Franz Steiner.
Taboo.
Pelican. 1956
Ever since Captain Cook first used the word in his account of the Polynesians,
the strange phenomenon of taboo has fascinated laymen and scholars alike.
It has been absorbed into the language of psychology and
has been applied, often carelessly, to a wide and varied range of human customs and beliefs.
Franz Steiner’s now classic study examines critically the taboo theories
of Frazer, Freud, Lévy-Bruhl and others, and clears up much of the confusion surrounding a
mysterious facet of human behaviour.