But not the good things, the fine things, the choice things, such as pork, poultry, bananas, cocoanuts, the choicer varieties of fish, and so on.

By the tabu, all these were sacred to the men; the women spent their lives longing for them and wondering what they might taste like; and they died without finding out.
These rules, as you see, were quite simple and clear.

It was easy to remember them; and useful.

For the penalty for infringing any rule in the whole list was death.

Those women easily learned to put up with shark and taro and dog for a diet when the other things were so expensive.
It was death for any one to walk upon tabu'd ground; or defile a tabu'd thing with his touch; or fail in due servility to a chief; or step upon the king's shadow.