Taboo', a word used to indicate any object which by religious command may not be touched. The art and the practice were most common in the South Sea Islands. The taboo is applied not only to things which, because of their evil nature, it is unsafe to come in contact with, but also to things which are sacred. Thus, the person of the chief or king is usually tabooed, as is any piece of consecrated ground. In former times in Polynesia, where the taboo was most in force, the penalty for breaking it was often death; in minor cases, the penalty was a confiscation of the goods of the guilty man. Of course the practice was much abused, and it gave a priest or chief almost unlimited power over his people and enabled him by pronouncing a certain object tabooed, to gain possession of it for himself.