions of the
system were numerous and vexatious, and the penalty for breaches of them
was death. If the shadow of a subject fell on a chief, the subject was
put to death; if he robed himself in the cloth or assumed the girdle of
a chief, he was put to death; if he climbed on the wall of a chief's
courtyard, he was put to death; if he stood upright instead of
prostrating himself when a vessel of water was brought for the chief to
wash with or his garments to wear, he was put to death; if he stepped on
the shadow of a chief's house with his head smeared with white clay, or
decked with a garland of flowers, or merely wetted with water, he was
put to death; if he slept with his wife on a taboo day, he was put to
death; if he made a noise during public prayers, he was put to death; if
a woman ate pig, or coco-nuts, or bananas, or lobster, or the fish
called _ulua_, she was put to death; if she went in a canoe on a taboo
day, she was put to death; if husband and wife ate together, they were
both put to death.[27]

[25] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 413; J. J. Jarves, _op. cit._ pp.
33 _sq._ Compare J. Cook, _Voyages_, vii. 137.

[26] In the Hawaiian dialect the ordinary Polynesian T is
pronounced K, and the Tongan B is pronounced P. Hence the Tongan
_taboo_ becomes in Hawaiian _kapoo_ (_kapu_). See E. Tregear,
_Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, p. xxiii.

[27] J. Remy, _op. cit._ pp. 159, 161, 167.

In Hawaii, as in other parts of Polynesia, the taboo formed an important
and essential part both of the religious and of the political system, of
which it was at once a strong support and a powerful instrument. The