Taboo
The reverence with which burial places were regarded gave rise to the belief in the spirits of the dead as guardians, and this survives at the present day in the mysterious custom of “Taboo,” a Polynesian term which means “consecrated” or “set apart.”
It really has a double meaning: to consecrate, and to insure penalty, whereby dwellings are abandoned after the death of their owners in the supposition that they are sacred to the spirits of the departed.