The taboo against entering the university library without permission

The taboo against entering the university library without permission arose when Ish's disproportionate anger at damage to the University Library taught the children to treat it as a protected, almost sacred place. Its authority came not from an established rule but from the force of his reaction, which Ish later recognized as an example of taboo.

The Incident at the University Library

During a long walk to the campus with the oldest boys, Ish fell asleep. Two of the boys loosened a board that he had nailed across a broken window, entered the stacks, and began throwing books onto the floor. The episode was not described as a deliberate challenge to Ish; the decisive change came when he discovered what they had done and felt horror at the violation of the Library.

How the Taboo Took Hold

Ish followed the boys and, outraged beyond reason, beat them. He later felt ashamed of himself, but believed that the unreasoning quality of his rage and horror had impressed them more deeply than the beating itself. The boys passed that impression on to younger children, and the Library remained safe. Its protection thus depended on a lesson transmitted through the community: the older children had seen Ish treat entry and disorder as a grave transgression, and the younger ones inherited that sense of prohibition.

Ish's Later Doubt

Ish had been pleased that the Library was safe, yet later wondered whether the children’s reverence for it was another taboo. His retrospective judgment holds two facts together: the books had been treated as a great treasure house worth protecting, but the force that secured their safety had begun in an irrational outburst rather than a reasoned instruction. The episode therefore makes the Library’s protected status both a means of preserving books and an example of how Ish’s own reactions could become unexamined rules for the next generation.