tabling house

1. A gambling-house. "They have but drunke once together at the taverne, or met in the tennis court, or else turned into a tabling house, and played at dice and hazard one with the other." P. Holland: Plutarch , p. 185. 2. A boarding-house. tăb-li-năm, s. [Lat.] Roman Antiq .: An apartment in a Roman house in the center of the atrium, in which were deposited the genealogical records and archives, and all documents commemorating the exploits which had been performed by members of the family, or which were connected with the high offices which any of them had filled. ta-boô, tạ-bû', *ta-pû', 8. [South-Sea tabu; Maori tapu sacred.] 1. Lit. & Anthrop .: A custom formerly very prevalent in Polynesia and New Zealand of separating persons, places, or things from common use; applied also to the state or condition of being so separated. The taboo was e entially a religious ceremony, and could only be imposed by the priest, though it was employed in social and political affairs, as well as in matters distinctly religious. The idols, temples, persons and names of the king were taboo (or sacred), and almost everything offered in sacrifice was taboo to the use of the gods. Seasons of taboo (on the approach of some festival, before going to war, and in case of the illne of a chief), were either common or strict. During the former, the men were only required to abstain from their ordinary pursuits, and attend a religious ceremony morning and evening; during the latter, all fires and lights were extinguished, and no person, except those whose attendance was required at the temple was allowed out of doors. The taboo was imposed either by proclamation or by fixing certain marks to the places or things tabooed. The prohibitions and requisitions of the taboo were strictly enforced, and every breach of them punished with death, unle the delinquent had powerful friends who were either priests or chiefs. The king, sacred chiefs and priests seem to have been the only persons to whom the application of the taboo was easy; the great ma of the people were at no period of their existence free from its influence, and no circumstance in life could excuse disobedience to its commands, while, like many of the peculiar customs of lower races, it bore with peculiar hardship on women. A girl was not allowed to eat food that had been cooked at her father's fire, and a wife was forbidden to partake of what she had prepared for her husband and sons, and even to eat in the same room with them. In New Zealand, however, the custom was, in its influence, generally more power ful for good than for evil. The advance of civilization and the influence of the mi ionaries have done much to abolish it throughout the South Sea Islands, and even where it still lingers the old death penalty for its violation can be no longer enforced. 2. Fig .: Prohibition of social intercourse with. IMG:content-0740.png:[blocks in formation] "Art and poetry were tabooed both by my rank and my mother's sectarianism." -Kinsley : Alton Locke , ch. i.