“Tahori’s?” replied our host. “Nothing—only he must not touch glass.”
“Tabu?”
“Yes. He only helps occasionally in household work when Mauri is away. I got over the difficulty of his waiting upon me by giving him gloves in case he accidentally touched a tumbler or bottle; even with the gloves on he will not handle anything in the way of glass knowingly; the cook puts the things on that tray, and when he takes it back to the kitchen she will clear it.”
“I thought all that was dying out,” said Brent.
“So it is, but it still hangs about. Tahori is a South Island boy. I don’t know why the tabu about glass came about, makes it awkward for him as a servant.”
“No one knows,” said Brent. “I’ve seen chaps that were under tabu preventing them from eating oysters and others that daren’t touch the skin of a shark or the wood of such and such a tree, no one knows why.”
“What do they suppose would happen to them if they broke the tabu?” I asked.
“They couldn’t,” said Brent.
“Couldn’t?”
“No, they couldn’t. I’m talking of the real old Islanders whose minds haven’t been loosened up by missionaries and such, though I’m not so sure it wouldn’t hold good for the present-day ones too, and I’m saying that a chap like that couldn’t break his tabu not if he wanted to, not if his life depended on it; beliefs are pretty strong things, but this is something stronger even than a belief; maybe it’s the mixture of a custom and a belief, and that makes it have such a hold on the mind, but there it is—I’ve seen it.”