Consider the classic hypothetical scenario: Your house is on fire and you can take only three things with you before the entire structure becomes engulfed in flames. What would you take? Laptops and external hard drives aside, people's responses to this question differ wildly. This diversity results from people's flexibility in ascribing unique value to objects ranging from a hand-scrawled note from a loved one to a threadbare t-shirt that others might consider worthless.

这是一个经典的情景假设：你的房子失火了，在整个房子被大火吞噬之前，你只能带上三样东西逃走，你会带走什么？除了手提电脑和移动硬盘之外，人们的回答可谓五花八门。人们的回答之所以各不相同，是因为物品被附加的特殊价值因人而异，从一张至亲挚爱手写的纸条到一件别人可能认为一文不值的破T恤，都可以是某人心中的无价宝。

The critical quality that leads people to treat rookie cards like rosaries is that of the sacred, whereby an object becomes worthy of boundless reverence, commitment, and protection. Actually, it explains one side of the word “taboo” which few people realize. Taboo, the prohibition of an action based on the belief that such behavior is either too sacred and consecrated or too dangerous and accursed for ordinary individuals to undertake.

人们之所以会视新秀球星卡若念珠圣物般神圣，关键是这物件被赋予了无法衡量的意义，所以变得备受尊崇、珍爱和呵护——实际上，这种情况解释了“taboo（禁忌）”这个词鲜为人知的一面。“Taboo”，意为对某种行为的禁止——因为坚信这种行为要么太神圣要么太危险，做出该行为的普通人会受到诅咒，所以禁止该行为。

Generally, the prohibition that is inherent in a taboo includes the idea that its breach or defiance will be followed by some kind of trouble to the offender, such as lack of success in hunting or fishing, sickness, miscarriage, or death. In some cases proscription is the only way to avoid this danger; examples include rules against fishing or picking fruit at certain seasons and against walking or traveling in certain areas. Dietary restrictions are common, as are rules for the behavior of people facing important life events such as parturition, marriage, death, and rites of passage.

禁忌所蕴含的禁律通常包括这么一个观念：违反或者藐视禁忌会令违反者祸患临身，如打猎或捕鱼无甚收获，生病，流产，或者死亡。在某些情况下，限制行为是避免这些危险的唯一方法，例如制定一些禁止在某些季节捕鱼或采摘果实，以及禁止在某些区域行走或通过的规定。最常见的是各种饮食上的禁忌，对人们生命中重要事件的行为规范也不少，如对分娩、结婚、死亡和各种个人典礼中的规矩。

In other cases, the danger represented by the taboo can be overcome through ritual. This is often the case for taboos meant to protect communities and individuals from beings or situations that are simultaneously so powerful as to be inherently dangerous and so common that they are essentially unavoidable. For example, many cultures require persons who have been in physical contact with the dead to engage in a ritual cleansing. Many cultures also circumscribe physical contact with a woman who is menstruating—or, less often, a woman who is pregnant—because she is the locus of extremely powerful reproductive forces. Perhaps the most familiar resolution to this taboo is the Jewish practice of bathing in a mikvah after menstruation and parturition.

除了上述的情况，禁忌所象征的危险可以通过仪式来化解。这常常适用于那些目的在于保护群体和个人的禁忌，因为某些生灵或在某些情况下可能造成的威胁极大且太过常见而基本无法躲避，而人们相信这些禁忌可以保护他们免受伤害。例如，许多文化习俗都要求那些接触过尸体的人参加净身仪式。还有许多文化习俗限制人们解接触月经期的妇女，或者孕妇（这种情况较少），因为她们身上蕴含了极强的繁殖力。对此禁忌最为人熟知的化解方法也许是犹太人的习俗惯例，也就是月经和生产之后在浸礼池里沐浴。

Taboos that are meant to prevent the sacred from being defiled by the ordinary include those that prohibited ordinary people from touching the head—or even the shadow—of a Polynesian chief because doing so would compromise his mana, or sacred power. As the chief's mana was important in maintaining the ritual security of the community, such actions were believed to place the entire population at risk.

避免俗人亵渎神灵的禁忌，还包括禁止普通人触摸波利尼西亚首领的头部，甚至影子，因为这会削弱他的“mana（神力）”。由于首领的神力对于维持部落的仪礼安全至关重要，所以人们相信，上述做法会危害整个群体（编者注：“taboo”一词源于波利尼西亚文化，所以有关“禁忌”的解释会与波利尼西亚文化里的一些现象联系，在此用与波利尼西亚文化相关的例子来讲明“俗人亵渎神灵被视为禁忌”）。

There is broad agreement that the taboos current in any society tend to relate to objects and actions that are significant for the social order and that, as such, taboos belong to the general system of social control. Sigmund Freud provided perhaps the most ingenious explanation for the apparently irrational nature of taboos, positing that they were generated by ambivalent social attitudes and in effect represent forbidden actions for which there nevertheless exists a strong unconscious inclination.

人们普遍认为，现今，各个团体的禁忌都趋向于与那些对社会秩序有重大影响的事物和活动挂钩，这样看来，禁忌属于社会管理的范畴了。对于禁忌那显而易见的非理性本质，西格蒙德·弗洛伊德的解释也许是最独到的—— 他假设禁忌源于矛盾的社会态度，进而表现为种种禁忌行为，而事实上，这些行为都存在着强大的无意识倾向。