THE  SAVAGE'S  DREAD   OF   INCEST 

Primitive  man  is  known  to  us  by  the  stages  of 
development  through  which  he  has  passed:  that 
is,  through  the  inanimate  monuments  and  imple- 
ments which  he  has  left  behind  for  us,  through 
our  knowledge  of  his  art,  his  religion  and  his  at- 
titude towards  life,  which  we  have  received  either 
directly  or  through  the  medium  of  legends,  myths 
and  fairy-tales;  and  through  the  remnants  of  his 
ways  of  thinking  that  survive  in  our  own  manners 
and  customs.  Moreover,  in  a  certain  sense  he 
is  still  our  contemporary :  there  are  people  whom 
we  still  consider  more  closely  related  to  primitive 
man  than  to  ourselves,  in  whom  we  therefore 
recognize  the  direct  descendants  and  representa- 
tives of  earlier  man.  We  can  thus  judge  the 
so-called  savage  and  semi-savage  races;  their 
psychic  life  assumes  a  peculiar  interest  for  us,  for 
we  can  recognize  in  their  psychic  life  a  well-pre- 
served, early  stage  of  our  own  development. 

l 

2  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

If  this  assumption  is  correct,  a  comparison  of 
the  "Psychology  of  Primitive  Races"  as  taught 
by  folklore,  with  the  psychology  of  the  neurotic 
as  it  has  become  known  through  psychoanalysis, 
will  reveal  numerous  points  of  correspondence 
and  throw  new  light  on  subjects  that  are  more 
or  less  familiar  to  us. 

For  outer  as  well  as  for  inner  reasons,  I  am 
choosing  for  this  comparison  those  tribes  which 
have  been  described  by  ethnographists  as  being 
most  backward  and  wretched:  the  aborigines  of 
the  youngest  continent,  namely  Australia,  whose 
fauna  has  also  preserved  for  us  so  much  that  is 
archaic  and  no  longer  to  be  found  elsewhere. 

The  aborigines  of  Australia  are  looked  upon 
as  a  peculiar  race  which  shows  neither  physical 
nor  linguistic  relationship  with  its  nearest  neigh- 
bors, the  Melanesian,  Polynesian  and  Malayan 
races.  They  do  not  build  houses  or  permanent 
huts;  they  do  not  cultivate  the  soil  or  keep  any 
domestic  animals  except  dogs;  and  they  do  not 
even  know  the  art  of  pottery.  They  live  exclu- 
sively on  the  flesh  of  all  sorts  of  animals  which 
they  kill  in  the  chase,  and  on  the  roots  which  they 
dig.  Kings  or  chieftains  are  unknown  among 
them,  and  all  communal  affairs  are  decided  by 
the  elders  in  assembly.  It  is  quite  doubtful 
whether  they  evince  any  traces  of  religion  in  the 
form  of  worship  of  higher  beings.     The  tribes 

THE  SAVAGE'S  DREAD  OF  INCEST  3 

living  in  the  interior  who  have  to  contend  with 
the  greatest  vicissitudes  of  life  owing  to  a  scarcity 
of  water,  seem  in  every  way  more  primitive  than 
those  who  live  near  the  coast. 

We  surely  would  not  expect  that  these  poor, 
naked  cannibals  should  be  moral  in  their  sex  life 
according  to  our  ideas,  or  that  they  should  have 
imposed  a  high  degree  of  restriction  upon  their 
sexual  impulses.  And  yet  we  learn  that  they 
have  considered  it  their  duty  to  exercise  the  most 
searching  care  and  the  most  painful  rigor  in 
guarding  against  incestuous  sexual  relations. 
In  fact  their  whole  social  organization  seems  to 
serve  this  object  or  to  have  been  brought  into  re- 
lation with  its  attainment. 

Among  the  Australians  the  system  of  Totem- 
ism  takes  the  place  of  all  religious  and  social  in- 
stitutions. Australian  tribes  are  divided  into 
smaller  septs  or  clans,  each  taking  the  name  of 
its  totem.  Now  what  is  a  totem?  As  a  rule  it  is 
an  animal,  either  edible  and  harmless,  or  danger- 
ous and  feared;  more  rarely  the  totem  is  a  plant 
or  a  force  of  nature  (rain,  water),  which  stands 
in  a  peculiar  relation  to  the  whole  clan.  The 
totem  is  first  of  all  the  tribal  ancestor  of  the  clan, 
as  well  as  its  tutelary  spirit  and  protector;  it 
sends  oracles  and,  though  otherwise  dangerous, 
the  totem  knows  and  spares  its  children.  The 
members  of  a  totem  are  therefore  under  a  sacred 

4  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

obligation  not  to  kill  (destroy)  their  totem,  to 
abstain  from  eating  its  meat  or  from  any  other 
enjoyment  of  it.  Any  violation  of  these  prohibi- 
tions is  automatically  punished.  The  character 
of  a  totem  is  inherent  not  only  in  a  single  animal 
or  a  single  being  but  in  all  the  members  of  the 
species.  From  time  to  time  festivals  are  held 
at  which  the  members  of  a  totem  represent  or 
imitate,  in  ceremonial  dances,  the  movements  and 
characteristics  of  their  totems. 

The  totem  is  hereditary  either  through  the  ma- 
ternal or  the  paternal  line;  (maternal  transmis- 
sion probably  always  preceded  and  was  only  later 
supplanted  by  the  paternal) .  The  attachment  to 
a  totem  is  the  foundation  of  all  the  social  obliga- 
tions of  an  Australian :  it  extends  on  the  one  hand 
beyond  the  tribal  relationship,  and  on  the  other 
hand  it  supersedes  consanguinous  relationship.1 

The  totem  is  not  limited  to  district  or  to  lo- 
cality; the  members  of  a  totem  may  live  sepa- 
rated from  one  another  and  on  friendly  terms 
with  adherents  of  other  totems.2 

iFrazer,  "Totemism  and  Exogamy,"  Vol.  I,  p.  53.  "The 
totem  bond  is  stronger  than  the  bond  of  blood  or  family  in  the 
modern  sense." 

2  This  very  brief  extract  of  the  totemic  system  cannot  be  left 
without  some  elucidation  and  without  discussing  its  limitations. 
The  name  Totem  or  Totara  was  first  learned  from  the  North 
American  Indians  by  the  Englishman,  J.  Long,  in  1791.  The 
subject  has  gradually  acquired  great  scientific  interest  and  has 
called  forth  a  copious  literature.  I  refer  especially  to  "Totemism 
and  Exogamy"   by  J.  G.  Frazer,  4  vols.,  1910,  and  the  books 

THE  SAVAGE'S  DREAD  OF  INCEST  5 

And  now,  finally,  we  must  consider  that  pe- 
culiarity of  the  totemic  system  which  attracts 
the  interest  of  the  psychoanalyst.  Almost  every- 
where the  totem  prevails  there  also  exists  the 

and  articles  of  Andrew  Lang  ("The  Secret  of  Totem,"  1905). 
The  credit  for  having  recognized  the  significance  of  totemism  for 
the  ancient  history  of  man  belongs  to  the  Scotchman,  J.  Ferguson 
MacLennan  {Fortnightly  Review,  1869-70).  Exterior  to  Aus- 
tralia, totemic  institutions  were  found  and  are  still  observed 
among  North  American  Indians,  as  well  as  among  the  races  of 
the  Polynesian  Islands  group,  in  East  India,  and  in  a  large  part 
of  Africa.  Many  traces  and  survivals  otherwise  hard  to  interpret 
lead  to  the  conclusion  that  totemism  also  once  existed  among  the 
aboriginal  Aryan  and  Semitic  races  of  Europe,  so  that  many  in- 
vestigators are  inclined  to  recognize  in  totemism  a  necessary  phase 
of  human  development  through  which  every  race  has  passed. 

How  then  did  prehistoric  man  come  to  acquire  a  totem;  that 
is,  how  did  he  come  to  make  his  descent  from  this  or  that  animal 
foundation  of  his  social  duties  and,  as  we  shall  hear,  of  his  sexual 
restrictions  as  well?  Many  different  theories  have  been  advanced 
to  explain  this,  a  review  of  which  the  reader  may  find  in  Wundt's 
"Volkerpsychologie"  (Vol.  II,  Mythus  und  Religion). 

I  promise  soon  to  make  the  problem  of  totemism  a  subject  of 
special  study  in  which  an  effort  will  be  made  to  solve  it  by  apply- 
ing the  psychoanalytic  method.  (Cf.  The  fourth  chapter  of  this 
work,) 

Not  only  is  the  theory  of  totemism  controversial,  but  the  very 
facts  concerning  it  are  hardly  to  be  expressed  in  such  general 
statements  as  were  attempted  above.  There  is  hardly  an  asser- 
tion to  which  one  would  not  have  to  add  exceptions  and  contra- 
dictions. But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  even  the  most  prim- 
itive and  conservative  races  are,  in  a  certain  sense,  old,  and  have 
a  long  period  behind  them  during  which  whatsoever  was  aborig- 
inal with  them  has  undergone  much  development  and  distortion. 
Thus  among  those  races  who  still  evince  it,  we  find  totemism  to- 
day in  the  most  manifold  states  of  decay  and  disintegration;  we 
observe  that  fragments  of  it  have  passed  over  to  other  social  and 
religious  institutions;  or  it  may  exist  in  fixed  forms  but  far  re- 
moved from  its  original  nature.  The  difficulty  then  consists  in 
the  fact  that  it  is  not  altogether  easy  to  decide  what  in  the  actual 
conditions  is  to  be  taken  as  a  faithful  copy  of  the  significant  past 
and  what  is  to  be  considered  as  a  secondary  distortion  of  it. 

6  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

law  that  the  members  of  the  same  totem  are  not 
allowed  to  enter  into  sexual  relations  with  each 
other;  that  is,  that  they  cannot  marry  each  other. 
This  represents  the  exogamy  which  is  associated 
with  the  totem. 

This  sternly  maintained  prohibition  is  very  re- 
markable. There  is  nothing  to  account  for  it  in 
anything  that  we  have  hitherto  learned  from  the 
conception  of  the  totem  or  from  any  of  its  at- 
tributes; that  is,  we  do  not  understand  how  it 
happened  to  enter  the  system  of  totemism.  We 
are  therefore  not  astonished  if  some  investigators 
simply  assume  that  at  first  exogamy — both  as  to 
its  origin  and  to  its  meaning— had  nothing  to  do 
with  totemism,  but  that  it  was  added  to  it  at 
some  time  without  any  deeper  association,  when 
marriage  restrictions  proved  necessary.  How- 
ever that  may  be,  the  association  of  totemism 
and  exogamy  exists,  and  proves  to  be  very  strong. 

Let  us  elucidate  the  meaning  of  this  prohibi- 
tion through  further  discussion. 

a)  The  violation  of  the  prohibition  is  not  left 
to  what  is,  so  to  speak,  an  automatic  punishment, 
as  is  the  case  with  other  violations  of  the  prohibi- 
tions of  the  totem  (e.g.,  not  to  kill  the  totem 
animal),  but  is  most  energetically  avenged  by 
the  whole  tribe  as  if  it  were  a  question  of  warding 
off  a  danger  that  threatens  the  community  as  a 
whole  or  a  guilt  that  weighs  upon  all.     A  few 

THE  SAVAGE'S  DREAD  OF  INCEST  7 

sentences  from  Frazer's  book 3  will  show  how 
seriously  such  trespasses  are  treated  by  these 
savages  who,  according  to  our  standard,  are 
otherwise  very  immoral. 

"In  Australia  the  regular  penalty  for  sexual 
intercourse  with  a  person  of  a  forbidden  clan  is 
death.  It  matters  not  whether  the  woman  is 
of  the  same  local  group  or  has  been  captured  in 
war  from  another  tribe ;  a  man  of  the  wrong  clan 
who  uses  her  as  his  wife  is  hunted  down  and 
killed  by  his  clansmen,  and  so  is  the  woman; 
though  in  some  cases,  if  they  succeed  in  eluding 
capture  for  a  certain  time,  the  offense  may  be 
condoned.  In  the  Ta-Ta-thi  tribe,  New  South 
Wales,  in  the  rare  cases  which  occur,  the  man  is 
killed,  but  the  woman  is  only  beaten  or  speared, 
or  both,  till  she  is  nearly  dead;  the  reason  given 
for  not  actually  killing  her  being  that  she  was 
probably  coerced.  Even  in  casual  amours  the 
clan  prohibitions  are  strictly  observed ;  any  viola- 
tions of  these  prohibitions  '  are  regarded  with 
the  utmost  abhorrence  and  are  punished  by 
death'  (Howitt)." 

b)  As  the  same  severe  punishment  is  also 
meted  out  for  temporary  love  affairs  which  have 
not  resulted  in  childbirth,  the  assumption  of 
other  motives,  perhaps  of  a  practical  nature,  be- 
comes improbable. 

8  Frazer,  1.  c.  p.  54. 

8  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

c)  As  the  totem  is  hereditary  and  is  not 
changed  by  marriage,  the  results  of  the  prohibi- 
tion, for  instance  in  the  case  of  maternal  heredity, 
are  easily  perceived.  If,  for  example,  the  man 
belongs  to  a  clan  with  the  totem  of  the  Kangaroo 
and  marries  a  woman  of  the  Emu  totem,  the  chil- 
dren, both  boys  and  girls,  are  all  Emu.  Accord- 
ing to  the  totem  law  incestuous  relations  with  his 
mother  and  his  sister,  who  are  Emu  like  himself, 
are  therefore  made  impossible  for  a  son  of  this 
marriage.4 

d)  But  we  need  only  a  reminder  to  realize 
that  the  exogamy  connected  with  the  totem  ac- 
complishes more;  that  is,  aims  at  more  than  the 
prevention  of  incest  with  the  mother  or  the  sisters. 
It  also  makes  it  impossible  for  the  man  to  have 
sexual  union  with  all  the  women  of  his  own  group, 
with  a  number  of  females,  therefore,  who  are  not 
consanguinously  related  to  him,  by  treating  all 
these  women  like  blood  relations.  The  psycho- 
logical justification  for  this  extraordinary  restric- 
tion, which  far  exceeds  anything  comparable  to 

4  But  the  father,  who  is  a  Kangaroo,  is  free — at  least  under  this 
prohibition — to  commit  incest  with  his  daughters,  who  are  Emu. 
In  the  case  of  paternal  inheritance  of  the  totem  the  father  would 
be  Kangaroo  as  well  as  the  children;  then  incest  with  the  daugh- 
ters would  be  forbidden  to  the  father  and  incest  with  the  mother 
would  be  left  open  to  the  son.  These  consequences  of  the  totem 
prohibition  seem  to  indicate  that  the  maternal  inheritance  is  older 
than  the  paternal  one,  for  there  are  grounds  for  assuming  that  the 
totem  prohibitions  are  directed  first  of  all  against  the  incestuous 
desires  of  the  son. 

THE  SAVAGE'S  DREAD  OF  INCEST  9 

it  among  civilized  races,  is  not,  at  first,  evident. 
All  we  seem  to  understand  is  that  the  role  of  the 
totem  (the  animal)  as  ancestor  is  taken  very  seri- 
ously. Everybody  descended  from  the  same 
totem  is  consanguinous ;  that  is,  of  one  family; 
and  in  this  family  the  most  distant  grades  of  re- 
lationship are  recognized  as  an  absolute  obstacle 
to  sexual  union. 

Thus  these  savages  reveal  to  us  an  unusually 
high  grade  of  incest  dread  or  incest  sensitiveness, 
combined  with  the  peculiarity,  which  we  do  not 
very  well  understand,  of  substituting  the  totem 
relationship  for  the  real  blood  relationship.  But 
we  must  not  exaggerate  this  contradiction  too 
much,  and  let  us  bear  in  mind  that  the  totem 
prohibitions  include  real  incest  as  a  special  case. 

In  what  manner  the  substitution  of  the  totem 
group  for  the  actual  family  has  come  about  re- 
mains a  riddle,  the  solution  of  which  is  perhaps 
bound  up  with  the  explanation  of  the  totem  it- 
self. Of  course  it  must  be  remembered  that  with 
a  certain  freedom  of  sexual  intercourse,  extend- 
ing beyond  the  limitations  of  matrimony,  the 
blood  relationship,  and  with  it  also  the  prevention 
of  incest,  becomes  so  uncertain  that  we  cannot 
dispense  with  some  other  basis  for  the  prohibition. 
It  is  therefore  not  superfluous  to  note  that  the 
customs  of  Australians  recognize  social  condi- 
tions and  festive  occasions  at  which  the  exclusive 

10  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

conjugal  right  of  a  man  to  a  woman  is  violated. 
The  linguistic  custom  of  these  tribes,  as  well 
as  of  most  totem  races,  reveals  a  peculiarity  which 
undoubtedly  is  pertinent  in  this  connection.  For 
the  designations  of  relationship  of  which  they 
make  use  do  not  take  into  consideration  the  rela- 
tion between  two  individuals,  but  between  an 
individual  and  his  group ;  they  belong,  according 
to  the  expression  of  L.  H.  Morgan,  to  the  "class- 
ifying" system.  That  means  that  a  man  calls 
not  only  his  begetter  "father"  but  also  every  other 
man  who,  according  to  the  tribal  regulations, 
might  have  married  his  mother  and  thus  become 
his  father;  he  calls  "mother"  not  only  the  woman 
who  bore  him  but  also  every  other  woman  who 
might  have  become  his  mother  without  violation 
of  the  tribal  laws;  he  calls  "brothers"  and  "sis- 
ters" not  only  the  children  of  his  real  parents, 
but  also  the  children  of  all  the  persons  named 
who  stand  in  the  parental  group  relation  with 
him,  and  so  on.  The  kinship  names  which  two 
Australians  give  each  other  do  not,  therefore, 
necessarily  point  to  a  blood  relationship  between 
them,  as  they  would  have  to  according  to  the 
custom  of  our  language ;  they  signify  much  more 
the  social  than  the  physical  relations.  An  ap- 
proach to  this  classifying  system  is  perhaps  to  be 
found  in  our  nursery,  when  the  child  is  induced  to 
greet  every  male  and  female  friend  of  the  parents 

THE  SAVAGE'S  DREAD  OF  INCEST  11 

as  "uncle"  and  "aunt,"  or  it  may  be  found  in  a 
transferred  sense  when  we  speak  of  "Brothers 
in  Apollo/'  or  "Sisters  in  Christ." 

,  The  explanation  of  this  linguistic  custom, 
which  seems  so  strange  to  us,  is  simple  if  looked 
upon  as  a  remnant  and  indication  of  those  mar- 
riage institutions  which  the  Rev.  L.  Fison  has 
called  "group  marriage,"  characterized  by  a  num- 
ber of  men  exercising  conjugal  rights  over  a 
number  of  women.  The  children  of  this  group 
marriage  would  then  rightly  look  upon  each  other 
as  brothers  and  sisters  although  not  born  of  the 
same  mother,  and  would  take  all  the  men  of  the 
group  for  their  fathers. 

Although  a  number  of  authors,  as,  for  instance, 
B.  Westermarck  in  his  "History  of  Human  Mar- 
riage," 5  oppose  the  conclusions  which  others  have 
drawn  from  the  existence  of  group-relationship 
names,  the  best  authorities  on  the  Australian 
savages  are  agreed  that  the  classiflcatory  rela- 
tionship names  must  be  considered  as  survivals 
from  the  period  of  group  marriages.  And,  ac- 
cording to  Spencer  and  Gillen,6  a  certain  form  of 
group  marriage  can  be  established  as  still  exist- 
ing to-day  among  the  tribes  of  the  Urabunna 
and  the  Dieri.  Group  marriage  therefore  pre- 
ceded  individual   marriage   among   these   races 

5  Second  edition,  1902. 

«  "The  Native  Tribes  of  Central  Australia,"  London,  1899. 

12  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

and  did  not  disappear  without  leaving  distinct 
traces  in  language  and  custom. 

But  if  we  replace  individual  marriage,  we  can 
then  grasp  the  apparent  excess  of  cases  of  incest 
shunning  which  we  have  met  among  these  same 
races.  The  totem  exogamy,  or  prohibition  of 
sexual  intercourse  between  members  of  the  same 
clan,  seemed  the  most  appropriate  means  for  the 
prevention  of  group  incest ;  and  this  totem  exog- 
amy then  became  fixed  and  long  survived  its 
original  motivation. 

Although  we  believe  that  we  understand  the 
motives  of  the  marriage  restrictions  among  the 
Australian  savages,  we  have  still  to  learn  that 
the  actual  conditions  reveal  a  still  more  bewilder- 
ing complication.  For  there  are  only  few  tribes 
in  Australia  which  show  no  other  prohibition  be- 
sides the  totem  barrier.  Most  of  them  are  so 
organized  that  they  fall  into  two  divisions  which 
have  been  called  marriage  classes,  or  phratries. 
Each  of  these  marriage  groups  is  exogamous  and 
includes  a  majority  of  totem  groups.  Usually 
each  marriage  group  is  again  divided  into  two 
sub-classes  (sub-phratries),  and  the  whole  tribe 
is  therefore  divided  into  four  classes;  the  sub- 
classes thus  standing  between  the  phratries  and 
the  totem  groups. 

The  typical  and  often  very  intricate  scheme 

THE  SAVAGE'S  DREAD  OF  INCEST  13 

of  organization  of  an  Australian  tribe  therefore 
looks  as  follows  : 

PhRATRIES      . 

a  b 

SUBPHRATRIES  /  \ \ 

c  o/  e 

TOTEW 

Q6V        6ET1  123       456 

The  twelve  totem  groups  are  brought  under! 
four  subclasses  and  two  main  classes.  All  the 
divisions  are  exogamous.7  The  subclass  c  forms 
an  exogamous  unit  with  e,  and  the  subclass  d 
with  f .  The  success  or  the  tendency  of  these  ar- 
rangements is  quite  obvious;  they  serve  as  a  fur- 
ther restriction  on  the  marriage  choice  and  on 
sexual  freedom.  If  there  were  only  these  twelve 
totem  groups — assuming  the  same  number  of 
people  in  each  group — every  member  of  a  group 
would  have  Hi  2  of  all  the  women  of  the  tribe  to 
choose  from.  The  existence  of  the  two  phratries 
reduces  this  number  to  %2  or  Vi\  a  man  of  the 
totem  a  can  only  marry  a  woman  from  the  groups 
1  to  6.  With  the  introduction  of  the  two  sub- 
classes the  selection  sinks  to  %2  or  %;  a  man  of 

7  The  number  of  totems  is  arbitrarily  chosen. 

14  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

the  totem  <*  must  limit  his  marriage  choice  to 
the  woman  of  the  totems  4,  5,  6. 

The  historical  relations  of  the  marriage  classes 
— of  which  there  are  found  as  many  as  eight  in 
some  tribes — are  quite  unexplained.  We  only 
see  that  these  arrangements  seek  to  attain  the 
same  object  as  the  totem  exogamy,  and  even 
strive  for  more.  But  whereas  the  totem  exog- 
amy makes  the  impression  of  a  sacred  statute 
which  sprang  into  existence,  no  one  knows  how, 
and  is  therefore  a  custom,  the  complicated  insti- 
tutions of  the  marriage  classes,  with  their  sub- 
divisions and  the  conditions  attached  to  them, 
seem  to  spring  from  legislation  with  a  definite 
aim  in  view.  They  have  perhaps  taken  up  afresh 
the  task  of  incest  prohibition  because  the  influ- 
ence of  the  totem  was  on  the  wane.  And  while 
the  totem  system  is,  as  we  know,  the  basis  of  all 
other  social  obligations  and  moral  restrictions  of 
the  tribe,  the  importance  of  the  phratries  gener- 
ally ceases  when  the  regulation  of  the  marriage 
choice  at  which  they  aimed  has  been  accom- 
plished. 

In  the  further  development  of  the  classifica- 
tion of  the  marriage  system  there  seems  to  be  a 
tendency  to  go  beyond  the  prevention  of  natural 
and  group  incest,  and  to  prohibit  marriage  be- 
tween more  distant  group  relations,  in  a  manner 
similar  to  the  Catholic  church,  which  extended 

THE  SAVAGE'S  DREAD  OF  INCEST  15 

the  marriage  prohibitions  always  in  force  for 
brother  and  sisters,  to  cousins,  and  invented  for 
them  the  grades  of  spiritual  kinship.8 

It  would  hardly  serve  our  purpose  to  go  into 
the  extraordinarily  intricate  and  unsettled  dis- 
cussion concerning  the  origin  and  significance  of 
the  marriage  classes,  or  to  go  more  deeply  into 
their  relation  to  totemism.  It  is  sufficient  for  our 
purposes  to  point  out  the  great  care  expended 
by  the  Australians  as  well  as  by  other  savage 
people  to  prevent  incest.9  We  must  say  that 
these  savages  are  even  more  sensitive  to  incest 
than  we,  perhaps  because  they  are  more  subject 
to  temptations  than  we  are,  and  hence  require 
more  extensive  protection  against  it. 

But  the  incest  dread  of  these  races  does  not 
content  itself  with  the  creation  of  the  institutions 
described,  which,  in  the  main,  seem  to  be  directed 
against  group  incest.  We  must  add  a  series  of 
"customs"  which  watch  over  the  individual  be- 
havior to  near  relatives  in  our  sense,  which  are 
maintained  with  almost  religious  severity  and  of 
whose  object  there  can  hardly  be  any  doubt. 
These  customs  or  custom  prohibitions  may  be 
called  "avoidances."     They  spread  far  beyond 

8  Article  "Totemism"  in  Encyclopedia  Britannica,  eleventh  edi- 
tion, 1911  (A.  Lang). 

Q  Storfer  has  recently  drawn  special  attention  to  this  point  in 
his  monograph:  "Parricide  as  a  Special  Case.  Papers  on  Ap- 
plied Psychic  Investigation,"  No.  12,  Vienna,  1911. 

16  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

the  Australian  totem  races.  But  here  again  I 
must  ask  the  reader  to  be  content  with  a  frag- 
mentary excerpt  from  the  abundant  material. 

Such  restrictive  prohibitions  are  directed  in 
Melanesia  against  the  relations  of  boys  with  their 
mothers  and  sisters.  Thus,  for  instance,  on 
Lepers  Island,  one  of  the  New  Hebrides,  the  boy 
leaves  his  maternal  home  at  a  fixed  age  and 
moves  to  the  "clubhouse,"  where  he  then  regu- 
larly sleeps  and  takes  his  meals.  He  may  still 
visit  his  home  to  ask  for  food ;  but  if  his  sister  is 
at  home  he  must  go  away  before  he  has  eaten;  if 
no  sister  is  about  he  mav  sit  down  to  eat  near  the 
door.  If  brother  and  sister  meet  by  chance  in 
the  open,  she  must  run  away  or  turn  aside  and 
conceal  herself.  If  the  boy  recognizes  certain 
footprints  in  the  sand  as  his  sister's  he  is  not  to 
follow  them,  nor  is  she  to  follow  his.  He  will 
not  even  mention  her  name  and  will  guard  against 
using  any  current  word  if  it  forms  part  of  her 
name.  This  avoidance,  which  begins  with  the 
ceremony  of  puberty,  is  strictly  observed  for  life. 
The  reserve  between  mother  and  son  increases 
with  age  and  generally  is  more  obligatory  on  the 
mother's  side.  If  she  brings  him  something  to 
eat  she  does  not  give  it  to  him  herself  but  puts  it 
down  before  him,  nor  does  she  address  him  in  the 
familiar  manner  of  mother  and  son,  but  uses  the 
formal  address.     Similar  customs  obtain  in  New 

THE  SAVAGE'S  DREAD  OF  INCEST  17 

Caledonia.  If  brother  and  sister  meet,  she  flees 
into  the  bush  and  he  passes  by  without  turning 
his  head  toward  her.10 

On  the  Gazella  Peninsula  in  New  Britain  a 
sister,  beginning  with  her  marriage,  may  no 
longer  speak  with  her  brother,  nor  does  she  utter 
his  name  but  designates  him  by  means  of  a  cir- 
cumlocution.11 

In  New  Mecklenburg  some  cousins  are  subject 
to  such  restrictions,  which  also  apply  to  brothers 
and  sisters.  They  may  neither  approach  each 
other,  shake  hands,  nor  give  each  other  presents, 
though  they  may  talk  to  each  other  at  a  distance 
of  several  paces.  The  penalty  for  incest  with  a 
sister  is  death  through  hanging.12 

These  rules  of  avoidance  are  especially  severe 
in  the  Fiji  Islands  where  they  concern  not  only 
consanguinous  sisters  but  group  sisters  as  well. 
To  hear  that  these  savages  hold  sacred  orgies  in 
which  persons  of  just  these  forbidden  degrees 
of  kinship  seek  sexual  union  would  seem  still 
more  peculiar  to  us,  if  we  did  not  prefer  to  make 
use  of  this  contradiction  to  explain  the  prohibi- 
tion instead  of  being  astonished  at  it.13 

1°  R.  H.  Codrington,  "The  Melanesians,"  also  Frazer:  "Totemism 
and  Exogamy,"  Vol.  I,  p.  77. 

ii  Frazer,  1.  c.  II,  p.  124,  according  to  Kleintischen:  The  In- 
habitants of  the  Coast  of  the  Gazelle  Peninsula. 

12  Frazer,  1.  c.  II,  p.  131,  according  to  P.  G.  Peckel  in  An- 
thropes,  1908. 

13  Fraser,  1.  c.  II,  p.  147,  according  to  the  Rev.  L.  Fison. 

18  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

Among  the  Battas  of  Sumatra  these  laws  of 
avoidance  affect  all  near  relationships.  For  in- 
stance, it  would  be  most  offensive  for  a  Battan 
to  accompany  his  own  sister  to  an  evening  party. 
A  brother  will  feel  most  uncomfortable  in  the 
company  of  his  sister  even  when  other  persons  are 
also  present.  If  either  comes  into  the  house,  the 
other  prefers  to  leave.  Nor  will  a  father  remain 
alone  in  the  house  with  his  daughter  any  more 
than  the  mother  with  her  son.  The  Dutch  mis- 
sionary who  reported  these  customs  added  that 
unfortunately  he  had  to  consider  them  well 
founded.  It  is  assumed  without  question  by 
these  races  that  a  man  and  a  woman  left 
alone  together  will  indulge  in  the  most  ex- 
treme intimacy,  and  as  they  expect  all  kinds 
of  punishments  and  evil  consequences  from 
consanguinous  intercourse  they  do  quite  right 
to  avoid  all  temptations  by  means  of  such  pro- 
hibitions.14 

Among  the  Barongos  in  Delagoa  Bay,  in 
Africa,  the  most  rigorous  precautions  are  di- 
rected, curiously  enough,  against  the  sister-in- 
law,  the  wife  of  the  brother  of  one's  own  wife. 
If  a  man  meets  this  person  who  is  so  dangerous 
to  him,  he  carefully  avoids  her.  He  does  not 
dare  to  eat  out  of  the  same  dish  with  her;  he 
speaks  only  timidly  to  her,  does  not  dare  to  enter 

14  Frazer,  1.  c.  II,  p.  189. 

THE  SAVAGE'S  DREAD  OF  INCEST  19 

her  hut,  and  greets  her  only  with  a  trembling 
voice.15 

Among  the  Akamba  (or  Wakamba)  in  British 
East  Africa,  a  law  of  avoidance  is  in  force  which 
one  would  have  expected  to  encounter  more  fre- 
quently. A  girl  must  carefully  avoid  her  own 
father  between  the  time  of  her  puberty  and  her 
marriage.  She  hides  herself  if  she  meets  him 
on  the  street  and  never  attempts  to  sit  down  next 
to  him,  behaving  in  this  way  right  up  to  her  en- 
gagement. But  after  her  marriage  no  further 
obstacle  is  put  in  the  way  of  her  social  intercourse 
with  her  father.16 

The  most  widespread  and  strictest  avoidance, 
which  is  perhaps  the  most  interesting  one  for 
civilized  races,  is  that  which  restricts  the  social 
relations-  between  a  man  and  his  mother-in-law. 
It  is  quite  general  in  Australia,  but  it  is  also  in 
force  among  the  Melanesian,  Polynesian  and 
Negro  races  of  Africa  as  far  as  the  traces  of 
totemism  and  group  relationship  reach,  and  prob- 
ably further  still.  Among  some  of  these  races 
similar  prohibitions  exist  against  the  harmless 
social  intercourse  of  a  wife  with  her  father-in-law, 
but  these  are  by  far  not  so  constant  or  so  serious. 
In  a  few  cases  both  parents-in-law  become  ob- 
jects of  avoidance. 

15  Frazer,  I.  c.  II,  p.  388,  according  to  Junod. 
is  Frazer,  1.  c.  II,  p.  424. 

20  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

As  we  are  less  interested  in  the  ethnographic 
dissemination  than  in  the  substance  and  the  pur- 
pose of  the  mother-in-law  avoidance,  I  will  here 
also  limit  myself  to  a  few  examples. 

On  the  Banks  Island  these  prohibitions  are 
very  severe  and  painfully  exact.  A  man  will 
avoid  the  proximity  of  his  mother-in-law  as  she 
avoids  his.  If  they  meet  by  chance  on  a  path, 
the  woman  steps  aside  and  turns  her  back  until 
he  is  passed,  or  he  does  the  same. 

In  Vanna  Lava  (Port  Patterson)  a  man  will 
not  even  walk  behind  his  mother-in-law  along  the 
beach  until  the  rising  tide  has  washed  away  the 
trace  of  her  foot-steps.  But  they  may  talk  to 
each  other  at  a  certain  distance.  It  is  quite  out 
of  the  question  that  he  should  ever  pronounce 
the  name  of  his  mother-in-law,  or  she  his.17 

On  the  Solomon  Islands,  beginning  with  his 
marriage,  a  man  must  neither  see  nor  speak  with 
his  mother-in-law.  If  he  meets  her  he  acts  as  if 
he  did  not  know  her  and  runs  away  as  fast  as  he 
can  in  order  to  hide  himself.18 

Among  the  Zulu  Kaffirs  custom  demands  that 
a  man  should  be  ashamed  of  his  mother-in-law 
and  that  he  should  do  everything  to  avoid  her 
company.     He  does  not  enter  a  hut  in  which  she 

17  Frazer,  1.  c.  II,  p.  76. 

is  Frazer,  1.  c.  II,  p.  113,  according  to  C.  Ribbe:    "Two  Years 
among  the  Cannibals  of  the  Solomon  Islands,"  1905. 

THE  SAVAGE'S  DREAD  OF  INCEST  21 

is,  and  when  they  meet  he  or  she  goes  aside,  she 
perhaps  hiding  behind  a  bush  while  he  holds  his 
shield  before  his  face.  If  they  cannot  avoid  each 
other  and  the  woman  has  nothing  with  which  to 
cover  herself,  she  at  least  binds  a  bunch  of  grass 
around  her  head  in  order  to  satisfy  the  ceremon- 
ial requirements.  Communication  between  them 
must  either  be  made  through  a  third  person  or 
else  they  may  shout  at  each  other  at  a  consider- 
able distance  if  they  have  some  barrier  between 
them  as,  for  instance,  the  enclosure  of  a  kraal. 
Neither  may  utter  the  other's  name.19 

Among  the  Basogas,  a  negro  tribe  living  in  the 
region  of  the  Nile  sources,  a  man  may  talk  to  his 
mother-in-law  only  if  she  is  in  another  room  of 
the  house  and  is  not  visible  to  him.  Moreover, 
this  race  abominates  incest  to  such  an  extent  as 
not  to  let  it  go  unpunished  even  among  domestic 
animals.20 

Whereas  all  observers  have  interpreted  the 
purpose  and  meaning  of  the  avoidances  between 
near  relatives  as  protective  measures  against  in- 
cest, different  interpretations  have  been  given  for 
those  prohibitions  which  concern  the  relationship 
with  the  mother-in-law.  It  was  quite  incompre- 
hensible why  all  these  races  should  manifest  such 
great  fear  of  temptation  on  the  part  of  the  man 

i»  Frazer,  1.  c.  II,  p.  385. 
20  Frazer,  1.  c.  II,  p.  461. 

22  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

for  an  elderly  woman,  old  enough  to  be  his 
mother.21 

The  same  objection  was  also  raised  against  the 
conception  of  Fison  who  called  attention  to  the 
fact  that  certain  marriage  class  systems  show 
a  gap  in  that  they  make  marriage  between  a  man 
and  his  mother-in-law  theoretically  not  impossi- 
ble and  that  a  special  guarantee  was  therefore 
necessary  to  guard  against  this  possibility. 

Sir  J.  Lubbock,  in  his  book  "The  Origin  of 
Civilization,"  traces  back  the  behavior  of  the 
mother-in-law  toward  the  son-in-law  to  the 
former  "marriage  by  capture."  "As  long  as  the 
capture  of  women  actually  took  place,  the  in- 
dignation of  the  parents  was  probably  serious 
enough.  When  nothing  but  symbols  of  this 
form  of  marriage  survived,  the  indignation  of 
the  parents  was  also  symbolized  and  this  custom 
continued  after  its  origin  had  been  forgotten." 
Crawley  has  found  it  easy  to  show  how  little  this 
tentative  explanation  agrees  with  the  details  of 
actual  observation. 

E.  B.  Tylor  thinks  that  the  treatment  of  the 
son-in-law  on  the  part  of  the  mother-in-law  is 
nothing  more  than  a  form  of  "cutting"  on  the 
part  of  the  woman's  family.  The  man  counts  as 
a  stranger,  and  this  continues  until  the  first  child 
is  born.     But  even  if  no  account  is  taken  of  cases 

21  V.  Crawley:  "The  Mystic  Rose,"  London,  1902,  p.  405. 

THE  SAVAGE'S  DREAD  OF  INCEST  23 

in  which  this  last  condition  does  not  remove  the 
prohibition,  this  explanation  is  subject  to  the  ob- 
jection that  it  does  not  throw  any  light  on  the 
custom  dealing  with  the  relation  between  mother- 
in-law  and  son-in-law,  thus  overlooking  the  sex- 
ual factor,  and  that  it  does  not  take  into  account 
the  almost  sacred  loathing  which  finds  expres- 
sion in  the  laws  of  avoidance.22 

A  Zulu  woman  who  was  asked  about  the  basis 
for  this  prohibition  showed  great  delicacy  of  feel- 
ing in  her  answer :  "It  is  not  right  that  he  should 
see  the  breasts  which  nursed  his  wife."  23 

It  is  known  that  also  among  civilized  races  the 
relation  of  son-in-law  and  mother-in-law  belongs 
to  one  of  the  most  difficult  sides  of  family  organ- 
ization. Although  laws  of  avoidance  no  longer 
exist  in  the  society  of  the  white  races  of  Europe 
and  America,  much  quarreling  and  displeasure 
would  often  be  avoided  if  they  did  exist  and  did 
not  have  to  be  reestablished  by  individuals. 
Many  a  European  will  see  an  act  of  high  wis- 
dom in  the  laws  of  avoidance  which  savage  races 
have  established  to  preclude  any  understanding 
between  two  persons  who  have  become  so  closely 
related.  There  is  hardly  any  doubt  that  there 
is  something  in  the  psychological  situation  of 

22  Crawley,  1.  c.  p.  407. 

23  Crawley,  I.  c.  p.  401,  according  to  Leslie:    "Among  the  Zulus 
and  Amatongas,"  1875. 

24  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

mother-in-law  and  son-in-law  which  furthers  hos- 
tilities between  them  and  renders  living  together 
difficult.  The  fact  that  the  witticisms  of  civil- 
ized races  show  such  a  preference  for  this  very- 
mother-in-law  theme  seems  to  me  to  point  to 
the  fact  that  the  emotional  relations  between 
mother-in-law  and  son-in-law  are  controlled  by 
components  which  stand  in  sharp  contrast  to  each 
other.  I  mean  that  the  relation  is  really  "ambi- 
valent," that  is,  it  is  composed  of  conflicting  feel- 
ings of  tenderness  and  hostility. 

A  certain  part  of  these  feelings  is  evident. 
The  mother-in-law  is  unwilling  to  give  up  the 
possession  of  her  daughter;  she  distrusts  the 
stranger  to  whom  her  daughter  has  been  deliv- 
ered, and  shows  a  tendency  to  maintain  the  dom- 
inating position,  to  which  she  became  accustomed 
at  home.  On  the  part  of  the  man,  there  is  the 
determination  not  to  subject  himself  any  longer 
to  any  foreign  will,  his  jealousy  of  all  persons 
who  preceded  him  in  the  possession  of  his  wife's 
tenderness,  and,  last  but  not  least,  his  aversion 
to  being  disturbed  in  his  illusion  of  sexual  over- 
valuation. As  a  rule  such  a  disturbance  eman- 
ates for  the  most  part  from  his  mother-in-law 
who  reminds  him  of  her  daughter  through  so 
many  common  traits  but  who  lacks  all  the  charm 
of  youth,  such  as  beauty  and  that  psychic  spon- 
taneity which  makes  his  wife  precious  to  him. 

THE  SAVAGE'S  DREAD  OF  INCEST  25 

The  knowledge  of  hidden  psychic  feelings 
which  psychoanalytic  investigation  of  individuals 
has  given  us,  makes  it  possible  to  add  other  mo- 
tives to  the  above.  Where  the  psychosexual 
needs  of  the  woman  are  to  be  satisfied  in  marriage 
and  family  life,  there  is  always  the  danger  of  dis- 
satisfaction through  the  premature  termination 
of  the  conjugal  relation,  and  the  monotony  in  the 
wife's  emotional  life.  The  ageing  mother  pro- 
tects herself  against  this  by  living  through  the 
lives  of  her  children  by  identifying  herself  with 
them  and  making  their  emotional  experiences  her 
own.  Parents  are  said  to  remain  young  with 
their  children,  and  this  is,  in  fact,  one  of  the  most 
valuable  psychic  benefits  which  parents  derive 
from  their  children.  Childlessness  thus  elimin- 
ates one  of  the  best  means  to  endure  the  neces- 
sary resignation  imposed  upon  the  individual 
through  marriage.  This  emotional  identifica- 
tion with  the  daughter  may  easily  go  so  far  with 
the  mother  that  she  also  falls  in  love  with  the  man 
her  daughter  loves,  which  leads,  in  extreme  cases, 
to  severe  forms  of  neurotic  ailments  on  account 
of  the  violent  psychic  resistance  against  this  emo- 
tional predisposition.  At  all  events  the  tendency 
to  such  infatuation  is  very  frequent  with  the 
mother-in-law,  and  either  this  infatuation  itself 
or  the  tendency  opposed  to  it  joins  the  conflict 
of  contending  forces  in  the  psyche  of  the  mother- 

26  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

in-law.  Very  often  it  is  just  this  harsh  and  sad- 
istic component  of  the  love  emotion  which  is 
turned  against  the  son-in-law  in  order  better  to 
suppress  the  forbidden  tender  feelings. 

The  relation  of  the  husband  to  his  mother-in- 
law  is  complicated  through  similar  feelings  which, 
however,  spring  from  other  sources.  The  path 
of  object  selection  has  normally  led  him  to  his 
love  object  through  the  image  of  his  mother  and 
perhaps  of  his  sister ;  in  consequence  of  the  incest 
barriers  his  preference  for  these  two  beloved  per- 
sons of  his  childhood  has  been  deflected  and  he 
is  then  able  to  find  their  image  in  strange  objects. 
He  now  sees  the  mother-in-law  taking  the  place 
of  his  own  mother  and  of  his  sister's  mother,  and 
there  develops  a  tendency  to  return  to  the  primi- 
tive selection,  against  which  everything  in  him  re- 
sists. His  incest  dread  demands  that  he  should 
not  be  reminded  of  the  genealogy  of  his  love 
selection;  the  actuality  of  his  mother-in-law, 
whom  he  had  not  known  all  his  life  like  his  mother 
so  that  her  picture  can  be  preserved  unchanged 
in  his  unconscious,  facilitates  this  rejection.  An 
added  mixture  of  irritability  and  animosity  in  his 
feelings  leads  us  to  suspect  that  the  mother-in- 
law  actually  represents  an  incest  temptation  for 
the  son-in-law,  just  as  it  not  infrequently  hap- 
pens that  a  man  falls  in  love  with  his  subsequent 

THE  SAVAGE'S  DREAD  OF  INCEST  27 

mother-in-law   before   his   inclination   is   trans- 
ferred to  her  daughter. 

I  see  no  objection  to  the  assumption  that  it  is 
just  this  incestuous  factor  of  the  relationship 
which  motivates  the  avoidance  between  son-  and 
mother-in-law  among  savages.  Among  the  ex- 
planations for  the  "avoidances"  which  these 
primitive  races  observe  so  strictly,  we  would 
therefore  give  preference  to  the  opinion  origin- 
ally expressed  by  Fison,  who  sees  nothing  in  these 
regulations  but  a  protection  against  possible  in- 
cest. This  would  also  hold  good  for  all  the 
other  avoidances  between  those  related  by  blood 
or  by  marriage.  There  is  only  one  difference, 
namely,  in  the  first  case  the  incest  is  direct,  so 
that  the  purpose  of  the  prevention  might  be  con- 
scious; in  the  other  case,  which  includes  the 
mother-in-law  relation,  the  incest  would  be  a 
phantasy  temptation  brought  about  by  unconsci- 
ous intermediary  links. 

We  have  had  little  opportunity  in  this  exposi- 
tion to  show  that  the  facts  of  folk  psychology  can 
be  seen  in  a  new  light  through  the  application 
of  the  psychoanalytic  point  of  view,  for  the  in- 
cest dread  of  savages  has  long  been  known  as 
such,  and  is  in  need  of  no  further  interpreta- 
tion. What  we  can  add  to  the  further  apprecia- 
tion of  incest  dread  is  the  statement  that  it  is  a 

28  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

subtle  infantile  trait  and  is  in  striking  agreement 
with  the  psychic  life  of  the  neurotic.     Psycho- 
analysis has  taught  us  that  the  first  object  selec- 
tion of  the  boy  is  of  an  incestuous  nature  and  that 
it  is  directed  to  the  forbidden  objects,  the  mother 
and  the  sister;  psychoanalysis  has  taught  us  also 
the  methods  through  which  the  maturing  indi- 
vidual frees  himself  from  these  incestuous  at- 
tractions.    The    neurotic,    however,    regularly 
presents  to  us  a  piece  of  psychic  infantilism ;  he 
has  either  not  been  able  to  free  himself  from  the 
childlike  conditions  of  psychosexuality,  or  else  he 
has  returned  to  them  ( inhibited  development  and 
regression).     Hence  the  incestuous  fixations  of 
the  libido  still  play  or  again  are  playing  the  main 
role  in  his  unconscious  psychic  life.     We  have 
gone  so  far  as  to  declare  that  the  relation  to  the 
parents  instigated  by  incestuous  longings,  is  the 
central  complex  of  the  neurosis.     This  discovery 
of  the  significance  of  incest  for  the  neurosis  nat- 
urally meets  with  the  most  general  incredulity 
on  the  part  of  the  grown-up,  normal  man;  a 
similar  rejection  will  also  meet  the  researches 
of  Otto  Rank,  which  show  in  even  larger  scope  to 
what  extent  the  incest  theme  stands  in  the  center 
of  poetical  interest  and  how  it  forms  the  material 
of  poetry  in  countless  variations  and  distortions. 
We  are  forced  to  believe  that  such  a  rejection 
is  above  all  the  product  of  man's  deep  aversion 

THE  SAVAGE'S  DREAD  OF  INCEST  29 

to  his  former  incest  wishes  which  have  since  suc- 
cumbed to  repression.  It  is  therefore  of  im- 
portance to  us  to  be  able  to  show  that  man's  in- 
cest wishes,  which  later  are  destined  to  become 
unconscious,  are  still  felt  to  be  dangerous  by  sav- 
age races  who  consider  them  worthy  of  the  most 
severe  defensive  measures.

TABOO   AND   THE   AMBIVALENCE   OF   EMOTIONS 

Taboo  is  a  Polynesian  word,  the  translation 
of  which  provides  difficulties  for  us  because  we 
no  longer  possess  the  idea  which  it  connotes.  It 
was  still  current  with  the  ancient  Romans:  their 
word  "sacer"  was  the  same  as  the  taboo  of  the 
Polynesians.  The  "ayo?"  of  the  Greeks  and  the 
"Kodaush"  of  the  Hebrews  must  also  have  sig- 
nified the  same  thing  which  the  Polynesians  ex- 
press through  their  word  taboo  and  what  many 
races  in  America,  Africa  (Madagascar),  North 
and  Central  Asia  express  through  analogous 
designations. 

For  us  the  meaning  of  taboo  branches  off  into 
two  opposite  directions.  On  the  one  hand  it 
means  to  us  sacred,  consecrated :  but  on  the  other 
hand  it  means,  uncanny,  dangerous,  forbidden, 
and  unclean.  The  opposite  for  taboo  is  desig- 
nated in  Polynesian  by  the  word  noa  and  sig- 
nifies something  ordinary  and  generally  accessi- 
ble. Thus  something  like  the  concept  of  re- 
serve inheres  in  taboo;  taboo  expresses  itself  es- 
sentially in  prohibitions  and  restrictions.     Our 

30 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS  31 

combination  of  "holy  dread"  would  often  ex- 
press the  meaning  of  taboo. 

The  taboo  restrictions  are  different  from  re- 
ligious or  moral  prohibitions.  They  are  not 
traced  to  a  commandment  of  a  god  but  really  they 
themselves  impose  their  own  prohibitions;  they 
are  differentiated  from  moral  prohibitions  by 
failing  to  be  included  in  a  system  which  declares 
abstinences  in  general  to  be  necessary  and  gives 
reasons  for  this  necessity.  The  taboo  prohibi- 
tions lack  all  justification  and  are  of  unknown 
origin.  Though  incomprehensible  to  us  they  are 
taken  as  a  matter  of  course  by  those  who  are  un- 
der their  dominance. 

Wundt 1  calls  taboo  the  oldest  unwritten  code 
of  law  of  humanity.  It  is  generally  assumed 
that  taboo  is  older  than  the  gods  and  goes  back 
to  the  pre-religious  age. 

As  we  are  in  need  of  an  impartial  presentation 
of  the  subject  of  taboo  before  subjecting  it  to 
psychoanalytic  consideration  I  shall  now  cite 
an  excerpt  from  the  article  "Taboo"  in  the  En- 
cyclopedia Britannica  written  by  the  anthro- 
pologist Northcote  W.  Thomas,2 

"Properly  speaking  taboo  includes  only  a)  the 
sacred    (or   unclean)    character   oL  persons   or 

i  Volkerpsychologie,  II  Band,  "Mythus  und  Religion,"  1906,  II 
p.  308. 

2  Eleventh  Edition,  this  article  also  gives  the  most  important 
references. 

32  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

things,  b)  the  kind  of  prohibition  which  results 
from  this  character,  and  c)  the  sanctity  (or  un- 
cleanliness)  which  results  from  a  violation  of  the 
prohibition.  The  converse  of  taboo  in  Polynesia 
is  'noa'  and  allied  forms  which  mean  'general'  or 
'common'  .  .  . 

'Various  classes  of  taboo  in  the  wider  sense 
may  be  distinguished:  1.  natural  or  direct,  the 
result  of  'mana'  (mysterious  power)  inherent  in 
a  person  or  thing;  2.  communicated  or  indirect, 
equally  the  result  of  'mana'  but  (a)  acquired  or 
(b)  imposed  by  a  priest,  chief  or  other  person; 
3.  intermediate,  where  both  factors  are  present, 
as  in  the  appropriation  of  a  wife  to  her  husband. 
The  term  taboo  is  also  applied  to  ritual  prohibi- 
tions of  a  different  nature;  but  its  use  in  these 
senses  is  better  avoided.  It  might  be  argued 
that  the  term  should  be  extended  to  embrace 
cases  in  which  the  sanction  of  the  prohibition  is 
the  creation  of  a  god  or  spirit,  i.e.,  to  religious 
interdictions  as  distinguished  from  magical,  but 
there  is  neither  automatic  action  nor  contagion 
in  such  a  case,  and  a  better  term  for  it  is  religious 
interdiction. 

"The  objects  of  taboo  are  many:  1.  direct 
taboos  aim  at  (a)  protection  of  important  per- 
sons— chiefs,  priests,  etc. — and  things  against 
harm;  (b)  safeguarding  of  the  weak — women, 
children  and  common  people  generally — from  the 

/ 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS         33 

powerful  mana  (magical  influence)  of  chiefs  and 
priests;  (c)  providing  against  the  dangers  in- 
curred by  handling  or  coming  in  contact  with 
corpses,  by  eating  certain  food,  etc.;  (d)  guard- 
ing the  chief  acts  of  life — births,  initiation,  mar- 
riage and  sexual  functions — against  interference ; 
(e)  securing  human  beings  against  the  wrath  or 
power  of  gods  and  spirits; 3  (f)  securing  unborn 
infants  and  young  children,  who  stand  in  a  spe- 
cially sympathetic  relation  with  their  parents, 
from  the  consequence  of  certain  actions,  and  more 
especially  from  the  communication  of  qualities 
supposed  to  be  derived  from  certain  foods.  2. 
Taboos  are  imposed  in  order  to  secure  against 
thieves  the  property  of  an  individual,  his  fields, 
tools,  etc." 

Other  parts  of  the  article  may  be  summarized 
as  follows.  Originally  the  punishment  for  the 
violation  of  a  taboo  was  probably  left  to  an 
inner,  automatic  arrangement.  The  violated 
taboo  avenged  itself.  Wherever  the  taboo  was 
related  to  ideas  of  gods  and  demons  an  auto- 
matic punishment  was  expected  from  the  power 
of  the  godhead.  In  other  cases,  probably  as  a 
result  of  a  further  development  of  the  idea,  so- 
ciety took  over  the  punishment  of  the  offender, 
whose  action  has  endangered  his  companions. 

a  This  application  of  the  taboo  can  be  omitted  as  not  originally 
belonging  in  this  connection. 

34  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

Thus  man's  first  systems  of  punishment  are  also 
connected  with  taboo. 

"The  violation  of  a  taboo  makes  the  offender 
himself  taboo."  The  author  goes  on  to  say  that 
certain  dangers  resulting  from  the  violation  of 
a  taboo  may  be  exercised  through  acts  of  pen- 
ance and  ceremonies  of  purification. 

A  peculiar  power  inherent  in  persons  and 
ghosts,  which  can  be  transmitted  from  them  to 
inanimate  objects  is  regarded  as  the  source  of 
the  taboo.  This  part  of  the  article  reads  as  fol- 
lows :  "Persons  or  things  which  are  regarded  as 
taboo  may  be  compared  to  objects  charged  with 
electricity ;  they  are  the  seat  of  tremendous  power 
which  is  transmissible  by  contact,  and  may  be 
liberated  with  destructive  effect  if  the  organisms 
which  provoke  its  discharge  are  too  weak  to  re- 
sist it;  the  result  of  a  violation  of  a  taboo  de- 
pends partly  on  the  strength  of  the  magical  in- 
fluence inherent  in  the  taboo  object  or  person, 
partly  on  the  strength  of  the  opposing  mana  of 
the  violator  of  the  taboo.  Thus,  kings  and  chiefs 
are  possessed  of  great  power,  and  it  is  death  for 
their  subjects  to  address  them  directly;  but  a 
minister  or  other  person  of  greater  mana  than 
common,  can  approach  them  unharmed,  and  can 
in  turn  be  approached  by  their  inferiors  without 
risk.  .  .  .  So,  too,  indirect  taboos  depend  for 
their  strength  on  the  mana  of  him  who  opposes 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS  35 

them;  if  it  is  a  chief  or  a  priest,  they  are  more 
powerful  than  those  imposed  by  a  common  per- 
son." 

The  fact  that  a  taboo  is  transmissible  has  surely 
given  rise  to  the  effort  of  removing  it  through 
expiatory  ceremonies. 

The  author  states  that  there  are  permanent 
and  temporary  taboos.  The  former  comprise 
priest  and  chiefs  as  well  as  the  dead  and  every- 
thing that  has  belonged  to  them.  Temporary 
taboos  attach  themselves  to  certain  conditions 
such  as  menstruation  and  child-bed,  the  status 
of  the  warrior  before  and  after  the  expedition, 
the  activities  of  fishing  and  of  the  chase,  and 
similar  activities.  A  general  taboo  may  also  be 
imposed  upon  a  large  district  like  an  ecclesias- 
tical interdict,  and  may  then  last  for  years. 

If  I  judge  my  readers'  impressions  correctly 
I  dare  say  that  after  hearing  all  that  was  said 
about  taboo  they  are  far  from  knowing  what  to 
understand  by  it  and  where  to  store  it  in  their 
minds.  This  is  surelv  due  to  the  insufficient  in- 
formation  I  have  given  and  to  the  omission  of 
all  discussions  concerning  the  relation  of  taboo 
to  superstition,  to  belief  in  the  soul,  and  to  re- 
ligion. On  the  other  hand,  I  fear  that  a  more 
detailed  description  of  what  is  known  about  taboo 
would  be  still  more  confusing;  I  can  therefore 
assure  the  reader  that  the  state  of  affairs  is  really 

36  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

far  from  clear.  We  may  say,  however,  that  we 
deal  with  a  series  of  restrictions  which  these 
primitive  races  impose  upon  themselves ;  this  and 
that  is  forbidden  without  any  apparent  reason; 
nor  does  it  occur  to  them  to  question  this  matter, 
for  they  subject  themselves  to  these  restrictions 
as  a  matter  of  course  and  are  convinced  that  any 
transgression  will  be  punished  automatically  in 
the  most  severe  manner.  There  are  reliable  re- 
ports that  innocent  transgressions  of  such  pro- 
hibitions have  actually  been  punished  automatic- 
ally. For  instance,  the  innocent  offender  who 
had  eaten  from  a  forbidden  animal  became  deeply 
depressed,  expected  his  death  and  then  actually 
died.  The  prohibitions  mostly  concern  matters 
which  are  capable  of  enjoyment  such  as  freedom 
of  movement  and  unrestrained  intercourse;  in 
some  cases  they  appear  very  ingenious,  evidently 
representing  abstinences  and  renunciations;  in 
other  cases  their  content  is  quite  incomprehen- 
sible, they  seem  to  concern  themselves  with  trifles 
and  give  the  impression  of  ceremonials.  Some- 
thing like  a  theory  seems  to  underlie  all  these 
prohibitions,  it  seems  as  if  these  prohibitions  are 
necessary  because  some  persons  and  objects 
possess  a  dangerous  power  which  is  transmitted 
by  contact  with  the  object  so  charged,  almost  like 
a  contagion.  The  quantity  of  this  dangerous 
property  is  also  taken  into  consideration.     Some 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS  37 

persons  or  things  have  more  of  it  than  others 
and  the  danger  is  precisely  in  accordance  with  the 
charge.  The  most  peculiar  part  of  it  is  that  any 
one  who  has  violated  such  a  prohibition  assumes 
the  nature  of  the  forbidden  object  as  if  he  had 
absorbed  the  whole  dangerous  charge.  This 
power  is  inherent  in  all  persons  who  are  more  or 
less  prominent,  such  as  kings,  priests  and  the 
newly  born,  in  all  exceptional  physical  states  such 
as  menstruation,  puberty  and  birth,  in  everything 
sinister  like  illness  and  death  and  in  everything 
connected  with  these  conditions  by  virtue  of  con- 
tagion or  dissemination. 

However,  the  term  "taboo"  includes  all  per- 
sons localities,  objects  and  temporary  conditions 
which  are  carriers  or  sources  of  this  mysterious 
attribute.  The  prohibition  derived  from  this  at- 
tribute is  also  designated  as  taboo,  and  lastly 
taboo,  in  the  literal  sense,  includes  everything 
that  is  sacred,  above  the  ordinary,  and  at  the 
same  time  dangerous,  unclean  and  mysterious. 

Both  this  word  and  the  system  corresponding 
to  it  express  a  fragment  of  psychic  life  which 
really  is  not  comprehensible  to  us.  And  indeed  it 
would  seem  that  no  understanding  of  it  could  be 
possible  without  entering  into  the  study  of  the 
belief  in  spirits  and  demons  which  is  so  charac- 
teristic of  these  low  grades  of  culture. 

Now  why  should  we  take  any  interest  at  all  in 

38  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

the  riddle  of  taboo?  Not  only,  I  think,  because 
every  psychological  problem  is  well  worth  the 
effort  of  investigation  for  its  own  sake,  but  for 
other  reasons  as  well.  It  may  be  surmised  that 
the  taboo  of  Polynesian  savages  is  after  all  not 
so  remote  from  us  as  we  were  at  first  inclined  to 
believe;  the  moral  and  customary  prohibitions 
which  we  ourselves  obey  may  have  some  essen- 
tial relation  to  this  primitive  taboo  the  explana- 
tion of  which  may  in  the  end  throw  light  upon 
the  dark  origin  of  our  own  "categorical  impera- 
tive." 

We  are  therefore  inclined  to  listen  with  keen 
expectations  when  an  investigator  like  W. 
Wundt  gives  his  interpretation  of  taboo,  espe- 
cially as  he  promises  to  "go  back  to  the  very  roots 
of  the  taboo  concepts."  4 

Wundt  states  that  the  idea  of  taboo  "includes 
all  customs  which  express  dread  of  particular  ob- 
jects connected  with  cultic  ideas  or  of  actions  hav- 
ing reference  to  them."  5 

On  another  occasion  he  says :  "In  accordance 
with  the  general  sense  of  the  word  we  under- 
stand by  taboo  every  prohibition  laid  down  in 
customs  or  manners  or  in  expressly  formulated 
laws,  not  to  touch  an  object  or  to  take  it  for  one's 
own  use,  or  to  make  use  of  certain  proscribed 

4  Volkerpsychologie,  Vol.  II,  Religion  und  My  thus,  p.  300. 
5 1.  c.  p.  237. 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS  39 

words.  ..."  Accordingly  there  would  not  be 
a  single  race  or  stage  of  culture  which  had  es- 
caped the  injurious  effects  of  taboo. 

Wundt  then  shows  why  he  finds  it  more  prac- 
tical to  study  the  nature  of  taboo  in  the  primi- 
tive states  of  Australian  savages  rather  than  in 
the  higher  culture  of  the  Polynesian  races.  In 
the  case  of  the  Australians  he  divides  taboo  pro- 
hibitions into  three  classes  according  as  they  con- 
cern animals,  persons  or  other  objects.  The  ani- 
mal taboo,  which  consists  essentially  of  the  taboo 
against  killing  and  eating,  forms  the  nucleus  of 
Totemism.6  The  taboo  of  the  second  class, 
which  has  human  beings  for  its  object,  is  of  an 
essentially  different  nature.  To  begin  with  it 
is  restricted  to  conditions  which  bring  about  an 
unusual  situation  in  life  for  the  person  tabooed. 
Thus  young  men  at  the  feast  of  initiation,  women 
during  menstruation  and  immediately  after  de- 
livery, newly  born  children,  the  diseased  and  es- 
pecially the  dead,  are  all  taboo.  The  constantly 
used  property  of  any  person,  such  as  his  clothes, 
tools  and  weapons,  is  permanently  taboo  for 
everybody  else.  In  Australia  the  new  name 
which  a  youth  receives  at  his  initiation  into  man- 
hood becomes  part  of  his  most  personal  property, 
it  is  taboo  and  must  be  kept  secret.  The  taboos 
of  the  third  class,  which  apply  to  trees,  plants, 

6  Comp.  Chapter  I. 

40  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

houses  and  localities,  are  more  variable  and  seem 
only  to  follow  the  rule  that  anything  which  for 
any  reason  arouses  dread  or  is  mysterious,  be- 
comes subject  to  taboo. 

Wundt  himself  has  to  acknowledge  that  the 
changes  which  taboo  undergoes  in  the  richer  cul- 
ture of  the  Polynesians  and  in  the  Malayan 
Archipelago  are  not  very  profound.  The 
greater  social  differentiation  of  these  races  mani- 
fests itself  in  the  fact  that  chiefs,  kings  and 
priests  exercise  an  especially  effective  taboo  and 
are  themselves  exposed  to  the  strongest  taboo 
compulsion. 

But  the  real  sources  of  taboo  lie  deeper  than 
in  the  interests  of  the  privileged  classes:  "They 
begin  where  the  most  primitive  and  at  the  same 
time  the  most  enduring  human  impulses  have 
their  origin,  namely,  in  the  fear  of  the  effect  of 
demonic  powers."  7  "The  taboo,  which  origin- 
ally was  nothing  more  than  the  objectified  fear 
of  the  demonic  power  thought  to  be  concealed 
in  the  tabooed  object,  forbids  the  irritation  of 
this  power  and  demands  the  placation  of  the 
demon  whenever  the  taboo  has  been  knowingly  or 
unknowingly  violated." 

The  taboo  then  gradually  became  an  autonom- 
ous power  which  has  detached  itself  from  demon- 
ism.     It  becomes  the  compulsion  of  custom  and 

7  L  c.  p.  307. 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS         41 

tradition  and  finally  of  the  law.  "But  the  com- 
mandment concealed  behind  taboo  prohibitions 
which  differ  materially  according  to  place  and 
time,  had  originally  the  meaning:  Beware  of 
the  wrath  of  the  demons." 

Wundt  therefore  teaches  that  taboo  is  the  ex- 
pression and  evolution  of  the  belief  of  primi- 
tive races  in  demonic  powers,  and  that  later 
taboo  has  dissociated  itself  from  this  origin  and 
has  remained  a  power  simply  because  it  was  one 
by  virtue  of  a  kind  of  a  psychic  persistence  and 
in  this  manner  it  became  the  root  of  our  customs 
and  laws.  As  little  as  one  can  object  to  the  first 
part  of  this  statement  I  feel,  however,  that  I  am 
only  voicing  the  impression  of  many  of  my  read- 
ers if  I  call  Wundt's  explanation  disappointing. 
Wundt's  explanation  is  far  from  going  back  to 
the  sources  of  taboo  concepts  or  to  their  deepest 
roots.  For  neither  fear  nor  demons  can  be  ac- 
cepted in  psychology  as  finalities  defying  any 
further  deduction.  It  would  be  different  if 
demons  really  existed;  but  we  know  that,  like 
gods,  they  are  only  the  product  of  the  psychic 
powers  of  man ;  they  have  been  created  from  and 
out  of  something. 

Wundt  also  expresses  a  number  of  important 
though  not  altogether  clear  opinions  about  the 
double  meaning  of  taboo.  According  to  him  the 
division  between  sacred  and  unclean  does  not  yet 

42  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

exist  in  the  first  primitive  stages  of  taboo.  For 
this  reason  these  conceptions  entirely  lack  the 
significance  which  they  could  only  acquire  later 
on  when  they  came  to  be  contrasted.  The  ani- 
mal, person,  or  place  on  which  there  is  a  taboo  is 
demonic,  that  is,  not  sacred  and  therefore  not  yet, 
in  the  later  sense,  unclean.  The  expression 
taboo  is  particularly  suitable  for  this  undifferen- 
tiated and  intermediate  meaning  of  the  demonic, 
in  the  sense  of  something  which  may  not  be 
touched,  since  it  emphasizes  a  characteristic  which 
finally  adheres  both  to  what  is  sacred  and  to 
the  unclean,  namely,  the  dread  of  contact.  But 
the  fact  that  this  important  characteristic  is 
permanently  held  in  common  points  to  the  exist- 
ence of  an  original  agreement  here  between  these 
two  spheres  which  gave  way  to  a  differentia- 
tion only  as  the  result  of  further  conditions 
through  which  both  finally  developed  into  op- 
posites. 

The  belief  associated  with  the  original  taboo, 
according  to  which  a  demonic  power  concealed 
in  the  object  avenges  the  touching  of  it  or  its  for- 
bidden use  by  bewitching  the  offender  was  still 
an  entirely  objectified  fear.  This  had  not  yet 
separated  into  the  two  forms  which  it  assumed  at 
a  more  developed  stage,  namely,  awe  and  aver- 
sion. 

How  did  this  separation  come  about?     Ac- 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS         43 

cording  to  Wundt,  this  was  done  through  the 
transference  of  taboo  prohibitions  from  the 
sphere  of  demons  to  that  of  theistic  conceptions. 
The  antithesis  of  sacred  and  unclean  coincides 
with  the  succession  of  two  mythological  stages  the 
first  of  which  did  not  entirely  disappear  when 
the  second  was  reached  but  continued  in  a  state 
of  greatly  lowered  esteem  which  gradually  turned 
into  contempt.  It  is  a  general  law  in  mythology 
that  a  preceding  stage,  just  because  it  has  been 
overcome  and  pushed  back  by  a  higher  stage, 
maintains  itself  next  to  it  in  a  debased  form  so 
that  the  objects  of  its  veneration  become  objects 
of  aversion.8 

Wundt's  further  elucidations  refer  to  the  re- 
lation of  taboo  to  lustration  and  sacrifice. 

He  who  approaches  the  problem  of  taboo  from 
the  field  of  psychoanalysis,  which  is  concerned 
with  the  study  of  the  unconscious  part  of  the 
individual's  psychic  life,  needs  but  a  moment's 
reflection  to  realize  that  these  phenomena  are  by 
no  means  foreign  to  him.  He  knows  people  who 
have  individually  created  such  taboo  prohibi- 
tions for  themselves,  which  they  follow  as  strictly 
as  savages  observe  the  taboos  common  to  their 
tribe  or  society.     If  he  were  not  accustomed  to 

s  1.  c.  p.  313. 

44  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

call  these  individuals  "compulsion  neurotics"  he 
would  find  the  term  "taboo  disease"  quite  ap- 
propriate for  their  malady.  Psychoanalytic  in- 
vestigation has  taught  him  the  clinical  etiology 
and  the  essential  part  of  the  psychological 
mechanism  of  this  compulsion  disease,  so  that 
he  cannot  resist  applying  what  he  has  learnt 
there  to  explain  corresponding  manifestations  in 
folk  psychology. 

There  is  one  warning  to  which  we  shall  have  to 
give  heed  in  making  this  attempt.  The  similar- 
ity between  taboo  and  compulsion  disease  may 
be  purely  superficial,  holding  good  only  for  the 
manifestations  of  both  without  extending  into 
their  deeper  characteristics.  Nature  loves  to 
use  identical  forms  in  the  most  widely  different 
biological  connections,  as,  for  instance,  for  coral 
stems  and  plants  and  even  for  certain  crystals 
or  for  the  formation  of  certain  chemical  precipi- 
tates. It  would  certainly  be  both  premature  and 
unprofitable  to  base  conclusions  relating  to  in- 
ner relationships  upon  the  correspondence  of 
merely  mechanical  conditions.  We  shall  bear 
this  warning  in  mind  without,  however,  giving  up 
our  intended  comparison  on  account  of  the  pos- 
sibility of  such  confusions. 

The  first  and  most  striking  correspondence  be- 
tween the  compulsion  prohibitions  of  neurotics 
and  taboo  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  origin  of  these 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS  45 

prohibitions  is  just  as  unmotivated  and  enigma- 
tic. They  have  appeared  at  some  time  or  other 
and  must  now  be  retained  on  account  of  an  un- 
conquerable anxiety.  An  external  threat  of 
punishment  is  superfluous,  because  an  inner  cer- 
tainty (a  conscience)  exists  that  violation  will 
be  followed  by  unbearable  disaster.  The  very 
most  that  compulsion  patients  can  tell  us  is  the 
vague  premonition  that  some  person  of  their 
environment  will  suffer  harm  if  they  should  vio- 
late the  prohibition.  Of  what  the  harm  is  to 
consist  is  not  known,  and  this  inadequate  in- 
formation is  more  likely  f o  be  obtained  during  the 
later  discussions  of  the  expiatory  and  defensive 
actions  than  when  the  prohibitions  themselves 
are  being  discussed. 

As  in  the  case  of  taboo  the  nucleus  of  the  neu- 
rotic prohibition  is  the  act  of  touching,  whence 
we  derive  the  name  touching  phobia,  or  delire  de 
toucher.  The  prohibition  extends  not  only  to 
direct  contact  with  the  body  but  also  to  the  fig- 
urative use  of  the  phrase  as  "to  come  into  con- 
tact," or  "be  in  touch  with  some  one  or  some- 
thing." Anything  that  leads  the  thoughts  to 
what  is  prohibited  and  thus  calls  forth  mental 
contact  is  just  as  much  prohibited  as  immediate 
bodily  contact;  this  same  extension  is  also  found 
in  taboo. 

Some  prohibitions  are  easily  understood  from 

46  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

their  purpose  but  others  strike  us  as  incompre- 
hensible, foolish  and  senseless.  We  designate 
such  commands  as  "ceremonials"  and  we  find  that 
taboo  customs  show  the  same  variations. 

Obsessive  prohibitions  possess  an  extraordi- 
nary capacity  for  displacement;  they  make  use 
of  almost  any  form  of  connection  to  extend  from 
one  object  to  another  and  then  in  turn  make  this 
new  object  "impossible,"  as  one  of  my  patients 
aptly  puts  it.  This  impossibility  finally  lays  an 
embargo  upon  the  whole  world.  The  compul- 
sion neurotics  act  as  if  the  "impossible"  persons 
and  things  were  the  carriers  of  a  dangerous  con- 
tagion which  is  ready  to  displace  itself  through 
contact  to  all  neighboring  things.  We  have  al- 
ready emphasized  the  same  characteristics  of  con- 
tagion and  transference  in  the  description  of 
taboo  prohibitions.  We  also  know  that  any  one 
who  has  violated  a  taboo  by  touching  something 
which  is  taboo  becomes  taboo  himself,  and  no  one 
may  come  into  contact  with  him. 

I  shall  put  side  by  side  two  examples  of  trans- 
ference or,  to  use  a  better  term,  displacement,  one 
from  the  life  of  the  Maori,  and  the  other  from  my 
observation  of  a  woman  suffering  from  a  com- 
pulsion neurosis : 

"For  a  similar  reason  a  Maori  chief  would  not 
blow  on  a  fire  with  his  mouth;  for  his  sacred 
breath  would  communicate  its  sanctity  to  the 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS         47 

fire,  which  would  pass  it  on  to  the  meat  in  the 
pot,  which  would  pass  it  on  to  the  man  who  ate 
the  meat,  which  was  in  the  pot,  which  stood  on 
the  fire,  which  was  breathed  on  by  the  chief;  so 
that  the  eater,  infected  by  the  chief's  breath  con- 
veyed through  these  intermediaries,  would  surely 
die."  9 

My  patient  demanded  that  a  utensil  which  her 
husband  had  purchased  and  brought  home  should 
be  removed  lest  it  make  the  place  where  she  lives 
impossible.  For  she  has  heard  that  this  object 
was  bought  in  a  store  which  is  situated,  let  us 
say,  in  Stag  Street.  But  as  the  word  stag  is 
the  name  of  a  friend  now  in  a  distant  city,  whom 
she  has  known  in  her  youth  under  her  maiden 
name  and  whom  she  now  finds  "impossible,"  that 
is  taboo,  the  object  bought  in  Vienna  is  just  as 
taboo  as  this  friend  with  whom  she  does  not  want 
to  come  into  contact. 

Compulsion  prohibitions,  like  taboo  prohibi- 
tions, entail  the  most  extraordinary  renuncia- 
tions and  restrictions  of  life,  but  a  part  of  these 
can  be  removed  by  carrying  out  certain  acts  which 
now  also  must  be  done  because  they  have  acquired 
a  compulsive  character  (obsessive  acts)  ;  there  is 
no  doubt  that  these  acts  are  in  the  nature  of 
penances,  expiations,  defense  reactions,  and  puri- 

9  Frazer,  "The  Golden  Bough,"  II,  "Taboo  and  the  Perils  of  the 
Soul,"  1911,  p.  136. 

48  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

fications.  The  most  common  of  these  obsessive 
acts  is  washing  with  water  (washing  obsession). 
A  part  of  the  taboo  prohibitions  can  also  be  re- 
placed in  this  way,  that  is  to  say,  their  violation 
can  be  made  good  through  such  a  "ceremonial," 
and  here  too  lustration  through  water  is  the  pre- 
ferred way. 

Let  us  now  summarize  the  points  in  which  the 
correspondence  between  taboo  customs  and  the 
symptoms  of  compulsion  neurosis  are  most 
clearly  manifested:  1.  In  the  lack  of  motiva- 
tion of  the  commandments,  2.  in  their  enforce- 
ment through  an  inner  need,  3.  in  their  capacity 
of  displacement  and  in  the  danger  of  contagion 
from  what  is  prohibited,  4.  and  in  the  causation 
of  ceremonial  actions  and  commandments  which 
emanate  from  the  forbidden. 

However,  psychoanalysis  has  made  us  familiar 
with  the  clinical  history  as  well  as  the  psychic 
mechanism  of  compulsion  neurosis.  Thus  the 
history  of  a  typical  case  of  touching  phobia  reads 
as  follows:  In  the  very  beginning,  during  the 
early  period  of  childhood,  the  person  manifested 
a  strong  pleasure  in  touching  himself,  the  object 
of  which  was  much  more  specialized  than  one 
would  be  inclined  to  expect.  Presently  the 
carrying  out  of  this  very  pleasurable  act  of 
touching  was   opposed  by   a  prohibition   from 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS  49 

without.10  The  prohibition  was  accepted  be- 
cause it  was  supported  by  strong  inner  forces;  u 
it  proved  to  be  stronger  than  the  impulse  which 
wanted  to  manifest  itself  through  this  act  of 
touching.  But  due  to  the  primitive  psychic  con- 
stitution of  the  child  this  prohibition  did  not  suc- 
ceed in  abolishing  the  impulse.  Its  only  suc- 
cess lay  in  repressing  the  impulse  (the  pleasure  of 
touching)  and  banishing  it  into  the  unconscious. 
Both  the  prohibition  and  the  impulse  remained; 
the  impulse  because  it  had  only  been  repressed 
and  not  abolished,  the  prohibition,  because  if  it 
had  ceased  the  impulse  would  have  broken 
through  into  consciousness  and  would  have  been 
carried  out.  An  unsolved  situation,  a  psychic 
fixation,  had  thus  been  created  and  now  every- 
thing else  emanated  from  the  continued  conflict 
between  prohibition  and  impulse. 

The  main  characteristic  of  the  psychic  con- 
stellation which  has  thus  undergone  fixation  lies 
in  what  one  might  call  the  ambivalent  behavior  12 
of  the  individual  to  the  object,  or  rather  to  an 
action  regarding  it.  The  individual  constantly 
wants  to  carry  out  this  action  (the  act  of  touch- 
ing), he  sees  in  it  the  highest  pleasure,  but  he 

10  Both  the  pleasure  and  the  prohibition  referred  to  touching 
one's  own  genitals. 

11  The  relation  to  beloved  persons  who  impose  the  prohibition. 

12  To  use  an  excellent  term  coined  by  Bleuler, 

50  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

may  not  carry  it  out,  and  he  even  abominates  it. 
The  opposition  between  these  two  streams  can- 
not be  easily  adjusted  because — there  is  no  other 
way  to  express  it — they  are  so  localized  in  the 
psychic  life  that  they  cannot  meet.  The  pro- 
hibition becomes  fully  conscious,  while  the  sur- 
viving pleasure  of  touching  remains  unconscious, 
the  person  knowing  nothing  about  it.  If  this 
psychological  factor  did  not  exist  the  ambival- 
ence could  neither  maintain  itself  so  long  nor 
lead  to  such  subsequent  manifestations. 

In  the  clinical  history  of  the  case  we  have  em- 
phasized the  appearance  of  the  prohibition  in 
early  childhood  as  the  determining  factor ;  but  for 
the  further  elaboration  of  the  neurosis  this  role  is 
played  by  the  repression  which  appears  at  this 
age.  On  account  of  the  repression  which  has 
taken  place,  which  is  connected  with  forgetting 
(amnesia) ,  the  motivation  of  the  prohibition  that 
has  become  conscious  remains  unknown,  and  all 
attempts  to  unravel  it  intellectually  must  fail, 
as  the  point  of  attack  cannot  be  found.  The  pro- 
hibition owes  its  strength — its  compulsive  char- 
acter— to  its  association  with  its  unknown  coun- 
terpart, the  hidden  and  unabated  pleasure,  that 
is  to  say,  to  an  inner  need  into  which  conscious  in- 
sight is  lacking.  The  transferability  and  repro- 
ductive power  of  the  prohibition  reflect  a  process 
which  harmonizes  with  the  unconscious  pleasure 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS         51 

and  is  very  much  facilitated  through  the  psy- 
chological determinants  of  the  unconscious.  The 
pleasure  of  the  impulse  constantly  undergoes  dis- 
placement in  order  to  escape  the  blocking  which 
it  encounters  and  seeks  to  acquire  surrogates  for 
the  forbidden  in  the  form  of  substitutive  objects 
and  actions.  For  the  same  reason  the  prohibi- 
tion also  wanders  and  spreads  to  the  new  aims  of 
the  proscribed  impulse.  Every  new  advance  of 
the  repressed  libido  is  answered  by  the  prohibi- 
tion with  a  new  severity.  The  mutual  inhibi- 
tion of  these  two  contending  forces  creates  a 
need  for  discharge  and  for  lessening  the  existing 
tension,  in  which  we  may  recognize  the  motivation 
for  the  compulsive  acts.  In  the  neurosis  there 
are  distinctly  acts  of  compromise  which  on  the  one 
hand  may  be  regarded  as  proofs  of  remorse  and 
efforts  to  expiate  and  similar  actions ;  but  on  the 
other  hand  they  are  at  the  same  time  substitutive 
actions  which  recompense  the  impulse  for  what 
has  been  forbidden.  It  is  a  law  of  neurotic  dis- 
eases that  these  obsessive  acts  serve  the  impulse 
more  and  more  and  come  nearer  and  nearer  to  the 
original  forbidden  act. 

We  may  now  make  the  attempt  to  study  taboo 
as  if  it  were  of  the  same  nature  as  the  compulsive 
prohibitions  of  our  patients.  It  must  naturally 
be  clearly  understood  that  many  of  the  taboo  pro- 
hibitions which  we  shall  study  are  already  second- 

U^   -     f7^ 

52  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

ary,  displaced  and  distorted,  so  that  we  shall  have 
to  be  satisfied  if  we  can  shed  some  light  upon  the 
earliest  and  most  important  taboo  prohibitions. 
We  must  also  remember  that  the  differences  in 
the  situation  of  the  savage  and  of  the  neurotic 
may  be  important  enough  to  exclude  complete 
correspondence  and  prevent  a  point  by  point 
transfer  from  one  to  the  other  such  as  would  be 
possible  if  we  were  dealing  with  exact  copies. 

First  of  all  it  must  be  said  that  it  is  useless  to 
question  savages  as  to  the  real  motivation  of  their 
prohibitions  or  as  to  the  genesis  of  taboo.  Ac- 
cording to  our  assumption  they  must  be  incapable 
of  telling  us  anything  about  it  since  this  motiva- 
tion is  "unconscious"  to  them.  But  following  the 
model  of  the  compulsive  prohibition  we  shall  con- 
struct the  history  of  taboo  as  follows:  Taboos 
are  very  ancient  prohibitions  which  at  one  time 
were  forced  upon  a  generation  of  primitive 
people  from  without,  that  is,  they  probably  were 
forcibly  impressed  upon  them  by  an  earlier  gen- 
eration. These  prohibitions  concerned  actions 
for  which  there  existed  a  strong  desire.  The  pro- 
hibitions maintained  themselves  from  generation 
to  generation,  perhaps  only  as  the  result  of  a  tra- 
dition set  up  by  paternal  and  social  authority. 
But  in  later  generations  they  have  perhaps  al- 
ready become  "organized"  as  a  piece  of  inherited 
psychic    property.     Whether    there    are    such 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS         53 

"innate  ideas"  or  whether  these  have  brought 
about  the  fixation  of  the  taboo  by  themselves  or 
by  cooperating  with  education  no  one  could  de- 
cide in  the  particular  case  in  question.  The  per- 
sistence of  taboo  teaches,  however,  one  thing, 
namely,  that  the  original  pleasure  to  do  the  for- 
bidden still  continues  among  taboo  races.  They 
therefore  assume  an  ambivalent  attitude  toward 
their  taboo  prohibitions ;  in  their  unconscious  they 
would  like  nothing  better  than  to  transgress  them 
but  they  are  also  afraid  to  do  it;  they  are  afraid 
just  because  they  would  like  to  transgress,  and 
the  fear  is  stronger  than  the  pleasure.  But  in 
every  individual  of  the  race  the  desire  for  it  is 
unconscious,  just  as  in  the  neurotic. 

The  oldest  and  most  important  taboo  prohi- 
bitions are  the  two  basic  laws  of  totemism :  namely 
not  to  kill  the  totem  animal  and  to  avoid  sexual 
(intercourse  with  totem  companions  of  the  other 
sex. 

It  would  therefore  seem  that  these  must  have 
been  the  oldest  and  strongest  desires  of  mankind. 
We  cannot  understand  this  and  therefore  we  can- 
not use  these  examples  to  test  our  assumptions  as 
long  as  the  meaning  and  the  origin  of  the  totemic 
system  is  so  wholly  unknown  to  us.  But  the  very 
wording  of  these  taboos  and  the  fact  that  they 
occur  together  will  remind  any  one  who  knows  the 
results  of  the  psychoanalytic  investigation  of  in- 

54  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

dividuals,  of  something  quite  definite  which  psy- 
choanalysts call  the  central  point  of  the  infantile 
wish  life  and  the  nucleus  of  the  later  neurosis.13 

All  other  varieties  of  taboo  phenomena  which 
have  led  to  the  attempted  classifications  noted 
above  become  unified  if  we  sum  them  up  in  the 
following  sentence :  The  basis  of  taboo  is  a  for- 
bidden action  for  which  there  exists  a  strong  incli- 
nation in  the  unconscious. 

We  know,  without  understanding  it,  that  who- 
ever does  what  is  prohibited  and  violates  the 
taboo,  becomes  himself  taboo.  But  how  can  we 
connect  this  fact  with  the  other,  namely  that  the 
taboo  adheres  not  only  to  persons  who  have  done 
what  is  prohibited  but  also  to  persons  who  are  in 
exceptional  circumstances,  to  these  circumstances 
themselves,  and  to  impersonal  things?  What 
can  this  dangerous  attribute  be,  which  always  re- 
mains the  same  under  all  these  different  con- 
ditions ?  Only  one  thing,  namely,  the  propensity 
to  arouse  the  ambivalence  of  man  and  to  tempt 
him  to  violate  the  prohibition. 

An  individual  who  has  violated  a  taboo  becomes 
himself  taboo  because  he  has  the  dangerous  prop- 
erty of  tempting  others  to  follow  his  example. 
He  arouses  envy ;  why  should  he  be  allowed  to  do 
what  is  prohibited  to  others?  He  is  therefore 
really  contagious,  in  so  far  as  every  example  in- 

l3  See  Chapter  IV  Totemism,  etc. 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS  55 

cites  to  imitation,  and  therefore  he  himself  must 
be  avoided. 

But  a  person  may  become  permanently  or  tem- 
porarily taboo  without  having  violated  any 
taboos,  for  the  simple  reason  that  he  is  in  a  con- 
dition which  has  the  property  of  inciting  the  for- 
bidden desires  of  others  and  of  awakening  the 
ambivalent  conflict  in  them.  Most  of  the  excep- 
tional positions  and  conditions  have  this  character 
and  possess  this  dangerous  power.  The  king  or 
chieftain  rouses  envy  of  his  prerogatives;  every- 
body would  perhaps  like  to  be  king.  The  dead, 
the  newly  born,  and  women  when  they  are  in- 
capacitated, all  act  as  incitements  on  account  of 
their  peculiar  helplessness,  while  the  individual 
who  has  just  reached  sexual  maturity  tempts 
through  the  promise  of  a  new  pleasure.  There- 
fore all  these  persons  and  all  these  conditions  are 
taboo,  for  one  must  not  yield  to  the  temptations 
which  they  offer. 

Now,  too,  we  understand  why  the  forces  inher- 
ent in  the  "mana"  of  various  persons  can  neutral- 
ize one  another  so  that  the  mana  of  one  individual 
can  partly  cancel  that  of  the  other.  The  taboo  of 
a  king  is  too  strong  for  his  subject  because  the 
social  difference  between  them  is  too  great.  But 
a  minister,  for  example,  can  become  the  harmless 
mediator  between  them.  Translated  from  the 
language  of  taboo  into  the  language  of  normal 

56  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

psychology  this  means:  the  subject  who  shrinks 
from  the  tremendous  temptation  which  contact 
with  the  king  creates  for  him  can  brook  the  inter- 
course of  an  official,  whom  he  does  not  have  to 
envy  so  much  and  whose  position  perhaps  seems 
attainable  to  him.  The  minister,  on  his  part,  can 
moderate  his  envy  of  the  king  by  taking  into  con- 
sideration the  power  that  has  been  granted  to  him. 
Thus  smaller  differences  in  the  magic  power  that 
lead  to  temptation  are  less  to  be  feared  than  ex- 
ceptionally big  differences. 

It  is  equally  clear  how  the  violation  of  certain 
taboo  prohibitions  becomes  a  social  danger  which 
must  be  punished  or  expiated  by  all  the  members 
of  society  lest  it  harm  them  all.  This  danger 
really  exists  if  we  substitute  the  known  impulses 
for  the  unconscious  desires.  It  consists  in  the 
possibility  of  imitation,  as  a  result  of  which 
society  would  soon  be  dissolved.  If  the  others 
did  not  punish  the  violation  they  would  perforce 
become  aware  that  they  want  to  imitate  the  evil 
doer. 

Though  the  secret  meaning  of  a  taboo  prohi- 
bition cannot  possibly  be  of  so  special  a  nature  as 
in  the  case  of  a  neurosis,  we  must  not  be  aston- 
ished to  find  that  touching  plays  a  similar  role  in 
taboo  prohibition  as  in  the  delire  de  toucher.  To 
touch  is  the  beginning  of  every  act  of  possession, 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS         57 

of  every  attempt  to  make  use  of  a  person  or  thing. 

We  have  interpreted  the  power  of  contagion 
which  inheres  in  the  taboo  as  the  property  of  lead- 
ing into  temptation,  and  of  inciting  to  imitation. 
This  does  not  seem  to  be  in  accord  with  the  fact 
that  the  Contagiousness  of  the  taboo  is  above  all 
manifested  in  the  transference  to  objects  which 
thus  themselves  become  carriers  of  the  taboo. 

This  transferability  of  the  taboo  reflects  what 
is  found  in  the  neurosis,  namely,  the  constant 
tendency  of  the  unconscious  impulse  to  become 
displaced  through  associative  channels  upon  new 
objects.  Our  attention  is  thus  drawn  to  the  fact 
that  the  dangerous  magic  power  of  the  "mana" 
corresponds  to  two  real  faculties,  the  capacity  of 
reminding  man  of  his  forbidden  wishes,  and  the 
apparently  more  important  one  of  tempting  him 
to  violate  the  prohibition  in  the  service  of  these 
wishes.  Both  functions  reunite  into  one,  how- 
ever, if  we  assume  it  to  be  in  accord  with  a  primi- 
tive psychic  life  that  with  the  awakening  of  a 
memory  of  a  forbidden  action  there  should  also  be 
combined  the  awakening  of  the  tendency  to  carry 
out  the  action.  Memory  and  temptation  then 
again  coincide.  We  must  also  admit  that  if  the 
example  of  a  person  who  has  violated  a  prohi- 
bition leads  another  to  the  same  action,  the  dis- 
obedience of  the  prohibition  has  been  transmitted 

58  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

like  a  contagion,  just  as  the  taboo  is  transferred 
from  a  person  to  an  object,  and  from  this  to 
another. 

If  the  violation  of  a  taboo  can  be  condoned 
through  expiation  or  penance,  which  means,  of 
course,  a  renunciation  of  a  possession  or  a  liberty, 
we  have  the  proof  that  the  observance  of  a  taboo 
regulation  was  itself  a  renunciation  of  something 
really  wished  for.  The  omission  of  one  renuncia- 
tion is  cancelled  through  a  renunciation  at  some 
other  point.  This  would  lead  us  to  conclude  that, 
as  far  as  taboo  ceremonials  are  concerned,  pen- 
ance is  more  primitive  than  purification. 

Let  us  now  summarize  what  understanding  we 
have  gained  of  taboo  through  its  comparison  with 
the  compulsive  prohibition  of  the  neurotic. 
Taboo  is  a  very  primitive  prohibition  imposed 
from  without  (by  an  authority)  and  directed 
against  the  strongest  desires  of  man.  The  desire 
to  violate  it  continues  in  the  unconscious;  per- 
sons who  obey  the  taboo  have  an  ambivalent  feel- 
ing toward  what  is  affected  by  the  taboo.  The 
magic  power  attributed  to  taboo  goes  back  to  its 
ability  to  lead  man  into  temptation;  it  behaves 
like  a  contagion,  because  the  example  is  con- 
tagious, and  because  the  prohibited  desire  be- 
comes displacing  in  the  unconscious  upon  some- 
thing else.  The  expiation  for  the  violation  of  a 
taboo  through  a  renunciation  proves  that  a  renun- 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS  59 

ciation  is  at  the  basis  of  the  observance  of  the 
taboo. 

We  may  ask  what  we  have  gained  from  the 
comparison  of  taboo  with  compulsion  neurosis 
and  what  value  can  be  claimed  for  the  interpre- 
tation we  have  given  on  the  basis  of  this  compari- 
son? Our  interpretation  is  evidently  of  no  value 
unless  it  offers  an  advantage  not  to  be  had  in 
any  other  way  and  unless  it  affords  a  better  un- 
derstanding of  taboo  than  was  otherwise  possible. 
We  might  claim  that  we  have  already  given  proof 
of  its  usefulness  in  what  has  been  said  above ;  but 
we  shall  have  to  try  to  strengthen  our  proof  by 
continuing  the  explanation  of  taboo  prohibitions 
and  customs  in  detail. 

But  we  can  avail  ourselves  of  another  method. 
We  can  shape  our  investigation  so  as  to  ascertain 
whether  a  part  of  the  assumptions  which  we  have 
transferred  from  the  neurosis  to  the  taboo,  or  the 
conclusions  at  which  we  have  thereby  arrived  can 
be  demonstrated  directly  in  the  phenomena  of 
taboo,  We  must  decide,  however,  what  we  want 
to  look  for.  The  assertion  concerning  the  gene- 
sis of  taboo,  namely,  that  it  was  derived  from  a 
primitive  prohibition  which  was  once  imposed 
from  without,  cannot,  of  course,  be  proved.  We 
shall  therefore  seek  to  confirm  those  psycholog- 

60  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

ical  conditions  for  taboo  with  which  we  have 
become  acquainted  in  the  case  of  compulsion  neu- 
rosis. How  did  we  gain  our  knowledge  of  these 
psychological  factors  in  the  case  of  neurosis? 
Through  the  analytical  study  of  the  symptoms, 
especially  the  compulsive  actions,  the  defense  re- 
actions and  the  obsessive  commands.  These 
mechanisms  gave  every  indication  of  having  been 
derived  from  ambivalent  impulses  or  tendencies, 
they  either  represented  simultaneously  the  wish 
and  counter-wish  or  they  served  preponderantly 
one  of  the  two  contrary  tendencies.  If  we  should 
now  succeed  in  showing  that  ambivalence,  i.  e.,  the 
sway  of  contrary  tendencies,  exists  also  in  the 
case  of  taboo  regulations  or  if  we  should  find 
among  the  taboo  mechanisms  some  which  like 
neurotic  obsessions  give  simultaneous  expression 
to  both  currents,  we  would  have  established  what 
is  practically  the  most  important  point  in  the 
psychological  correspondence  between  taboo  and 
compulsion  neurosis. 

We  have  already  mentioned  that  the  two  fun- 
damental taboo  prohibitions  are  inaccessible  to 
our  analysis  because  they  belong  to  totemism ;  an- 
other part  of  the  taboo  rules  is  of  secondary  origin 
and  cannot  be  used  for  our  purpose.  For  among 
these  races  taboo  has  become  the  general  form  of 
law  giving  and  has  helped  to  promote  social  ten- 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS         61 

dencies  which  are  certainly  younger  than  taboo 
itself,  as  for  instance,  the  taboos  imposed  by 
chiefs  and  priests  to  insure  their  property  and 
privileges.  But  there  still  remains  a  large  group 
of  laws  which  we  may  undertake  to  investigate. 
Among  these  I  lay  stress  on  those  taboos  which 
are  attached  a)  to  enemies,  b)  to  chiefs,  and  c) 
to  the  dead ;  the  material  for  our  investigation  is 
taken  from  the  excellent  collection  of  J.  G. 
Frazer  in  his  great  work,  "The  Golden 
Bough."  14 

a)     the  treatment  of  enemies 

Inclined  as  we  may  have  been  to  ascribe  to 
savage  and  semi-savage  races  uninhibited  and  re- 
morseless cruelty  towards  their  enemies,  it  is  of 
great  interest  to  us  to  learn  that  with  them,  too, 
the  killing  of  a  person  compels  the  observation  of 
a  series  of  rules  which  are  associated  with  taboo 
customs.  These  rules  are  easily  brought  under 
four  groups;  they  demand  1.  reconciliation  with 
the  slain  enemy,  2.  restrictions,  3.  acts  of  expia- 
tion, and  purifications  of  the  manslayer,  and  4. 
certain  ceremonial  rites.  The  incomplete  reports 
do  not  allow  us  to  decide  with  certainty  how  gen- 
eral or  how  isolated  such  taboo  customs  may  be 

i*  Third  Edition,  Part  II,  "Taboo  and  the  Perils  of  the  Soul," 
1911. 

62  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

among  these  races,  but  this  is  a  matter  of  indiffer- 
ence as  far  as  our  interest  in  these  occurrences  is 
concerned.  Still,  it  may  be  assumed  that  we  are 
dealing  with  widespread  customs  and  not  with 
isolated  peculiarities. 

The  reconciliation  customs  practiced  on  the 
island  of  Timor,  after  a  victorious  band  of  war- 
riors has  returned  with  the  severed  heads  of  the 
vanquished  enemy,  are  especially  significant  be- 
cause the  leader  of  the  expedition  is  subject  to 
heavy  additional  restrictions.  "At  the  solemn 
entry  of  the  victors,  sacrifices  are  made  to  con- 
ciliate the  souls  of  the  enemy;  otherwise  one 
would  have  to  expect  harm  to  come  to  the  vic- 
tors. A  dance  is  given  and  a  song  is  sung  in 
which  the  slain  enemy  is  mourned  and  his  for- 
giveness is  implored:  'Be  not  angry,'  they  say, 
'because  your  head  is  here  with  us;  had  we  been 
less  lucky,  our  heads  might  have  been  exposed  in 
your  village.  We  have  offered  the  sacrifice  to 
appease  you.  Your  spirit  may  now  rest  and 
leave  us  at  peace.  Why  were  you  our  enemy? 
Would  it  not  have  been  better  that  we  should  re- 
main friends?  Then  your  blood  would  not  have 
been  spilt  and  your  head  would  not  have  been 
cut  off.'  "  15 

Similar  customs  are  found  among  the  Palu  in 
Celebes ;  the  Gallas  sacrifice  to  the  spirits  of  their 

is  Frazer,  1.  c.  p.  166, 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS         63 

dead  enemies  before  they  return  to  their  home 
villages.36 

Other  races  have  found  methods  of  making 
friends,  guardians  and  protectors  out  of  their  for- 
mer enemies  after  they  are  dead.  This  consists 
in  the  tender  treatment  of  the  severed  heads,  of 
which  many  wild  tribes  of  Borneo  boast.  When 
the  See-Dayaks  of  Sarawak  bring  home  a  head 
from  a  war  expedition,  they  treat  it  for  months 
with  the  greatest  kindness  and  courtesy  and  ad- 
dress it  with  the  most  endearing  names  in  their 
language.  The  best  morsels  from  their  meals  are 
put  into  its  mouth,  together  with  titbits  and 
cigars.  The  dead  enemy  is  repeatedly  entreated 
to  hate  his  former  friends  and  to  bestow  his  love 
upon  his  new  hosts  because  he  has  now  become 
one  of  them.  It  would  be  a  great  mistake  to 
think  that  any  derision  is  attached  to  this  treat- 
ment, horrible  though  it  may  seem  to  us.17 

Observers  have  been  struck  by  the  mourning 
for  the  enemy  after  he  is  slain  and  scalped,  among 
several  of  the  wild  tribes  of  North  America. 
When  a  Choctaw  had  killed  an  enemy  he  began  a 
month's  mourning  during  which  he  submitted 
himself  to  serious  restrictions.  The  Dakota  In- 
dians mourned  in  the  same  way.     One  authority 

16  Paulitschke,  "Ethnography  of  Northeast  Africa." 
i^Frazer,  "Adonis,  Attis,  Osiris,"  p.  248,  1907.    According  to 
Hugh  Low,  Sarawak,  London,  1848. 

64  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

mentions  that  the  Osaga  Indians  after  mourning 
for  their  own  dead  mourned  for  their  foes  as  if 
they  had  been  friends.18  * 

Before  proceeding  to  the  other  classes  of  taboo 
customs  for  the  treatment  of  enemies,  we  must 
define  our  position  in  regard  to  a  pertinent  objec- 
tion. Both  Frazer  as  well  as  other  authorities 
may  well  be  quoted  against  us  to  show  that  the 
motive  for  these  rules  of  reconciliation  is  quite 
simple  and  has  nothing  to  do  with  "ambivalence." 
These  races  are  dominated  by  a  superstitious  fear 
of  the  spirits  of  the  slain,  a  fear  which  was  also 
familiar  to  classical  antiquity,  and  which  the 
great  British  dramatist  brought  upon  the  stage 
in  the  hallucinations  of  Macbeth  and  Richard  the 
Third.  From  this  superstition  all  the  reconcilia- 
tion rules  as  well  as  the  restrictions  and  expia- 
tions which  we  shall  discuss  later  can  be  logically 
deduced;  moreover,  the  ceremonies  included  in 
the  fourth  group  also  argue  for  this  interpreta- 
tion, since  the  only  explanation  of  which  they 
admit  is  the  effort  to  drive  away  the  spirits  of  the 
slain  which  pursue  the  manslayers.19  Besides, 
the  savages  themselves  directly  admit  their  fear 
of  the  spirits  of  their  slain  foes  and  trace  back 
the  taboo  customs  under  discussion  to  this  fear. 

is  J.  O.  Dorsay,  see  Frazer,  "Toboo,  etc.,"  p.  181. 

19  Frazer,  "Taboo,"  p.  166  to  174.  These  ceremonies  consist  of 
hitting  shields,  shouting,  bellowing  and  making  noises  with  various 
instruments,  etc. 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS         65 

This  objection  is  certainly  pertinent  and  if  it 
were  adequate  as  well  we  would  gladly  spare  our- 
selves the  trouble  of  our  attempt  to  find  a  further 
explanation.  We  postpone  the  consideration  of 
this  objection  until  later  and  for  the  present 
merely  contrast  it  to  the  interpretation  derived 
from  our  previous  discussion  of  taboo.  All  these 
rules  of  taboo  lead  us  to  conclude  that  other  im- 
pulses besides  those  that  are  merely  hostile  find 
expression  in  the  behavior  towards  enemies.  We 
see  in  them  manifestations  of  repentance,  of  re- 
gard for  the  enemy,  and  of  a  bad  conscience 
for  having  slain  him.  It  seems  that  the  com- 
mandment, Thou  shalt  not  slay,  which  could 
not  be  violated  without  punishment,  existed 
also  among  these  savages,  long  before  any 
legislation  was  received  from  the  hands  of  a 
god. 

We  now  return  to  the  remaining  classes  of 
taboo  rules.  The  restrictions  laid  upon  the  vic- 
torious manslayer  are  unusually  frequent  and 
are  mostly  of  a  serious  nature.  In  Timor  (com- 
pare the  reconciliation  customs  mentioned  above) 
the  leader  of  the  expedition  cannot  return  to  his 
house  under  any  circumstances.  A  special  hut 
is  erected  for  him  in  which  he  spends  two  months 
engaged  in  the  observance  of  various  rules  of 
purification.  During  this  period  he  may  not  see 
his  wife  or  nourish  himself;  another  person  must 

66  TOTEM  AND  TABOO' 

put  his  food  into  his  mouth.20  Among  some 
Dayak  tribes  warriors  returning  from  a  success- 
ful expedition  must  remain  sequestered  for  sev- 
eral days  and  abstain  from  certain  foods;  they 
may  not  touch  iron  and  must  remain  away  from 
their  wives.  In  Logea,  an  island  near  New; 
Guinea,  men  who  have  killed  an  enemy  or  have 
taken  part  in  the  killing,  lock  themselves  up  in 
their  houses  for  a  week.  They  avoid  every  inter- 
course with  their  wives  and  friends,  they  do  not 
touch  their  victuals  with  their  hands  and  live  on 
nothing  but  vegetable  foods  which  are  cooked 
for  them  in  special  dishes.  As  a  reason  for  this 
last  restriction  it  is  alleged  that  they  must  smell 
the  blood  of  the  slain,  otherwise  they  would  sicken 
and  die.  Among  the  Toaripi-  or  Motumotu- 
tribes  in  New  Guinea  a  manslayer  must  not  ap- 
proach his  wife  and  must  not  touch  his  food  with 
his  fingers.  A  second  person  must  feed  him  with 
special  food.  This  continues  until  the  next  new 
moon. 

I  avoid  the  complete  enumeration  of  all  the 
cases  of  restrictions  of  the  victorious  slayer  men- 
tioned by  Frazer,  and  emphasize  only  such  cases 
in  which  the  character  of  taboo  is  especially  no- 
ticeable or  where  the  restriction  appears  in  con- 

20  Frazer,  "Taboo,"  p.  166,  according  to  S.  Mueller,  "Reisen  en 
Onderzoekingen  in  den  Indischen  Archipel,"  Amsterdam,  1857. 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS  67 

nection  with  expiation,  purification  and  cere- 
monial. 

Among  the  Monumbos  in  German  New 
Guinea  a  man  who  has  killed  an  enemy  in  combat 
becomes  "unclean,"  the  same  word  being  em- 
ployed which  is  applied  to  women  during  men- 
struation or  confinement.  For  a  considerable 
period  he  is  not  allowed  to  leave  the  men's  club- 
house, while  the  inhabitants  of  his  village  gather 
about  him  and  celebrate  his  victory  with  songs 
and  dances.  He  must  not  touch  any  one,  not 
even  his  wife  and  children ;  if  he  did  so  they  would 
be  afflicted  with  boils.  He  finally  becomes  clean 
through  washing  and  other  ceremonies. 

Among  the  Natchez  in  North  America  young 
warriors  who  had  procured  their  first  scalp  were 
bound  for  six  months  to  the  observance  of  certain 
renunciations.  They  were  not  allowed  to  sleep 
with  their  wives  or  to  eat  meat,  and  received  only 
fish  and  maize  pudding  as  nourishment.  When  a 
Choctaw  had  killed  and  scalped  an  enemy  he 
began  a  period  of  mourning  for  one  month,  dur- 
ing which  he  was  not  allowed  to  comb  his  hair. 
When  his  head  itched  he  was  not  allowed  to 
scratch  it  with  his  hand  but  used  a  small  stick  for 
this  purpose. 

After  a  Pima  Indian  had  killed  an  Apache  he 
had  to  submit  himself  to  severe  ceremonies  of 

68  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

purification  and  expiation.  During  a  fasting 
period  of  sixteen  days  he  was  not  allowed  to  touch 
meat  or  salt,  to  look  at  a  fire  or  to  speak  to  any 
one.  He  lived  alone  in  the  woods,  where  he  was 
waited  upon  by  an  old  woman  who  brought  him  a 
small  allowance  of  food;  he  often  bathed  in  the 
nearest  river,  and  carried  a  lump  of  clay  on  his 
head  as  a  sign  of  mourning.  On  the  seventeenth 
day  there  took  place  a  public  ceremony  through 
which  he  and  his  weapons  were  solemnly  purified. 
As  the  Pima  Indians  took  the  manslayer  taboo 
much  more  seriously  than  their  enemies  and,  un- 
like them,  did  not  postpone  expiation  and  purifi- 
cation until  the  end  of  the  expedition,  their 
prowess  in  war  suffered  very  much  through  their 
moral  severity  or  what  might  be  called  their  piety. 
In  spite  of  their  extraordinary  bravery  they 
proved  to  be  unsatisfactory  allies  to  the  Ameri- 
cans in  their  wars  against  the  Apaches. 

The  detail  and  variations  of  these  expiatory 
and  purifying  ceremonies  after  the  killing  of  an 
enemy  would  be  most  interesting  for  purposes  of 
a  more  searching  study  but  I  need  not  enumerate 
any  more  of  them  here  because  they  cannot  fur- 
nish us  with  any  new  points  of  view.  I  might 
mention  that  the  temporary  or  permanent  isola- 
tion of  the  professional  executioner,  which  was 
maintained  up  to  our  time,  is  a  case  in  point. 
The  position  of  the  "free-holder"  in  mediaeval 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS  69 

society  really  conveys  a  good  idea  of  the  "taboo" 
of  savages.21 

The  current  explanation  of  all  these  rules  of 
reconciliation,  restriction,  expiation  and  purifica- 
tion, combines  two  principles,  namely,  the  exten- 
sion of  the  taboo  of  the  dead  to  everything  that 
has  come  into  contact  with  him,  and  the  fear  of 
the  spirit  of  the  slain.  In  what  combination 
these  two  elements  are  to  explain  the  ceremonial, 
whether  they  are  to  be  considered  as  of  equal 
value  or  whether  one  of  them  is  primary  and  the 
other  secondary,  and  which  one,  is  nowhere  stated, 
nor  would  this  be  an  easy  matter  to  decide.  In 
contradistinction  to  all  this  we  emphasize  the 
unity  which  our  interpretation  gains  by  deducing 
all  these  rules  from  the  ambivalence  of  the  emo- 
tion of  savages  towards  their  enemies. 

b)     the  taboo  of  rulers 

The  behavior  of  primitive  races  towards  their 
chiefs,  kings,  and  priests,  is  controlled  by  two 
principles  which  seem  rather  to  supplement  than 
to  contradict  each  other.  They  must  both  be 
guarded  and  be  guarded  against.22 

Both  objects  are  accomplished  through  in- 
numerable rules  of  taboo.     Why  one  must  guard 

21  For  these  examples  see  Frazer,  "Taboo,"  p.  165-170,  "Man- 
slayers  Tabooed." 

22  Frazer,  "Taboo,"  p.  132.     "He  must  not  only  be  guarded,  he 
must  also  be  guarded  against." 

70  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

against  rulers  is  already  known  to  us;  because 
they  are  the  bearers  of  that  mysterious  and  dan- 
gerous magic  power  which  communicates  itself 
by  contact,  like  an  electric  charge,  bringing  death 
and  destruction  to  any  one  not  protected  by  a 
similar  charge.  All  direct  or  indirect  contact 
with  this  dangerous  sacredness  is  therefore 
avoided,  and  where  it  cannot  be  avoided  a  cere- 
monial has  been  found  to  ward  off  the  dreaded 
consequences.  The  Nubas  in  East  Africa,  for 
instance,  believe  that  they  must  die  if  they  enter 
the  house  of  their  priest-king,  but  that  they 
escape  this  danger  if,  on  entering,  they  bare  the 
left  shoulder  and  induce  the  king  to  touch  it  with 
his  hand.  Thus  we  have  the  remarkable  case  of 
the  king's  touch  becoming  the  healing  and  protec- 
tive measure  against  the  very  dangers  that  arise 
from  contact  with  the  king;  but  it  is  probably  a 
question  of  the  healing  power  of  the  intentional 
touching  on  the  king's  part  in  contradistinction 
to  the  danger  of  touching  him,  in  other  words,  of 
the  opposition  between  passivity  and  activity 
towards  the  king. 

Where  the  healing  power  of  the  royal  touch  is 
concerned  we  do  not  have  to  look  for  examples 
among  savages.  In  comparatively  recent  times 
the  kings  of  England  exercised  this  power  upon 
scrofula,  whence  it  was  called  "The  King's  Evil." 
Neither  Queen  Elizabeth  nor  any  of  her  sue- 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS  71 

cessors  renounced  this  part  of  the  royal  preroga- 
tive. Charles  I  is  said  to  have  healed  a  hundred 
sufferers  at  one  time,  in  the  year  1633.  Under 
his  dissolute  son  Charles  II,  after  the  great 
English  revolution  had  passed,  royal  healings  of 
scrofula  attained  their  greatest  vogue. 

This  king  is  said  to  have  touched  close  to  a 
hundred  thousand  victims  of  scrofula  in  the 
course  of  his  reign.  The  crush  of  those  seeking 
to  be  cured  used  to  be  so  great  that  on  one  occa- 
sion six  or  seven  patients  suffered  death  by  suffo- 
cation instead  of  being  healed.  The  skeptical 
king  of  Orange,  William  III,  who  became  king 
of  England  after  the  banishment  of  the  Stuarts, 
refused  to  exercise  the  spell;  on  the  one  occasion 
when  he  consented  to  practice  the  touch,  he  did 
so  with  the  words:  "May  God  give  you  better 
health  and  more  sense."  23 

The  following  account  will  bear  witness  to  the 
terrible  effect  of  touching  by  virtue  of  which  a 
person,  even  though  unintentionally,  becomes 
active  against  his  king  or  against  what  belongs  to 
him.  A  chief  of  high  rank  and  great  holiness  in 
New  Zealand  happened  to  leave  the  remains  of 
his  meal  by  the  roadside.  A  young  slave  came 
along,  a  strong,  healthy  fellow,  who  saw  what 
was  left  over  and  started  to  eat  it.  Hardly  had 
he  finished  when  a  horrified  spectator  informed 

23  Frazer,  The  Magic  Art  I,  p.  368. 

72  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

him  of  his  offense  in  eating  the  meal  of  the  chief. 
The  man  had  been  a  strong,  brave,  warrior,  but 
as  soon  as  he  heard  this  he  collapsed  and  was 
afflicted  by  terrible  convulsions,  from  which  he 
died  towards  sunset  of  the  following  day.24  i\! 
Maori  woman  ate  a  certain  fruit  and  then  learned 
that  it  came  from  a  place  on  which  there  was  a 
taboo.  She  cried  out  that  the  spirit  of  the  chief 
whom  she  had  thus  offended  would  surely  kill 
her.  This  incident  occurred  in  the  afternoon  and 
on  the  next  day  at  twelve  o'clock  she  was  dead.25 
The  tinder  box  of  a  Maori  chief  once  cost  several 
persons  their  lives.  The  chief  had  lost  it  and 
those  who  found  it  used  it  to  light  their  pipes. 
When  they  learned  whose  property  the  tinder 
box  was  they  all  died  of  fright.26 

It  is  hardly  astonishing  that  the  need  was  felt 
to  isolate  dangerous  persons  like  chiefs  and 
priests,  by  building  a  wall  around  them  which 
made  them  inaccessible  to  others.  We  surmise 
that  this  wall,  which  originally  was  constructed 
out  of  taboo  rules,  still  exists  to-day  in  the  form 
of  court  ceremony. 

But  probably  the  greater  part  of  this  taboo  of 
the  rulers  cannot  be  traced  back  to  the  need  of 

24  "Old  New  Zealand,"  by  a  Pakeha  Maori  (London,  1884),  see 
Frazer,  "Taboo,"  p.  135. 

25  w.   Brown,   "New    Zealand   and    Its    Aborigines"    (London, 
1845),  Frazer,  ibid. 

26  Frazer,  1.  c. 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS         73 

guarding  against  them.  The  other  point  of  view 
in  the  treatment  of  privileged  persons,  the  need 
of  guarding  them  from  dangers  with  which  they 
are  threatened,  has  had  a  distinct  share  in  the 
creation  of  taboo  and  therefore  of  the  origin  of 
court  etiquette. 

The  necessity  of  guarding  the  king  from  every 
conceivable  danger  arises  from  his  great  impor- 
tance for  the  weal  and  woe  of  his  subjects. 
Strictly  speaking,  he  is  a  person  who  regulates 
the  course  of  the  world;  his  people  have  to  thank 
him  not  only  for  rain  and  sunshine,  which  allow 
the  fruits  of  the  earth  to  grow,  but  also  for  the 
wind  which  brings  the  ships  to  their  shores  and  for 
the  solid  ground  on  which  they  set  their  feet.27 

These  savage  kings  are  endowed  with  a  wealth 
of  power  and  an  ability  to  bestow  happiness 
which  only  gods  possess;  certainly  in  later 
stages  of  civilization  none  but  the  most  servile 
courtiers  would  play  the  hypocrite  to  the  extent 
of  crediting  their  sovereigns  with  the  possession 
of  attributes  similar  to  these. 

It  seems  like  an  obvious  contradiction  that  per- 
sons of  such  perfection  of  power  should  them- 
selves require  the  greatest  care  to  guard  them 
against  threatening  dangers,  but  this  is  not  the 
only  contradiction  revealed  in  the  treatment  of 
royal  persons  on  the  part  of  savages.     These 

27  Frazer,  "Taboo."    "The  Burden  of  Royalty,"  p.  7. 

74  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

races  consider  it  necessary  to  watch  over  their 
kings  to  see  that  they  use  their  powers  in  the  right 
way ;  they  are  by  no  means  sure  of  their  good  in- 
tentions or  of  their  conscientiousness.  A  strain 
of  mistrust  is  mingled  with  the  motivation  of  the 
taboo  rules  for  the  king.  "The  idea  that  early 
kingdoms  are  despotisms,"  says  Frazer,28  "in 
which  the  people  exist  only  for  the  sovereign,  is 
wholly  inapplicable  to  the  monarchies  we  are  con- 
sidering. On  the  contrary,  the  sovereign  in  them 
exists  only  for  his  subjects;  his  life  is  only  valu- 
able so  long  as  he  discharges  the  duties  of  his 
position  by  ordering  the  course  of  nature  for  his 
people's  benefit.  So  soon  as  he  fails  to  do  so, 
the  care,  the  devotion,  the  religious  homage  which 
they  had  hitherto  lavished  on  him  cease  and  are 
changed  into  hatred  and  contempt;  he  is  igno- 
miniously  dismissed  and  may  be  thankful  if  he 
escapes  with  his  life.  Worshiped  as  a  god  one 
day,  he  is  killed  as  a  criminal  the  next.  But  in 
this  changed  behavior  of  the  people  there  is  noth- 
ing capricious  or  inconsistent.  On  the  contrary, 
their  conduct  is  quite  consistent.  If  their  king 
is  their  god  he  is,  or  should  be,  also  their  pre- 
server; and  if  he  will  not  preserve  them  he  must 
make  room  for  another  who  will.  So  long,  how- 
ever, as  he  answers  their  expectations,  there  is  no 
limit  to  the  care  which  they  take  of  him,  and  which 

28  1.  C,  p.  7. 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS         75 

they  compel  him  to  take  of  himself.  A  king  of 
this  sort  lives  hedged  in  by  ceremonious  etiquette, 
a  network  of  prohibitions  and  observances,  of 
which  the  intention  is  not  to  contribute  to  his  dig- 
nitv,  much  less  to  his  comfort,  but  to  restrain  him 
from  conduct  which,  by  disturbing  the  harmony 
of  nature,  might  involve  himself,  his  people,  and 
the  universe  in  one  common  catastrophe.  Far 
from  adding  to  his  comfort,  these  observances, 
by  trammeling  his  every  act,  annihilate  his  free- 
dom and  often  render  the  very  life,  which  it  is 
their  object  to  preserve,  a  burden  and  sorrow  to 
him." 

One  of  the  most  glaring  examples  of  thus  fet- 
tering and  paralyzing  a  holy  ruler  through  taboo 
ceremonial  seems  to  have  been  reached  in  the  life 
routine  of  the  Mikado  of  Japan,  as  it  existed  in 
earlier  centuries.  A  description  which  is  now  over 
two  hundred  years  old29  relates:  "He  thinks 
that  it  would  be  very  prejudicial  to  his  dignity 
and  holiness  to  touch  the  ground  with  his  feet; 
for  this  reason  when  he  intends  to  go  anywhere, 
he  must  be  carried  thither  on  men's  shoulders. 
Much  less  will  they  suffer  that  he  should  expose 
his  sacred  person  to  the  open  air,  and  the  sun  is 
not  thought  worthy  to  shine  on  his  head.  There 
is  such  a  holiness  ascribed  to  all  the  parts  of  his 
bodv  that  he  dares  to  cut  off  neither  his  hair, 

2»  Kaempfer,  "History  of  Japan,"  see  in  Frazer,  1.  c.,  p.  3. 

76  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

nor  his  beard,  nor  his  nails.  However,  lest  he 
should  grow  too  dirty,  they  may  clean  him  in  the 
night  when  he  is  asleep;  because  they  say  that 
what  is  taken  from  his  body  at  that  time,  hath 
been  stolen  from  him,  and  that  such  a  theft  does 
not  prejudice  his  holiness  or  dignity.  In  ancient 
times,  he  was  obliged  to  sit  on  the  throne  for  some 
hours  every  morning,  with  the  imperial  crown  on 
his  head;  but  to  sit  altogether  like  a  statue  with- 
out stirring  either  hands  or  feet,  head  or  eyes,  nor 
indeed  any  part  of  his  body,  because  by  this 
means,  it  was  thought  that  he  could  preserve 
peace  and  tranquility  in  his  empire;  for  if  un- 
fortunately, he  turned  himself  on  one  side  or 
other,  or  if  he  looked  a  good  while  towards  any 
part  of  his  dominion,  it  was  apprehended  that 
war,  famine,  fire  or  some  other  great  misfortune 
was  near  at  hand  to  desolate  the  country." 

Some  of  the  taboos  to  which  barbarian  kings 
are  subject  vividly  recall  the  restrictions  placed 
on  murderers.  On  Shark  Point  at  Cape  Padron 
in  Lower  Guinea  (West  Africa),  a  priest-king 
called  Kukulu  lives  alone  in  a  woods.  He  is  not 
allowed  to  touch  a  woman  or  to  leave  his  house 
and  cannot  even  rise  out  of  his  chair,  in  which  he 
must  sleep  in  a  sitting  position.  If  he  should  lie 
down  the  wind  would  cease  and  shipping  would 
be  disturbed.  It  is  his  function  to  keep  storms  in 
check  and,  in  general,  to  see  to  an  even,  healthy 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  QF  EMOTIONS  77 

condition  of  the  atmosphere.30  The  more  pow- 
erful a  king  of  Loango  is,  says  Bastian,  the  more 
taboos  he  must  observe.  The  heir  to  the  throne 
is  also  bound  to  them  from  childhood  on;  they 
accumulate  about  him  while  he  is  growing  up,  and 
by  the  time  of  his  accession  he  is  suffocated  by 
them. 

Our  interest  in  the  matter  does  not  require  us 
to  take  up  more  space  to  describe  more  fully  the 
taboos  that  cling  to  royal  and  priestly  dignity. 
We  merely  add  that  restrictions  as  to  freedom  of 
movement  and  diet  play  the  main  role  among 
them.  But  two  examples  of  taboo  ceremonial 
taken  from  civilized  nations,  and  therefore  from 
much  higher  stages  of  culture,  will  indicate  to 
what  an  extent  association  with  these  privileged 
persons  tends  to  preserve  ancient  customs. 

The  Flamen  Dialis,  the  high-priest  of  Jupiter 
in  Rome,  had  to  observe  an  extraordinarily  large 
number  of  taboo  rules.  He  was  not  allowed  to 
ride,  to  see  a  horse  or  an  armed  man,  to  wear  a 
ring  that  was  not  broken,  to  have  a  knot  in  his 
garments,  to  touch  wheat  flour  or  leaven,  or  even 
to  mention  by  name  a  goat,  a  dog,  raw  meat, 
beans  and  ivy ;  his  hair  could  only  be  cut  by  a  free 
man  and  with  a  bronze  knife,  his  hair  combings 
and  nail  parings  had  to  be  buried  under  a  lucky 

so  Bastian,  "The  German  Expedition  to  the  Coast  of  Loango." 
Jena  1874,  cited  by  Frazer,  1.  c,  p.  5, 

78  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

tree;  he  could  not  touch  the  dead,  go  into  the 
open  with  bare  head,  and  similar  prohibitions. 
His  wife,  the  Flaminica,  also  had  her  own  pro- 
hibitions: she  was  not  allowed  to  ascend  more 
than  three  steps  on  a  certain  kind  of  stairs  and 
on  certain  holidays  she  could  not  comb  her  hair; 
the  leather  for  her  shoes  could  not  be  taken  from 
any  animal  that  had  died  a  natural  death  but  only 
from  one  that  had  been  slaughtered  or  sacrificed ; 
when  she  heard  thunder  she  was  unclean  until  she 
had  made  an  expiatory  sacrifice.31 

The  old  kings  of  Ireland  were  subject  to  a 
series  of  very  curious  restrictions,  the  observance 
of  which  was  expected  to  bring  every  blessing  to 
the  country  while  their  violation  entailed  every 
form  of  evil.  The  complete  description  of  these 
taboos  is  given  in  the  Book  of  Rights,  of  which 
the  oldest  manuscript  copies  bear  the  dates  1390 
and  1418.  The  prohibitions  are  very  detailed 
and  concern  certain  activities  at  specified  places 
and  times;  in  some  cities,  for  instance,  the  king 
cannot  stay  on  a  certain  day  of  the  week,  while 
at  some  specified  hour  this  or  that  river  may  not 
be  crossed,  or  again  there  is  a  plane  on  which  he 
cannot  camp  a  full  nine  days,  etc.32 

Among  many  savage  races  the  severity  of  the 
taboo  restrictions  for  the  priest-kings  has  had  re- 
sults of  historic  importance  which  are  especially 

3i  Frazer,  1.  c,  p.  13.  32  Frazer,  I.e.,  p.  11. 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS  79 

interesting  from  our  point  of  view.  The  honor 
of  being  a  priest-king  ceased  to  be  desirable;  the 
person  in  line  for  the  succession  often  used  every 
means  to  escape  it.  Thus  in  Combodscha,  where 
there  is  a  fire  and  water  king,  it  is  often  necessary 
to  use  force  to  compel  the  successor  to  accept  the 
honor.  On  Nine  or  Savage  Island,  a  coral 
island  in  the  Pacific  Ocean,  monarchy  actually 
came  to  an  end  because  nobody  was  willing  to  un- 
dertake the  responsible  and  dangerous  office.  In 
some  parts  of  West  Africa  a  general  council  is 
held  after  the  death  of  the  king  to  determine  upon 
the  successor.  The  man  on  whom  the  choice 
falls  is  seized,  tied  and  kept  in  custody  in  the 
fetich  house  until  he  has  declared  himself  willing 
to  accept  the  crown.  Sometimes  the  presump- 
tive successor  to  the  throne  finds  ways  and  means 
to  avoid  the  intended  honor ;  thus  it  is  related  of 
a  certain  chief  that  he  used  to  go  armed  day  and 
night  and  resist  by  force  every  attempt  to  place 
him  on  the  throne.33  Among  the  negroes  of 
Sierra  Leone  the  resistance  against  accepting  the 
kingly  honor  was  so  great  that  most  of  the  tribes 
were  compelled  to  make  strangers  their  kings. 

Frazer  makes  these  conditions  responsible  for 
the  fact  that  in  the  development  of  history  a  sep- 
aration of  the  original  priest-kingship  into  a  spir- 

33  A.    Bastian,    "The    German    Expedition    on    the    Coast    of 
Lonago,"  cited  by  Frazer,  1.  e.,  p.  18. 

80  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

itual  and  a  secular  power  finally  took  place. 
Kings,  crushed  by  the  burden  of  their  holiness, 
became  incapable  of  exercising  their  power  over 
real  things  and  had  to  leave  this  to  inferior  but 
executive  persons  who  were  willing  to  renounce 
the  honors  of  royal  dignity.  From  these  there 
grew  up  the  secular  rulers,  while  the  spiritual 
over-lordship,  which  was  now  of  no  practical  im- 
portance, was  left  to  the  former  taboo  kings.  It 
is  well  known  to  what  extent  this  hypothesis  finds 
confirmation  in  the  history  of  old  Japan. 

A  survey  of  the  picture  of  the  relations  of 
primitive  peoples  to  their  rulers  gives  rise  to  the 
expectation  that  our  advance  from  description 
to  psychoanalytic  understanding  will  not  be 
difficult.  These  relations  are  of  an  involved 
nature  and  are  not  free  from  contradictions. 
Rulers  are  granted  great  privileges  which  are 
practically  cancelled  by  taboo  prohibitions  in 
regard  to  other  privileges.  They  are  privileged 
persons,  they  can  do  or  enjoy  what  is  withheld 
from  the  rest  through  taboo.  But  in  contrast 
to  this  freedom  they  are  restricted  by  other  taboos 
which  do  not  affect  the  ordinary  individual. 
Here,  therefore,  is  the  first  contrast,  which 
amounts  almost  to  a  contradiction,  between  an 
excess  of  freedom  and  an  excess  of  restriction  as 
applied  to  the  same  persons.  They  are  credited 
with  extraordinary  magic  powers  and  contact 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS  81 

with  their  person  or  their  property  is  therefore 
feared,  while  on  the  other  hand  the  most  bene- 
flcial  effect  is  expected  from  these  contacts. 
This  seems  to  be  a  second  and  an  especially  glar- 
ing contradiction;  but  we  have  already  learned 
that  it  is  only  apparent.  The  king's  touch,  exer- 
cised by  him  with  benevolent  intention,  heals  and 
protects ;  it  is  only  when  a  common  man  touches 
the  king  or  his  royal  effects  that  the  contact  be- 
comes dangerous,  and  this  is  probably  because 
the  act  may  recall  aggressive  tendencies.  An- 
other contradiction  which  is  not  so  easily  solved 
is  expressed  in  the  fact  that  great  power  over  the 
processes  of  nature  is  ascribed  to  the  ruler  and 
yet  the  obligation  is  felt  to  guard  him  with  espe- 
cial care  against  threatening  dangers,  as  if  his 
own  power,  which  can  do  so  much,  were  incapa- 
ble of  accomplishing  this.  A  further  difficulty 
in  the  relation  arises  because  there  is  no  confi- 
dence that  the  ruler  will  use  his  tremendous 
power  to  the  advantage  of  his  subjects  as  well 
as  for  his  own  protection;  he  is  therefore  dis- 
trusted and  surveillance  over  him  is  considered  to 
be  justified.  The  taboo  etiquette,  to  which  the 
life  of  the  king  is  subject,  simultaneously  serves 
all  these  objects  of  exercising  a  tutelage  over  the 
king,  of  guarding  him  against  dangers,  and  of 
guarding  his  subjects  against  danger  which  he 
brings  to  them. 

82  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

We  are  inclined  to  give  the  following  explana- 
tion of  the  complicated  and  contradictory  rela- 
tion of  primitive  peoples  to  their  rulers. 
Through  superstition  as  well  as  through  other 
motives,  various  tendencies  find  expression  in 
the  treatment  of  kings,  each  of  which  is  devel- 
oped to  the  extreme  without  regard  to  the  others. 
As  a  result  of  this,  contradictions  arise  at  which 
the  intellect  of  savages  takes  no  more  offense 
than  a  highly  civilized  person  would,  as  long  as 
it  is  only  a  question  of  religious  matters  or  of 
"loyalty." 

That  would  be  so  far  so  good ;  but  the  psycho- 
analytic technique  may  enable  us  to  penetrate 
more  deeply  into  the  matter  and  to  add  some- 
thing about  the  nature  of  these  various  tenden- 
cies. If  we  subject  the  facts  as  stated  to  analy- 
sis, just  as  if  they  formed  the  symptoms  of  a 
neurosis,  our  first  attention  would  be  directed 
to  the  excess  of  anxious  worry  which  is  said  to  be 
the  cause  of  the  taboo  ceremonial.  The  occur- 
rence of  such  excessive  tenderness  is  very  com- 
mon in  the  neurosis  and  especially  in  the 
compulsion  neurosis  upon  which  we  are  draw- 
ing primarily  for  our  comparison.  We  now 
thoroughly  understand  the  origin  of  this  tender- 
ness. It  occurs  wherever,  besides  the  predomi- 
nant tenderness,  there  exists  a  contrary  but  un- 
conscious stream  of  hostility,  that  is  to  say,  wher- 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS  83 

ever  the  typical  case  of  an  ambivalent  affective 
attitude  is  realized.  The  hostility  is  then  cried 
down  by  an  excessive  increase  of  tenderness 
which  is  expressed  as  anxiety  and  becomes  com- 
pulsive because  otherwise  it  would  not  suffice  for 
its  task  of  keeping  the  unconscious  opposition 
in  a  state  of  repression.  Every  psychoanalyst 
knows  how  infallibly  this  anxious  excess  of  ten- 
derness can  be  resolved  even  under  the  most  im- 
probable circumstances,  as  for  instance,  when  it 
appears  between  mother  and  child,  or  in  the  case 
of  affectionate  married  people.  Applied  to  the 
treatment  of  privileged  persons  this  theory  of  an 
ambivalent  feeling  would  reveal  that  their  ven- 
eration, their  very  deification,  is  opposed  in  the 
unconscious  by  an  intense  hostile  tendency,  so 
that,  as  we  had  expected,  the  situation  of  an 
ambivalent  feeling  is  here  realized.  The  dis- 
trust which  certainly  seems  to  contribute  to  the 
motivation  of  the  royal  taboo,  would  be  another 
direct  manifestation  of  the  same  unconscious  hos- 
tility. Indeed  the  ultimate  issues  of  this  con- 
flict show  such  a  diversity  among  different  races 
that  we  would  not  be  at  a  loss  for  examples  in 
which  the  proof  of  such  hostility  would  be  much 
easier.  We  learn  from  Frazer 34  that  the  savage 
Timmes  of  Sierra  Leona  reserve  the  right  to  ad- 

3*1.  c.  p.  18.    According  to  Zwefel  et  Monstier,  "Voyage  aux 
Sources  du  Niger,"  1880. 

84  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

minister  a  beating  to  their  elected  king  on  the 
evening  before  his  coronation,  and  that  they 
make  use  of  this  constitutional  right  with  such 
thoroughness  that  the  unhappy  ruler  sometimes 
does  not  long  survive  his  accession  to  the  throne ; 
for  this  reason  the  leaders  of  the  race  have  made 
it  a  rule  to  elect  some  man  against  whom  they 
have  a  particular  grudge.  Nevertheless,  even  in 
such  glaring  cases  the  hostility  is  not  acknowl- 
edged as  such,  but  is  expressed  as  if  it  were  a 
ceremonial. 

Another  trait  in  the  attitude  of  primitive  races 
towards  their  rulers  recalls  a  mechanism  which  is 
universally  present  in  mental  disturbances,  and 
is  openly  revealed  in  the  so-called  delusions  of 
persecution.  Here  the  importance  of  a  particu- 
lar person  is  extraordinarily  heightened  and  his 
omnipotence  is  raised  to  the  improbable  in  order 
to  make  it  easier  to  attribute  to  him  the  responsi- 
bility for  everything  painful  which  happens  to 
the  patient.  Savages  really  do  not  act  differ- 
ently towards  their  rulers  when  they  ascribe  to 
them  power  over  rain  and  shine,  wind  and 
weather,  and  then  dethrone  or  kill  them  because 
nature  has  disappointed  their  expectation  of  a 
good  hunt  or  a  ripe  harvest.  The  prototype 
which  the  paranoiac  reconstructs  in  his  persecu- 
tion mania,  is  found  in  the  relation  of  the  child 
to  its  father.     Such  omnipotence  is  regularly  at- 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS  85 

tributed  to  the  father  in  the  imagination  of  the 
son,  and  distrust  of  the  father  has  been  shown 
to  be  intimately  connected  with  the  highest  es- 
teem for  him.  When  a  paranoiac  names  a  per- 
son of  his  acquaintance  as  his  "persecutor,"  he 
thereby  elevates  him  to  the  paternal  succession 
and  brings  him  under  conditions  which  enable  him 
to  make  him  responsible  for  all  the  misfortune 
which  he  experiences.  Thus  this  second  analogy 
between  the  savage  and  the  neurotic  may  allow 
us  to  surmise  how  much  in  the  relation  of  the  sav- 
age to  his  ruler  arises  from  the  infantile  attitude 
of  the  child  to  its  father. 

But  the  strongest  support  for  our  point  of 
view,  which  seeks  to  compare  taboo  prohibitions 
with  neurotic  symptoms,  is  to  be  found  in  the 
taboo  ceremonial  itself,  the  significance  of  which 
for  the  status  of  kinship  has  already  been  the  sub- 
ject of  our  previous  discussion.  This  ceremonial 
unmistakabfy  reveals  its  double  meaning  and  its 
origin  from  ambivalent  tendencies  if  only  we  are 
willing  to  assume  that  the  effects  it  produces  are 
those  which  it  intended  from  the  very  beginning. 
It  not  only  distinguishes  kings  and  elevates  them 
above  all  ordinary  mortals,  but  it  also  makes 
their  life  a  torture  and  an  unbearable  burden  and 
forces  them  into  a  thraldom  which  is  far  worse 
than  that  of  their  subjects.  It  would  thus  be 
the  correct  counterpart  to  the  compulsive  ac- 

86  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

tion  of  the  neurosis,  in  which  the  suppressed  im- 
pulse and  the  impulse  which  suppreses  it  meet 
in  mutual  and  simultaneous  satisfaction.  The 
compulsive  action  is  nominally  a  protection 
against  the  forbidden  action;  but  we  would  say 
that  actually  it  is  a  repetition  of  what  is  for- 
bidden. The  word  "nominally"  is  here  applied 
to  the  conscious  whereas  the  word  "actually" 
applies  to  the  unconscious  instance  of  the  psychic 
life.  Thus  also  the  taboo  ceremonial  of  kings 
is  nominally  an  expression  of  the  highest  venera- 
tion and  a  means  of  guarding  them;  actually  it 
is  the  punishment  for  their  elevation,  the  revenge 
which  their  subjects  take  upon  them.  The  ex- 
periences which  Cervantes  makes  Sancho  Panza 
undergo  as  governor  on  his  island  have  evidently 
made  him  recognize  this  interpretation  of  courtly 
ceremonial  as  the  only  correct  one.  It  is  very 
possible  that  this  point  would  be  corroborated  if 
we  could  induce  kings  and  rulers  of  to-day  to 
express  themselves  on  this  point. 

Why  the  emotional  attitude  towards  rulers 
should  contain  such  a  strong  unconscious  share  of 
hostility  is  a  very  interesting  problem  which,  how- 
ever, exceeds  the  scope  of  this  book.  We  have 
already  referred  to  the  infantile  father-complex; 
we  may  add  that  an  investigation  of  the  early 
history  of  kingship  would  bring  the  decisive  ex- 
planations.    Frazer  has  an  impressive  discus- 

THE  AMBIVAJlEiVCE  OF  EMOTIONS 

© 

sion  of  the  theory  that  the  first  kings  were 
strangers  who,  after  a  short  reign,  were  destined 
to  be  sacrificed  at  solemn  festivals  as  representa- 
tives of  the  deity;  but  Frazer  himself  does  not 
consider  his  facts  altogether  convincing.35 
Christian  myths  are  said  to  have  been  still  in- 
fluenced by  the  after-effects  of  this  evolution  of 
kings. 

c)    THE   TABOO    OF   THE   DEAD 

We  know  that  the  dead  are  mighty  rulers :  we 
may  be  surprised  to  learn  that  they  are  regarded 
as  enemies. 

Among  most  primitive  people  the  taboo  of  the 
dead  displays,  if  we  may  keep  to  our  infection 
analogy,  a  peculiar  virulence.  It  manifests  it- 
self in  the  first  place,  in  the  consequences  which 
result  from  contact  with  the  dead,  and  in  the 
treatment  of  the  mourners  for  the  dead.  Among 
the  Maori  any  one  who  had  touched  a  corpse  or 
who  had  taken  part  in  its  interment,  became  ex- 
tremely unclean  and  was  almost  cut  off  from  in- 
tercourse with  his  fellow  beings;  he  was,  as  we 
say,  boycotted.  He  could  not  enter  a  house,  or 
approach  persons  or  objects  without  infecting 
them  with  the  same  properties.  He  could  not 
even  touch  his  food  with  his  own  hands,  which 

85  Frazer,  "The  Magic  Act  and  the  Evolution  of  Kings,"  2  vols., 
1W1.     (The  Golden  Bough.) 

88  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

were  now  unclean  and  therefore  quite  useless  to 
him.  His  food  was  put  on  the  ground  and  he 
had  no  alternative  except  to  seize  it  as  best  he 
could,  with  his  lips  and  teeth,  while  he  held  his 
hands  behind  on  his  back.  Occasionally  he  could 
be  fed  by  another  person  who  helped  him  to  his 
food  with  outstretched  arms  so  as  not  to  touch  the 
unfortunate  one  himself,  but  this  assistant  was 
then  in  turn  subjected  to  almost  equally  oppres- 
sive restrictions.  Almost  every  village  con- 
tained some  altogether  disreputable  individual, 
ostracised  by  society,  whose  wretched  existence 
depended  upon  people's  charity.  This  creature 
alone  was  allowed  within  arm's  length  of  a  per- 
son who  had  fulfilled  the  last  duty  towards  the 
deceased.  But  as  soon  as  the  period  of  segrega- 
tion was  over  and  the  person  rendered  unclean 
through  the  corpse  could  again  mingle  with  his 
fellow-beings,  all  the  dishes  which  he  had  used 
during  the  dangerous  period  were  broken  and  all 
his  clothing  was  thrown  away. 

The  taboo  customs  after  bodily  contact  with 
the  dead  are  the  same  all  over  Polynesia,  in 
Melanesia,  and  in  a  part  of  Africa;  their  most 
constant  feature  is  the  prohibition  against  han- 
dling one's  food  and  the  consequent  necessity  of 
being  fed  by  somebody  else.  It  is  noteworthy 
that  in  Polynesia,  or  perhaps  only  in  Hawaii,36 

«6  Frazer,  "Taboo,"  p.  138,  etc. 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS         89 

priest-kings  were  subject  to  the  same  restrictions 
during  the  exercise  of  holy  functions.  In  the 
taboo  of  the  dead  on  the  Island  of  Tonga  the 
abatement  and  gradual  abolition  of  the  prohibi- 
tions through  the  individual's  own  taboo  power 
are  clearly  shown.  A  person  who  touched  the 
corpse  of  a  dead  chieftain  was  unclean  for  ten 
months ;  but  if  he  was  himself  a  chief,  he  was  un- 
clean for  only  three,  four,  or  five  months,  accord- 
ing to  the  rank  of  the  deceased;  if  it  was  the 
corpse  of  the  idolized  head-chief  even  the  greatest 
chiefs  became  taboo  for  ten  months.  These  sav- 
ages are  so  certain  that  any  one  who  violates  these 
taboo  rules  must  become  seriously  ill  and  die,  that 
according  to  the  opinion  of  an  observer,  they  have 
never  yet  dared  to  convince  themselves  of  the  con- 
trary.37 

The  taboo  restrictions  imposed  upon  persons 
whose  contact  with  the  dead  is  to  be  understood 
in  the  transferred  sense,  namely  the  mourning 
relatives  such  as  widows  and  widowers,  are  es- 
sentially the  same  as  those  mentioned  above,  but 
they  are  of  greater  interest  for  the  point  we  are 
trying  to  make.  In  the  rules  hitherto  men- 
tioned we  see  only  the  typical  expression  of  the 
virulence  and  power  of  diffusion  of  the  taboo; 
in  those  about  to  be  cited  we  catch  a  gleam  of 

37  W.  Mariner,  "The  Natives  of  the  Tonga  Islands,"  1818,  see 
Frazer,  1.  c.,  p.  140. 

90  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

the  motives,  including  both  the  ostensible  ones 
and  those  which  may  be  regarded  as  the  underly- 
ing and  genuine  motives. 

Among  the  Shuswap  in  British-Columbia  wid- 
ows and  widowers  have  to  remain  segregated  dur- 
ing their  period  of  mourning;  they  must  not  use 
their  hands  to  touch  the  body  or  the  head  and 
all  utensils  used  by  them  must  not  be  used  by 
any  one  else.  No  hunter  will  want  to  approach 
the  hut  in  which  such  mourners  live,  for  that 
would  bring  misfortune;  if  the  shadow  of  one 
of  the  mourners  should  fall  on  him  he  would  be- 
come ill.  The  mourners  sleep  on  thorn  bushes, 
with  which  they  also  surround  their  beds.  This 
last  precaution  is  meant  to  keep  off  the  spirit 
of  the  deceased;  plainer  still  is  the  reported 
custom  of  other  North  American  tribes  where 
the  widow,  after  the  death  of  her  husband,  has 
to  wear  a  kind  of  trousers  of  dried  grass  in  or- 
der to  make  herself  inaccessible  to  the  approach 
of  the  spirit.  Thus  it  is  quite  obvious  that  touch- 
ing "in  the  transferred  sense"  is  after  all  un- 
derstood only  as  bodily  contact,  since  the  spirit 
of  the  deceased  does  not  leave  his  kin  and  does 
not  desist  from  "hovering  about  them"  during 
the  period  of  mourning. 

Among  the  Agutainos,  who  live  on  Palawan, 
one  of  the  Philippine  Islands,  a  widow  may  not 
leave  her  hut  for  the  first  seven  or  eight  days 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS         91 

after  her  husband's  death,  except  at  night,  when 
she  need  not  expect  encounters.  Whoever  sees 
her  is  in  danger  of  immediate  death  and  there- 
fore she  herself  warns  others  of  her  approach  by 
hitting  the  trees  with  a  wooden  stick  with  every 
step  she  takes;  these  trees  all  wither.  Another 
observation  explains  the  nature  of  the  danger  in- 
herent in  a  widow.  In  the  district  of  Mekeo, 
British  New  Guinea,  a  widower  forfeits  all  civil 
rights  and  lives  like  an  outlaw.  He  may  not  tend 
a  garden,  or  show  himself  in  public,  or  enter  the 
village  or  go  on  the  street.  He  slinks  about  like 
an  animal,  in  the  high  grass  or  in  the  bushes,  and 
must  hide  in  a  thicket  if  he  sees  anybody,  espe- 
cially a  woman,  approaching.  This  last  hint 
makes  it  easy  for  us  to  trace  back  the  danger  of 
the  widower  or  widow  to  the  danger  of  tempta- 
tion. The  husband  who  has  lost  his  wife  must 
evade  the  desire  for  a  substitute;  the  widow  has 
to  contend  with  the  same  wish  and  beside  this,  she 
may  arouse  the  desire  of  other  men  because  she 
is  without  a  master.  Every  such  satisfaction 
through  a  substitute  runs  contrary  to  the  inten- 
tion of  mourning  and  would  cause  the  anger  of 
the  spirit  to  flare  up.38 

ss  The  same  patient  whose  "impossibilities"  I  have  correlated 
with  taboo,  (see  above,  p.  47)  acknowledged  that  she  always 
became  indignant  when  she  met  anybody  on  the  street  who  was 
dressed  in  mourning.  "Such  people  should  be  forbidden  to  go 
out!"  she  said. 

92  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

One  of  the  most  surprising,  but  at  the  same 
time  one  of  the  most  instructive  taboo  customs 
of  mourning  among  primitive  races  is  the  prohi- 
bition against  pronouncing  the  name  of  the  de- 
ceased. This  is  very  widespread,  and  has  been 
subjected  to  many  modifications  with  important 
consequences. 

Aside  from  the  Australians  and  the  Polvnes- 
ians,  who  usually  show  us  taboo  customs  in  their 
best  state  of  preservation,  we  also  find  this  pro- 
hibition among  races  so  far  apart  and  unrelated 
to  each  other  as  the  Samojedes  in  Siberia  and 
the  Todas  in  South  India,  the  Mongolians  of 
Tartary  and  the  TuaregSLof -the .  Sahara,  the  Aino 
of  Japan  and  the  Akamba  and  Nandi  in  Central 
Africa,  the  Tinguanes  in  the  Philippines  and  the 
inhabitants  of  the  Nikobari  Islands  and  of  Mada- 
gascar and  Borneo.39  Among  some  of  these 
races  the  prohibition  and  its  consequences  hold 
good  only  for  the  period  of  mourning  while  in 
others  it  remains  permanent;  but  in  all  cases  it 
seems  to  diminish  with  the  lapse  of  time  after  the 
death. 

The  avoidance  of  the  name  of  the  deceased  is 
as  a  rule  kept  up  with  extraordinary  severity. 
Thus,  among  many  South  American  tribes,  it  is 
considered  the  gravest  insult  to  the  survivors  to 
pronounce  the  name  of  the  deceased  in  their  pres- 

89  Frazer,  1.  c,  p.  353. 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS         93 

ence,  and  the  penalty  set  for  it  is  no  less  than 
that  for  the  slaying  itself.40  At  first  it  is  not  easy 
to  guess  why  the  mention  of  the  name  should  be 
so  abominated,  but  the  dangers  associated  with 
it  have  called  into  being  a  whole  series  of  inter- 
esting and  important  expedients  to  avoid  this. 
Thus  the  Masai  in  Africa  have  hit  upon  the  eva- 
sion of  changing  the  name  of  the  deceased  imme- 
diately upon  his  death;  he  may  now  be  men- 
tioned without  dread  by  this  new  name,  while  all 
the  prohibitions  remain  attached  to  the  old  name. 
It  seems  to  be  assumed  that  the  ghost  does  not 
know  his  new  name  and  will  not  find  it  out.  The 
Australian  tribes  on  Adelaide  and  Encounter 
Bay  are  so  consistently  cautious  that  when  a 
death  occurs  almost  every  person  who  has  the 
same  name  as  the  deceased  or  a  very  similar  one, 
exchanges  it  for  another.  Sometimes  by  a  fur- 
ther extension  of  the  same  idea  as  seen  among 
several  tribes  in  Victoria  and  in  North  America 
all  the  relatives  of  the  deceased  change  their 
names  regardless  of  whether  their  names  resemble 
the  name  of  the  deceased  in  sound.  Among  the 
Guaycuru  in  Paraguay  the  chief  used  to  give 
new  names  to  all  the  members  of  the  tribe,  on 
such  sad  occasions,  which  they  then  remembered 
as  if  they  had  always  had  them.43 

*o  Frazer,  1.  c,  p.  352,  etc. 

*i  Frazer,  1.  c,  p.  357,  according  to  an  old  Spanish  observer, 
1732. 

94  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

Furthermore,  if  the  deceased  had  the  same 
name  as  an  animal  or  object,  etc.  some  of  the 
races  just  enumerated  thought  it  necessary  to 
give  these  animals  and  objects  new  names,  in 
order  not  to  be  reminded  of  the  deceased  when 
they  mentioned  them.  Through  this  there  must 
have  resulted  a  never  ceasing  change  of  vocabul- 
ary, which  caused  a  good  deal  of  difficulty  for 
the  missionaries,  especially  where  the  interdiction 
upon  a  name  was  permanent.  In  the  seven  years 
which  the  missionary  Dobrizhofer  spent  among 
the  Abipons  in  Paraguay,  the  name  for  jaguar 
was  changed  three  times  and  the  words  for  croco- 
dile, thorns  and  animal  slaughter  underwent  a 
similar  fate.42  But  the  dread  of  pronouncing  a 
name  which  has  belonged  to  a  deceased  person 
extends  also  to  the  mention  of  everything  in 
which  the  deceased  had  any  part,  and  a  further 
important  result  of  this  process  of  suppression  is 
that  these  races  have  no  tradition  or  any  histor- 
ical reminiscences,  so  that  we  encounter  the  great- 
est difficulties  in  investigating  their  past  history. 
Among  a  number  of  these  primitive  races  com- 
pensating customs  have  also  been  established  in 
order  to  re-awaken  the  names  of  the  deceased 
after  a  long  period  of  mourning;  they  are  be- 
stowed upon  children,  who  were  regarded  as  re- 
incarnations of  the  dead. 

42  Frazer,  1.  c,  p.  360. 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS  95 

The  strangeness  of  this  taboo  on  names  dimin- 
ishes if  we  bear  in  mind  that  the  savage  looks 
upon  his  name  as  an  essential  part  and  an  impor- 
tant possession  of  his  personality,  and  that  he 
ascribes  the  full  significance  of  things  to  words. 
Our  children  do  the  same,  as  I  have  shown  else- 
where, and  therefore  they  are  never  satisfied  with 
accepting  a  meaningless  verbal  similarity,  but 
consistently  conclude  that  when  two  things  have 
identical  names  a  deeper  correspondence  between 
them  must  exist.  Numerous  peculiarities  of 
normal  behavior  may  lead  civilized  man  to  con- 
clude that  he  too  is  not  yet  as  far  removed  as  he 
thinks  from  attributing  the  importance  of  things 
to  mere  names  and  feeling  that  his  name  has  be- 
come peculiarly  identified  with  his  person.  This 
is  corroborated  by  psychoanalytic  experiences, 
where  there  is  much  occasion  to  point  out  the  im- 
portance of  names  in  unconscious  thought  activ- 
ity.43 As  was  to  be  expected,  the  compulsion 
neurotics  behave  just  like  savages  in  regard  to 
names.  They  show  the  full  "complex  sensitive- 
ness" towards  the  utterance  and  hearing  of  spe- 
cial words  (as  do  also  other  neurotics)  and  de- 
rive a  good  many,  often  serious,  inhibitions  from 
their  treatment  of  their  own  name.  One  of  these 
taboo  patients,  whom  I  knew,  had  adopted  the 
avoidance  of  writing  down  her  name  for  fear  that 

*3  Stekel,  Abraham. 

96  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

it  might  get  into  somebody's  hands  who  thus 
would  come  into  possession  of  a  piece  of  her  per- 
sonality. In  her  frenzied  faithfulness,  which 
she  needed  to  protect  herself  against  the  tempta- 
tions of  her  phantasy,  she  had  created  for  herself 
the  commandment,  "not  to  give  away  anything 
of  her  personality."  To  this  belonged  first  of  all 
her  name,  then  by  further  application  her  hand- 
writing, so  that  she  finally  gave  up  writing. 

Thus  it  no  longer  seems  strange  to  us  that  sav- 
ages should  consider  a  dead  person's  name  as  a 
part  of  his  personality  and  that  it  should  be  sub- 
jected to  the  same  taboo  as  the  deceased.  Call- 
ing a  dead  person  by  name  can  also  be  traced  back 
to  contact  with  him,  so  that  we  can  turn  our  at- 
tention to  the  more  inclusive  problem  of  why  this 
contact  is  visited  with  such  a  severe  taboo. 

The  nearest  explanation  would  point  to  the 
natural  horror  which  a  corpse  inspires,  especially 
in  view  of  the  changes  so  soon  noticeable  after 
death.  Mourning  for  a  dead  person  must  also 
be  considered  as  a  sufficient  motive  for  everything 
which  has  reference  to  him.  But  horror  of  the 
corpse  evidently  does  not  cover  all  the  details  of 
taboo  rules,  and  mourning  can  never  explain  to 
us  why  the  mention  of  the  dead  is  a  severe  insult 
to  his  survivors.  On  the  contrary,  mourning 
loves  to  preoccupy  itself  with  the  deceased,  to 
elaborate    his    memory,    and    preserve    it    for 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS         97 

the  longest  possible  time.  Something  besides 
mourning  must  be  made  responsible  for  the  pecu- 
liarities of  taboo  customs,  something  which  evi- 
dently serves  a  different  purpose.  It  is  this  very 
taboo  on  names  which  reveals  this  still  unknown 
motive,  and  if  the  customs  did  not  tell  us  about 
it  we  would  find  it  out  from  the  statements  of 
the  mourning  savages  themselves. 

For  they  do  not  conceal  the  fact  that  they  fear 
the  presence  and  the  return  of  the  spirit  of  a 
dead  person;  they  practice  a  host  of  ceremonies 
to  keep  him  off  and  banish  him.44  They  look 
upon  the  mention  of  his  name  as  a  conjuration 
which  must  result  in  his  immediate  presence.45 
They  therefore  consistently  do  everything  to 
avoid  conjuring  and  awakening  a  dead  person. 
They  disguise  themselves  in  order  that  the  spirit 
may  not  recognize  them,46  they  distort  either  his 
name  or  their  own,  and  become  infuriated  when 
a  ruthless  stranger  incites  the  spirit  against  his 
survivors  by  mentioning  his  name.  We  can 
hardly  avoid  the  conclusion  that  they  suffer,  ac- 
cording to  Wundt's  expression,  from  the  fear 
of  "his  soul  now  turned  into  a  demon."  47 

44  Frazer,  1.  c,  p.  353,  cites  the  Tuaregs  of  the  Sahara  as  an 
example  of  such  an  acknowledgment. 

45  Perhaps  this  condition  is  to  be  added :  as  long  as  any  part  of 
his  physical  remains  exist.     Frazer,  1.  c,  p.  372. 

46  "On  the  Nikobar  Islands,"  Frazer,  1.  c,  p.  382. 
*7  Wundt,  "Religion  and  Myth,"  Vol.  II,  p.  49. 

98  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

With  this  understanding  we  approach  Wundt's 
conception  who,  as  we  have  heard,  sees  the  nature 
of  taboo  in  the  fear  of  demons. 

The  assumption  which  this  theory  makes, 
namely,  that  immediately  after  death  the  be- 
loved member  of  a  family  becomes  a  demon,  from 
whom  the  survivors  have  nothing  but  hostility  to 
expect,  so  that  they  must  protect  themselves  by 
every  means  from  his  evil  desires,  is  so  peculiar 
that  our  first  impulse  is  not  to  believe  it.  Yet 
almost  all  competent  authors  agree  as  to  this  in- 
terpretation of  primitive  races.  Westermarck,48 
who,  in  my  opinion,  gives  altogether  too  little 
consideration  to  taboo,  makes  this  statement: 
"On  the  whole  facts  lead  me  to  conclude  that  the 
dead  are  more  frequently  regarded  as  enemies 
than  as  friends  and  that  Jevons  and  Grant  Allen 
are  wrong  in  their  assertion  that  it  was  formerly 
believed  that  the  malevolence  of  the  dead  was  as 
a  rule  directed  only  against  strangers,  while  they 
were  paternally  concerned  about  the  life  and 

48  "The  Origin  and  Development  of  Moral  Conceptions,"  see  sec- 
tion entitled  "Attitude  Towards  the  Dead,"  Vol.  II,  p.  424.  Both 
the  notes  and  the  text  show  an  abundance  of  corroborating,  and 
often  very  characteristic  testimony,  e.  g.,  the  Maori  believed  that 
"the  nearest  and  most  beloved  relatives  changed  their  nature  after 
death  and  bore  ill-will  even  to  their  former  favorites."  The  Aus- 
tral negroes  believe  that  every  dead  person  is  for  a  long  time 
malevolent;  the  closer  the  relationship  the  greater  the  fear.  The 
Central  Eskimos  are  dominated  by  the  idea  that  the  dead  come  to 
rest  very  late  and  that  at  first  they  are  to  be  feared  as  mis- 
chievous spirits  who  frequently  hover  about  the  village  to  spread 
illness,  death  and  other  evils.     (Boas.) 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS         99 

welfare  of  their  descendants  and  the  members 
of  their  elan." 

R.  Kleinpaul  has  written  an  impressive  book 
in  which  he  makes  use  of  the  remnants  of  the  old 
belief  in  souls  among  civilized  races  to  show  the 
relation  between  the  living  and  the  dead.49  Ac- 
cording to  him  too,  this  relation  culminates  in  the 
conviction  that  the  dead,  thirsting  for  blood, 
draw  the  living  after  them.  The  living  did  not 
feel  themselves  safe  from  the  persecutions  of 
the  dead  until  a  body  of  water  had  been  put 
between  them.  That  is  why  it  was  preferred 
to  bury  the  dead  on  islands  or  to  bring  them 
to  the  other  side  of  a  river,  the  expressions  "here" 
and  "beyond"  originated  in  this  way.  Later 
moderation  has  restricted  the  malevolence  of 
the  dead  to  those  categories  where  a  peculiar 
right  to  feel  rancor  had  to  be  admitted,  such  as 
the  murdered  who  pursue  their  murderer  as  evil 
spirits,  and  those  who,  like  brides,  had  died  with 
their  longings  unsatisfied.  Kleinpaul  believes 
that  originally,  however,  the  dead  were  all  vam- 
pires, who  bore  ill-will  to  the  living,  and  strove 
to  harm  them  and  deprive  them  of  life.  It  was 
the  corpse  that  first  furnished  the  conception  of 
an  evil  spirit. 

The  hypothesis  that  those  whom  we  love  best 

49  R.  Kleinpaul:     "The  Living  and  the  Dead  in  Folklore,  Re- 
ligion and  Myth,"  1898. 

100  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

turn  into  demons  after  death  obviously  allows  us 
to  put  a  further  question.  What  prompted 
primitive  races  to  ascribe  such  a  change  of  senti- 
ment to  the  beloved  dead?  Why  did  they  make 
demons  out  of  them?  According  to  Wester- 
marck  this  question  is  easily  answered.50  "As 
death  is  usually  considered  the  worst  calamity 
that  can  overtake  man,  it  is  believed  that  the 
deceased  are  very  dissatisfied  with  their  lot. 
Primitive  races  believe  that  death  comes  only 
through  being  slain,  whether  by  violence  or  by 
magic,  and  this  is  considered  already  sufficient 
reason  for  the  soul  to  be  vindictive  and  irritable. 
The  soul  presumably  envies  the  living  and  longs 
for  the  company  of  its  former  kin ;  we  can  there- 
fore understand  that  the  soul  should  seek  to  kill 
them  with  diseases  in  order  to  be  re-united  with 
them.  .  .  . 

"...  A  further  explanation  of  the  malevo- 
lence ascribed  to  souls  lies  in  the  instinctive  fear 
of  them,  which  is  itself  the  result  of  the  fear  of 
death." 

Our  study  of  psychoneurotic  disturbances 
points  to  a  more  comprehensive  explanation 
which  includes  that  of  Westermarck. 

When  a  wife  loses  her  husband,  or  a  daughter 
her  mother,  it  not  infrequently  happens  that  the 
survivor  is  afflicted  with  tormenting  scruples, 

bo  1.  c,  p.  426. 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS       101 

called  "obsessive  reproaches"  which  raise  the 
question  whether  she  herself  has  not  been  guilty 
through  carelessness  or  neglect,  of  the  death  of 
the  beloved  person.  No  recalling  of  the  care 
with  which  she  nursed  the  invalid,  or  direct  refu- 
tation of  the  asserted  guilt  can  put  an  end  to 
the  torture,  which  is  the  pathological  expression 
of  mourning  and  which  in  time  slowly  subsides. 
Psychoanalytic  investigation  of  such  cases  has 
made  us  acquainted  with  the  secret  mainsprings 
of  this  affliction.  We  have  ascertained  that  these 
obsessive  reproaches  are  in  a  certain  sense  justi- 
fied and  therefore  are  immune  to  refutation  or 
objections.  Not  that  the  mourner  has  really 
been  guilty  of  the  death  or  that  she  has  really 
been  careless,  as  the  obsessive  reproach  asserts; 
but  still  there  was  something  in  her,  a  wish  of 
which  she  herself  was  unaware,  which  was  not  dis- 
pleased with  the  fact  that  death  came,  and  which 
would  have  brought  it  about  sooner  had  it  been 
strong  enough.  The  reproach  now  reacts 
against  this  unconscious  wish  after  the  death  of 
the  beloved  person.  Such  hostility,  hidden  in 
the  unconscious  behind  tender  love,  exists  in  al- 
most all  cases  of  intensive  emotional  allegiance 
to  a  particular  person,  indeed  it  represents  the 
classic  case,  the  prototype  of  the  ambivalence  of 
human  emotions.  There  is  always  more  or  less 
of  this  ambivalence  in  everybody's  disposition; 

102  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

normally  it  is  not  strong  enough  to  give  rise  to 
the  obsessive  reproaches  we  have  described. 
But  where  there  is  abundant  predisposition  for 
it,  it  manifests  itself  in  the  relation  to  those  we 
love  most,  precisely  where  you  would  least  ex- 
pect it.  The  disposition  to  compulsion  neurosis, 
which  we  have  so  often  taken  for  comparison  with 
taboo  problems,  is  distinguished  by  a  particularly 
high  degree  of  this  original  ambivalence  of  emo- 
tion. 

We  now  know  how  to  explain  the  supposed 
demonism  of  recently  departed  souls  and  the 
necessity  of  being  protected  against  their  hostil- 
ity through  taboo  rules.  By  assuming  a  similar 
high  degree  of  ambivalence  in  the  emotional  life 
of  primitive  races  such  as  psychoanalysis  ascribes 
to  persons  suffering  from  compulsion  neurosis, 
it  becomes  comprehensible  that  the  same  kind  of 
reaction  against  the  hostility  latent  in  the  uncon- 
scious behind  the  obsessive  reproaches  of  the 
neurotic  should  also  be  necessary  here  after  the 
painful  loss  has  occurred.  But  this  hostility, 
which  is  painfully  felt  in  the  unconscious  in  the 
form  of  satisfaction  with  the  demise,  experiences 
a  different  fate  in  the  case  of  primitive  man:  the 
defense  against  it  is  accomplished  by  displace- 
ment upon  the  object  of  hostility,  namely  the 
dead.  We  call  this  defense  process,  frequent 
both  in  normal  and  diseased  psychic  life,  a  pro- 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS        103 

jection.  The  survivor  will  deny  that  he  has  ever 
entertained  hostile  impulses  toward  the  beloved 
dead;  but  now  the  soul  of  the  deceased  enter- 
tains them  and  will  try  to  give  vent  to  them  dur- 
ing the  entire  period  of  mourning.  In  spite  of 
the  successful  defense  through  projection,  the 
punitive  and  remorseful  character  of  this  emo- 
tional reaction  manifests  itself  in  being  afraid, 
in  self-imposed  renunciations  and  in  subjection 
to  restrictions  which  are  partly  disguised  as  pro- 
tective measures  against  the  hostile  demon. 
Thus  we  rind  again  that  taboo  has  grown  out  of 
the  soil  of  an  ambivalent  emotional  attitude. 
The  taboo  of  the  dead  also  originates  from  the 
opposition  between  the  conscious  grief  and  the 
unconscious  satisfaction  at  death.  If  this  is  the 
origin  of  the  resentment  of  spirits  it  is  self-evi- 
dent that  just  the  nearest  and  formerly  most  be- 
loved survivors  have  to  fear  it  most. 

As  in  neurotic  symptoms,  the  taboo  regulations 
also  evince  opposite  feelings.  Their  restrictive 
character  expresses  mourning,  while  they  also 
betray  very  clearly  what  they  are  trying  to  con- 
ceal, namely,  the  hostility  towards  the  dead, 
which  is  now  motivated  as  self-defense.  We 
have  learnt  to  understand  part  of  the  taboo  regu- 
lations as  temptation  fears.  A  dead  person  is 
defenseless,  which  must  act  as  an  incitement  to 
satisfy  hostile  desires  entertained  against  him; 

104  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

this  temptation  has  to  be  opposed  by  the  prohi- 
bition. 

But  Westermarck  is  right  in  not  admitting  any 
difference  in  the  savage's  conception  between 
those  who  have  died  by  violence  and  those  who 
have  died  a  natural  death.  As  will  be  shown 
later,51  in  the  unconscious  mode  of  thinking  even 
a  natural  death  is  perceived  as  murder;  the  per- 
son was  killed  by  evil  wishes.  Any  one  inter- 
ested in  the  origin  and  meaning  of  dreams  deal- 
ing with  the  death  of  dear  relatives  such  as  par- 
ents and  brothers  and  sisters  will  find  that  the 
same  feeling  of  ambivalence  is  responsible  for  the 
fact  that  the  dreamer,  the  child,  and  the  savage 
all  have  the  same  attitude  towards  the  dead.52 

A  little  while  ago  we  challenged  Wundt's  con- 
ception, who  explains  the  nature  of  taboo  through 
the  fear  of  demons,  and  yet  we  have  just  agreed 
with  the  explanation  which  traces  back  the  taboo 
of  the  dead  to  a  fear  of  the  soul  of  the  dead  after 
it  has  turned  into  a  demon.  This  seems  like  a 
contradiction,  but  it  will  not  be  difficult  for  us  to 
explain  it.  It  is  true  that  we  have  accepted  the 
idea  of  demons,  but  we  know  that  this  assump- 
tion is  not  something  final  which  psychology  can- 
not resolve  into  further  elements.  We  have,  as 
it  were,  exposed  the  demons  by  recognizing  them 

ei  Cf.  Chap.  III. 

B2  Freud,  "The  Interpretation  of  Dreams. 

'> 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS        105 

as  mere  projections  of  hostile  feelings  which  the 
survivor  entertains  towards  the  dead. 

The  double  feeling — tenderness  and  hostility 
— against  the  deceased,  which  we  consider  well 
founded,  endeavors  to  assert  itself  at  the  time 
of  bereavement  as  mourning  and  satisfaction.  A 
conflict  must  ensue  between  these  contrary  feel- 
ings and  as  one  of  them,  namely  the  hostility,  is 
altogether  or  for  the  greater  part  unconscious, 
the  conflict  cannot  result  in  a  conscious  difference 
in  the  form  of  hostility  or  tenderness  as,  for  in- 
stance, when  we  forgive  an  injury  inflicted  upon 
us  by  some  one  we  love.  The  process  usually  ad- 
justs itself  through  a  special  psychic  mechanism, 
which  is  designated  in  psychoanalysis  as  projec- 
tion. This  unknown  hostility,  of  which  we  are 
ignorant  and  of  which  we  do  not  wish  to  know,  is 
projected  from  our  inner  perception  into  the 
outer  world  and  is  thereby  detached  from  our 
own  person  and  attributed  to  the  other.  Not  we, 
the  survivors,  rejoice  because  we  are  rid  of  the  de- 
ceased, on  the  contrary,  we  mourn  for  him;  but 
now,  curiously  enough,  he  has  become  an  evil 
demon  who  would  rejoice  in  our  misfortune  and 
who  seeks  our  death.  The  survivors  must  now 
defend  themselves  against  this  evil  enemy;  they 
are  freed  from  inner  oppression,  but  they  have 
only  succeeded  in  exchanging  it  for  an  affliction 
from  without. 

106  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  this  process  of  pro- 
jection, which  turns  the  dead  into  malevolent 
enemies,  finds  some  support  in  the  real  hostilities 
of  the  dead  which  the  survivors  remember  and 
with  which  they  really  can  reproach  the  dead. 
These  hostilities  are  harshness,  the  desire  to  dom- 
inate, injustice,  and  whatever  else  forms  the  back- 
ground of  even  the  most  tender  relations  between 
men.  But  the  process  cannot  be  so  simple  that 
this  factor  alone  could  explain  the  origin  of 
demons  by  projection.  The  offenses  of  the  dead 
certainly  motivate  in  part  the  hostility  of  the  sur- 
vivors, but  they  would  have  been  ineffective  if 
they  had  not  given  rise  to  this  hostility  and  the 
occasion  of  death  would  surely  be  the  least  suit- 
able occasion  for  awakening  the  memory  of  the 
reproaches  which  justly  could  have  been  brought 
against  the  deceased.  We  cannot  dispense  with 
the  unconscious  hostility  as  the  constant  and 
really  impelling  motive.  This  hostile  tendency 
towards  those  nearest  and  dearest  could  remain 
latent  during  their  lifetime,  that  is  to  say,  it  could 
avoid  betraying  itself  to  consciousness  either 
directly  or  indirectly  through  any  substitutive 
formation.  However,  when  the  person  who  was 
simultaneously  loved  and  hated  died,  this  was  no 
longer  possible,  and  the  conflict  became  acute. 
The  mourning  originating  from  the  enhanced 
tenderness,  became  on  the  one  hand  more  intol- 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS        107 

erant  of  the  latent  hostility,  while  on  the  other 
hand  it  could  not  tolerate  that  the  latter  should 
not  give  origin  to  a  feeling  of  pure  gratification. 
Thus  there  came  about  the  repression  of  the  un- 
conscious hostility  through  projection,  and  the 
formation  of  the  ceremonial  in  which  fear  of  pun- 
ishment by  demons  finds  expression.  With  the 
termination  of  the  period  of  mourning,  the  con- 
flict also  loses  its  acuteness  so  that  the  taboo  of 
the  dead  can  be  abated  or  sink  into  oblivion. 

4 

Having  thus  explained  the  basis  on  which  the 
very  instructive  taboo  of  the  dead  has  grown  up, 
we  must  not  miss  the  opportunity  of  adding  a  few 
observations  which  may  become  important  for  the 
understanding  of  taboo  in  general. 

The  projection  of  unconscious  hostility  upon 
demons  in  the  taboo  of  the  dead  is  only  a  single 
example  from  a  whole  series  of  processes  to  which 
we  must  grant  the  greatest  influence  in  the  form- 
ation of  primitive  psychic  life.  In  the  foregoing 
case  the  mechanism  of  projection  is  used  to  settle 
an  emotional  conflict;  it  serves  the  same  purpose 
in  a  large  number  of  psychic  situations  which  lead 
to  neuroses.  But  projection  is  not  specially  cre- 
ated for  the  purpose  of  defense,  it  also  comes  into 
being  where  there  are  no  conflicts.  The  projec- 
tiorToF  inner"  perceptions  to  the  outside  is  a  primi- 

108  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

tive  mechanism  which,  for  instance,  also  influ- 
ences our  sense  perceptions,  so  that  it  normally 
has  the  greatest  share  in  shaping  our  outer  world. 
Under  conditions  that  have  not  yet  been  suf- 
ficiently determined  even  inner  perceptions  of 
ideational  and  emotional  processes  are  projected 
outwardly,  like  sense  perceptions,  and  are  used 
to  shape  the  outer  world,  whereas  they  ought  to 
remain  in  the  inner  world.  This  is  perhaps 
genetically  connected  with  the  fact  that  the  func- 
tion of  attention  was  originally  directed  not 
towards  the  inner  world,  but  to  the  stimuli 
streaming  in  from  the  outer  world,  and  only  re- 
ceived reports  of  pleasure  and  pain  from  the 
endopsychic  processes.  Only  with  the  develop- 
ment of  the  language  of  abstract  thought 
through  the  association  of  sensory  remnants  of 
word  representations  with  inner  processes,  did  the 
latter  gradually  become  capable  of  perception. 
Before  this  took  place  primitive  man  had  devel- 
oped a  picture  of  the  outer  world  through  the  out- 
ward projection  of  inner  perceptions,  which  we, 
with  our  reenforced  conscious  perception,  must 
now  translate  back  into  psychology. 

The  projection  of  their  own  evil  impulses  upon 
demons  is  only  a  part  of  what  has  become  the 
world  system  ("Weltanschauung")  of  primitive 
man  which  we  shall  discuss  later  as  "animism." 
We  shall  then  have  to  ascertain  the  psychological 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS        109 

nature  of  such  a  system  formation  and  the  points 
of  support  which  we  shall  find  in  the  analysis 
of  these  system  formations  will  again  bring  us 
face  to  face  with  the  neurosis.  For  the  present 
we  merely  wish  to  suggest  that  the  "secondary 
elaboration"  of  the  dream  content  is  the  proto- 
type of  all  these  system  formations.53  And  let 
us  not  forget  that  beginning  at  the  stage  of  sys- 
tem formation  there  are  two  origins  for  every  act 
judged  by  consciousness,  namely  the  systematic, 
and  the  real  but  unconscious  origin.54 

Wundt 55  remarks  that  "among  the  influences 
which  myth  everywhere  ascribes  to  demons  the 
evil  ones  preponderate,  so  that  according  to  the 
religions  of  races  evil  demons  are  evidently  older 
than  good  demons."  Now  it  is  quite  possible 
that  the  whole  conception  of  demons  was  derived 
from  the  extremely  important  relation  to  the 
dead.  In  the  further  course  of  human  develop- 
ment the  ambivalence  inherent  in  this  relation 
then  manifested  itself  by  allowing  two  altogether 
contrary  psychic  formations  to  issue  from  the 
same  root,  namely,  the  fear  of  demons  and  of 
ghosts,  and  the  reverence  for  ancestors.56    Noth- 

53  Freud,  "The  Interpretation  of  Dreams." 

54  The  projection  creations  of  primitive  man  resemble  the  per- 
sonifications through  which  the  poet  projects  his  warring  impulses 
out  of  himself,  as  separated  individuals. 

55  "Myth  and  Religion,"  p.  129. 

56  In  the  psychoanalysis  of  neurotic  persons  who  suffer,  or  have 
suffered,  in  their  childhood  from  the  fear  of  ghosts,  it  is  often  not 

110  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

ing  testifies  so  much  to  the  influence  of  mourning 
on  the  origin  of  belief  in  demons  as  the  fact  that 
demons  were  always  taken  to  be  the  spirits  of 
persons  not  long  dead.  Mourning  has  a  very  dis- 
tinct psychic  task  to  perform,  namely,  to  detach 
the  memories  and  expectations  of  the  survivors 
from  the  dead.  When  this  work  is  accomplished 
the  grief,  and  with  it  the  remorse  and  reproach, 
lessens,  and  therefore  also  the  fear  of  the  demon. 
But  the  very  spirits  which  at  first  were  feared  as 
demons  now  serve  a  friendlier  purpose;  they  are 
revered  as  ancestors  and  appealed  to  for  help  in 
times  of  distress. 

If  we  survey  the  relation  of  survivors  to  the 
dead  through  the  course  of  the  ages,  it  is  very  evi- 
dent that  the  ambivalent  feeling  has  extraordi- 
narily abated.  We  now  find  it  easy  to  suppress 
whatever  unconscious  hostility  towards  the  dead 
there  may  still  exist  without  any  special  psychic 
effort  on  our  part.  Where  formerly  satisfied 
hate  and  painful  tenderness  struggled  with  each 
other,  we  now  find  piety,  which  appears  like  a 
cicatrice  and  demands :  De  mortuis  nil  nisi  bene. 
Only  neurotics  still  blur  the  mourning  for  the  loss 
of  their  dear  ones  with  attacks  of  compulsive  re- 

difficult  to  expose  these  ghosts  as  the  parents.  Compare  also  in 
this  connection  the  communication  of  P.  Haeberlin,  "Sexual 
Ghosts"  ("Sexual  Problems,"  Feb.,  1912),  where  it  is  a  question 
of  another  erotically  accentuated  person,  but  where  the  father  was 
dead. 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS        111 

proaches  which  psychoanalysis  reveals  as  the  old 
ambivalent  emotional  feeling.  How  this  change 
was  brought  about,  and  to  what  extent  constitu- 
tional changes  and  real  improvement  of  familiar 
relations  share  in  causing  the  abatement  of  the 
ambivalent  feeling,  need  not  be  discussed  here. 
But  this  example  would  lead  us  to  assume  that 
the  psychic  impulses  of  primitive  man  possessed 
a  higher  degree  of  ambivalence  than  is  found  at 
present  among  civilized  human  beings.  With 
the  decline  of  this  ambivalence  the  taboo,  as  the 
compromise  symptom  of  the  ambivalent  conflict, 
also  slowly  disappeared.  Neurotics  who  are 
compelled  to  reproduce  this  conflict,  together  with 
the  taboo  resulting  from  it,  may  be  said  to  have 
brought  with  them  an  atavistic  remnant  in  the 
form  of  an  archaic  constitution  the  compensation 
of  which  in  the  interest  of  cultural  demands  en- 
tails the  most  prodigious  psychic  efforts  on  their 
part. 

At  this  point  we  may  recall  the  confusing  in- 
formation which  Wundt  offered  us  about  the 
double  meaning  of  the  word  taboo,  namely,  holy 
and  unclean.  (See  above.)  It  was  supposed 
that  originally  the  word  taboo  did  not  yet  mean 
holy  and  unclean  but  signified  something  de- 
monic, something  which  may  not  be  touched,  thus 
emphasizing  a  characteristic  common  to  both  ex- 
tremes of  the  later  conception;  this  persistent 

112  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

common  trait  proves,  however,  that  an  original 
correspondence  existed  between  what  was  holy 
and  what  was  unclean,  which  only  later  became 
differentiated. 

In  contrast  to  this,  our  discussions  readily  show 
that  the  double  meaning  in  question  belonged  to 
the  word  taboo  from  the  very  beginning  and  that 
it  serves  to  designate  a  definite  ambivalence  as 
well  as  everything  which  has  come  into  existence 
on  the  basis  of  this  ambivalence.  Taboo  is  itself 
an  ambivalent  word  and  by  way  of  supplement, 
we  may  add  that  the  established  meaning  of  this 
word  might  of  itself  have  allowed  us  to  guess 
what  we  have  found  as  the  result  of  extensive  in- 
vestigation, namely,  that  the  taboo  prohibition  is 
to  be  explained  as  the  result  of  an  emotional 
ambivalence.  A  study  of  the  oldest  languages 
has  taught  us  that  at  one  time  there  were  many 
such  words  which  included  their  own  contrasts 
so  that  they  were  in  a  certain  sense  ambivalent, 
though  perhaps  not  exactly  in  the  same  sense  as 
the  word  taboo.57  Slight  vocal  modifications  of 
this  primitive  word  containing  two  opposite 
meanings  later  served  to  create  a  separate  lin- 
guistic expression  for  the  two  opposites  originally 
united  in  one  word. 

57  Compare  my  article  on  Abel's  "Gegensinn  des  Urworte"  in 
the  "Jahrbuch  fiir  Psychoanalytische  und  Psychopathologische 
Forschungen,"  Bd.  II,  1*910. 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS        113 

The  word  taboo  has  had  a  different  fate;  with 
the  diminished  importance  of  the  ambivalence 
which  it  connotes  it  has  itself  disappeared,  or 
rather,  the  words  analogous  to  it  have  vanished 
from  the  vocabulary.  In  a  later  connection  I 
hope  to  be  able  to  show  that  a  tangible  historic 
change  is  probably  concealed  behind  the  fate  of 
this  conception;  that  the  word  at  first  was  asso- 
ciated with  definite  human  relations  which  were 
characterized  by  great  emotional  ambivalence 
from  which  it  expanded  to  other  analogous  re- 
lations. 

Unless  we  are  mistaken,  the  understanding  of 
taboo  also  throws  light  upon  the  nature  and 
origin  of  conscience.  Without  stretching  ideas 
we  can  speak  of  a  taboo  conscience  and  a  taboo 
sense  of  guilt  after  the  violation  of  a  taboo. 
Taboo  conscience  is  probably  the  oldest  form  in 
which  we  meet  the  phenomenon  of  conscience. 

For  wrhat  is  "conscience"?  According  to 
linguistic  testimony  it  belongs  to  what  we  know 
most  surely;  in  some  languages  its  meaning  is 
hardly  to  be  distinguished  from  consciousness. 

Conscience  is  the  inner  perception  of  objections 
to  definite  wish  impulses  that  exist  in  us ;  but  the 
emphasis  is  put  upon  the  fact  that  this  rejection 
does  not  have  to  depend  on  anything  else,  that  it 
is  sure  of  itself.  This  becomes  even  plainer  in 
the  case  of  a  guilty  conscience,  where  we  become 

114  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

aware  of  the  inner  condemnation  of  such  acts 
which  realized  some  of  our  definite  wish  impulses. 
Confirmation  seems  superfluous  here;  whoever 
has  a  conscience  must  feel  in  himself  the  justifica- 
tion of  the  condemnation,  and  the  reproach  for 
the  accomplished  action.  But  this  same  charac- 
ter is  evinced  by  the  attitude  of  savages  towards 
taboo.  Taboo  is  a  command  of  conscience,  the 
violation  of  which  causes  a  terrible  sense  of  guilt 
.which  is  as  self-evident  as  its  origin  is  unknown.58 
It  is  therefore  probable  that  conscience  also 
originates  on  the  basis  of  an  ambivalent  feeling 
from  quite  definite  human  relations  which  contain 
this  ambivalence.  It  probably  originates  under 
conditions  which  are  in  force  both  for  taboo  and 
the  compulsion  neurosis,  that  is,  one  component 
of  the  two  contrasting  feelings  is  unconscious  and 
is  kept  repressed  by  the  compulsive  domination 
of  the  other  component.  This  is  confirmed  by 
many  things  which  we  have  learned  from  our 
analysis  of  neuroses.  In  the  first  place  the  char- 
acter of  compulsion  neurotics  shows  a  predomi- 
nant trait  of  painful  conscientiousness  which  is  a 
symptom    of    reaction    against    the    temptation 

58  It  is  an  interesting  parallel  that  the  sense  of  guilt  resulting 
from  the  violation  of  a  taboo  is  in  no  way  diminished  if  the  viola- 
tion took  place  unwittingly  (see  examples  above),  and  that  even  in 
the  Greek  myth  the  guilt  of  Oedipus  is  not  cancelled  by  the  fact 
that  it  was  incurred  without  his  knowledge  and  will  and  even 
against  them, 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS        115 

which  lurks  in  the  unconscious,  and  which  de- 
velops into  the  highest  degrees  of  guilty  con- 
science as  their  illness  grows  worse.  Indeed,  one 
may  venture  the  assertion  that  if  the  origin  of 
guilty  conscience  could  not  be  discovered  through 
compulsion  neurotic  patients,  there  would  be  no 
prospect  of  ever  discovering  it.  This  task  is  suc- 
cessfully solved  in  the  case  of  the  individual  neu- 
rotic, and  we  are  confident  of  finding  a  similar  so- 
lution in  the  case  of  races. 

In  the  second  place  we  cannot  help  noticing 
that  the  sense  of  guilt  contains  much  of  the  nature 
of  anxiety;  without  hesitation  it  may  be  described 
as  "conscience  phobia."  But  fear  points  to  un- 
conscious sources;  The  psychology  of  the  neu- 
roses taught  us  that  when  wish  feelings  undergo 
repression  their  libido  becomes  transformed  into 
anxiety.  In  addition  we  must  bear  in  mind  that 
the  sense  of  guilt  also  contains  something  un- 
known and  unconscious,  namely  the  motivation 
for  the  rejection.  The  character  of  anxiety  in 
the  sense  of  guilt  corresponds  to  this  unknown 
quantity. 

If  taboo  expresses  itself  mainly  in  prohibitions 
it  may  well  be  considered  self-evident,  without 
remote  proof  from  the  analogy  with  neurosis 
that  it  is  based  on  a  positive,  desireful  impulse. 
For  what  nobody  desires  to  do  does  not  have  to 
be  forbidden,  and  certainly  whatever  is  expressly 

116  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

forbidden  must  be  an  object  of  desire.  If  we 
applied  this  plausible  theory  to  primitive  races 
we  would  have  to  conclude  that  among  their 
strongest  temptations  were  desires  to  kill  their 
kings  and  priests,  to  commit  incest,  to  abuse  their 
dead  and  the  like.  That  is  not  very  prob- 
able. And  if  we  should  apply  the  same  theory  to 
those  cases  in  which  we  ourselves  seem  to  hear  the 
voice  of  conscience  most  clearly  we  would  arouse 
the  greatest  contradiction.  For  there  we  would 
assert  with  the  utmost  certainty  that  we  did  not 
feel  the  slightest  temptation  to  violate  any  of 
these  commandments,  as  for  example,  the  com- 
mandment :  Thou  shalt  not  kill,  and  that  we  felt 
nothing  but  repugnance  at  the  very  idea. 

But  if  we  grant  the  testimony  of  our  conscience 
the  importance  it  claims,  then  the  prohibition — 
the  taboo  as  well  as  our  moral  prohibitions — be- 
comes superfluous,  while  the  existence  of  a  con- 
science, in  turn,  remains  unexplained  and  the  con- 
nection between  conscience,  taboo  and  neurosis 
disappears.  The  net  result  of  this  would  then 
be  our  present  state  of  understanding  unless  we 
view  the  problem  psychoanalytically. 

But  if  we  take  into  account  the  following  re- 
sults of  psychoanalysis,  our  understanding  of  the 
problem  is  greatly  advanced.  The  analysis  of 
dreams  of  normal  individuals  has  shown  that  our 
own  temptation  to  kill  others  is  stronger  and  more 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS        117 

frequent  than  we  had  suspected  and  that  it  pro- 
duces psychic  effects  even  where  it  does  not  reveal 
itself  to  our  consciousness.  And  when  we  have 
learnt  that  the  obsessive  rules  of  certain  neurotics 
are  nothing  but  measures  of  self -reassurance  and 
self -punishment  erected  against  the  reenforced 
impulse  to  commit  murder,  we  can  return  with 
fresh  appreciation  to  our  previous  hypothesis  that 
every  prohibition  must  conceal  a  desire.  We  can 
then  assume  that  this  desire  to  murder  actually 
exists  and  that  the  taboo  as  well  as  the  moral  pro- 
hibition are  psychologically  by  no  means  super- 
fluous but  are,  on  the  contrary,  explained  and 
justified  through  our  ambivalent  attitude  towards 
the  impulse  to  slay. 

The  nature  of  this  ambivalent  relation  so  often 
emphasized  as  fundamental,  namely,  that  the 
positive  underlying  desire  is  unconscious,  opens 
the  possibility  of  showing  further  connections  and 
explaining  further  problems.  The  psychic 
processes  in  the  unconscious  are  not  entirely  iden- 
tical with  those  known  to  us  from  our  conscious 
psychic  life,  but  have  the  benefit  of  certain  notable 
liberties  of  which  the  latter  are  deprived.  An 
unconscious  impulse  need  not  have  originated 
where  we  find  it  expressed,  it  can  spring  from  an 
entirely  different  place  and  may  originally  have 
referred  to  other  persons  and  relations,  but 
through    the    mechanism    of    displacement,,    it 

118  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

reaches  the  point  where  it  comes  to  our  notice. 
Thanks  to  the  indestructibility  of  unconscious 
processes  and  their  inaccessibility  to  correction, 
the  impulse  may  be  saved  over  from  earlier  times 
to  which  it  was  adapted  to  later  periods  and  con- 
ditions in  which  its  manifestations  must  neces- 
sarily seem  foreign.  These  are  all  only  hints,  but 
a  careful  elaboration  of  them  would  show  how 
important  they  may  become  for  the  understand- 
ing of  the  development  of  civilization. 

In  closing  these  discussions  we  do  not  want  to 
neglect  to  make  an  observation  that  will  be  of  use 
for  later  investigations.  Even  if  we  insist  upon 
the  essential  similarity  between  taboo  and  moral 
prohibitions  we  do  not  dispute  that  a  psycholog- 
ical difference  must  exist  between  them.  A 
change  in  the  relations  of  the  fundamental  am- 
bivalence can  be  the  only  reason  why  the  prohi- 
bition no  longer  appears  in  the  form  of  a  taboo. 

In  the  analytical  consideration  of  taboo  phe- 
nomena we  have  hitherto  allowed  ourselves  to  be 
guided  by  their  demonstrable  agreements  with 
compulsion  neurosis ;  but  as  taboo  is  not  a  neuro- 
sis but  a  social  creation  we  are  also  confronted 
with  the  task  of  showing  wherein  lies  the  essential 
difference  between  the  neurosis  and  a  product  of 
culture  like  the  taboo. 

Here  again  I  will  take  a  single  fact  as  my  start- 
ing point.     Primitive  races  fear  a  punishment  for 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS        119 

the  violation  of  a  taboo,  usually  a  serious  disease 
or  death.  This  punishment  threatens  only  him 
who  has  been  guilty  of  the  violation.  It  is  differ- 
ent with  the  compulsion  neurosis.  If  the  patient 
wants  to  do  something  that  is  forbidden  to  him 
he  does  not  fear  punishment  for  himself,  but  for 
another  person.  This  person  is  usually  indefi- 
nite, but,  by  means  of  analysis,  is  easily  recog- 
nized as  some  one  very  near  and  dear  to  the  pa- 
tient. The  neurotic  therefore  acts  as  if  he  were 
altruistic,  while  primitive  man  seems  egotistical. 
Only  if  retribution  fails  to  overtake  the  taboo  vio- 
lator spontaneously  does  a  collective  feeling 
awaken  among  savages  that  they  are  all  threat- 
ened through  the  sacrilege,  and  they  hasten  to  in- 
flict the  omitted  punishment  themselves.  It  is 
easy  for  us  to  explain  the  mechanism  of  this 
solidarity.  It  is  a  question  of  fear  of  the  con- 
tagious example,  the  temptation  to  imitate,  that  is 
to  say,  of  the  capacity  of  the  taboo  to  infect.  If 
some  one  has  succeeded  in  satisfying  the  repressed 
desire,  the  same  desire  must  manifest  itself  in  all 
his  companions ;  hence,  in  order  to  keep  down  this 
temptation,  this  envied  individual  must  be  de- 
spoiled of  the  fruit  of  his  daring.  Not  infre- 
quently the  punishment  gives  the  executors  them- 
selves an  opportunity  to  commit  the  same  sacri- 
legious act  by  justifying  it  as  an  expiation.  This 
is  really  one  of  the  fundamentals  of  the  human 

120  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

code  of  punishment  which  rightly  presumes  the 
same  forbidden  impulses  in  the  criminal  and  in 
the  members  of  society  who  avenge  his  offense. 
Psychoanalysis  here  confirms  what  the  pious 
were  wont  to  say,  that  we  are  all  miserable  sin- 
ners. How  then  shall  we  explain  the  unexpected 
nobility  of  the  neurosis  which  fears  nothing  for 
itself  and  everything  for  the  beloved  person? 
Psychoanalytic  investigation  shows  that  this  no- 
bility is  not  primary.  Originally,  that  is  to  say 
at  the  beginning  of  the  disease,  the  threat  of  pun- 
ishment pertained  to  one's  own  person;  in  every 
case  the  fear  was  for  one's  own  life;  the  fear  of 
death  being  only  later  displaced  upon  another 
beloved  person.  The  process  is  somewhat  com- 
plicated but  we  have  a  complete  grasp  of  it.  An 
evil  impulse — a  death  wish — towards  the  beloved 
person  is  always  at  the  basis  of  the  formation  of 
a  prohibition.  This  is  repressed  through  a  pro- 
hibition, and  the  prohibition  is  connected  with  a 
certain  act  which  by  displacement  usually  substi- 
tutes the  hostile  for  the  beloved  person,  and  the 
execution  of  this  act  is  threatened  with  the  pen- 
alty of  death.  But  the  process  goes  further  and 
the  original  wish  for  the  death  of  the  beloved 
other  person  is  then  replaced  by  fear  for  his  death. 
The  tender  altruistic  trait  of  the  neurosis  there- 
fore merely  compensates  for  the  opposite  attitude 
of  brutal  egotism  which  is  at  the  basis  of  it.     If 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS        121 

we  designate  as  social  those  emotional  impulses 
which  are  determined  through  regard  for  another 
person  who  is  not  taken  as  a  sexual  object,  we  can 
emphasize  the  withdrawal  of  these  social  factors 
as  an  essential  feature  of  the  neurosis,  which  is 
later  disguised  through  over-compensation. 

Without  lingering  over  the  origin  of  these 
social  impulses  and  their  relation  to  other  funda- 
mental impulses  of  man,  we  will  bring  out  the  sec- 
ond main  characteristic  of  the  neurosis  by  means 
of  another  example.  The  form  in  which  taboo 
manifests  itself  has  the  greatest  similarity  to  the 
touching  phobia  of  neurotics,  the  Delire  de 
toucher.  As  a  matter  of  fact  this  neurosis  is  reg- 
ularly concerned  with  the  prohibition  of  sexual 
touching  and  psychoanalysis  has  quite  generally 
shown  that  the  motive  power  which  is  deflected 
and  displaced  in  the  neurosis  is  of  sexual  origin. 
In  taboo  the  forbidden  contact  has  evidently  not 
only  sexual  significance  but  rather  the  more  gen- 
eral one  of  attack,  of  acquisition  and  of  personal 
assertion.  If  it  is  prohibited  to  touch  the  chief 
or  something  that  was  in  contact  with  him  it 
means  that  an  inhibition  should  be  imposed  upon 
the  same  impulse  which  on  other  occasions  ex- 
presses itself  in  suspicious  surveillance  of  the 
chief  and  even  in  physical  ill-treatment  of  him 
before  his  coronation.  (See  above.)  Thus  the 
preponderance  of  searnal  components  of  the  im- 

122  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

pulse  over  the  social  components  is  the  determin- 
ing factor  of  the  neurosis.  But  the  social  im- 
pulses themselves  came  into  being  through  the 
union  of  egotistical  and  erotic  components  into 
special  entities. 

From  this  single  example  of  a  comparison  be- 
tween taboo  and  compulsion  neurosis  it  is  already- 
possible  to  guess  the  relation  between  individual 
forms  of  the  neurosis  and  the  creations  of  culture, 
and  in  what  respect  the  study  of  the  psychology 
of  the  neurosis  is  important  for  the  understanding 
of  the  development  of  culture. 

In  one  way  the  neuroses  show  a  striking  and 
far-reaching  correspondence  with  the  great  social 
productions  of  art,  religion  and  philosophy,  while 
again  they  seem  like  distortions  of  them.  We 
may  say  that  hysteria  is  a  caricature  of  an  artistic 
creation,  a  compulsion  neurosis,  a  caricature  of  a 
religion,  and  a  paranoic  delusion  a  caricature  of  a 
philosophic  system.  In  the  last  analysis  this 
deviation  goes  back  to  the  fact  that  the  neuroses 
are  asocial  formations ;  they  seek  to  accomplish  by 
private  means  what  arose  in  society  through  col- 
lective labor.  In  analyzing  the  impulse  of  the 
neuroses  one  learns  that  motive  powers  of  sexual 
origin  exercise  the  determining  influence  in  them, 
while  the  corresponding  cultural  creations  rest 
upon  social  impulses  and  on  such  as  have  issued 
from  the  combination  of  egotistical  and  sexual 

THE  AMBIVALENCE  OF  EMOTIONS        123 

components.  It  seems  that  the  sexual  need  is  not 
capable  of  uniting  men  in  the  same  way  as  the 
demands  of  self  preservation;  sexual  satisfaction 
is  in  the  first  place  the  private  concern  of  the 
individual. 

Genetically  the  asocial  nature  of  the  neurosis 
springs  from  its  original  tendency  to  flee  from  a 
dissatisfying  reality  to  a  more  pleasurable  world 
of  phantasy.  This  real  world  which  neurotics 
shun  is  dominated  by  the  society  of  human  beings 
and  by  the  institutions  created  by  them;  the 
estrangement  from  reality  is  at  the  same  time  a 
withdrawal  from  human  companionship.

ANIMISM,   MAGIC   AND   THE  OMNIPOTENCE   OF 

THOUGHT 

It  is  a  necessary  defect  of  studies  which  seek 
to  apply  the  point  of  view  of  psychoanalysis  to 
the  mental  sciences  that  they  cannot  do  justice  to 
either  subject.  They  therefore  confine  them- 
selves to  the  role  of  incentives  and  make  sugges- 
tions to  the  expert  which  he  should  take  into  con- 
sideration in  his  work.  This  defect  will  make 
itself  felt  most  strongly  in  an  essay  such  as  this 
which  tries  to  treat  of  the  enormous  sphere  called 
animism.1 

Animism  in  the  narrower  sense  is  the  theory  of 
psychic  concepts  and  in  the  wider  sense,  of  spir- 
itual beings  in  general.  Animatism,  the  anima- 
tion theory  of  seemingly  inanimate  nature,  is  a 
further  subdivision  which  also  includes  animatism 

i  The  necessary  crowding  of  the  material  also  compels  us  to  dis- 
pense with  a  thorough  bibliography.  Instead  of  this  the  reader  is 
referred  to  the  well-known  works  of  Herbert  Spencer,  J.  G.  Fra- 
zer,  A.  Lang,  E.  B.  Tylor  and  W.  Wundt,  from  which  all  the 
statements  concerning  animism  and  magic  are  taken.  The  inde- 
pendence of  the  author  can  manifest  itself  only  in  the  choice  of 
the  material  and  of  opinions. 

124 

THE  OMNIPOTENCE  OF  THOUGHT        125 

and  animism.  The  name  animism,  formerly  ap- 
plied to  a  definite  philosophic  system,  seems  to 
have  acquired  its  present  meaning  through  E.  B. 
Tylor.2 

What  led  to  the  formulation  of  these  names  is 
the  insight  into  the  very  remarkable  conceptions 
of  nature  and  the  world  of  those  primitive  races 
known  to  us  from  history  and  from  our  own 
times.  These  races  populate  the  world  with  a 
multitude  of  spiritual  beings  which  are  benevolent 
or  malevolent  to  them,  and  attribute  the  causation 
of  natural  processes  to  these  spirits  and  demons ; 
they  also  consider  that  not  only  animals  and 
plants,  but  inanimate  things  as  well  are  animated 
by  them.  A  third  and  perhaps  the  most  impor- 
tant part  of  this  primitive  "nature  philosophy" 
seems  far  less  striking  to  us  because  we  ourselves 
are  not  yet  far  enough  removed  from  it,  though 
we  have  greatly  limited  the  existence  of  spirits 
and  to-day  explain  the  processes  of  nature  by  the 
assumption  of  impersonal  physical  forces.  For 
primitive  people  believe  in  a  similar  "animation" 
of  human  individuals  as  well.  Human  beings 
have  souls  which  can  leave  their  habitation  and 
enter  into  other  beings ;  these  souls  are  the  bearers 
of  spiritual  activities  and  are,  to  a  certain  extent, 
independent  of  the  "bodies."     Originally  souls 

2E.  B.  Tylor,  "Primitive  Culture,"  Vol.  I,  p.  425,  fourth  ed., 
1903.    W.  Wundt,  "Myth  and  Religion,"  Vol.  II,  p.  173,  1906. 

126  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

were  thought  of  as  being  very  similar  to  individ- 
uals; only  in  the  course  of  a  long  evolution  did 
they  lose  their  material  character  and  attain  a 
high  degree  of  "spiritualization."  3 

Most  authors  incline  to  the  assumption  that 
these  soul  conceptions  are  the  original  nucleus 
of  the  animistic  system,  that  spirits  merely  corre- 
spond to  souls  that  have  become  independent,  and 
that  the  souls  of  animals,  plants  and  things  were 
formed  after  the  analogy  of  human  souls. 

How  did  primitive  people  come  to  the  pecul- 
iarly dualistic  fundamental  conceptions  on  which 
this  animistic  system  rests?  Through  the  obser- 
vation, it  is  thought,  of  the  phenomena  of  sleep 
(with  dreams)  and  death  which  resemble 
sleep,  and  through  the  effort  to  explain  these 
conditions,  which  affect  each  individual  so  inti- 
mately. Above  all,  the  problem  of  death  must 
have  become  the  starting  point  of  the  formation 
of  the  theory.  To  primitive  man  the  continua- 
tion of  life — immortality — would  be  self-evident. 
The  conception  of  death  is  something  accepted 
later,  and  only  with  hesitation,  for  even  to  us  it  is 
still  devoid  of  content  and  unrealizable.  Very 
likely  discussions  have  taken  place  over  the  part 
which  may  have  been  played  by  other  observa- 
tions and  experiences  in  the  formation  of  the 
fundamental  animistic  conceptions  such  as  dream 

s  Wundt  1.  c,  Chapter  IV,  "Die  Seelenvorstellungen." 

THE  OMNIPOTENCE  OF  THOUGHT        127 

imagery,  shadows  and  reflections,  but  these  have 
led  to  no  conclusion.4 

If  primitive  man  reacted  to  the  phenomena  that 
stimulated  his  reflection  with  the  formation  of 
conceptions  of  the  soul,  and  then  transferred 
these  to  objects  of  the  outer  world,  his  attitude 
will  be  judged  to  be  quite  natural  and  in  no  way 
mysterious.  In  view  of  the  fact  that  animistic 
conceptions  have  been  shown  to  be  similar  among 
the  most  varied  races  and  in  all  periods,  Wundt 
states  that  these  "are  the  necessary  psychological 
product  of  the  myth  forming  consciousness,  and 
primitive  animism  may  be  looked  upon  as  the 
spiritual  expression  of  man's  natural  state  in  so 
far  as  this  is  at  all  accessible  to  our  observation."  5 
Hume  has  already  justified  the  animation  of  the 
inanimate  in  his  "Natural  History  of  Religions," 
where  he  said:  "There  is  a  universal  tendency 
among  mankind  to  conceive  all  beings  like  them- 
selves and  to  transfer  to  every  object  those  qual- 
ities with  which  they  are  familiarly  acquainted 
and  of  which  they  are  intimately  conscious."  6 

Animism  is  a  system  of  thought,  it  gives  not 
only  the  explanation  of  a  single  phenomenon,  but 
makes  it  possible  to  comprehend  the  totality  of 

*  Compare,  besides  Wundt  and  H.  Spencer  and  the  instructive 
article  in  the  "Encyclopedia  Britannica,"  1911  (Animism, 
Mythology,  and  so  forth). 

6  1.  c,  p.  154. 

■«  See  Tylor,  "Primitive  Culture,"  Vol.  I,  p.  477. 

128  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

the  world  from  one  point,  as  a  continuity.  Writ- 
ers maintain  that  in  the  course  of  time  three  such 
systems  of  thought,  three  great  world  systems 
came  into  being:  the  animistic  (mythological), 
the  religious,  and  the  scientific.  Of  these  ani- 
mism, the  first  system  is  perhaps  the  most  con- 
sistent and  the  most  exhaustive,  and  the  one  which 
explains  the  nature  of  the  world  in  its  entirety. 
This  first  world  system  of  mankind  is  now  a  psy- 
chological theory.  It  would  go  beyond  our 
scope  to  show  how  much  of  it  can  still  be  demon- 
strated in  the  life  of  to-day,  either  as  a  worthless 
survival  in  the  form  of  superstition,  or  in  living 
form,  as  the  foundation  of  our  language,  our 
belief,  and  our  philosophy. 

It  is  in  reference  to  the  successive  stages  of 
these  three  world  systems  that  we  say  that  anim- 
ism in  itself  was  not  yet  a  religion  but  contained 
the  prerequisites  from  which  religions  were  later 
formed.  It  is  also  evident  that  myths  are  based 
upon  animistic  foundations,  but  the  detailed  rela- 
tion of  myths  to  animism  seem  unexplained  in 
some  essential  points. 

2 

Our  psychoanalytic  work  will  begin  at  a  differ- 
ent point.  It  must  not  be  assumed  that  mankind 
came  to  create  its  first  world  system  through  a 
purely  speculative  thirst  for  knowledge.     The 

THE  OMNIPOTENCE  OF  THOUGHT        129 

practical  need  of  mastering  the  world  must  have 
contributed  to  this  effort.  We  are  therefore  not 
astonished  to  learn  that  something  else  went  hand 
in  hand  with  the  animistic  system,  namely  the 
elaboration  of  directions  for  making  oneself  mas- 
ter of  men,  animals  and  things,  as  well  as  of  their 
spirits.  S.  Reinach  7  wants  to  call  these  direc- 
tions, which  are  known  under  the  names  of 
"sorcery  and  magic,"  the  strategy  of  animism; 
With  Mauss  and  Hubert,  I  should  prefer  to  com- 
pare them  to  a  technique.8 

Can  the  conceptions  of  sorcery  and  magic  be 
separated?  It  can  be  done  if  we  are  willing  on 
our  own  authority  to  put  ourselves  above  the 
vagaries  of  linguistic  usage.  Then  sorcery  is 
essentially  the  art  of  influencing  spirits  by  treat- 
ing" llieni  like  peTrrjfe~Tinrier  the  same  ciictrnf 
"stances,  that  is  to  say  by  appeasing  them,  recon- 
ciling them,  making  them  more  favorably  dis- 
posed to  one,  by  intimidating  them,  by  depriving 
them  of  their  power  and  by  making  them  subject 
to  one's  will;  all  that  is  accomplished  through  the 
same  methods  that  have  been  found  effective  with 
living  people.  Magic,  however,  is  something 
else;  it  does  not  essentially  concern  itself  with 
spirits,  and  uses  special  means,  not  the  ordinary 

7"Cultes,  Mythes   et  Religions,"  T.  II,  Introduction,  p.  XV, 
1909. 
8  "Ann£e  Sociologique,"  Seventh  Vol.,  1904. 

130  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

psychological  method.  We  can  easily  guess  that 
magic  is  the  earlier  and  the  more  important  part 
of  animistic  technique,  for  among  the  means  with 
which  spirits  are  to  be  treated  there  are  also  found 
the  magic  kind,9  and  magic  is  also  applied  where 
spiritualization  of  nature  has  not  yet,  as  it  seems 
to  us,  been  accomplished. 

Magic  must  serve  the  most  varied  purposes. 
It  must  subject  the  processes  of  nature  to  the  will 
of  man,  protect  the  individual  against  enemies 
and  dangers,  and  give  him  the  power  to  injure 
his  enemies.  But  the  principles  on  whose  as- 
sumptions the  magic  activity  is  based,  or  rather 
the  principle  of  magic,  is  so  evident  that  it  was 
recognized  by  all  authors.  If  we  may  take  the 
opinion  of  E.  B.  Tylor  at  its  face  value  it  can  be 
most  tersely  expressed  in  his  words:  "mistaking 
an  ideal  connection  for  a  real  one."  We  shall 
explain  this  characteristic  in  the  case  of  two 
groups  of  magic  acts. 

One  of  the  most  widespread  magic  procedures 
for  injuring  an  enemy  consists  of  making  an 
effigy  of  him  out  of  any  kind  of  material.  The 
likeness  counts  for  little,  in  fact  any  object  may 
be  "named"  as  his  image.  Whatever  is  subse- 
quently done  to  this  image  will  also  happen  to 

9  To  frighten  away  a  ghost  with  noise  and  cries  is  a  form  of 
pure  sorcery;  to  force  him  to  do  something  by  taking  his  name  is 
to  employ  magic  against  him, 

THE  OMNIPOTENCE  OF  THOUGHT        131 

the  hated  prototype;  thus  if  the  effigy  has  been 
injured  in  any  place  he  will  be  afflicted  by  a  dis- 
ease in  the  corresponding  part  of  the  body.  This 
same  magic  technique,  instead  of  being  used  for 
private  enmity  can  also  be  employed  for  pious 
purposes  and  can  thus  be  used  to  aid  the  gods 
against  evil  demons.  I  quote  Frazer: 10  "Ev- 
ery night  when  the  sun-god  Ra  in  ancient  Egypt 
sank  to  his  home  in  the  glowing  west  he  was 
assailed  by  hosts  of  demons  under  the  leadership 
of  the  archfiend  Apepi.  All  night  long  he  fought 
them,  and  sometimes  by  day  the  powers  of  dark- 
ness sent  up  clouds  even  into  the  blue  Egyptian 
sky  to  obscure  his  light  and  weaken  his  power. 
To  aid  the  sun-god  in  this  daily  struggle,  a  cere- 
mony was  daily  performed  in  his  temple  at 
Thebes.  A  figure  of  his  foe  Apepi,  represented 
as  a  crocodile  with  a  hideous  face  or  a  serpent 
with  many  coils,  was  made  of  wax,  and  on  it  the 
demon's  name  was  written  in  green  ink.  Wrapt 
in  a  papyrus  case,  on  which  another  likeness  of 
Apepi  had  been  drawn  in  green  ink,  the  figure 
was  then  tied  up  with  black  hair,  spat  upon, 
hacked  with  a  stone  knife  and  cast  on  the  ground. 
There  the  priest  trod  on  it  with  his  left  foot  again 
and  again,  and  then  burned  it  in  a  fire  made  of  a 
certain  plant  or  grass.  When  Apepi  himself  had 
thus  been  effectively  disposed  of,  waxen  effigies 

10  "  The  Magic  Art,"  II,  p.  67. 

132  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

of  each  of  his  principal  demons,  and  of  their 
fathers,  mothers,  and  children,  were  made  and 
burnt  in  the  same  way.  The  service,  accom- 
panied by  the  recitation  of  certain  prescribed 
spells,  was  repeated  not  merely  morning,  noon 
and  night,  but  whenever  a  storm  was  raging  or 
heavy  rain  had  set  in,  or  black  clouds  were  steal- 
ing across  the  sky  to  hide  the  sun's  bright  disk. 
The  fiends  of  darkness,  clouds  and  rain,  felt  the 
injury  inflicted  on  their  images  as  if  it  had  been 
done  to  themselves ;  they  passed  away,  at  least  for 
a  time,  and  the  beneficent  sun-god  shone  out  tri- 
umphant once  more."  1X 

There  is  a  great  mass  of  magic  actions  which 
show  a  similar  motivation  but  I  shall  lay  stress 
upon  only  two,  which  have  always  played  a  great 
role  among  primitive  races  and  which  have  been 
partly  preserved  in  the  myths  and  cults  of  higher 
stages  of  evolution:  the  art  of  causing  rain  and 
fruitfulness  by  magic.  Rain  is  produced  by 
magic  means,  by  imitating  it,  and  perhaps  also 
by  imitating  the  clouds  and  storm  which  produce 
it.  It  looks  as  if  they  wanted  to  "play  rain." 
The  Ainos  of  Japan,  for  instance,  make  rain  by 

11  The  Biblical  prohibition  against  making  an  image  of  anything 
living  hardly  sprang  from  any  fundamental  rejection  of  plastic 
art,  but  was  probably  meant  to  deprive  magic,  which  the  Hebraic 
religion  proscribed,  of  one  of  its  instruments.  Frazer,  1.  c,  p.  87, 
note. 

THE  OMNIPOTENCE  OF  THOUGHT        133 

pouring  out  water  through  a  big  sieve,  while 
others  fit  out  a  big  bowl  with  sails  and  oars  as 
if  it  were  a  ship,  which  is  then  dragged  about 
the  village  and  gardens.  But  the  fruitfulness  of 
the  soil  was  assured  by  magic  means  by  showing 
it  the  spectacle  of  human  sexual  intercourse.  To 
cite  one  out  of  many  examples;  in  some  part  of 
Java,  the  peasants  used  to  go  out  into  the  fields 
at  night  for  sexual  intercourse  when  the  rice 
was  about  to  blossom  in  order  to  stimulate  the 
rice  to  fruitfulness  through  their  example.12  At 
the  same  time  it  was  feared  that  proscribed  in- 
cestuous relationships  would  stimulate  the  soil 
to  grow  weeds  and  render  it  unfruitful.13 

Certain  negative  rules,  that  is  to  say  magic 
precautions,  must  be  put  into  this  first  group. 
If  some  of  the  inhabitants  of  a  Dayak  village  had 
set  out  on  a  hunt  for  wild-boars,  those  remaining 
behind  were  in  the  meantime  not  permitted  to 
touch  either  oil  or  water  with  their  hands,  as  such 
acts  would  soften  the  hunters'  fingers  and  would 
let  the  quarry  slip  through  their  hands.14  Or 
when  a  Gilyak  hunter  was  pursuing  game  in  the 
woods,  his  children  were  forbidden  to  make  draw- 
ings on  wood  or  in  the  sand,  as  the  paths  in  the 

12  "  The  Magic  Art,"  II,  p.  98. 

is  An  echo  of  this  is  to  be  found  in  the  "Oedipus  Rex"  of 
Sophocles, 
i*  "The  Magic  Art,"  p.  120. 

134  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

thick  woods  might  become  as  intertwined  as  the 
lines  of  the  drawing,  and  the  hunter  would  not 
find  his  way  home.15 

The  fact  that  in  these  as  in  a  great  many  other 
examples  of  magic  influence,  distance  plays  no 
part,  telepathy  is  taken  as  a  matter  of  course — 
will  cause  us  no  difficulties  in  grasping  the  pecul- 
iarity of  magic. 

There  is  no  doubt  about  what  is  considered  the 
effective  force  in  all  these  examples.  It  is  the 
similarity  between  the  performed  action  and  the 
expected  happening.  Frazer  therefore  calls  this 
kind  of  magic  imitative  or  homeopathic.  If  I 
want  it  to  rain  I  only  have  to  produce  something 
that  looks  like  rain  or  recalls  rain.  In  a  later 
phase  of  cultural  development,  instead  of  these 
magic  conjurations  of  rain,  processions  are  ar- 
ranged to  a  house  of  god,  in  order  to  supplicate 
the  saint  who  dwells  there  to  send  rain.  Finally 
also  this  religious  technique  will  be  given  up  and 
instead  an  effort  will  be  made  to  find  out  what 
would  influence  the  atmosphere  to  produce  rain. 

In  another  group  of  magic  actions  the  prin- 
ciple of  similarity  is  no  longer  involved,  but  in  its 
stead  there  is  another  principle  the  nature  of 
which  is  well  brought  out  in  the  following  exam- 
ples. 

Another  method  may  be  used  to  injure  an 

is  1.  c,  p.  122. 

THE  OMNIPOTENCE  OF  THOUGHT        135 

enemy.  You  possess  yourself  of  his  hair,  his 
nails,  anything  that  he  has  discarded,  or  even  a 
part  of  his  clothing,  and  do  something  hostile 
to  these  things.  This  is  just  as  effective  as  if 
you  had  dominated  the  person  himself,  and  any- 
thing that  you  do  to  the  things  that  belong  to 
him  must  happen  to  him  too.  According  to  the 
conception  of  primitive  men  a  name  is  an  essen- 
tial part  of  a  personality ;  if  therefore  you  know 
the  name  of  a  person  or  a  spirit  you  have  ac- 
quired a  certain  power  over  its  bearer.  This 
explains  the  remarkable  precautions  and  restric- 
tions in  the  use  of  names  which  we  have  touched 
upon  in  the  essay  on  taboo.16  In  these  examples 
similarity  is  evidently  replaced  by  relationship. 
The  cannibalism  of  primitive  races  derives  its 
more  sublime  motivation  in  a  similar  manner. 
By  absorbing  parts  of  the  body  of  a  person 
through  the  act  of  eating  we  also  come  to  possess 
the  properties  which  belonged  to  that  person. 
From  this  there  follow  precautions  and  restric- 
tions as  to  diet  under  special  circumstances. 
Thus  a  pregnant  woman  will  avoid  eating  the 
meat  of  certain  animals  because  their  undesir- 
able properties,  for  example,  cowardice,  might 
thus  be  transferred  to  the  child  she  is  nourishing. 
It  makes  no  difference  to  the  magic  influence 
whether  the  connection  is  already  abolished  or 

"See  preceding  chapter,  p.  92. 

136  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

whether  it  had  consisted  of  only  one  very  im- 
portant contact.  Thus,  for  instance,  the  belief 
in  a  magic  bond  which  links  the  fate  of  a  wound 
with  the  weapon  which  caused  it  can  be  followed 
unchanged  through  thousands  of  years.  If  a 
Melanesian  gets  possession  of  the  bow  by  which 
he  was  wounded  he  will  carefully  keep  it  in  a  cool 
place  in  order  thus  to  keep  down  the  inflamma- 
tion of  the  wound.  But  if  the  bow  has  remained 
in  the  possession  of  the  enemy  it  will  certainly  be 
kept  in  close  proximity  to  a  .fire  in  order  that 
the  wound  may  burn  and  become  thoroughly 
inflamed.  Pliny,  in  his  Natural  History 
XXVIII,  advises  spitting  on  the  hand  which 
has  caused  the  injury  if  one  regrets  having  in- 
jured some  one;  the  pain  of  the  injured  person 
will  then  immediately  be  eased.  Francis  Bacon, 
in  his  Natural  History,  mentions  the  generally 
accredited  belief  that  putting  a  salve  on  the 
weapon  which  has  made  a  wound  will  cause  this 
wound  to  heal  of  itself.  It  is  said  that  even  to- 
day English  peasants  follow  this  prescription, 
and  that  if  they  have  cut  themselves  with  a  scythe 
they  will  from  that  moment  on  carefully  keep  the 
instrument  clean  in  order  that  the  wound  may 
not  fester.  In  June,  1902,  a  local  English 
weekly  reported  that  a  woman  called  Matilde 
Henry  of  Norwich  accidentally  ran  an  iron  nail 
into  the  sole  of  her  foot.     Without  having  the 

THE  OMNIPOTENCE  OF  THOUGHT        137 

wound  examined  or  even  taking  off  her  stocking 
she  bade  her  daughter  to  oil  the  nail  thoroughly, 
in  the  expectation  that  then  nothing  could  hap- 
pen to  her.  She  died  a  few  days  later  of 
tetanus  1T  in  consequence  of  postponed  antisepsis. 

The  examples  from  this  last  group  illustrate 
Frazer's  distinction  between  contagious  magic 
and  imitative*  magic.  What  is  considered  as 
effective  in  these  examples  is  no  longer  the  simi- 
larity, but  the  association  in  space,  the  contiguity, 
or  at  least  the  imagined  contiguity,  or  the  mem- 
ory of  its  existence.  But  since  similarity  and 
contiguity  are  the  two  essential  principles  of  the 
processes  of  association  of  ideas,  it  must  be  con- 
cluded that  the  dominance  of  associations  of  ideas 
really  explains  all  the  madness  of  the  rules  of 
magic.  We  can  see  how  true  Tylor's  quoted 
characteristic  of  magic :  "mistaking  an  ideal  con- 
nection for  a  real  one,"  proves  to  be.  The  same 
may  be  said  of  Frazer's  idea,  who  has  expressed 
it  in  almost  the  same  terms:  "men  mistook  the 
order  of  their  ideas  for  the  order  of  nature,  and 
hence  imagined  that  the  control  which  they  have, 
or  seem  to  have,  over  their  thoughts,  permitted 
them  to  have  a  corresponding  control  over 
things."  18 

It  will  at  first  seem  strange  that  this  illuminat- 

17  Frazer,  "The  Magic  Art,"  p.  201-203. 
is  "  The  Magic  Art,"  p.  420. 

138  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

ing  explanation  of  magic  could  have  been  re- 
jected by  some  authors  as  unsatisfactory.19 
But  on  closer  consideration  we  must  sustain  the 
objection  that  the  association  theory  of  magic 
merely  explains  the  paths  that  magic  travels,  and 
not  its  essential  nature,  that  is,  it  does  not  ex- 
plain the  misunderstanding  which  bids  it  put 
psychological  laws  in  place  of  natural  ones.  We 
are  apparently  in  need  here  of  a  dynamic  factor; 
but  while  the  search  for  this  leads  the  critics  of 
Frazer's  theory  astray,  it  will  be  easy  to  give  a 
satisfactory  explanation  of  magic  by  carrying 
its  association  theory  further  and  by  entering 
more  deeply  into  it. 

First  let  us  examine  the  simpler  and  more  im- 
portant case  of  imitative  magic.  According  to 
Frazer  this  may  be  practiced  by  itself,  whereas 
contagious  magic  as  a  rule  presupposes  the  imi- 
tative.20 The  motives  which  impel  one  to  ex- 
ercise magic  are  easily  recognized;  they  are  the 
wishes  of  men.  We  need  only  assume  that 
primitive  man  had  great  confidence  in  the  power 
of  his  wishes.  At  bottom  everything  which  he 
accomplished  by  magic  means  must  have  been 
done  solely  because  he  wanted  it.  Thus  in  the 
beginning  only  his  wish  is  accentuated. 

is  Compare    the    article    "Magic"    (N.    T.    W.)    "Encyclopedia 
Britannica,  11th  Ed. 
20 1.  c.,  p.  54. 

THE  OMNIPOTENCE  OF  THOUGHT        139 

In  the  case  of  the  child  which  finds  itself  un- 
der analogous  psychic  conditions,  without  be- 
ing as  yet  capable  of  motor  activity,  we  have 
elsewhere  advocated  the  assumption  that  it  at 
first  really  satisfies  its  wishes  by  means  of  hal- 
lucinations, in  that  it  creates  the  satisfying  sit- 
uation through  centrifugal  excitements  of  its 
sensory  organs.21  The  adult  primitive  man 
knows  another  way.  A  motor  impulse,  the  will, 
clings  to  his  wish  and  this  will  which  later  will 
change  the  face  of  the  earth  in  the  service  of  wish 
fulfillment  is  now  used  to  represent  the  gratifica- 
tion so  that  one  may  experience  it,  as  it  were, 
through  motor  hallucination.  Such  a  represen- 
tation of  the  gratified  wish  is  altogether  compar- 
able to  the  play  of  children,  where  it  replaces  the 
purely  sensory  technique  of  gratification.  If 
play  and  imitative  representation  suffice  for  the 
child  and  for  primitive  man,  it  must  not  be  taken 
as  a  sign  of  modesty,  in  our  sense,  or  of  resigna- 
tion due  to  the  realization  of  their  impotence,  on 
the  contrary,  it  is  the  very  obvious  result  of  the 
excessive  valuation  of  their  wish,  of  the  will  which 
depends  upon  the  wish  and  of  the  paths  the  wish 
takes.  In  time  the  psychic  accent  is  displaced 
from  the  motives  of  the  magic  act  to  its  means, 
namely  to  the  act  itself.     Perhaps  it  would  be 

2i  Formulation  of  two  principles  of  psychic  activity,  "Jahrb.  fiir 
Psychoanalyt.  Forschungen,"  Vol.  Ill,  1912,  p.  2, 

140  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

more  correct  to  say  that  primitive  man  does  not 
become  aware  of  the  over-valuation  of  his  psychic 
acts  until  it  becomes  evident  to  him  through  the 
means  employed.  It  would  also  seem  as  if  it 
were  the  magic  act  itself  which  compels  the  ful- 
fillment of  the  wish  by  virtue  of  its  similarity 
to  the  object  desired.  At  the  stage  of  animistic 
thinking  there  is  as  yet  no  way  of  demonstrating 
objectively  the  true  state  of  affairs,  but  this 
becomes  possible  at  later  stages  when,  though 
such  procedures  are  still  practiced,  the  psychic 
phenomenon  of  skepticism  already  manifests  it- 
self as  a  tendency  to  repression.  At  that  stage 
men  will  acknowledge  that  the  conjuration  of 
spirits  avails  nothing  unless  accompanied  by  be- 
lief, and  that  the  magic  effect  of  prayer  fails  if 
there  is  no  piety  behind  it.22 

The  possibility  of  a  contagious  magic  which 
depends  upon  contiguous  association  will  then 
show  us  that  the  psychic  valuation  of  the  wish  and 
the  will  has  been  extended  to  all  psychic  acts 
which  the  will  can  command.  We  may  say  that 
at  present  there  is  a  general  over-valuation  of  all 
psychic  processes,  that  is  to  say  there  is  an  atti- 
tude towards  the  world  which  according  to  our 
understanding    of    the    relation    of    reality    to 

22  The  King  in  "Hamlet"  (Act  III,  Scene  4) : 

"My  words  fly  up,  my  thoughts  remain  below, 
Words  without  thoughts  never  to  heaven  go." 

THE  OMNIPOTENCE  OF  THOUGHT        141 

thought  must  appear  like  an  over-estimation  of 
the  latter.  Objects  as  such  are  over-shadowed 
by  the  ideas  representing  them ;  what  takes  place 
in  the  latter  must  also  happen  to  the  former  and 
the  relations  which  exist  between  ideas  are  also 
postulated  as  to  things.  As  thought  does  not 
recognize  distances  and  easily  brings  together  in 
one  act  of  consciousness  things  spatially  and  tem- 
porally far  removed,  the  magic  world  also  puts 
itself  above  spatial  distance  by  telepathy,  and 
treats  a  past  association  as  if  it  were  a  present 
one.  In  the  animistic  age  the  reflection  of  the 
inner  world  must  obscure  that  other  picture  of 
the  world  which  we  believe  we  recognize. 

Let  us  also  point  out  that  the  two  principles  of 
association,  similarity  and  contiguity,  meet  in 
the  higher  unity  of  contact.  Association  by  con- 
tiguity is  contact  in  the  direct  sense,  and  associa- 
tion by  similarity  is  contact  in  the  transferred 
sense.  Another  identity  in  the  psychic  process 
which  has  not  yet  been  grasped  by  us  is  probably 
concealed  in  the  use  of  the  same  word  for  both 
kinds  of  associations.  It  is  the  same  range  of  the 
concept  of  contact  which  we  have  found  in  the 
analysis  of  taboo.23 

In  summing  up  we  may  now  say  that  the  prin- 
ciple which  controls  magic,  and  the  technique  of 

23  Compare  Chapter  II. 

142  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

the  animistic  method  of  thought,  is  "Omnipotence 
of  Thought." 

I  have  adopted  the  term  "Omnipotence  of 
Thought"  from  a  highly  intelligent  man,  a 
former  sufferer  from  compulsion  neurosis,  who, 
after  being  cured  through  psychoanalytic  treat- 
ment, was  able  to  demonstrate  his  efficiency  and 
good  sense.24  He  had  coined  this  phrase  to 
designate  all  those  peculiar  and  uncanny  occur- 
rences which  seemed  to  pursue  him  just  as  they 
pursue  others  afflicted  with  his  malady.  Thus 
if  he  happened  to  think  of  a  person,  he  was  actu- 
ally confronted  with  this  person  as  if  he  had  con- 
jured him  up;  if  he  inquired  suddenly  about  the 
state  of  health  of  an  acquaintance  whom  he  had 
long  missed  he  was  sure  to  hear  that  this  ac- 
quaintance had  just  died,  so  that  he  could  believe 
that  the  deceased  had  drawn  his  attention  to  him- 
self by  telepathic  means;  if  he  uttered  a  half 
meant  imprecation  against  a  stranger,  he  could 
expect  to  have  him  die  soon  thereafter  and  bur- 
den him  with  the  responsibility  for  his  death. 
He  was  able  to  explain  most  of  these  cases  in  the 
course  of  the  treatment,  he  could  tell  how  the 
illusion  had  originated,  and  what  he  himself  had 

2*  Remarks  upon  a  case  of  Compulsion  Neurosis,  "Jahrb.  fur 
Psychoanalyt.  und  Psychopath.  Forschungen,"  Vol.  I,  1909, 

/ 

THE  OMNIPOTENCE  OF  THOUGHT        143 

contributed  towards  furthering  his  superstitious 
expectations.25  All  compulsion  neurotics  are 
superstitious  in  this  manner  and  often  against 
their  better  judgment. 

The  existence  of  omnipotence  of  thought  is 
most  clearly  seen  in  compulsion  neurosis,  where 
the  results  of  this  primitive  method  of  thought 
are  most  often  found  or  met  in  consciousness. 
But  we  must  guard  against  seeing  in  this  a  dis- 
tinguishing characteristic  of  this  neurosis,  for 
analytic  investigation  reveals  the  same  mechan- 
ism in  the  other  neuroses.  In  every  one  of  the 
neuroses  it  is  not  the  reality  of  the  experience  but 
the  reality  of  the  thought  which  forms  the  basis 
for  the  symptom  formation.  Neurotics  live  in  a 
special  world  in  which,  as  I  have  elsewhere  ex- 
pressed it,  only  the  "neurotic  standard  of  cur- 
rency" counts,  that  is  to  say,  only  tilings  inten- 
sively thought  of  or  affectively  conceived  are  ef- 
fective with  them,  regardless  of  whether  these 
things  are  in  harmony  with  outer  reality.  The 
ysteric  repeats  in  his  attacks  and  fixates  through 
his  symptoms,  occurrences  which  have  taken  place 
only  in  his  phantasy,  though  in  the  last  analysis 
they  go  back  to  real  events  or  have  been  built  up 
from  them.     The  neurotic's  guilty  conscience  is 

25  We  seem  to  attribute  the  character  of  the  "uncanny"  to  all 
such  impressions  which  seek  to  confirm  the  omnipotence  of 
thought  and  the  animistic  method  of  thought  in  general,  though 
our  judgment  has  long  rejected  it. 

144  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

just  as  incomprehensible  if  traced  to  real  mis- 
deeds. A  compulsion  neurotic  may  be  oppressed 
by  a  sense  of  guilt  which  is  appropriate  to  a 
wholesale  murderer,  while  at  the  same  time  he 
acts  towards  his  fellow  beings  in  a  most  consider- 
ate and  scrupulous  manner,  a  behavior  which  he 
evinced  since  his  childhood.  And  yet  his  sense 
of  guilt  is  justified;  it  is  based  upon  intensive  and 
frequent  death  wishes  which  unconsciously  mani- 
fest themselves  towards  his  fellow  beings.  It  is 
motivated  from  the  point  of  view  of  unconscious 
thoughts,  but  not  of  intentional  acts.  Thus  the 
omnipotence  of  thought,  the  over-estimation  of 
psychic  processes  as  opposed  to  reality,  proves  to 
be  of  unlimited  effect  in  the  neurotic's  affective 
life  and  in  all  that  emanates  from  it.  But  if  we 
subject  him  to  psychoanalytic  treatment,  which 
makes  his  unconscious  thoughts  conscious  to  him, 
he  refuses  to  believe  that  thoughts  are  free  and 
is  always  afraid  to  express  evil  wishes  lest 
they  be  fulfilled  in  consequence  of  his  utterance. 
But  through  this  attitude  as  well  as  through  the 
superstition  which  plays  an  active  part  in  his  life 
he  reveals  to  us  how  close  he  stands  to  the  sav- 
age who  believes  he  can  change  the  outer  world 
by  a  mere  thought  of  his. 

The  primary  obsessive  actions  of  these  neu- 
rotics are  really  altogether  of  a  magical  nature. 
If  not  magic  they  are  at  least  anti-magic  and  are 

THE  OMNIPOTENCE  OF  THOUGHT        145 

destined  to  ward  off  the  expectation  of  evil  with 
which  the  neurosis  is  wont  to  begin.  Whenever 
I  was  able  to  pierce  these  secrets  it  turned  out 
that  the  content  of  this  expectation  of  evil  was 
death.  According  to  Schopenhauer  the  problem 
of  death  stands  at  the  beginning  of  every  philoso- 
phy; we  have  heard  that  the  formation  of  the 
soul  conception  and  of  the  belief  in  demons  which 
characterize  animism,  are  also  traced  back  to  the 
impression  which  death  makes  upon  man.  It  is 
hard  to  decide  whether  these  first  compulsive  and 
protective  actions  follow  the  principle  of  similar- 
ity, or  of  contrast,  for  under  the  conditions  of 
the  neurosis  they  are  usually  distorted  through 
displacement  upon  some  trifle,  upon  some  action 
which  in  itself  is  quite  insignificant.26  The  pro- 
tective formulas  of  the  compulsion  neurosis  also 
have  a  counterpart  in  the  incantations  of  magic. 
Eut  the  evolution  of  compulsive  actions  may  be 
described  by  pointing  out  how  these  actions  be- 
gin as  a  spell  against  evil  wishes  which  are  very 
remote  from  anything  sexual,  only  to  end  up  as  a 
substitute  for  forbidden  sexual  activity,  which 
they  imitate  as  faithfully  as  possible. 

If  we  accept  the  evolution  of  man's  concep- 
tions of  the  universe  mentioned  above,  according 
to  which  the  animistic  phase  is  succeeded  by  the 

26  The  following  discussions  will  yield  a  further  motive  for  this 
displacement  upon  a  trivial  action. 

146  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

religious,  and  this  in  turn  by  the  scientific,  we 
have  no  difficulty  in  following  the  fortunes  of  the 
"omnipotence  of  thought"  through  all  these 
phases.  In  the  animistic  stage  man  ascribes  om- 
nipotence to  himself ;  in  the  religious  he  has  ceded 
it  to  the  gods,  but  without  seriously  giving  it  up, 
for  he  reserves  to  himself  the  right  to  control  the 
gods  by  influencing  them  in  some  way  or  other  in 
the  interest  of  his  wishes.  In  the  scientific  at- 
titude towards  life  there  is  no  longer  any  room 
for  man's  omnipotence ;  he  has  acknowledged  his 
smallness  and  has  submitted  to  death  as  to  all 
other  natural  necessities  in  a  spirit  of  resignation. 
Nevertheless,  in  our  reliance  upon  the  power  of 
the  human  spirit  which  copes  with  the  laws  of 
reality,  there  still  lives  on  a  fragment  of  this 
primitive  belief  in  the  omnipotence  of  thought. 
In  retracing  the  development  of  libidinous  im- 
pulses in  the  individual  from  its  mature  form 
back  to  its  first  beginnings  in  childhood,  we  at 
first  found  an  important  distinction  which  is 
stated  in  the  "Three  Contributions  to  the  Theory 
of  Sex." 27  The  manifestations  of  sexual  im- 
pulses can  be  recognized  from  the  beginning  but 
at  first  they  are  not  yet  directed  to  any  outer 
object.  Each  individual  component  of  the  sex- 
ual impulse  works  for  a  gain  in  pleasure  and 
finds  its  gratification  in  its  own  body.     This  stage 

27  Monograph  Series,  1916. 

THE  OMNIPOTENCE  OF  THOUGHT        147 

is  called  autoerotism  and  is  distinguished  from 
the  stage  of  object  selection. 

In  the  course  of  further  study  it  proved  to  be 
practical  and  really  necessary  to  insert  a  third 
stage  between  these  two  or,  if  one  prefers,  to 
divide  the  first  stage  of  autoerotism  into  two.  In 
this  intermediary  stage,  the  importance  of  which 
increases  the  more  we  investigate  it,  the  sexual 
impulses  which  formerly  were  separate,  have  al- 
ready formed  into  a  unit  and  have  also  found  an 
object;  but  this  object  is  not  external  and  foreign 
to  the  individual,  but  is  his  own  ego,  which  is 
formed  at  this  period.  This  new  stage  is  called 
narcism,  in  view  of  the  pathological  fixation  of 
this  condition  which  may  be  observed  later  on. 
The  individual  acts  as  if  he  were  in  love  with 
himself;  for  the  purposes  of  our  analysis  the  ego 
impulses  and  the  libidinous  wishes  cannot  yet  be 
separated  from  each  other. 

Although  this  narcistic  stage,  in  which  the  hith- 
erto dissociated  sexual  impulses  combine  into  a 
unity  and  take  the  ego  as  their  object,  cannot  as 
yet  be  sharply  differentiated,  we  can  already 
surmise  that  the  narcistic  organization  is  never 
altogether  given  up  again.  To  a  certain  extent 
man  remains  narcistic,  even  after  he  has  found 
outer  objects  for  his  libido,  and  the  objects  upon 
which  he  bestows  it  represent,  as  it  were,  emana- 
tions of  the  libido  which  remain  with  his  ego  and 

148  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

which  can  be  withdrawn  into  it.  The  state  of 
being  in  love,  so  remarkable  psychologically,  and 
the  normal  prototype  of  the  psychoses,  corre- 
sponds to  the  highest  stage  of  these  emanations, 
in  contrast  to  the  state  of  self-love. 

This  high  estimation  of  psychic  acts  found 
among  primitives  and  neurotics,  which  we  feel  to 
be  an  overestimation,  may  now  appropriately  be 
brought  into  relation  to  narcism,  and  interpreted 
as  an  essential  part  of  it.  We  would  say  that 
among  primitive  people  thinking  is  still  highly 
sexualized  and  that  this  accounts  for  the  belief 
in  the  omnipotence  of  thought,  the  unshaken 
confidence  in  the  capacity  to  dominate  the  world 
and  the  inaccessibility  to  the  obvious  facts  which 
could  enlighten  man  as  to  his  real  place  in  the 
world.  In  the  case  of  neurotics  a  considerable 
part  of  this  primitive  attitude  has  remained  as 
a  constitutional  factor,  while  on  the  other  hand 
the  sexual  repression  occurring  in  them  has 
brought  about  a  new  sexualization  of  the  proc- 
esses of  thought.  In  both  cases,  whether  we  deal 
with  an  original  libidinous  investment  of  thought 
or  whether  the  same  process  has  been  accom- 
plished regressively,  the  psychic  results  are  the 
same,  namely,  intellectual  narcism  and  omnipo- 
tence of  thought.28 

28  It  is  almost  an  axiom  with  writers  on  this  subject,  that  a  sort 
of  "Solipsism  or  Berkleianism"   (as  Professor  Sully  terms  it  as 

THE  OMNIPOTENCE  OF  THOUGHT        149 

If  we  may  take  the  now  established  omnipo- 
tence of  thought  among  primitive  races  as  a 
proof  of  their  narcism,  we  may  venture  to  com- 
pare the  various  evolutionary  stages  of  man's 
conception  of  the  universe  with  the  stages  of  the 
libidinous  evolution  of  the  individual.  We  find 
that  the  animistic  phase  corresponds  in  time  as 
well  as  in  content  with  narcism,  the  religious 
phase  corresponds  to  that  stage  of  object  finding 
which  is  characterized  by  dependence  on  the  par- 
ents, while  the  scientific  stage  has  its  full  counter- 
part in  the  individual's  state  of  maturity  where, 
having  renounced  the  pleasure  principle  and  hav- 
ing adapted  himself  to  reality,  he  seeks  his  ob- 
ject in  the  outer  world.29 

Only  in  one  field  has  the  omnipotence  of 
thought  been  retained  in  our  own  civilization, 
namely  in  art.  In  art  alone  it  still  happens  that 
man,  consumed  by  his  wishes,  produces  some- 
thing similar  to  the  gratification  of  these  wishes 
and  this  playing,  thanks  to  artistic  illusion,  calls 
forth  affects  as  if  it  were  something  real.  We 
rightly  speak  of  the  magic  of  art  and  compare  the 
artist  with  a  magician.     But  this  comparison  is 

he  finds  it  in  the  child)  operates  in  the  savage  to  make  him  refuse 
to  recognize  death  as  a  fact. — Marett,  "Pre-animistic  Religion, 
Folklore,"  Vol.  XI,  1900,  p.  178. 

29  We  merely  wish  to  indicate  here  that  the  original  narcism  of 
the  child  is  decisive  for  the  interpretation  of  its  character  de- 
velopment and  that  it  precludes  the  assumption  of  a  primitive 
feeling  of  inferiority  for  the  child. 

150  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

perhaps  more  important  than  it  claims  to  be. 
Art,  which  certainly  did  not  begin  as  art  for  art's 
sake,  originally  served  tendencies  which  to-day 
have  for  the  greater  part  ceased  to  exist. 
Among  these  we  may  suspect  various  magic  in- 
tentions.30 

4 

Animism,  the  first  conception  of  the  world 
which  man  succeeded  in  evolving,  was  therefore 
psychological.  It  did  not  yet  require  any 
science  to  establish  it,  for  science  sets  in  only  after 
we  have  realized  that  we  do  not  know  the  world 
and  that  we  must  therefore  seek  means  of  getting 
to  know  it.  But  animism  was  natural  and  self- 
evident  to  primitive  man ;  he  knew  how  the  things 
of  the  world  were  constituted,  and  as  man  con- 
ceived himself  to  be.  We  are  therefore  prepared 
to  find  that  primitive  man  transferred  the  struc- 

30  S.  Reinach,  "L'art  et  la  Magie,"  in  the  collection,  "Cultes, 
Mythes  et  Religions,"  Vol.  I,  p.  125-136.  Reinach  thinks  that  the 
primitive  artists  who  have  left  us  the  scratched  or  painted  animal 
pictures  in  the  caves  of  France  did  not  want  to  "arouse"  pleasure, 
but  to  "conjure  things."  He  explains  this  by  showing  that  these 
drawings  are  in  the  darkest  and  most  inaccessible  part  of  the 
caves  and  that  representations  of  feared  beasts  of  prey  are  absent. 
"Les  modernes  parlent  souvent,  par  hyperbole,  de  la  magie  du 
pinceau  ou  du  ciseau  d'un  grand  artiste  et,  en  general,  de  la 
magie  de  Fart.  Entendu  en  sense  propre,  qui  est  celui  d'une  con- 
strainte  mystique  exercee  par  la  volont£  de  l'homme  sur  d'autres 
volontes  ou  sur  les  choses,  cette  expression  n'est  plus  admissible; 
mais  nous  avons  vu  qu'elle  6tait  autrefois  rigouresement  vraie,  du 
moins  dans  l'opinion  des  artistes"  (p.  136). 

THE  OMNIPOTENCE  OF  THOUGHT        151 

tural  relations  of  his  own  psyche  to  the  outer 
world,31  and  on  the  other  hand  we  may  make  the 
attempt  to  transfer  back  into  the  human  soul 
what  animism  teaches  about  the  nature  of  things. 

Magic,  the  technique  of  animism,  clearly  and 
unmistakably  shows  the  tendency  of  forcing  the 
laws  of  psychic  life  upon  the  reality  of  things, 
under  conditions  where  spirits  did  not  yet  have 
to  play  any  role,  and  could  still  be  taken  as 
objects  of  magic  treatment.  The  assumptions 
of  magic  are  therefore  of  older  origin  than  the 
spirit  theory,  which  forms  the  nucleus  of  ani- 
mism. Our  psychoanalytic  view  here  coincides 
with  a  theory  of  R.  R.  Marett,  according  to 
which  animism  is  preceded  by  a  pre-animistic 
stage  the  nature  of  which  is  best  indicated  by 
the  name  Animatism  (the  theory  of  general  ani- 
mation) .  We  have  practically  no  further  knowl- 
edge of  pre-animism,  as  no  race  has  yet  been 
found  without  conceptions  of  spirits.32 

While  magic  still  retains  the  full  omnipotence 
of  ideas,  animism  has  ceded  part  of  this  omnipo- 
tence to  spirits  and  thus  has  started  on  the  way 
to  form  a  religion.  Now  what  could  have  moved 
primitive  man  to  this  first  act  of  renunciation? 
It  could  hardly  have  been  an  insight  into  the  in- 

3i  Recognized  through  so-called  endopsychic  perceptions. 

32  R.  R.  Marett,  "Pre-animistic  Religion,  Folklore,"  Vol.  XI, 
No.  2,  London,  1900.— Comp.  Wundt,  "Myth  and  Religion,"  Vol. 
II,  p.  171. 

152  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

correctness  of  his  assumptions,  for  he  continued 
to  retain  the  magic  technique. 

As  pointed  out  elsewhere,  spirits  and  demons 
were  nothing  but  the  projection  of  primitive 
man's  emotional  impulses;33  he  personified  the 
things  he  endowed  with  affects,  populated  the 
world  with  them  and  then  rediscovered  his  inner 
psychic  processes  outside  himself,  quite  like  the 
ingenious  paranoiac  Schreber,  who  found  the 
fixations  and  detachments  of  his  libido  reflected 
in  the  fates  of  the  "God-rays"  which  he  in- 
vented.34 

As  on  a  former  occasion,35  we  want  to  avoid  the 
problem  as  to  the  origin  of  the  tendency  to  pro- 
ject psychic  processes  into  the  outer  world.  It 
is  fair  to  assume,  however,  that  this  tendency  be- 
comes stronger  where  the  projection  into  the 
outer  world  offers  psychic  relief.  Such  a  state 
of  affairs  can  with  certainty  be  expected  if  the 
impulses  struggling  for  omnipotence  have  come 
into  conflict  with  each  other,  for  then  they  evi- 
dently cannot  all  become  omnipotent.     The  mor- 

33  We  assume  that  in  this  early  nareistic  stage  feelings  from 
libidinous  and  other  sources  of  excitement  are  perhaps  still  indis- 
tinguishably  combined  with  each  other. 

34  Schreber,  "Denwiirdigkeiten  eines  Nervenkranken,"  1903. — 
Freud,  Psychoanalytic  Observations  concerning  an  autobiog- 
raphically  described  case  of  Paranoia,  "Jahrbuch  fur  Psycho- 
analyt.  Forsch,"  Vol.  Ill,  1911. 

35  Compare  the  latest  communication  about  the  Schreber  case, 
p.  59. 

THE  OMNIPOTENCE  OF  THOUGHT        153 

bid  process  in  paranoia  actually  uses  the  mechan- 
ism of  projection  to  solve  such  conflicts  which 
arise  in  the  psychic  life.  However,  it  so  hap- 
pens that  the  model  case  of  such  a  conflict  be- 
tween two  parts  of  an  antithesis  is  the  ambivalent 
attitude  which  we  have  analyzed  in  detail  in  the 
situation  of  the  mourner  at  the  death  of  one  dear 
to  him.  Such  a  case  appeals  to  us  as  especially 
fitted  to  motivate  the  creation  of  projection 
formations.  Here  again  we  are  in  agreement 
with  those  authors  who  declare  that  evil  spirits 
were  the  first  born  among  spirits,  and  who  find 
the  origin  of  soul  conceptions  in  the  impression 
which  death  makes  upon  the  survivors.  We  dif- 
fer from  them  only  in  not  putting  the  intellec- 
tual problem  which  death  imposes  upon  the  living 
into  the  foreground,  instead  of  which  we  trans- 
fer the  force  which  stimulates  inquiry  to  the  con- 
flict of  feelings  into  which  this  situation  plunges 
the  survivor. 

The  first  theoretical  accomplishment  of  man, 
the  creation  of  spirits,  would  therefore  spring 
from  the  same  source  as  the  first  moral  restric- 
tions to  which  he  subjects  himself,  namely,  the 
rules  of  taboo.  But  the  fact  that  thev  have  the 
same  source  should  not  prejudice  us  in  favor  of 
a  simultaneous  origin.  If  it  really  were  the  situa- 
tion of  the  survivor  confronted  by  the  dead  which 
first  caused  primitive  man  to  reflect,  so  that  he 

154  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

was  compelled  to  surrender  some  of  his  omnipo- 
tence to  spirits  and  to  sacrifice  a  part  of  the  free 
will  of  his  actions,  these  cultural  creations  would 
be  a  first  recognition  of  the  foray kij,  which  opposes 
man's  narcism.  Primitive  man  would  bow  to 
the  superior  power  of  death  with  the  same  ges- 
ture with  which  he  seems  to  deny  it. 

If  we  have  the  courage  to  follow  our  assump- 
tions further,  we  may  ask  what  essential  part  of 
our  psychological  structure  is  reflected  and  re- 
viewed in  the  projection  formation  of  souls  and 
spirits.  It  is  then  difficult  to  dispute  that  the 
primitive  conception  of  the  soul,  though  still  far 
removed  from  the  later  and  wholly  immaterial 
soul,  nevertheless  shares  its  nature  and  therefore 
looks  upon  a  person  or  thing  as  a  duality,  over 
the  two  elements  of  which  the  known  properties 
and  changes  of  the  whole  are  distributed.  This 
origin  duality,  we  have  borrowed  the  term  from 
Herbert  Spencer,36  is  already  identical  with  the 
dualism  which  manifests  itself  in  our  customary 
separation  of  spirit  from  body,  and  whose  inde- 
structible linguistic  manifestations  we  recognize, 
for  instance,  in  the  description  of  a  person  who 
faints  or  raves  as  one  who  is  "beside  himself."  37 

The  thing  which  we,  just  like  primitive  man, 
project  into  outer  reality,  can  hardly  be  anything 

36  "Principles  of  Sociology,"  Vol.  I. 

37  Herbert  Spencer,  1.  c,  p.  179. 

THE  OMNIPOTENCE  OF  THOUGHT        155 

else  than  the  recognition  of  a  state  in  which  a 
given  thing  is  present  to  the  senses  and  to  con- 
sciousness, next  to  which  another  state  exists  in 
which  the  thing  is  latent,  but  can  reappear,  that 
is  to  say,  the  co-existence  of  perception  and  mem- 
ory, or,  to  generalize  it,  the  existence  of  uncon- 
scious psychic  processes  next  to  conscious  ones.38 
It  might  be  said  that  in  the  last  analysis  the 
"spirit"  of  a  person  or  a  thing  is  the  faculty  of 
remembering  and  representing  the  object,  after 
he  or  it  was  withdrawn  from  conscious  percep- 
tion. 

Of  course  we  must  not  expect  from  either  the 
primitive  or  the  current  conception  of  the  "soul" 
that  its  line  of  demarcation  from  other  parts 
should  be  as  marked  as  that  which  contemporary 
science  draws  between  conscious  and  unconscious 
psychic  activity.  The  animistic  soul,  on  the  con- 
trary, unites  determinants  from  both  sides.  Its 
flightiness  and  mobility,  its  faculty  of  leaving 
the  body,  of  permanently  or  temporarily  taking 
possession  of  another  body,  all  these  are  char- 
acteristics which  remind  us  unmistakably  of  the 
nature  of  consciousness.  But  the  way  in  which 
it  keeps  itself  concealed  behind  the  personal  ap- 
pearance reminds  us  of  the  unconscious;  to-day 

38  Compare  my  short  paper:  "A  Note  on  the  Unconscious  in 
Psychoanalysis,"  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research,  Part  LXVI,  Vol.  XXVI,  London,  1912. 

156  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

we  no  longer  ascribe  its  unchangeableness  and 
indestructibility  to  conscious  but  to  unconscious 
processes  and  look  upon  these  as  the  real  bear- 
ers of  psychic  activity. 

We  said  before  that  animism  is  a  system  of 
thought,  the  first  complete  theory  of  the  world; 
we  now  want  to  draw  certain  inferences  through 
psychoanalytic  interpretation  of  such  a  system. 
Our  everyday  experience  is  capable  of  constantly 
showing  us  the  main  characteristics  of  the  "sys- 
tem." We  dream  during  the  night  and  have 
learnt  to  interpret  the  dream  in  the  daytime. 
The  dream  can,  without  being  untrue  to  its  na- 
ture, appear  confused  and  incoherent ;  but  on  the 
other  hand  it  can  also  imitate  the  order  of  im- 
pressions of  an  experience,  infer  one  occurrence 
from  another,  and  refer  one  part  of  its  content 
to  another.  The  dream  succeeds  more  or  less 
in  this,  but  hardly  ever  succeeds  so  completely 
that  an  absurdity  or  a  gap  in  the  structure  does 
not  appear  somewhere.  If  we  subject  the  dream 
to  interpretation  we  find  that  this  unstable  and 
irregular  order  of  its  components  is  quite  un- 
important for  our  understanding  of  it.  The  es- 
sential part  of  the  dream  are  the  dream  thoughts, 
which  have,  to  be  sure,  a  significant,  coherent 
order.  But  their  order  is  quite  different  from 
that  which  we  remember  from  the  manifest  con- 
tent of  the  dream.     The  coherence  of  the  dream 

THE  OMNIPOTENCE  OF  THOUGHT        157 

thoughts  has  been  abolished  and  may  either  re- 
main altogether  lost  or  can  be  replaced  by  the 
new  coherence  of  the  dream  content.  Besides 
the  condensation  of  the  dream  elements  there  is 
almost  regularly  a  re-grouping  of  the  same  which 
is  more  or  less  independent  of  the  former  order. 
We  say  in  conclusion,  that  what  the  dream-work 
has  made  out  of  the  material  of  the  dream 
thoughts  has  been  subjected  to  a  new  influence, 
the  so-called  "secondary  elaboration,"  the  object 
of  which  evidently  is  to  do  away  with  the  inco- 
herence and  incomprehensibility  caused  by  the 
dream- work,  in  favor  of  a  new  "meaning."  This 
new  meaning  which  has  been  brought  about  by 
the  secondary  elaboration  is  no  longer  the  mean- 
ing of  the  dream  thoughts. 

The  secondary  elaboration  of  the  product  of 
the  dream-work  is  an  excellent  example  of  the 
nature  and  the  pretensions  of  a  system.  An  in- 
tellectual function  in  us  demands  the  unification, 
coherence  and  comprehensibility  of  everything 
perceived  and  thought  of,  and  does  not  hesitate 
to  construct  a  false  connection  if,  as  a  result  of 
special  circumstances,  it  cannot  grasp  the  right 
one.  We  know  such  system  formations  not  only 
from  the  dream,  but  also  from  phobias,  from  com- 
pulsive thinking  and  from  the  types  of  delusions. 
The  system  formation  is  most  ingenious  in  de- 
lusional  states    (paranoia)    and   dominates  the 

158  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

clinical  picture,  but  it  also  must  not  be  overlooked 
in  other  forms  of  neuropsychoses.  In  every  case 
we  can  show  that  a  re- arrangement  of  the  psychic 
material  takes  place,  which  may  often  be  quite 
violent,  provided  it  seems  comprehensible  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  system.  The  best  indi- 
cation that  a  system  has  been  formed  then  lies 
in  the  fact  that  each  result  of  it  can  be  shown  to 
have  at  least  two  motivations  one  of  which 
springs  from  the  assumptions  of  the  system  and 
is  therefore  eventually  delusional, — and  a  hid- 
den one  which,  however,  we  must  recognize  as 
the  real  and  effective  motivation. 

An  example  from  a  neurosis  may  serve  as  il- 
lustration. In  the  chapter  on  taboo  I  mentioned 
a  patient  whose  compulsive  prohibitions  corre- 
spond very  neatly  to  the  taboo  of  the  Maori.39 
The  neurosis  of  this  woman  was  directed  against 
her  husband  and  culminated  in  the  defense 
against  the  unconscious  wish  for  his  death.  But 
her  manifest  systematic  phobia  concerned  the 
mention  of  death  in  general,  in  which  her  hus- 
band was  altogether  eliminated  and  never  be- 
came the  object  of  conscious  solicitude.  One 
day  she  heard  her  husband  give  an  order  to  have 
his  dull  razors  taken  to  a  certain  shop  to  have 
them  sharpened.  Impelled  by  a  peculiar  un- 
rest she  went  to  the  shop  herself  and  on  her  re- 

8»  p.  26. 

THE  OMNIPOTENCE  OF  THOUGHT        159 

turn  from  this  reconnoiter  she  asked  her  husband 
to  lay  the  razors  aside  for  good  because  she  had 
discovered  that  there  was  a  warehouse  of  coffins 
and  funeral  accessories  next  to  the  shop  he  men- 
tioned. She  claimed  that  he  had  intentionally 
brought  the  razors  into  permanent  relation  with 
the  idea  of  death.  This  was  then  the  systematic 
motivation  of  the  prohibition,  but  we  may  be 
sure  that  the  patient  would  have  brought  home 
the  prohibition  relating  to  the  razors  even  if  she 
had  not  discovered  this  warehouse  in  the  neigh- 
borhood. For  it  would  have  been  sufficient  if  on 
her  way  to  the  shop  she  had  met  a  hearse,  a 
person  in  mourning,  or  somebody  carrying  a 
wreath.  The  net  of  determinants  was  spread 
out  far  enough  to  catch  the  prey  in  any  case,  it 
was  simply  a  question  whether  she  should  pull  it 
in  or  not.  It  could  be  established  with  certainty 
that  she  did  not  mobilize  the  determinants  of  the 
prohibition  in  other  circumstances.  She  would 
then  have  said  that  it  had  been  one  of  her  "better 
days."  The  real  reason  for  the  prohibition  of 
the  razor  was,  of  course,  as  we  can  easily  guess, 
her  resistance  against  a  pleasurably  accentuated 
idea  that  her  husband  might  cut  his  throat  with 
the  sharpened  razors. 

In  much  the  same  way  a  motor  inhibition,  an 
abasia  or  an  agoraphobia,  becomes  perfected  and 
detailed  if  the  symptom  once  succeeds  in  repre- 

160  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

senting  an  unconscious  wish  and  of  imposing  a 
defense  against  it.  All  the  patient's  remaining 
unconscious  phantasies  and  effective  reminis- 
cences strive  for  symptomatic  expression  through 
this  outlet,  when  once  it  has  been  opened,  and 
range  themselves  appropriately  in  the  new  order 
within  the  sphere  of  the  disturbance  of  gait.  It 
would  therefore  be  a  futile  and  really  foolish  way 
to  begin  to  try  to  understand  the  sympto- 
matic structure  and  the  details  of,  let  us  say,  an 
agoraphobia,  in  terms  of  its  basic  assumptions. 
For  the  whole  logic  and  strictness  of  connection 
is  only  apparent.  Sharper  observation  can  re- 
veal, as  in  the  formation  of  the  facade  in  the 
dream,  the  greatest  inconsistency  and  arbitrari- 
ness in  the  symptom  formation.  The  details  of 
such  a  systematic  phobia  take  their  real  motiva- 
tion from  concealed  determinants  which  must 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  inhibition  in  gait; 
it  is  for  this  reason  that  the  form  of  such  a  phobia 
varies  so  and  is  so  contradictory  in  different 
people. 

If  we  now  attempt  to  retrace  the  system  of 
animism  with  which  we  are  concerned,  we  may 
conclude  from  our  insight  into  other  psycho- 
logical systems  that  "superstition"  need  not  be 
the  only  and  actual  motivation  of  such  a  single 
rule  or  custom  even  among  primitive  races,  and 
that  we  are  not  relieved  of  the  obligation  of  seek- 

THE  OMNIPOTENCE  OF  THOUGHT        161 

ing  for  concealed  motives.  Under  the  domi- 
nance of  an  animistic  system  it  is  absolutely  es- 
sential that  each  rule  and  activity  should  receive 
a  systematic  motivation  which  we  to-day  call 
"superstitious."  But  "superstition,"  like  "anxi- 
ety," "dreams,"  and  "demons,"  is  one  of  the  pre- 
liminaries of  psychology  which  have  been  dis- 
sipated by  psychoanalytic  investigation.  If  we 
get  behind  these  structures,  which  like  a  screen 
conceal  understanding,  we  realize  that  the  psychic 
life  and  the  cultural  level  of  savages  have  hitherto 
been  inadequately  appreciated. 

If  we  regard  the  repression  of  impulses  as  a 
measure  of  the  level  of  culture  attained,  we  must 
admit  that  under  the  animistic  system  too,  prog- 
ress and  evolution  have  taken  place,  which  un- 
justly have  been  under-estimated  on  account  of 
their  superstitious  motivation.  If  we  hear  that 
the  warriors  of  a  savage  tribe  impose  the  great- 
est chastity  and  cleanliness  upon  themselves  as 
soon  as  they  go  upon  the  war-path,40  the  obvious 
explanation  is  that  they  dispose  of  their  refuse 
in  order  that  the  enemy  may  not  come  into  posses- 
sion of  this  part  of  their  person  in  order  to  harm 
them  by  magical  means,  and  we  may  surmise 
analogous  superstitious  motivations  for  their  ab- 
stinence. Nevertheless  the  fact  remains  that  the 
impulse  is  renounced  and  we  probably  under- 
go Frazer,  "Taboo  and  the  Perils  of  the  Soul,  p.  158. 

162  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

stand  the  case  better  if  we  assume  that  the  sav- 
age warrior  imposes  such  restrictions  upon  him- 
self in  compensation,  because  he  is  on  the  point 
of  allowing  himself  the  full  satisfaction  of  cruel 
and  hostile  impulses  otherwise  forbidden.  The 
same  holds  good  for  the  numerous  cases  of  sex- 
ual restriction  while  he  is  pre-occupied  with  diffi- 
cult or  responsible  tasks.41  Even  if  the  basis  of 
these  prohibitions  can  be  referred  to  some  asso- 
ciation with  magic,  the  fundamental  conception 
of  gaining  greater  strength  by  foregoing  grati- 
fication of  desires  nevertheless  remains  unmistak- 
able, and  besides  the  magic  rationalization  of  the 
prohibition,  one  must  not  neglect  its  hygienic 
root.  When  the  men  of  a  savage  tribe  go  away 
to  hunt,  fish,  make  war  or  collect  valuable  plants, 
the  women  at  home  are  in  the  meantime  subjected 
to  numerous  oppressive  restrictions  which,  ac- 
cording to  the  savages  themselves,  exert  a  sym- 
pathetic effect  upon  the  success  of  the  far  away 
expedition.  But  it  does  not  require  much  acu- 
men to  guess  that  this  element  acting  at  a  dis- 
tance is  nothing  but  a  thought  of  home,  the 
longing  of  the  absent,  and  that  these  disguises 
conceal  the  sound  psychological  insight  that  the 
men  will  do  their  best  only  if  they  are  fully  as- 
sured   of    the    whereabouts    of    their    guarded 

4i  Frazer,  1.  c,  p.  200. 

THE  OMNIPOTENCE  OF  THOUGHT        163 

women.  On  other  occasions  the  thought  is  di- 
rectly expressed  without  magic  motivation,  that 
the  conjugal  infidelity  of  the  wife  thwarts  the 
absent  husband's  efforts. 

The  countless  taboo  rules  to  which  the  women 
of  savages  are  subject  during  their  menstrual 
periods  are  motivated  by  the  superstitious  dread 
of  blood  which  in  all  probability  actually  deter- 
mines it.  But  it  would  be  wrong  to  overlook  the 
possibility  that  this  blood  dread  also  serves 
aesthetic  and  hygienic  purposes  which  in  every 
case  have  to  be  covered  by  magic  motivations. 

We  are  probably  not  mistaken  in  assuming 
that  such  attempted  explanations  expose  us  to 
the  reproach  of  attributing  a  most  improbable 
delicacy  of  psychic  activities  to  contemporary 
savages. 

But  I  think  that  we  may  easily  make  the  same 
mistake  with  the  psychology  of  these  races  who 
have  remained  at  the  animistic  stage  that  we 
made  with  the  psychic  life  of  the  child,  which  we 
adults  understood  no  better  and  whose  richness 
and  fineness  of  feeling  we  have  therefore  so 
greatly  undervalued. 

I  want  to  consider  another  group  of  hitherto 
unexplained  taboo  rules  because  they  admit  of 
an  explanation  with  which  the  psychoanalyst  is 
familiar.     Under  certain  conditions  it  is  forbid- 

164  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

den  to  many  savage  races  to  keep  in  the  house 
sharp  weapons  and  instruments  for  cutting.42 
Frazer  cites  a  German  superstition  that  a  knife 
must  not  be  left  lying  with  the  edge  pointing  up- 
ward because  God  and  the  angels  might  injure 
themselves  with  it.  May  we  not  recognize  in  this 
taboo  a  premonition  of  certain  "symptomatic 
actions  " 43  for  which  the  sharp  weapon  might  be 
used  by  unconscious  evil  impulses? 

42  Frazer,  1.  c,  p.  237. 

43  Freud,  "Psychopathology  of  Everyday  Life,"  p.  215,  trans, 
by  A.  A.  Brill  (The  Macmillan  Company,  N.  Y.,  and  T.  Fisher 
Unwin,  London).

THE   INFANTILE   RECURRENCE   OF   TOTEMISM 

The  reader  need  not  fear  that  psychoanalysis, 
which  first  revealed  the  regular  over-determina- 
tion of  psychic  acts  and  formations,  will  be 
tempted  to  derive  anything  so  complicated  as 
religion  from  a  single  source.  If  it  necessarily 
seeks,  as  in  duty  bound,  to  gain  recognition  for 
one  of  the  sources  of  this  institution,  it  by  no 
means  claims  exclusiveness  for  this  source  or 
even  first  rank  among  the  concurring  factors. 
Only  a  synthesis  from  various  fields  of  research 
can  decide  what  relative  importance  in  the  gene- 
sis of  religion  is  to  be  assigned  to  the  mechanism 
which  we  are  to  discuss;  but  such  a  task  exceeds 
the  means  as  well  as  the  intentions  of  the  psy- 
choanalyst. 

1 

The  first  chapter  of  this  book  made  us  ac- 
quainted with  the  conception  of  totemism.  We 
heard  that  totemism  is  a  system  which  takes  the 
place  of  religion  among  certain  primitive  races 
in  Australia,  America,  and  Africa,  and  furnishes 
the  basis  of  social  organization.     We  know  that 

165 

166  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

in  1869  the  Scotchman  MacLennan  attracted 
general  interest  to  the  phenomena  of  totemism, 
which  until  then  had  been  considered  merely  as 
curiosities,  by  his  conjecture  that  a  large  number 
of  customs  and  usages  in  various  old  as  well  as 
modern  societies  were  to  be  taken  as  remnants 
of  a  totemic  epoch.  Science  has  since  then  fully 
recognized  this  significance  of  totemism.  I 
quote  a  passage  from  the  "Elements  of  the 
Psychology  of  Races"  by  W.  Wundt  (1912),  as 
the  latest  utterance  on  this  question: *  "Tak- 
ing all  this  together  it  becomes  highly  probable 
that  a  totemic  culture  was  at  one  time  the  pre- 
liminary stage  of  every  later  evolution  as  well  as 
a  transition  stage  between  the  state  of  primitive 
man  and  the  age  of  gods  and  heroes." 

It  is  necessary  for  the  purposes  of  this  chapter 
to  go  more  deeply  into  the  nature  of  totemism. 
For  reasons  that  will  be  evident  later  I  here  give 
preference  to  an  outline  b}^  S.  Reinach,  who  in 
the  year  1900  sketched  the  following  Code  du 
totemism  in  twelve  articles,  like  a  catechism  of 
the  totemic  religion :  2 

1.  Certain  animals  must  not  be  killed  or  eaten, 
but  men  bring  up  individual  animals  of  these 
species  and  take  care  of  them. 

ip.  139. 

2  "Revue  Scientifique,"  October,  1900,  reprinted  in  the  four 
volume  work  of  the  author,  "Cultes,  Mythes  et  Religions,"  1908, 
Tome  I,  p.  17. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      167 

2.  An  animal  that  dies  accidentally  is 
mourned  and  buried  with  the  same  honors  as  a 
member  of  the  tribe. 

3.  The  prohibition  as  to  eating  sometimes  re- 
fers only  to  a  certain  part  of  the  animal. 

4.  If  pressure  of  necessity  compels  the  killing 
of  an  animal  usually  spared,  it  is  done  with  ex- 
cuses to  the  animal  and  the  attempt  is  made  to 
mitigate  the  violation  of  the  taboo,  namely  the 
killing,  through  various  tricks  and  evasions. 

5.  If  the  animal  is  sacrificed  by  ritual,  it  is 
solemnly  mourned. 

6.  At  specified  solemn  occasions,  like  religious 
ceremonies,  the  skins  of  certain  animals  are 
donned.  Where  totemism  still  exists,  these  are 
totem  animals. 

7.  Tribes  and  individuals  assume  the  names  of 
totem  animals. 

8.  Many  tribes  use  pictures  of  animals  as 
coats  of  arms  and  decorate  their  weapons  with 
them;  the  men  paint  animal  pictures  on  their 
bodies  or  have  them  tattooed. 

9.  If  the  totem  is  one  of  the  feared  and 
dangerous  animals  it  is  assumed  that  the  animal 
will  spare  the  members  of  the  tribe  named  after 
it. 

10.  The  totem  animal  protects  and  warns  the 
members  of  the  tribe. 

11.  The  totem  animal  foretells  the  future  to 

168  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

those  faithful  to  it  and  serves  as  their  leader. 

12.  The  members  of  a  totem  tribe  often  be- 
lieve that  they  are  connected  with  the  totem 
animal  by  the  bond  of  common  origin. 

The  value  of  this  catechism  of  the  totem  re- 
ligion can  be  more  appreciated  if  one  bears  in 
mind  that  Reinach  has  here  also  incorporated  all 
the  signs  and  clews  which  lead  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  totemic  system  had  once  existed.  The 
peculiar  attitude  of  this  author  to  the  problem 
is  shown  by  the  fact  that  to  some  extent  he  neg- 
lects the  essential  traits  of  totemism,  and  we 
shall  see  that  of  the  two  main  tenets  of  the  totem- 
istic  catechism  he  has  forced  one  into  the  back- 
ground and  completely  lost  sight  of  the  other. 

In  order  to  get  a  more  correct  picture  of  the 
characteristics  of  totemism  we  turn  to  an  author 
who  has  devoted  four  volumes  to  the  theme, 
combining  the  most  complete  collection  of  the 
observations  in  question  with  the  most  thorough 
discussion  of  the  problems  they  raise.  We  shall 
remain  indebted  to  J.  G.  Frazer,  the  author 
of  "Totemism  and  Exogamy,"  3  for  the  pleasure 
and  information  he  affords,  even  though  psy- 
choanalytic investigation  may  lead  us  to  results 
which  differ  widely  from  his.4 

3  1910. 

*  But  it  may  be  well  to  show  the  reader  beforehand  how  difficult 
it  is  to  establish  the  facts  in  this  field. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      169 

"A  totem,"  wrote  Frazer  in  his  first  essay,5 
"is  a  class  of  material  objects  which  a  savage  re- 
gards with  superstitious  respect,  believing  that 
there  exists  between  him  and  every  member  of 
the  class  an  intimate  and  altogether  special  rela- 
tion.    The  connection  between  a  person  and  his 

In  the  first  place  those  who  collect  the  observations  are  not 
identical  with  those  who  digest  and  discuss  them;  the  first  are 
travelers  and  missionaries,  while  the  others  are  scientific  men  who 
perhaps  have  never  seen  the  objects  of  their  research. — It  is  not 
easy  to  establish  an  understanding  with  savages.  Not  all  the 
observers  were  familiar  with  the  languages  but  had  to  use  the 
assistance  of  interpreters  or  else  had  to  communicate  with  the 
people  they  questioned  in  the  auxiliary  language  of  pidgin-Eng- 
lish. Savages  are  not  communicative  about  the  most  intimate 
affairs  of  their  culture  and  unburden  themselves  only  to  those  for- 
eigners who  have  passed  many  years  in  their  midst.  From 
various  motives  they  often  give  wrong  or  misleading  information. 
(Compare  Frazer,  "The  Beginnings  of  Religion  and  Totemism 
Among  the  Australian  Aborigines,"  Fortnightly  Review,  1905, 
"Totemism  and  Exogamy,"  Vol.  I,  p.  150). — It  must  not  be  for- 
gotten that  primitive  races  are  not  young  races  but  really  are  as 
old  as  the  most  civilized,  and  that  we  have  no  right  to  expect  that 
they  have  preserved  their  original  ideas  and  institutions  for  our 
information  without  anv  evolution  or  distortion.  It  is  certain,  on 
the  contrary,  that  far-reaching  changes  in  all  directions  have 
taken  place  among  primitive  races,  so  that  we  can  never  unhes- 
itatingly decide  which  of  their  present  conditions  and  opinions 
have  preserved  the  original  past,  having  remained  petrified,  as  it 
were,  and  which  represent  a  distortion  and  change  of  the  original. 
It  is  due  to  this  that  one  meets  the  many  disputes  among  authors 
as  to  what  proportion  of  the  peculiarities  of  a  primitive  culture 
is  to  be  taken  as  a  primary,  and  what  as  a  later  and  secondary 
manifestation.  To  establish  the  original  conditions,  therefore, 
always  remains  a  matter  of  construction.  Finally,  it  is  not  easy 
to  adapt  oneself  to  the  ways  of  thinking  of  primitive  races.  For 
like  children,  we  easily  misunderstand  them,  and  are  always  in- 
clined to  interpret  their  acts  and  feelings  according  to  our  own 
psychic  constellations. 

s  "Totemism,"  Edinburgh,  1887,  reprinted  in  the  first  volume  of 
his  great  study,  "Totemism  and  Exogamy." 

170  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

totem  is  mutually  beneficent;  the  totem  protects 
the  man  and  the  man  shows  his  respect  for  the 
totem  in  various  ways,  by  not  killing  it  if  it  be 
an  animal,  and  not  cutting  or  gathering  it  if  it 
be  a  plant.  As  distinguished  from  a  fetich,  a 
totem  is  never  an  isolated  individual  but  always 
a  class  of  objects,  generally  a  species  of  animals 
or  of  plants,  more  rarely  a  class  of  inanimate 
natural  objects,  very  rarely  a  class  of  artificial 
objects." 

At  least  three  kinds  of  totem  can  be  distin- 
guished : 

1.  The  tribal  totem  which  a  whole  tribe  shares 
and  which  is  hereditary  from  generation  to  gen- 
eration, 

2.  The  sex  totem  which  belongs  to  all  the 
masculine  or  feminine  members  of  a  tribe  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  opposite  sex,  and 

3.  The  individual  totem  which  belongs  to  the 
individual  and  does  not  descend  to  his  successors. 

The  last  two  kinds  of  totem  are  of  compara- 
tively little  importance  compared  to  the  tribal 
totem.  Unless  we  are  mistaken  they  are  recent 
formations  and  of  little  importance  as  far  as  the 
nature  of  the  taboo  is  concerned. 

The  tribal  totem  (clan  totem)  is  the  object  of 
veneration  of  a  group  of  men  and  women  who 
take  their  name  from  the  totem  and  consider 
themselves  consanguinous  offspring  of  a  com- 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      171 

mon  ancestor,  and  who  are  firmly  associated  with 
each  other  through  common  obligations  towards 
each  other  as  well  as  by  the  belief  in  their  totem. 

Totemism  is  a  religious  as  well  as  a  social 
system.  On  its  religious  side  it  consists  of  the 
relations  of  mutual  respect  and  consideration 
between  a  person  and  his  totem,  and  on  its  social 
side  it  is  composed  of  obligations  of  the  members 
of  the  clan  towards  each  other  and  towards  other 
tribes.  In  the  later  history  of  totemism  these 
two  sides  show  a  tendency  to  part  company;  the 
social  system  often  survives  the  religious  and 
conversely  remnants  of  totemism  remain  in  the 
religion  of  countries  in  which  the  social  system 
based  upon  totemism  has  disappeared.  In  the 
present  state  of  our  ignorance  about  the  origin 
of  totemism  we  cannot  say  with  certainty  how 
these  two  sides  were  originally  combined.  But 
there  is  on  the  whole  a  strong  probability  that  in 
the  beginning  the  two  sides  of  totemism  were 
indistinguishable  from  each  other.  In  other 
words,  the  further  we  go  back  the  clearer  it  be- 
comes that  a  member  of  a  tribe  looks  upon  him- 
self as  being  of  the  same  genus  as  his  totem  and 
makes  no  distinction  between  his  attitude  to- 
wards the  totem  and  his  attitude  towards  his 
tribal  companions. 

In  the  special  description  of  totemism  as  a 
religious  system,  Frazer  lays  stress  on  the  fact 

172  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

that  the  members  of  a  tribe  assume  the  name 
of  their  totem  and  also  as  a  rule  believe  that  they 
are  descended  from  it.  It  is  due  to  this  belief 
that  they  do  not  hunt  the  totem  animal  or  kill 
or  eat  it,  and  that  they  deny  themselves  every 
other  use  of  the  totem  if  it  is  not  an  animal. 
The  prohibitions  against  killing  or  eating  the 
totem  are  not  the  only  taboos  affecting  it ;  some- 
times it  is  also  forbidden  to  touch  it  and  even  to 
look  at  it;  in  a  number  of  cases  the  totem  must 
not  be  called  by  its  right  name.  Violation  of  the 
taboo  prohibitions  which  protect  the  totem  is 
punished  automatically  by  serious  disease  or 
death.6 

Specimens  of  the  totem  animals  are  sometimes 
raised  by  the  clan  and  taken  care  of  in  cap- 
tivity.7 A  totem  animal  found  dead  is  mourned 
and  buried  like  a  member  of  the  clan.  If  a  totem 
animal  had  to  be  killed  it  was  done  with  a  pre- 
scribed ritual  of  excuses  and  ceremonies  of  ex- 
piation. 

The  tribe  expected  protection  and  forbear- 
ance from  it's  totem.  If  it  was  a  dangerous 
animal,  (a  beast  of  prey  or  a  poisonous  snake), 
it  was  assumed  that  it  would  not  harm,  and 
where  this  assumption  did  not  come  true  the  per- 

6  Compare  the  chapter  on  Taboo. 

7  Just  as  to-day  we  still  have  the  wolves  in  a  cage  at  the  steps  of 
the  Capitol  in  Rome  and  the  bears  in  the  pit  at  Berne. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      173 

son  attacked  was  expelled  from  the  tribe. 
Frazer  thinks  that  oaths  were  originally  ordeals, 
many  tests  as  to  descent  and  genuineness  being 
in  this  way  left  to  the  decision  of  the  totem. 
The  totem  helps  in  case  of  illness  and  gives  the 
tribe  premonitions  and  warnings.  The  appear- 
ance of  the  totem  animal  near  a  house  was  often 
looked  upon  as  an  announcement  of  death. 
The  totem  had  come  to  get  its  relative.8 

A  member  of  a  clan  seeks  to  emphasize  his  re- 
lationship to  the  totem  in  various  significant 
ways ;  he  imitates  an  exterior  similarity  by  dress- 
ing himself  in  the  skin  of  the  totem  animal,  by 
having  the  picture  of  it  tattooed  upon  himself, 
and  in  other  ways.  On  the  solemn  occasions  of 
birth,  initiation  into  manhood  or  funeral  obse- 
quies this  identification  with  the  totem  is  carried 
out  in  deeds  and  words.  Dances  in  which  all 
the  members  of  the  tribe  disguise  themselves  as 
their  totem  and  act  like  it,  serve  various  magic 
and  religious  purposes.  Finally  there  are  the 
ceremonies  at  which  the  totem  animal  is  killed 
in  a  solemn  manner.9 

The  social  side  of  totemism  is  primarily  ex- 
pressed in  a  sternly  observed  commandment  and 
in  a  tremendous  restriction.  The  members  of 
a  totem  clan  are  brothers  and  sisters,  pledged  to 

8  Like  the  legend  of  the  white  woman  in  many  noble  families. 
» 1.  c,  p.  45. — See  the  discussion  of  sacrifice  further  on. 

174  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

help  and  protect  each  other;  if  a  member  of  the 
clan  is  slain  by  a  stranger  the  whole  tribe  of  the 
slayer  must  answer  for  the  murder  and  the  clan 
of  the  slain  man  shows  its  solidarity  in  the  de- 
mand  for  expiation  for  the  blood  that  has  been 
shed.  The  ties  of  the  totem  are  stronger  than 
our  ideas  of  family  ties,  with  which  they  do  not 
altogether  coincide,  since  the  transfer  of  the 
totem  takes  place  as  a  rule  through  maternal 
inheritance,  paternal  inheritance  possibly  not 
counting  at  all  in  the  beginning. 

But  the  corresponding  taboo  restriction  con- 
sists in  the  prohibition  against  members  of  the 
same  clan  marrying  each  other  or  having  any 
kind  of  sexual  intercourse  whatsoever  with  each 
other.  This  is  the  famous  and  enigmatic 
eocogamy  connection  with  totemism.  We  have 
devoted  the  whole  first  chapter  of  this  book  to 
it,  and  therefore  need  only  mention  here  that 
this  exogamy  springs  from  the  intensified  incest 
dread  of  primitive  races,  that  it  becomes  entirely 
comprehensible  as  a  security  against  incest  in 
group  marriages,  and  that  at  first  it  accomplishes 
the  avoidance  of  incest  for  the  younger  genera- 
tion and  only  in  the  course  of  further  develop- 
ment becomes  a  hindrance  to  the  older  genera- 
tion as  well.10 

To  this  presentation  of  totemism  by  Frazer, 

10  See  Chapter  I. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      175 

one  of  the  earliest  in  the  literature  on  the  sub- 
ject, I  will  now  add  a  few  excerpts  from  one  of 
the  latest  summaries.  In  the  "Elements  of  the 
Psychology  of  Races"  which  appeared  in  1912, 
W.  Wundt  says: ]1  "The  totem  animal  is  con- 
sidered the  ancestral  animal.  'Totem'  is  there- 
fore both  a  group  name  and  a  birth  name  and 
in  the  latter  aspect  this  name  has  at  the  same 
time  a  mythological  meaning.  But  all  these 
uses  of  the  conception  play  into  each  other  and 
the  particular  meanings  may  recede  so  that  in 
some  cases  the  totems  have  become  almost  a 
mere  nomenclature  of  the  tribal  divisions,  while 
in  others  the  idea  of  the  descent  or  else  the 
cultic  meaning  of  the  totem  remains  in  the  fore- 
ground. .  .  .  The  conception  of  the  totem  de- 
termines the  tribal  arrangement  and  the  tribal* 
organization.  These  norms  and  their  establish- 
ment in  the  belief  and  feelings  of  the  members 
of  the  tribe  account  for  the  fact  that  originally 
the  totem  animal  was  certainly  not  considered 
merely  a  name  for  a  group  division  but  that  it 
usually  was  considered  the  progenitor  of  the  cor- 
responding division.  .  .  .  This  accounted  for 
the  fact  that  these  animal  ancestors  enjoyed  a 
cult.  .  .  .  This  animal  cult  expresses  itself 
primarily  in  the  attitude  towards  the  totem  ani- 
mal,  quite  aside   from  special  ceremonies  and 

11  p,  116. 

176  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

ceremonial  festivities:  not  only  each  individual 
animal  but  every  representative  of  the  same 
species  was  to  a  certain  degree  a  sanctified  ani- 
mal; the  member  of  the  totem  was  forbidden  to 
eat  the  flesh  of  the  totem  animal  or  he  was  al- 
lowed to  eat  it  only  under  special  circumstances. 
This  is  in  accord  with  the  significant  contra- 
dictory phenomenon  found  in  this  connection, 
namely,  that  under  certain  conditions  there  was 
a  kind  of  ceremonial  consumption  of  the  totem 
flesh.  .  .  ." 

"•  .  .  But  the  most  important  social  side  of 
this  totemic  tribal  arrangement  consists  in  the 
fact  that  it  was  connected  with  certain  rules  of 
conduct  for  the  relations  of  the  groups  with  each 
other.  The  most  important  of  these  were  the 
rules  of  conjugal  relations.  This  tribal  di- 
vision is  thus  connected  with  an  important  phe- 
nomenon which  first  made  its  appearance  in  the 
totemic  age,  namely  with  exogamy." 

If  we  wish  to  arrive  at  the  characteristics  of 
the  original  totemism  by  sifting  through  every- 
thing that  may  correspond  to  later  development 
or  decline,  we  find  the  following  essential  facts: 
The  totems  were  originally  only  animals  and 
were  considered  the  ancestors  of  single  tribes. 
The  totem  was  hereditary  only  through  the 
female  line;  it  was  forbidden  to  hill  the  totem 
(or  to  eat  it,  which  under  primitive  conditions 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      177 

amounts  to  the  same  thing)  ;  members  of  a  totem, 
were  forbidden  to  have  sexual  intercourse  with 
each  other.12 

It  may  now  seem  strange  to  us  that  in  the 
Code  du  totemisvie  which  Reinach  has  drawn  up 
the  one  principal  taboo,  namely  exogamy,  does 
not  appear  at  all  while  the  assumption  of  the 
second  taboo,  namely  the  descent  from  the  to- 
tem animal,  is  only  casually  mentioned.  Yet 
Reinach  is  an  author  to  whose  work  in  this  field 
we  owe  much  and  I  have  chosen  his  presentation 
in  order  to  prepare  us  for  the  differences  of 
opinion  among  the  authors,  which  will  now  oc- 
cupy our  attention. 

2 

The  more  convinced  we  became  that  totemism 
had  regularly  formed  a  phase  of  eveiy  culture, 

12  The  conclusion  which  Frazer  draws  about  totemism  in  his 
second  work  on  the  subject  ("The  Origin  of  Totemism,"  Fort- 
night Review,  1899)  agrees  with  this  text:  "Thus,  totemism  has 
commonly  been  treated  as  a  primitive  system  both  of  religion  and 
of  society.  As  a  system  of  religion  it  embraces  the  mystic  union 
of  the  savage  with  his  totem;  as  a  system  of  society  it  comprises 
the  relations  in  which  men  and  women  of  the  same  totem  stand  to 
each  other  and  to  the  members  of  other  totemic  groups.  And 
corresponding  to  these  two  sides  of  the  system  are  two  rough-and- 
ready  tests  or  canons  of  totemism:  first,  the  rule  that  a  man  may 
not  kill  or  eat  his  totem  animal  or  plant,  and  second,  the  rule  that 
he  may  not  marry  or  cohabit  with  a  woman  of  the  same  totem." 
(p.  101.)  Frazer  then  adds  something  which  takes  us  into  the 
midst  of  the  discussion  about  totemism:  "Whether  the  two  sides 
— the  religious  and  the  social — have  always  coexisted  or  are  essen- 
tially independent,  is  a  question  which  has  been  variously 
answered." 

178  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

the  more  urgent  became  the  necessity  of  arriving 
at  an  understanding  of  it  and  of  casting  light 
upon  the  riddle  of  its  nature.  To  be  sure,  every- 
thing about  totemism  is  in  the  nature  of  a  riddle ; 
the  decisive  questions  are  the  origin  of  the  totem, 
the  motivation  of  exogamy  (or  rather  of  the  in- 
cest taboo  which  it  represents)  and  the  relation 
between  the  two,  the  totem  organization  and  the 
incest  prohibition.  The  understanding  should 
be  at  once  historical  and  psychological ;  it  should 
inform  us  under  what  conditions  this  peculiar 
institution  developed  and  to  what  psychic  needs 
of  man  it  has  given  expression. 

The  reader  will  certainly  be  astonished  to 
hear  from  how  many  different  points  of  view 
the  answer  to  these  questions  has  been  attempted 
and  how  far  the  opinions  of  expert  investigators 
vary.  Almost  everything  that  might  be  asserted 
in  general  about  totemism  is  doubtful;  even  the 
above  statement  of  it,  taken  from  an  article  by 
Frazer  in  1887,  cannot  escape  the  criticism  that 
it  expresses  an  arbitrary  preference  of  the  author 
and  would  be  challenged  to-day  by  Frazer  him- 
self, who  has  repeatedly  changed  his  view  on  the 
subject.13 

13  In  connection  with  such  a  change  of  opinion  Frazer  made  this 
excellent  statement:  "That  my  conclusions  on  these  difficult  ques- 
tions are  final,  I  am  not  so  foolish  as  to  pretend.  I  have  changed 
my  views  repeatedly,  and  I  am  resolved  to  change  them  again  with 
every  change  of  the  evidence,  for  like  a  chameleon  the  enquirer 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      179 

It  is  quite  obvious  that  the  nature  of  totemism 
and  exogamy  could  be  most  readily  grasped  if 
we  could  get  into  closer  touch  with  the  origin 
of  both  institutions.  But  in  judging  the  state  of 
affairs  we  must  not  forget  the  remark  of  Andrew 
Lang,  that  even  primitive  races  have  not  pre- 
served these  original  forms  and  the  conditions 
of  their  origin,  so  that  we  are  altogether  depend- 
ent upon  hypotheses  to  take  the  place  of  the 
observation  we  lack.14  Among  the  attempted 
explanations  some  seem  inadequate  from  the 
very  beginning  in  the  judgment  of  the  psycholo- 
gist. They  are  altogether  too  rational  and  do 
not  take  into  consideration  the  effective  character 
of  what  they  are  to  explain.  Others  rest  on 
assumptions  which  observation  fails  to  verify; 
while  still  others  appeal  to  facts  which  could  bet- 
ter be  subjected  to  another  interpretation.  The 
refutation  of  these  various  opinions  as  a  rule 
hardly  presents  any  difficulties;  the  authors  are, 
as  usual,  stronger  in  the  criticism  which  they 
practice  on  each  other  than  in  their  own  work. 
The  final  result  as  regards  most  of  the  points 
treated  is  a  non  liquet.     It  is  therefore  not  sur- 

should  shift  his  colours  with  the  shifting  colours  of  the  ground  he 
treads."     Preface  to  Vol.  I,  "Totemism  and  Exogamy,"  1910. 

14  "By  the  nature  of  the  case,  as  the  origin  of  totemism  lies  far 
beyond  our  powers  of  historical  examination  or  of  experiment,  we 
must  have  recourse  as  regards  this  matter,  to  conjecture,"  Andrew 
Lang,  "Secret  of  the  Totem,"  p.  27. — "Nowhere  do  we  see  abso- 
lutely primitive  man,  and  a  totemic  system  in  the  making,"  p.  29. 

180  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

prising  that  most  of  the  new  literature  on  the 
subject,  which  we  have  largely  omitted  here, 
shows  the  unmistakable  effort  to  reject  a  gen- 
eral solution  of  totemic  problems  as  unfeasible. 
(See,  for  instance,  B.  Goldenweiser  in  the  Jour- 
nal of  American  Folklore  XXIII,  1910.  Re- 
viewed in  the  Britannica  Year  Book  1913.)  I 
have  taken  the  liberty  of  disregarding  the 
chronological  order  in  stating  these  contra- 
dictory hypotheses. 

a)   The  Origin  of  Totemism 

The  question  of  the  origin  of  totemism  can 
also  be  formulated  as  follows:  How  did  primi- 
tive people  come  to  select  the  names  of  animals, 
plants  and  inanimate  objects  for  themselves  and 
their  tribes  ? 15 

The  Scotchman,  MacLennan,  who  discovered 
totemism  and  exogamy  for  science,16  refrained 
from  publishing  his  views  of  the  origin  of  totem- 
ism. According  to  a  communication  of  Andrew 
Lang  17  he  was  for  a  time  inclined  to  trace  totem- 
ism back  to  the  custom  of  tattooing.  I  shall  di- 
vide the  accepted  theories  of  the  derivation  of 

is  At  first  probably  only  animals. 

™"The  Worship  of  Animals  and  Plants,"  Fortnightly  Review, 
1869-1870.  "Primitive  Marriage,"  1865;  both  works  reprinted  in 
"Studies  in  Ancient  History,"  1876;  second  edition,  1886. 

17  "The  Secret  of  the  Totem,"  1905,  p.  34. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      181 

totemism  into  three  groups,  <*)   nominalistic,  P) 
sociological,  v)  psychological. 

«)   The  Nominalistic  Theories 

The  information  about  these  theories  will  jus- 
tify their  summation  under  the  headings  I  have 
used. 

Garcilaso  de  La  Vega,  a  descendant  of  the 
Peruvian  Inkas,  who  wrote  the  history  of  his 
race  in  the  seventeenth  century  is  already  said 
to  have  traced  back  what  was  known  to  him 
about  totemic  phenomena  to  the  need  of  the 
tribes  to  differentiate  themselves  from  each  other 
by  means  of  names.18  The  same  idea  appears 
centuries  later  in  the  "Ethnology"  of  A.  K. 
Keane  where  totems  are  said  to  be  derived  from 
heraldic  badges  through  which  individuals,  fam- 
ilies and  tribes  wanted  to  differentiate  them- 
selves.19 

Max  Muller  expresses  the  same  opinion  about 
the  meaning  of  the  totem  in  his  "Contributions  to 
the  Science  of  Mythology."  20  A  totem  is  said  to 
be,  1.  a  mark  of  the  clan,  2.  a  clan  name,  3.  the 
name  of  the  ancestor  of  the  clan,  4.  the  name  of 
the  object  which  the  clan  reveres.  J.  Pikler 
wrote  later,  in  1899,  that  men  needed  a  perma- 

is  Ibid. 
i»  Ibid. 
20  According  to  Andrew  Lang. 

182  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

nent  name  for  communities  and  individuals  that 
could  be  preserved  in  writing.  .  .  .  Thus  totem- 
ism  arises,  not  from  a  religious,  but  from  a  pro- 
saic everyday  need  of  mankind.  The  giving  of 
names,  which  is  the  essence  of  totemism,  is  a 
result  of  the  technique  of  primitive  writing. 
The  totem  is  of  the  nature  of  an  easily  repre- 
sented writing  symbol.  But  if  savages  first  bore 
the  name  of  an  animal  they  deduced  the  idea  of 
relationship  from  this  animal.21 

Herbert  Spencer,22  also,  thought  that  the 
origin  of  totemism  was  to  be  found  in  the  giving 
of  names.  The  attributes  of  certain  individuals, 
he  showed,  had  brought  about  their  being  named 
after  animals  so  that  they  had  come  to  have 
names  of  honor  or  nicknames  which  continued  in 
their  descendants.  As  a  result  of  the  indef- 
initeness  and  incomprehensibility  of  primitive 
languages,  these  names  are  said  to  have  been 
taken  by  later  generations  as  proof  of  their  de- 
scent from  the  animals  themselves.  Totemism 
would  thus  be  the  result  of  a  mistaken  reverence 
for  ancestors. 

Lord  Avebury  (better  known  under  his  for- 
mer name,  Sir  John  Lubbock)    has  expressed 

21  Pikler  and  Sornl6,  "The  Origin  of  Totemism,"  1901.  The  au- 
thors rightly  call  their  attempt  at  explanation  a  "Contribution  to 
the  materialistic  theory  of  History." 

22  "The  Origin  of  Animal  Worship,"  Fortnightly  Review,  1870. 
"Principles  of  Psychology,"  Vol.  I,  paragraphs  169  to  176. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      183 

himself  quite  similarly  about  the  origin  of 
totemism,  though  without  emphasizing  the  mis- 
understanding. If  we  want  to  explain  the 
veneration  of  animals  we  must  not  forget  how 
often  human  names  are  borrowed  from  animals. 
The  children  and  followers  of  a  man  who  was 
called  bear  or  lion  naturally  made  this  their  an- 
cestral name.  In  this  way  it  came  about  that 
the  animal  itself  came  to  be  respected  and  finally 
venerated. 

Fison  has  advanced  what  seems  an  irrefutable 
objection  to  such  a  derivation  of  the  totem  name 
from  the  names  of  individuals.23  He  shows 
from  conditions  in  Australia  that  the  totem  is 
always  the  mark  of  a  group  of  people  and  never 
of  an  individual.  But  if  it  were  otherwise,  if 
the  totem  was  originally  the  name  of  a  single 
individual,  it  could  never,  with  the  system  of 
maternal  inheritance,  descend  to  his  children. 

The  theories  thus  far  stated  are  evidently 
inadequate.  They  may  explain  how  animal 
names  came  to  be  applied  to  primitive  tribes  but 
they  can  never  explain  the  importance  attached  to 
the  giving  of  names  which  constitutes  the  to- 
temic  system.  The  most  noteworthy  theory  of 
this  group  has  been  developed  by  Andrew  Lang 
in  his   books,    Social   Origins,   1903,    and   The 

23Kamilaroi  and  Kurmai,  p.  165,  1880   (Lang,  "Secret  of  the 
Totem,"  etc.). 

184  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

Secret  of  the  Totem,  1905.  This  theory  still 
makes  naming  the  center  of  the  problem,  but  it 
uses  two  interesting  psychological  factors  and 
thus  may  claim  to  have  contributed  to  the  final 
solution  of  the  riddle  of  totemism. 

Andrew  Lang  holds  that  it  does  not  make  any 
difference  how  clans  acquired  their  animal 
names.  It  might  be  assumed  that  one  day  they 
awoke  to  the  consciousness  that  they  had  them 
without  being  able  to  account  from  where  they 
came.  The  origin  of  these  names  had  been  for- 
gotten.  In  that  case  they  would  seek  to  acquire 
more  information  by  pondering  over  their  names, 
and  with  their  conviction  of  the  importance  of 
names  they  necessarily  came  to  all  the  ideas 
that  are  contained  in  the  totemic  system.  For 
primitive  men,  as  for  savages  of  to-day  and 
even  for  our  children,24  a  name  is  not  indifferent 
and  conventional  as  it  seems  to  us,  but  is  some- 
thing important  and  essential.  A  man's  name  is 
one  of  the  main  constituents  of  his  person  and  per- 
haps a  part  of  his  psyche.  The  fact  that  they  had 
the  same  names  as  animals  must  have  led  primi- 
tive men  to  assume  a  secret  and  important  bond 
between  their  persons  and  the  particular  animal 
species.  What  other  bond  than  consanguinity 
could  it  be?  But  if  the  similarity  of  names  once 
led  to  this  assumption  it  could  also  account  di- 

24  See  the  chapter  on  Taboo,  p.  95. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      185 

rectly  for  all  the  totemic  prohibitions  of  the  blood 
taboo,  including  exogamy. 

"No  more  than  these  three  things — a  group 
animal  name  of  unknown  origin;  belief  in  a 
transcendental  connection  between  all  bearers, 
human  and  bestial,  of  the  same  name ;  and  belief 
in  the  blood  superstitions — were  needed  to  give 
rise  to  all  the  totemic  creeds  and  practices,  in- 
cluding exogamy,"  (Secret  of  The  Totem,  p. 
126.) 

Lang's  explanation  extends  over  two  periods. 
It  derives  the  totemic  system  of  psychological 
necessity  from  the  totem  names,  on  the  assump- 
tion that  the  origin  of  the  naming  has  been  for- 
gotten. The  other  part  of  the  theory  now  seeks 
to  clear  up  the  origin  of  these  names.  We  shall 
see  that  it  bears  an  entirely  different  stamp. 

This  other  part  of  the  Lang  theory  is  not 
markedly  different  from  those  which  I  have 
called  "nominalistic."  The  practical  need  of 
differentiation  compelled  the  individual  tribes  to 
assume  names  and  therefore  they  tolerated  the 
names  which  ever}7  tribe  ascribed  to  the  other. 
This  "naming  from  without"  is  the  peculiarity 
of  Lang's  construction.  The  fact  that  the 
names  which  thus  originated  were  borrowed 
from  animals  is  not  further  remarkable  and  need 
not  have  been  felt  by  primitive  men  as  abuse  or 
derision.    Besides,    Lang   has    cited   numerous 

186  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

cases  from  later  epochs  of  history  in  which  names 
given  from  without  that  were  first  meant  to  be 
derisive  were  accepted  by  those  nicknamed  and 
voluntarily  born,  (The  Guises,  Whigs  and 
Tories).  The  assumption  that  the  origin  of 
these  names  was  forgotten  in  the  course  of  time 
connects  this  second  part  of  the  Lang  theory 
with  the  first  one  just  mentioned. 

P)   The  Sociological  Theories 

S.  Reinach,  who  successfully  traced  the  relics 
of  the  totemic  system  in  the  cult  and  customs  of 
later  periods,  though  attaching  from  the  very 
beginning  only  slight  value  to  the  factor  of  de- 
scent from  the  totem  animal,  once  made  the 
casual  remark  that  totemism  seemed  to  him  to 
be  nothing  but  "une  hypertrophic  de  V instinct 
social"  25 

The  same  interpretation  seems  to  permeate 
the  new  work  of  E.  Durkheim,  Les  formes 
elementaires  de  la  vie  religieuse;  Le  systeme 
totemique  en  Australie,  1912.  The  totem  is  the 
visible  representative  of  the  social  religion  of 
these  races.  It  embodies  the  community,  which 
is  the  real  object  of  veneration. 

Other  authors  have  sought  a  more  intimate 
reason  for  the  share  which  social  impulses  have 
played  in  the  formation  of  totemic  institutions. 

25  L  c.,  Vol.  I,  p.  41. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      187 

Thus  A.  C.  Haddon  has  assumed  that  every 
primitive  tribe  originally  lived  on  a  particular 
plant  or  animal  species  and  perhaps  also  traded 
with  this  food  and  exchanged  it  with  other  tribes. 
It  then  was  inevitable  that  a  tribe  should  become 
known  to  other  tribes  by  the  name  of  the  animal 
which  played  such  weighty  role  with  it.  At  the 
same  time  this  tribe  would  develop  a  special 
familiarity  with  this  animal,  and  a  kind  of  in- 
terest  for  it  which,  however,  was  based  upon  the 
psychic  motive  of  man's  most  elementary  and 
pressing  need,  namely,  hunger.26 

The  objections  against  this  most  rational  of 
all  the  totem  theories  are  that  such  a  state  of  the 
food  supply  is  never  found  among  primitive  men 
and  probably  never  existed.  Savages  are  the 
more  omnivorous  the  lower  they  stand  in  the  so- 
cial scale.  Besides,  it  is  incomprehensible  how 
such  an  exclusive  diet  could  have  developed  an 
almost  religious  relation  to  the  totem,  culminat- 
ing in  an  absolute  abstention  from  the  preferred 
food. 

The  first  of  the  three  theories  about  the  origin 
of  totemism  which  Frazer  stated  was  a  psycho- 
logical one.     We  shall  report  it  elsewhere. 

Frazer's  second  theorv,  which  we  will  discuss 
here,  originated  under  the  influence  of  an  im- 

26  Address  to  the  Anthropological  Section,  British  Association, 
Belfast,  1902.     According  to  Frazer,  I.  c,  Vol.  IV,  p.  50. 

188  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

portant  publication  by  two  investigators  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Central  Australia.27 

Spencer  and  Gillen  describe  a  series  of  pe- 
culiar institutions,  customs,  and  opinions  of  a 
group  of  tribes,  the  so-called  Arunta  nation,  and 
Frazer  subscribes  to  their  opinion  that  these 
peculiarities  are  to  be  looked  upon  as  character- 
istics of  a  primary  state  and  that  they  can  explain 
the  first  and  real  meaning  of  totemism. 

In  the  Arunta  tribe  itself  (a  part  of  the 
Arunta  nation)  these  peculiarities  are  as  fol- 
lows: 

1.  They  have  the  division  into  totem  clans 
but  the  totem  is  not  hereditary  but  is  individually 
determined  (as  will  be  shown  later) . 

2.  The  totem  clans  are  not  exogamous,  and 
the  marriage  restrictions  are  brought  about  by 
a  highly  developed  division  into  marriage  classes 
which  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  totems. 

3.  The  function  of  the  totem  clan  consists  of 
carrying  out  a  ceremony  which  in  a  subtle  magic 
manner  brings  about  an  increase  of  the  edible 
totem.     (This  ceremony  is  called  Intichiuma.) 

4.  The  Aruntas  have  a  peculiar  theory  about 
conception  and  re-birth.  They  assume  that  the 
spirits  of  the  dead  who  belonged  to  their  totem 
wait  for  their  re-birth  in  definite  localities  and 

27  "The  Native  Tribes  of  Central  Australia"  by  Baldwin  Spen- 
cer and  H.  J.  Gillen,  London,  1891. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      189 

penetrate  into  the  bodies  of  the  women  who  pass 
such  a  spot.  When  a  child  is  born  the  mother 
states  at  which  spirit  abode  she  thinks  she  con- 
ceived her  child.  This  determines  the  totem  of 
the  child.  It  is  further  assumed  that  the. spirits 
(of  the  dead  as  well  as  of  the  re-born)  are  bound 
to  peculiar  stone  amulets,  called  Clmrhiga, 
which  are  found  in  these  places. 

Two  factors  seem  to  have  induced  Frazer  to 
believe  that  the  oldest  form  of  totemism  had 
been  found  in  the  institution  of  the  Aruntas. 
In  the  first  place  the  existence  of  certain  myths 
which  assert  that  the  ancestors  of  the  Aruntas 
always  lived  on  their  totem  animal,  and  that  they 
married  no  other  women  except  those  of  their  own 
totem.  Secondly,  the  apparent  disregard  of  the 
sexual  act  in  their  theory  of  conception.  People 
who  had  not  yet  realized  that  conception  was  the 
result  of  the  sexual  act  might  well  be  considered 
the  most  backward  and  primitive  people  living 
to-day. 

Frazer,  in  having  recourse  to  the  Intichiuma 
ceremony  to  explain  totemism,  suddenly  saw  the 
totemic  system  in  a  totally  different  light  as  a 
thoroughly  practical  organization  for  accom- 
plishing the  most  natural  needs  of  man.  (Com- 
pare Haddon  above.28)     The  system  was  simply 

28  There  is  nothing  vague  or  mystical  about  it,  nothing  of  that 
metaphysical  haze  which  some  writers  love  to  conjure  up  over  the 

190  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

an  extraordinary  piece  of  ''cooperative  magic." 
Primitive  men  formed  what  might  be  called  a 
magic  production  and  consumption  club.  Each 
totem  clan  undertook  to  see  to  the  cleanliness  of 
a  certain  article  of  food.  If  it  were  a  question  of 
inedible  totems  like  harmful  animals,  rain,  wind, 
or  similar  objects,  it  was  the  duty  of  the  totem 
clan  to  dominate  this  part  of  nature  and  to  ward 
off  its  injuriousness.  The  efforts  of  each  clan 
were  for  the  good  of  all  the  others.  As  the  clan 
could  not  eat  its  totem  or  could  eat  only  a  very 
little  of  it,  it  furnished  this  valuable  product  for 
the  rest  and  was  in  turn  furnished  with  what 
these  had  to  take  care  of  as  their  social  totem 
duty.  In  the  light  of  this  interpretation  fur- 
nished by  the  Intichiuma  ceremony,  it  appeared 
to  Frazer  as  if  the  prohibition  against  eating  the 
totem  had  misled  observers  to  neglect  the  more 
important  side  of  the  relation,  namely  the  com- 
mandment to  supply  as  much  as  possible  of  the 
edible  totem  for  the  needs  of  others. 

Frazer  accepted  the  tradition  of  the  Aruntas 
that  each  totem  clan  had  originally  lived  on  its 
totem  without  any  restriction.  It  then  became 
difficult  to  understand  the  evolution  that  fol- 
lowed through  which  savages  were  satisfied  to 

humblest  beginnings  of  human  speculation  but  which  is  utterly 
foreign  to  the  simple,  sensuous,  and  concrete  modes  of  the  savage. 
("Totemism  and  Exogamy,"  I.,  p.  117.) 

INFAXTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      191 

insure  the  totem  for  others  while  they  themselves 
abstained  from  eating  it.  He  then  assumed  that 
this  restriction  was  by  no  means  the  result  of  a 
kind  of  religious  respect,  but  came  about  through 
the  observation  that  no  animal  devoured  its  own 
kind,  so  that  this  break  in  the  identification  with 
the  totem  was  injurious  to  the  power  which 
savages  sought  to  acquire  over  the  totem.  Or 
else  it  resulted  from  the  endeavor  to  make  the 
being  favorably  disposed  by  sparing  it.  Frazer 
did  not  conceal  the  difficulties  of  this  explana- 
tion from  himself,29  nor  did  he  dare  to  indicate 
in  what  way  the  habit  of  marrying  within  the 
totem,  which  the  myths  of  the  Aruntas  pro- 
claimed, was  converted  into  exogamy. 

Frazer's  theory  based  on  the  IntichiuTna, 
stands  and  falls  with  the  recognition  of  the 
primitive  nature  of  the  Arunta  institutions. 
But  it  seems  impossible  to  hold  to  this  in  the  fact 
of  the  objections  advanced  by  Durkheim30  and 
Lang.31  The  Aruntas  seem  on  the  contrary  to 
be  the  most  developed  of  the  Australian  tribes 
and  to  represent  rather  a  dissolution  stage  of 
totemism  than  its  beginning.  The  myths  that 
made  such  an  impression  on  Frazer  because  they 
emphasize,  in  contrast  to  prevailing  institutions 

29  1.   C,  p.   120. 

30  "L'annee  Sociologique,"  Vol.  I,  V,  VIII,  and  elsewhere.    See 
especially  the  chapter,  "Sur  le  Totemisme,"  Vol.  V,  1901. 
3i   "Social  Origins  and  the  Secret  of  the  Totem." 

192  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

of  to-day,  that  the  Aruntas  are  free  to  eat  the 
totem  and  to  marry  within  it,  easily  explain 
themselves  to  us  as  wish  phantasies  which  are 
projected  into  the  past,  like  the  myths  of  the 
Golden  Age. 

y)   The  Psychological  Theories 

Frazer's  first  psychological  theories,  formed 
before  his  acquaintance  wifch  the  observations  of 
Spencer  and  Gillen,  were  based  upon  the  belief 
in  an  "outward  soul."  32  The  totem  was  meant 
to  represent  a  safe  place  of  refuge  where  the 
soul  is  deposited  in  order  to  avoid  the  dangers 
which  threaten  it.  After  primitive  man  had 
housed  his  soul  in  his  totem  he  himself  became 
invulnerable  and  he  naturally  took  care  himself 
not  to  harm  the  bearer  of  his  soul.  But  as  he 
did  not  know  which  individual  of  the  species  in 
question  was  the  bearer  of  his  soul  he  was  con- 
cerned in  sparing  the  whole  species.  Frazer 
himself  later  gave  up  this  derivation  of  totemism 
from  the  belief  in  souls. 

When  he  became  acquainted  with  the  obser- 
vations of  Spencer  and  Gillen  he  set  up  the  other 
social  theory  which  has  just  been  stated,  but  he 
himself  then  saw  that  the  motive  from  which  he 
had  derived  totemism  was  altogether  too  "ra- 
tional" and  that  he  had  assumed  a  social  organi- 

32  "The  Golden  Bough,"  II,  p.  332. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      193 

zation  for  it  which  was  altogether  too  complicated 
to  be  called  primitive.33  The  magic  cooperative 
companies  now  appeared  to  him  rather  as  the 
fruit  than  as  the  germ  of  totemism.  He  sought 
a  simpler  factor  for  the  derivation  of  totemism 
in  the  shape  of  a  primitive  superstition  behind 
these  forms.  He  then  found  this  original  factor 
in  the  remarkable  conception  theory  of  the 
Aruntas. 

As  already  stated,  the  Aruntas  establish  no 
connection  between  conception  and  the  sexual 
act.  If  a  woman  feels  herself  to  be  a  mother  it 
means  that  at  that  moment  one  of  the  spirits 
from  the  nearest  spirit  abode  who  has  been 
watching  for  a  re-birth,  has  penetrated  into  her 
body  and  is  born  as  her  child.  This  child  has 
the  same  totem  as  all  the  spirits  that  lurk  in  that 
particular  locality.  But  if  we  are  willing  to  go 
back  a  step  further  and  assume  that  the  woman 
originally  believed  that  the  animal,  plant,  stone 
or  other  object  which  occupied  her  fancy  at  the 
moment  when  she  first  felt  herself  pregnant  had 
really  penetrated  into  her  and  was  being  born 
through  her  in  human  form,  then  the  identity 
of  a  human  being  with  his  totem  would  really 

33  "It  is  unlikely  that  a  community  of  savages  should  deliber- 
ately parcel  out  the  realm  of  nature  into  provinces,  assign  each 
province  to  a  particular  band  of  magicians,  and  bid  all  the  bands 
to  work  their  magic  and  weave  their  spells  for  the  common  good." 
"Totemism  and  Exogamy,"  Vol.  IV,  p.  57, 

194.  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

be  founded  on  the  belief  of  the  mother,  and  all 
the  other  totem  commandments  (with  the  ex- 
ception of  exogamy)  could  easily  be  derived 
from  this  belief.  Men  would  refuse  to  eat  the 
particular  animal  or  plant  because  it  would  be 
just  like  eating  themselves.  But  occasionally 
they  would  be  impelled  to  eat  some  of  their  totem 
in  a  ceremonial  manner  because  they  could  thus 
strengthen  their  identification  with  the  totem, 
which  is  the  essential  part  of  totemism.  W.  H. 
R.  Rivers'  observations  among  the  inhabitants 
of  the  Bank  Islands  seemed  to  prove  men's  di- 
rect identification  with  their  totems  on  the  basis 
of  such  a  conception  theory.34 

The  ultimate  sources  of  totemism  would  then 
be  the  ignorance  of  savages  as  to  the  process  of 
procreation  among  human  beings  and  animals; 
especially  their  ignorance  as  to  the  role  which 
the  male  plays  in  fertilization.  This  ignorance 
must  be  facilitated  by  the  long  interval  which 
is  interposed  between  the  fertilizing  act  and  the 
birth  of  the  child  or  the  sensation  of  the  child's 
first  movements.  Totemism  is  therefore  a  crear 
tion  of  the  feminine  mind  and  not  of  the  mascu- 
line.  The  sick  fancies  of  the  pregnant  woman 
are  the  roots  of  it.  "Anything  indeerh-ffcrb 
struck  a  woman  at  that  mysterious  moment  of 
her  life  when  she  first  knows  herself  to  be  a 

34  "Totemism  and  Exogamy,"  II,  p.  89,  and  IV,  p.  59. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      195 

mother  might  easily  be  identified  by  her  with  the 
child  in  her  womb.  Such  maternal  fancies,  so 
natural  and  seemingly  so  universal,  appear  to  be 
the  root  of  totemism.35 

The  main  objection  to  this  third  theory  of 
Frazer's  is  the  same  which  has  already  been  ad- 
vanced against  his  second,  sociological  theory. 
The  Aruntas  seem  to  be  far  removed  from  the 
beginnings  of  totemism:  Their  denial  of  father- 
hood does  not  apparently  rest  upon  primitive 
ignorance;  in  many  cases  they  even  have  pater- 
nal inheritance.  They  seem  to  have  sacrificed 
fatherhood  to  a  kind  of  a  speculation  which 
strives  to  honor  the  ancestral  spirits.36  Though 
they  raise  the  myth  of  immaculate  conception 
through  a  spirit  to  a  general  theory  of  concep- 
tion, we  cannot  for  that  reason  credit  them  with 
ignorance  as  to  the  conditions  of  procreation  any 
more  than  we  could  the  old  races  who  lived  dur- 
ing the  rise  of  the  Christian  myths. 

Another  psychological  theory  of  the  origin  of 
totemism  has  been  formulated  by  the  Dutch 
writer,  G.  A.  Wilcken.  It  establishes  a  con- 
nection between  totemism  and  the  migration  of 
souls.  "The  animal  into  which,  according  to 
general  belief,  the  souls  of  the  dead  passed,  be- 

35  "Totemism  and  Exogamy,"  IV,  p.  63. 

36  "That  belief  is   a   philosophy   far   from   primitive,"   Andrew 
Lang,  "Secret  of  the  Totem,"  p.  192. 

196  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

came  a  blood  relative,  an  ancestor,  and  was 
revered  as  such."  But  the  belief  in  the  soul's 
migration  to  animals  is  more  readily  derived 
from  totemism  than  inversely.37 

Still  another  theory  of  totemism  is  advanced 
by  the  excellent  American  ethnologists,  Franz 
Boas,  Hill-Tout,  and  others.  It  is  based  on 
observations  of  totemic  Indian  tribes  and  asserts 
that  the  totem  is  originally  the  guardian  spirit  of 
an  ancestor  who  has  acquired  it  through  a  dream 
and  handed  it  on  to  his  descendants.  We  have 
already  heard  the  difficulties  which  the  derivation 
of  totemism  through  inheritance  from  a  single 
individual  offers;  besides,  the  Australian  obser- 
vations seem  by  no  means  to  support  the  tracing 
back  of  the  totem  to  the  guardian  spirit.38 

Two  facts  have  become  decisive  for  the  last  of 
the  psychological  theories  as  stated  by  Wundt; 
in  the  first  place,  that  the  original  and  most 
widely  known  totem  object  was  an  animal, 
and  secondly,  that  the  earliest  totem  animals 
corresponded  to  animals  which  had  a  soul.39 
Such  animals  as  birds,  snakes,  lizards,  mice 
are  fitted  by  their  extreme  mobility,  their 
flight  through  the  air,  and  by  other  character- 
istics which  arouse  surprise  and  fear,  to  become 

37  Frazer,  "Totemism  and  Exogamy,"  IV,  p.  45. 

38  Frazer,  1.  c,  p.  48. 

39  Wundt,  "Elemente  der  Volker  Psychologie,"  p.  190. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      197 

the  bearers  of  souls  which  leave  their  bodies. 
The  totem  animal  is  a  descendant  of  the  animal 
transformations  of  the  spirit-soul.  Thus  with 
Wundt  totemism  is  directly  connected  with  the 
belief  in  souls  or  with  animism. 

b)  and  c)   The  Origin  of  Exogamy  and  Its  Re- 
lation to  Totemism 

I  have  put  forth  the  theories  of  totemism  with 
considerable  detail  and  yet  I  am  afraid  that  I 
have  not  made  them  clear  enough  on  account  of 
the  condensation  that  was  constantly  necessary. 
In  the  interest  of  the  reader  I  am  taking  the  lib- 
erty of  further  condensing  the  other  questions 
that  arise.  The  discussions  about  the  exogamy 
of  totem  races  become  especially  complicated 
and  untractable,  one  might  even  say  confused, 
on  account  of  the  nature  of  the  material  used. 
Fortunately  the  object  of  this  treatise  permits 
me  to  limit  myself  to  pointing  out  several  guide- 
posts  and  referring  to  the  frequently  quoted 
writings  of  experts  in  the  field  for  a  more 
thorough  pursuit  of  the  subject. 

The  attitude  of  an  author  to  the  problems  of 
exogamy  is  of  course  not  independent  of  the 
stand  he  has  taken  toward  one  or  the  other  of 
the  totem  theories.  Some  of  these  explanations 
of  totemism  lack  all  connection  with  exogamy 
so  that  the  two  institutions  are  entirely  separ- 

198  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

ated.  Thus  we  find  here  two  opposing  views, 
one  of  which  clings  to  the  original  likelihood  that 
exogamy  is  an  essential  part  of  the  totemic  sys- 
tem while  the  other  disputes  such  a  connection 
and  believes  in  an  accidental  combination  of  these 
two  traits  of  the  most  ancient  cultures.  In  his 
later  works  Frazer  has  emphatically  stood  for 
this  latter  point  of  view. 

"I  must  request  the  reader  to  bear  constantly 
in  mind  that  the  two  institutions  of  totemism  and 
exogamy  are  fundamentally  distinct  in  origin 
and  nature  though  they  have  accidentally  crossed 
and  blended  in  many  tribes."  (Totemism  and 
Exogamy  I,  Preface  XII.) 

He  warns  directly  against  the  opposite  view 
as  being  a  source  of  endless  difficulties  and  mis- 
understandings. In  contrast  to  this,  many  au- 
thors have  found  a  way  of  conceiving  exogamy 
as  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  basic  views  on 
totemism.  Durkheim  40  has  shown  in  his  writ- 
ings how  the  taboo,  which  is  attached  to  the 
totem,  must  have  entailed  the  prohibition  against 
putting  a  woman  of  the  same  totem  to  sexual 
uses.  The  totem  is  of  the  same  blood  as  the 
human  being  and  for  this  reason  the  blood  bann 
(in  reference  to  defloration  and  menstruation) 
forbids  sexual  intercourse  with  a  woman  of  the 

40"L'ann6e  Sociologique,"  1898-1904. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      199 

same  totem.41  Andrew  Lang,  who  here  agrees 
with  Durkheim,  goes  so  far  as  to  believe  that  the 
blood  taboo  was  not  necessary  to  bring  about  the 
prohibition  in  regard  to  the  women  of  the  same 
tribe.42  The  general  totem  taboo  which,  for  in- 
stance, forbids  any  one  to  sit  in  the  shadow  of  the 
totem  tree,  would  have  sufficed.  Andrew  Lang 
also  contends  for  another  derivation  of  exogamy 
-'(see  below)  and  leaves  it  in  doubt  how  these  two 
explanations  are  related  to  each  other. 

As  regards  the  temporal  relations,  the  ma- 
jority of  authors  subscribe  to  the  opinion  that 
totemism  is  the  older  institution  and  that  ex- 
ogamy came  later.43 

Among  the  theories  which  seek  to  explain 
exogamy  independently  of  totemism  only  a  few 
need  be  mentioned  in  so  far  as  they  illustrate 
different  attitudes  of  the  authors  towards  the 
problem  of  incest. 

MacLennan 44  had  ingeniously  guessed  that 
exogamy  resulted  from  the  remnants  of  customs 
pointing  to  earlier  forms  of  female  rape.  He 
assumed  that  it  was  the  general  custom  in  an- 

41  See  Frazer's  "Criticism  of  Durkheim,  Totemism  and  Exog- 
amy," p.  101. 

*2  "Secret,"  etc.,  p.   125. 

43  See  Frazer,  1.  c.  IV,  p.  75 :  "The  totemic  clan  is  a  totally- 
different  social  organism  from  the  exogamous  class,  and  we  have 
good  grounds  for  thinking  that  it  is  far  older." 

44 "Primitive  Marriage,"  1865. 

200  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

cient  times  to  procure  women  from  strange 
tribes  so  that  marriage  with  a  woman  from  the 
same  tribe  gradually  became  "improper  because 
it  was  unusual."  He  sought  the  motive  for  the 
exogamous  habit  in  the  scarcity  of  women  among 
these  tribes,  which  had  resulted  from  the  custom 
of  killing  most  female  children  at  birth.  We 
are  not  concerned  here  with  investigating 
whether  actual  conditions  corroborate  MacLen- 
nan's  assumptions.  We  are  more  interested  in 
the  argument  that  these  premises  still  leave  it 
unexplained  why  the  male  members  of  the  tribe 
should  have  made  these  few  women  of  their  blood 
inaccessible  to  themselves,  as  well  as  in  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  incest  problem  is  here  entirely 
neglected.45 

Other  writers  have  on  the  contrary  assumed, 
and  evidently  with  more  right,  that  exogamy  is 
to  be  interpreted  as  an  institution  for  the  pre- 
vention of  incest.46 

If  we  survey  the  gradually  increasing  compli- 
cation of  Australian  marriage  restrictions  we 
can  hardly  help  agreeing  with  the  opinion  of 
Morgan,  Frazer,  Hewitt  and  Baldwin  Spencer,47 
that  these  institutions  bear  the  stamp  of  "deliber- 
ate design,"  as  Frazer  puts  it,  and  that  they  were 

45  Frazer,  1.  c,  p.  73  to  92. 

46  Compare  Chapter  I. 

47  Morgan,   "Ancient   Society,"    1877.— Frazer,   "Totemism   and 
Exogamy,"  IV,  p.  105. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      201 

meant  to  do  what  they  have  actually  accom- 
plished. "In  no  other  way  does  it  seem  possible 
to  explain  in  all  its  details  a  system  at  once  so 
complex  and  so  regular." 48 

It  is  of  interest  to  point  out  that  the  first  re- 
strictions which  the  introduction  of  marriage 
classes  brought  about  affected  the  sexual  free- 
dom of  the  younger  generation,  in  other  words, 
incest  between  brothers  and  sisters  and  between 
sons  and  mothers,  while  incest  between  father 
and  daughter  was  only  abrogated  by  more 
sweeping  measures. 

However,  to  trace  back  exogamous  sexual 
restrictions  to  legal  intentions  does  not  add  any- 
thing to  the  understanding  of  the  motive  which 
created  these  institutions.  From  what  source, 
in  the  final  analysis,  springs  the  dread  of  incest 
which  must  be  recognized  as  the  root  of  exogamy? 
It  evidently  does  not  suffice  to  appeal  to  an 
instinctive  aversion  against  sexual  intercourse 
with  blood  relatives,  that  is  to  say,  to  the  fact  of 
incest  dread,  in  order  to  explain  the  dread  of 
incest,  if  social  experience  shows  that,  in  spite  of 
this  instinct,  incest  is  not  a  rare  occurrence  even 
in  our  society,  and  if  the  experience  of  history 
can  acquaint  us  with  cases  in  which  incestuous 
marriage  of  privileged  persons  was  made  the 
rule. 

«  Frazer,  1.  c,  p.  106. 

202  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

Westermarck 49  advanced  the  following  to  ex- 
plain the  dread  of  incest:  "that  an  innate  aver- 
sion against  sexual  intercourse  exists  between 
persons  who  live  together  from  childhood  and 
that  this  feeling,  since  such  persons  are  as  a  rule 
consanguinous,  finds  a  natural  expression  in 
custom  and  law  through  the  abhorrence  of  sex- 
ual intercourse  between  those  closely  related." 
Though  Havelock  Ellis  disputed  the  instinctive 
character  of  this  aversion  in  his  "Studies  in  the 
Psychology  of  Sex,"  he  otherwise  supported  the 
same  explanation  in  its  essentials  by  declaring: 
"The  normal  absence  of  the  manifestation  of  the 
pairing  instinct  where  brothers  and  sisters  or 
boys  and  girls  living  together  from  childhood 
are  concerned,  is  a  purely  negative  phenomenon 
due  to  the  fact  that  under  these  circumstances 
the  antecedent  conditions  for  arousing  the 
mating  instinct  must  be  entirely  lacking.  .  .  . 
For  persons  who  have  grown  up  together  from 
childhood  habit  has  dulled  the  sensual  attraction 
of  seeing,  hearing  and  touching  and  has  led  it 
into  a  channel  of  quiet  attachment,  robbing 
it  of  its  power  to  call  forth  the  necessary  ere- 
thistic  excitement  required  to  produce  sexual 
tumescence." 

49  "Origin  and  Development  of  Moral  Conceptions,"  Vol.  II, 
"Marriage,"  1909.  See  also  there  the  author's  defense  against 
familiar  objections. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      203 

It  seems  to  me  very  remarkable  that  Wester- 
marck  looks  upon  this  innate  aversion  to  sexual 
intercourse  with  persons  with  whom  we  have 
shared  childhood  as  being  at  the  same  time  a 
psychic  representative  of  the  biological  fact  that 
inbreeding  means  injury  to  the  species.  Such 
a  biological  instinct  would  hardly  go  so  far  astray 
in  its  psychological  manifestation  as  to  af- 
fect the  companions  of  home  and  hearth  which 
in  this  respect  are  quite  harmless,  instead  of  the 
blood  relatives  which  alone  are  injurious  to 
procreation.  And  I  cannot  resist  citing  the 
excellent  criticism  which  Frazer  opposes  to 
Westermarck's  assertion.  Frazer  finds  it  in- 
comprehensible that  sexual  sensibility  to-day  is 
not  at  all  opposed  to  sexual  intercourse  with 
companions  of  the  hearth  and  home  while  the 
dread  of  incest,  which  is  said  to  be  nothing  but 
an  offshoot  of  this  reluctance,  has  nowadays 
grown  to  be  so  overpowering.  But  other  re- 
marks of  Frazer's  go  deeper  and  I  set  them 
down  here  in  unabbreviated  form  because  they 
are  in  essential  agreement  with  the  arguments 
developed  in  my  chapter  on  taboo. 

"It  is  not  easy  to  see  why  any  deep  human 
instinct  should  need  reinforcement  through  law. 
There  is  no  law  commanding  men  to  eat  and 
drink,  or  forbidding  them  to  put  their  hands  in 
the  fire,     Men  eat  and  drink  and  keep  their 

204  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

hands  out  of  the  fire  instinctively,  for  fear  of 
natural,  not  legal  penalties,  which  would  be  en- 
tailed by  violence  done  to  these  instincts.  The 
law  only  forbids  men  to  do  what  their  instincts 
incline  them  to  do;  what  nature  itself  prohibits 
and  punishes  it  would  be  superfluous  for  the  law 
to  prohibit  and  punish.  Accordingly  we  may 
always  safely  assume  that  crimes  forbidden  by 
law  are  crimes  which  many  men  have  a  natural 
propensity  to  commit.  If  there  were  no  such 
propensity  there  would  be  no  such  crimes,  and 
if  no  such  crimes  were  committed,  what  need  to 
forbid  them?  Instead  of  assuming  therefore, 
from  the  legal  prohibition  of  incest,  that  there  is 
a  natural  aversion  to  incest  we  ought  rather  to 
assume  that  there  is  a  natural  instinct  in  favor 
of  it,  and  that  if  the  law  represses  it,  it  does  so 
because  civilized  men  have  come  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  the  satisfaction  of  these  natural  in- 
stincts is  detrimental  to  the  general  interests 
of  society."  50 

To  this  valuable  argument  of  Frazer's  I  can 
add  that  the  experiences  of  psychoanalysis  make 
the  assumption  of  such  an  innate  aversion  to  in- 
cestuous relations  altogether  impossible.  They 
have  taught,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  first  sexual 
impulses  of  the  young  are  regularly  of  an  incest- 
uous nature  and  that  such  repressed  impulses 

bo   l.  c,  p.  97. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM     205 

play  a  role  which  can  hardly  be  overestimated 
as  the  motive  power  of  later  neuroses. 

The  interpretation  of  incest  dread  as  an  in- 
nate instinct  must  therefore  be  abandoned.  The 
same  holds  true  of  another  derivation  of  the  in- 
cest prohibition  which  counts  many  supporters, 
namely,  the  assumption  that  primitive  races  very 
soon  observed  the  dangers  with  which  inbreed- 
ing threatened  their  race  and  that  they  therefore 
had  decreed  the  incest  prohibition  with  a  con- 
scious purpose.  The  objections  to  this  at- 
tempted explanation  crowd  upon  each  other.51 
Not  only  must  the  prohibition  of  incest  be  older 
than  all  breeding  of  domestic  animals  from  which 
men  could  derive  experience  of  the  effect  of  in- 
breeding upon  the  characteristics  of  the  breed, 
but  the  harmful  consequences  of  inbreeding  are 
not  established  beyond  all  doubt  even  to-day  and 
in  man  they  can  be  shown  only  with  difficulty. 
Besides,  everything  that  we  know  about  con- 
temporaneous savages  makes  it  very  improbable 
that  the  thoughts  of  their  far-removed  ancestors 
should  already  have  been  occupied  with  pre- 
venting injury  to  their  later  descendants.  It 
sounds  almost  ridiculous  to  attribute  hygienic 
and  eugenic  motives  such  as  have  hardly  yet 
found   consideration    in   our   culture,   to   these 

si  Compare  Durkheim,  "La  prohibition  de  1'inceste."    "L'annee 
Sociologique,'  I,  1896-97, 

206  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

children  of  the  race  who  lived  without  thought 
of  the  morrow.52 

And  finally  it  must  be  pointed  out  that  a  pro- 
hibition against  inbreeding  as  an  element  weak- 
ening to  the  race,  which  is  imposed  from  practical 
hygienic  motives,  se«ms  quite  inadequate  to 
explain  the  deep  abhorrence  which  our  society 
feels  against  incest.  This  dread  of  incest,  as  I 
have  shown  elsewhere,53  seems  to  be  even  more 
active  and  stronger  among  primitive  races  living 
to-day  than  among  the  civilized. 

In  inquiring  into  the  origin  of  incest  dread  it 
could  be  expected  that  here  also  there  is  the 
choice  between  possible  explanations  of  a  socio- 
logical, biological,  and  psychological  nature  in 
which  the  psychological  motives  might  have  to 
be  considered  as  representative  of  biological 
forces.  Still,  in  the  end,  one  is  compelled  to 
subscribe  to  Frazer's  resigned  statement,  namely, 
that  we  do  not  know  the  origin  of  incest  dread 
and  do  not  even  know  how  to  guess  at  it.  None 
of  the  solutions  of  the  riddle  thus  far  advanced 
seems  satisfactory  to  us.54 

I  must  mention  another  attempt  to  explain  the 

52  Charles  Darwin  says  about  savages:  "They  are  not  likely  to 
reflect  on  distant  evils  to  their  progeny." 

ss  See  Chapter  I. 

b*  "Thus  the  ultimate  origin  of  exogamy  and  with  it  the  law  of 
incest — since  exogamy  was  devised  to  prevent  incest — remains  a 
problem  nearly  as  dark  as  ever."  "Totemism  and  Exogamy,"  I, 
p.  165, 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM     207 

origin  of  incest  dread  which  is  of  an  entirely 
different  nature  from  those  considered  up  to 
now.  It  might  be  called  a  historic  explanation. 
This  attempt  is  associated  with  a  hypothesis 
of  Charles  Darwin  about  the  primal  social  state 
of  man.  From  the  habits  of  the  higher  apes 
Darwin  concluded  that  man,  too,  lived  originally 
in  small  hordes  in  which  the  jealousy  of  the  old- 
est and  strongest  male  prevented  sexual  promis- 
cuity. "We  may  indeed  conclude  from  what  we 
know  of  the  jealousy  of  all  male  quadrupeds, 
armed,  as  many  of  them  are,  with  special  wea- 
pons for  battling  with  their  rivals,  that  promis- 
cuous intercourse  in  a  state  of  nature  is  extremely 
improbable.  ...  If  we  therefore  look  back 
far  enough  into  the  stream  of  time  and  judging 
from  the  social  habits  of  man  as  he  now  exists, 
the  most  probable  view  is  that  he  originally  lived 
in  small  communities,  each  with  a  single  wife,  or 
if  powerful  with  several,  whom  he  jealously  de- 
fended against  all  other  men.  Or  he  may  not 
have  been  a  social  animal  and  yet  have  lived  with 
several  wives,  like  the  gorilla;  for  all  the  natives 
"agree  that  only  the  adult  male  is  seen  in  a  band; 
when  the  young  male  grows  up  a  contest  takes 
place  for  mastery,  and  the  strongest,  by  killing 
and  driving  out  the  others,  establishes  himself 
as  the  head  of  the  community  (Dr.  Savage  in 
the  Boston  Journal  of  Natural  History,  Vol. 

208  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

V,  1845-47) .  The  younger  males  being  thus 
driven  out  and  wandering  about  would  also,  when 
at  last  successful  in  finding  a  partner,  prevent  too 
close  inbreeding  within  the  limits  of  the  same 
family."  55 

Atkinson 56  seems  to  have  been  the  first  to  rec- 
ognize that  these  conditions  of  the  Darwinian 
primal  horde  would  in  practice  bring  about  the 
exogamy  of  the  young  men.  Each  one  of  those 
driven  away  could  found  a  similar  horde  in 
which,  thanks  to  jealousy  of  the  chief,  the  same 
prohibition  as  to  sexual  intercourse  obtained,  and 
in  the  course  of  time  these  conditions  would  have 
brought  about  the  rule  which  is  now  known  as 
law:  no  sexual  intercourse  with  the  members 
of  the  horde.  After  the  advent  of  totemism  the 
rule  would  have  changed  into  a  different  form: 
no  sexual  intercourse  within  the  totem. 

Andrew  Lang57  declared  himself  in  agree- 
ment with  this  explanation  of  exogamy.  But 
in  the  same  book  he  advocates  the  other  theory  of 
Durkheim  which  explains  exogamy  as  a  conse- 
quence of  the  totem  laws.  It  is  not  altogether 
easy  to  combine  the  two  interpretations;  in  the 
first  case  exogamy  would  have  existed  before 

5fi  "The  Origin  of  Man,"  Vol.  II,  Chapter  20,  pp.  603-604. 
56  "Primal  Law,"  London,   1903    (with   Andrew  Lang,  "Social 
Origins"). 

67  "Secret  of  the  Totem,  pp.  114,  143. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      209 

totemism;  in  the  second  case  it  would  be  a  con- 
sequence of  it.58 

3 

Into  this  darkness  psychoanalytic  experience 
throws  one  single  ray  of  light. 

The  relation  of  the  child  to  animals  has  much 
in  common  with  that  of  primitive  man.  The 
child  does  not  yet  show  any  trace  of  the  pride 
which  afterwards  moves  the  adult  civilized  man 
to  set  a  sharp  dividing  line  between  his  own 
nature  and  that  of  all  other  animals.  The  child 
unhesitatingly  attributes  full  equality  to  ani- 
mals; he  probably  feels  himself  more  closely 
related  to  the  animal  than  to  the  undoubtedly 
mysterious  adult,  in  the  freedom  with  which  he 
acknowledges  his  needs. 

68  "If  it  be  granted  that  exogamy  existed  in  practice,  on  the 
lines  of  Mr.  Darwin's  theory,  before  the  totem  beliefs  lent  to  the 
practice  a  sacred  sanction,  our  task  is  relatively  easy.  The  first 
practical  rule  would  be  that  of  the  jealous  sire:  "No  males  to 
touch  the  females  in  my  camp,"  with  expulsion  of  adolescent  sons. 
In  efflux  of  time  that  rule,  become  habitual,  would  be,  "No  mar- 
riages within  the  local  group."  Next  let  the  local  groups  receive 
names  such  as  Emus,  Crows,  Opossums,  Snipes,  and  the  rule 
becomes,  "No  marriage  within  the  local  group  of  animal  name;  no 
Snipe  to  marry  a  Snipe."  But,  if  the  primal  groups  were  not 
exogamous  they  would  become  so  as  soon  as  totemic  myths  and 
taboos  were  developed  out  of  the  animal,  vegetable,  and  other 
names  of  small  local  groups."  "Secret  of  the  Totem,"  p.  143. 
(The  italics  above  are  mine). — In  his  last  expression  on  the  sub- 
ject, ("Folklore,"  December,  1911)  Andrew  Lang  states,  however, 
that  he  has  given  up  the  derivation  of  exogamy  out  of  the  "gen- 
eral totemic"  taboo. 

210  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

Not  infrequently  a  curious  disturbance  mani- 
fests itself  in  this  excellent  understanding  be- 
tween child  and  animal.  The  child  suddenly 
begins  to  fear  a  certain  animal  species  and  to 
protect  himself  against  seeing  or  touching  any  in- 
dividual of  this  species.  There  results  the  clini- 
cal picture  of  an  animal  phobia,  which  is  one  of 
the  most  frequent  among  the  psychoneurotic  dis- 
eases of  this  age  and  perhaps  the  earliest  form 
of  such  an  ailment.  The  phobia  is  as  a  rule  in 
regard  to  animals  for  which  the  child  has  until 
then  shown  the  liveliest  interest  and  has  nothing 
to  do  with  the  individual  animal.  In  cities  the 
choice  of  animals  which  can  become  the  object 
of  phobia  is  not  great.  They  are  horses,  dogs, 
cats,  more  seldom  birds,  and  strikingly  often 
very  small  animals  like  bugs  and  butterflies. 
Sometimes  animals  which  are  known  to  the  child 
only  from  picture  books  and  fairy  stories  become 
objects  of  the  senseless  and  inordinate  anxiety 
which  is  manifested  with  these  phobias;  it  is  sel- 
dom possible  to  learn  the  manner  in  which  such 
an  unusual  choice  of  anxiety  has  been  brought 
about.  I  am  indebted  to  Dr.  Karl  Abraham 
for  the  report  of  a  case  in  which  the  child  itself 
explained  its  fear  of  wasps  by  saying  that  the 
color  and  the  stripes  of  the  body  of  the  wasp  had 
made  it  think  of  the  tiger  of  which,  from  all  that 
it  had  heard,  it  might  well  be  afraid. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      211 

The  animal  phobias  have  not  yet  been  made 
the  object  of  careful  analytical  investigation, 
although  they  very  much  merit  it.  The  difficul- 
ties of  analyzing  children  of  so  tender  an  age 
have  probably  been  the  motive  of  such  neglect. 
It  cannot  therefore  be  asserted  that  the  general 
meaning  of  these  illnesses  is  known,  and  I  myself 
do  not  think  that  it  would  turn  out  to  be  the  same 
in  all  cases.  But  a  number  of  such  phobias  di- 
rected against  larger  animals  have  proved  acces- 
sible to  analysis  and  have  thus  betrayed  their 
secret  to  the  investigator.  In  every  case  it  was 
the  same:  the  fear  at  bottom  was  of  the  father, 
if  the  children  examined  were  boys,  and  was 
merely  displaced  upon  the  animal. 

Every  one  of  any  experience  in  psychoanalysis 
has  undoubtedlv  seen  such  cases  and  has  received 
the  same  impression  from  them.  But  I  can  re- 
fer to  only  a  few  detailed  reports  on  the  subject. 
This  is  an  accident  of  the  literature  of  such  cases, 
from  which  the  conclusion  should  not  be  drawn 
that  our  general  assertion  is  based  on  merely  scat- 
tered observation.  For  instance  I  mention  an 
author,  M.  Wulff  of  Odessa,  who  has  very  in- 
telligently occupied  himself  with  the  neuroses  of 
childhood.  He  tells,  in  relating  the  history  of 
an  illness,  that  a  nine  year  old  boy  suffered  from 
a  dog  phobia  at  the  age  of  four.  "When  he  saw 
a  dog  running  by  on  the  street  he  wept  and  cried: 

212  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

'Dear  dog,  don't  touch  me,  I  will  be  good.' " 
By  "being  good"  he  meant  "not  to  play  violin 
any  more"  (to  practice  onanism)  ,58a 

The  same  author  later  sums  up  as  follows: 
"His  dog  phobia  is  really  his  fear  of  the  father 
displaced  upon  the  dog,  for  his  peculiar  expres- 
sion: 'Dog,  I  will  be  good' — that  is  to  say,  I  will 
not  masturbate — really  refers  to  the  father,  who 
has  forbidden  masturbation."  He  then  adds 
something  in  a  note  which  fully  agrees  with  my 
experience  and  at  the  same  time  bears  witness  to 
the  abundance  of  such  experiences :  "such  phobias 
(of  horses,  dogs,  cats,  chickens  and  other  domes- 
tic animals)  are,  I  think,  at  least  as  prevalent  as 
pavor  nocturnus  in  childhood,  and  usually  reveal 
themselves  in  the  analysis  as  a  displacement  of 
fear  from  one  of  the  parents  to  animals.  I  am 
not  prepared  to  assert  that  the  wide-spread  mouse 
and  rat  phobia  has  the  same  mechanism." 

I  reported  the  "Analysis  of  the  Phobia  of  a 
five-year-old  Boy" 59  which  the  father  of  the 
little  patient  had  put  at  my  disposal.  It  was  a 
fear  of  horses  as  a  result  of  which  the  boy  refused 
to  go  on  the  street.  He  expressed  his  apprehen- 
sion that  the  horse  would  come  into  the  room  and 
bite  him.     It  proved  that  this  was  meant  to  be 

58a  M.  Wulff,  "Contributions  to  Infantile  Sexuality,"  Zentralbl. 
f.  Psychoanalyze,  1912,  II,  Nr.  I,  p.  15. 
«9  "Little  Hans,1'  translated  by  A.  A.  Brill,  Moffat,  Yard  &  Co. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      213 

the  punishment  for  his  wish  that  the  horse  should 
fall  over  (die).  After  assurances  had  relieved 
the  boy  of  his  fear  of  his  father,  it  proved  that  he 
was  fighting  against  wishes  whose  content  was 
the  absence  (departure  or  death)  of  the  father. 
He  indicated  only  too  plainly  that  he  felt  the 
father  to  be  his  rival  for  the  favor  of  the  mother, 
upon  whom  his  budding  sexual  wishes  were  by 
dark  premonitions  directed.  He  therefore  had 
the  typical  attitude  of  the  male  child  to  its  par- 
ents which  we  call  the  "Oedipus  complex"  in 
which  we  recognize  the  central  complex  of  the 
neuroses  in  general.  Through  the  analysis  of 
"Little  John"  we  have  learnt  a  fact  which  is  very 
valuable  in  relation  to  totemism,  namely,  that 
under  such  conditions  the  child  displaces  a  part 
of  its  feelings  from  the  father  upon  some  animal. 
Analysis  showed  the  paths  of  association, 
both  significant  and  accidental  in  content,  along 
which  such  a  displacement  took  place.  It  also 
allowed  one  to  guess  the  motives  for  the  dis- 
placement. The  hate  which  resulted  from  the 
rivalry  for  the  mother  could  not  permeate  the 
boy's  psychic  life  without  being  inhibited ;  he  had 
to  contend  with  the  tenderness  and  admiration 
which  he  had  felt  for  his  father  from  the  begin- 
ning, so  that  the  child  assumed  a  double  or  am- 
bivalent emotional  attitude  towards  the  father 
and  relieved  himself  of  this  ambivalent  conflict 

214  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

by  displacing  his  hostile  and  anxious  feelings 
upon  a  substitute  for  the  father.  The  displace- 
ment could  not,  however,  relieve  the  conflict  by 
bringing  about  a  smooth  division  between  the 
tender  and  the  hostile  feelings.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  conflict  was  continued  in  reference  to 
the  object  to  which  displacement  has  been  made 
and  to  which  also  the  ambivalence  spreads. 
There  was  no  doubt  that  little  John  had  not  only 
fear,  but  respect  and  interest  for  horses.  As 
soon  as  his  fear  was  moderated  he  identified  him- 
self with  the  feared  animal;  he  jumped  around 
like  a  horse,  and  now  it  was  he  who  bit  the 
father.60  In  another  stage  of  solution  of  the 
phobia  he  did  not  scruple  to  identify  his  parents 
with  other  large  animals.01 

We  may  venture  the  impression  that  certain 
traits  of  totemism  return  as  a  negative  expres- 
sion in  these  animal  phobias  of  children.  But 
we  are  indebted  to  S.  Ferenczi  for  a  beautiful 
individual  observation  of  what  must  be  called 
a  case  of  positive  totemism  in  the  child.62  It  is 
true  that  with  the  little  Arpad,  whom  Ferenczi 
reports,  the  totemic  interests  do  not  awaken  in 
direct  connection  with  the  Oedipus  complex,  but 
on  the  basis  of  a  narcistic  premise,  namely,  the 

60  1.  c,  p.  41. 

ei  "The  Phantasy  of  the  Giraffe,"  1.  c,  p.  30. 
62  S.  Ferenczi,  "Contributions  to  Psychoanalysis,"  p.  204,  trans- 
lated by  Ernest  Jones,  R.  G.  Badger,  Boston,  1916. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      215 

fear  of  castration.  But  whoever  looks  atten- 
tively through  the  history  of  little  John  will  also 
find  there  abundant  proof  that  the  father  was 
admired  as  the  possessor  of  large  genitals  and 
was  feared  as  threatening  the  child's  own  geni- 
tals. In  the  Oedipus  as  well  as  in  the  castration 
complex  the  father  plays  the  same  role  of  feared 
opponent  to  the  infantile  sexual  interests.  Cas- 
tration and  its  substitute  through  blinding  is  the 
punishment  he  threatens.63 

When  little  Arpad  was  two  and  a  half  years 
old  he  once  tried,  while  at  a  summer  resort, 
to  urinate  into  the  chicken  coop,  and  on  this 
occasion  a  chicken  bit  his  penis  or  snapped  at 
it.  When  he  returned  to  the  same  place  a  year 
later  he  became  a  chicken  himself,  was  inter- 
ested only  in  the  chicken  coop  and  in  every- 
thing that  occurred  there,  and  gave  up  human 
speech  for  cackling  and  crowing.  During  the 
period  of  observation,  at  the  age  of  five,  he  spoke 
again,  but  his  speech  was  exclusively  about 
chickens  and  other  fowl.  He  played  with  no 
other  toy  and  sang  only  songs  in  which  there  was 
something  about  poultry.  His  behavior  to- 
wards his  totem  animal  was  subtly  ambivalent, 
expressing    itself    in    immoderate    hating  and 

63  Compare  the  communications  of  Reitler,  Ferenczi,  Rank  and 
Eder  about  the  substitution  of  blindness  in  the  Oedipus  myth  for 
castration.  Intern.  Zeitschrift  f.  arzte.  Psychoanalyze,  1913,  I, 
No.  2. 

216  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

loving.  He  loved  best  to  play  killing  chickens. 
"The  slaughtering  of  poultry  was  quite  a  festi- 
val for  him.  He  could  dance  around  the  ani- 
mals' bodies  for  hours  at  a  time  in  a  state  of 
intense  excitement."  64  But  then  he  kissed  and 
stroked  the  slaughtered  animal,  and  cleaned  and 
caressed  the  chicken  effigies  which  he  himself  had 
ill-used. 

Arpad  himself  saw  to  it  that  the  meaning  of 
his  curious  activity  could  not  remain  hidden. 
At  times  he  translated  his  wishes  from  the  to- 
temic  method  of  expression  back  into  that  of 
everyday  life.  "Now  I  am  small,  now  I  am  a 
chicken.  When  I  get  bigger  I  shall  be  a  fowl. 
When  I  am  bigger  still,  I  shall  be  a  cock."  On 
another  occasion  he  suddenly  expressed  the  wish 
to  eat  a  "potted  mother,"  (by  analogy,  potted 
fowl).  He  was  very  free  with  open  threats  of 
castration  against  others,  just  as  he  himself  had 
received  them  on  account  of  onanistic  preoccupa- 
tion with  his  penis. 

According  to  Ferenczi  there  was  no  doubt  as 
to  the  source  of  his  interest  in  the  activities  of  the 
chicken  yard:  "The  continual  sexual  activity 
between  cock  and  hen,  the  laying  of  eggs  and  the 
creeping  out  of  the  young  brood"  65  satisfied  his 
sexual  curiosity  which  really  was  directed  to- 
wards human  family  life.     His  object  wishes 

6*  Ferenczi,  1.  c.,  p.  209.  65  Ferenczi,  1.  c,  p.  212. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM     217 

have  been  formed  on  the  model  of  chicken  life 
when  we  find  him  saying  to  a  woman  neighbor: 
"I  am  going  to  marry  you  and  your  sister  and 
my  three  cousins  and  the  cook ;  no,  instead  of  the 
cook  I'll  marry  my  mother." 

We  shall  be  able  to  complete  our  consideration 
of  these  observations  later;  at  present  we  will 
only  point  out  two  traits  that  show  a  valuable 
correspondence  with  totemism:  the  complete 
identification  with  the  totem  animal,66  and  the 
ambivalent  affective  attitude  towards  it.  In 
view  of  these  observations  we  consider  ourselves 
justified  in  substituting  the  father  for  the  totem 
animal  in  the  male's  formula  of  totemism.  We 
then  notice  that  in  doing  so  we  have  taken  no  new 
or  especially  daring  step.  For  primitive  men 
say  it  themselves  and,  as  far  as  the  totemic  sys- 
tem is  still  in  effect  to-day,  the  totem  is  called 
ancestor  and  primal  father.  We  have  only 
taken  literally  an  expression  of  these  races 
wrhich  ethnologists  did  not  know  what  to  do  with 
and  were  therefore  inclined  to  put  it  into  the 
background.  Psychoanalysis  warns  us,  on  the 
contrary,  to  emphasize  this  very  point  and  to 
connect  it  with  the  attempt  to  explain  totemism.67 

66  Frazer  finds  that  the  essence  of  totemism  is  in  this  identifica- 
tion: "Totemism  is  an  identification  of  a  man  with  his  totem." 
"Totemism  and  Exogamy,"  IV,  p.  5. 

67  I  am  indebted  to  Otto  T?  ank  for  the  report  of  a  case  of  dog 
phobia  in  an  intelligent  young  man  whose  explanation  of  how  he 

218  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

The  first  result  of  our  substitution  is  very 
remarkable.  If  the  totem  animal  is  the  father, 
then  the  two  main  commandments  of  totemism, 
the  two  taboo  rules  which  constitute  its  nu- 
cleus,— not  to  kill  the  totem  animal  and  not  to 
use  a  woman  belonging  to  the  same  totem  for 
sexual  purposes, — agree  in  content  with  the  two 
crimes  of  Oedipus,  who  slew  his  father  and  took 
his  mother  to  wife,  and  also  with  the  child's  two 
primal  wishes  whose  insufficient  repression  or 
whose  re-awakening  forms  the  nucleus  of  per- 
haps all  neuroses.  If  this  similarity  is  more 
than  a  deceptive  play  of  accident  it  would  per- 
force ^make  it  possible  for  us  to  shed  light  upon 
the  origin  of  totemism  in  prehistoric  times.  In 
other  words,  we  should  succeed  in  making  it  prob- 
able that  the  totemic  system  resulted  from  the 
conditions  underlying  the  Oedipus  complex,  just 
as  the  animal  phobia  of  "little  John"  and  the 
poultry  perversion  of  "little  Arpad"  resulted 
from  it.  In  order  to  trace  this  possibility  we 
shall  in  what  follows  study  a  peculiarity  of  the 
totemic  system  or,  as  we  may  say,  of  the  totemic 
religion,  which  until  now  could  hardly  be  brought 
into  the  discussion. 

acquired  his  ailment  sounds  remarkably  like  the  totem  theory  of 
the  Aruntas  mentioned  above.  He  had  heard  from  his  father  that 
his  mother  at  one  time  during  her  pregnancy  had  been  frightened 
by  a  dog. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      219 

4 

W.  Robertson  Smith,  who  died  in  1894,  was 
a  physicist,  philologist,  Bible  critic,  and  archae- 
ologist, a  many-sided  as  well  as  keen  and  free 
thinking  man,  expressed  the  assumption  in  his 
work  on  the  "Religion  of  the  Semites,"  G8  pub- 
lished in  1889,  that  a  peculiar  ceremony,  the  so- 
called  totem  feasts  had,  from  the  very  beginning, 
formed  an  integral  part  of  the  totemic  system. 
For  the  support  of  this  supposition  he  had  at 
his  disposal  at  that  time  only  a  single  description 
of  such  an  act  from  the  year  500  A.  D. ;  he  knew, 
however,  how  to  give  a  high  degree  of  probability 
to  his  assumption  through  his  analysis  of  the 
nature  of  sacrifice  among  the  old  Semites.  As 
sacrifice  assumes  a  godlike  person  we  are  dealing 
here  with  an  inference  from  a  higher  phase  of 
religious  rite  to  its  lowest  phase  in  totemism. 

I  shall  now  cite  from  Robertson  Smith's  ex- 
cellent book  G9  those  statements  about  the  origin 
and  meaning  of  the  sacrificial  rite  which  are  of 
great  interest  to  us;  I  shall  omit  the  only  too 
numerous  tempting  details  as  well  as  the  parts 
dealing  with  all  later  developments.  In  such 
an  excerpt   it  is   quite   impossible   to  give   the 

es  "The  Religion  of  the  Semites,"  Second  Edition,  London,  1907. 
69  W.  Robertson  Smith,  "The  Religion  of  the  Semites,"  2d  Edi- 
tion, London,  1907. 

220  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

reader  any  sense  of  the  lucidity  or  of  the  argu- 
mentative force  of  the  original. 

Robertson  Smith  shows  that  sacrifice  at  the 
altar  was  the  essential  part  of  the  rite  of  old 
religions.  It  plays  the  same  role  in  all  religions, 
so  that  its  origin  must  be  traced  back  to  very 
general  causes  whose  effects  were  everywhere  the 
same. 

But  the  sacrifice — the  holy  action  KaA^oyrj 
( sacrificium  Upovpyta) — originally  meant  some- 
thing different  from  what  later  times  understood 
by  it :  the  offering  to  the  deity  in  order  to  recon- 
cile him  or  to  incline  him  to  be  favorable.  The 
profane  use  of  the  word  was  afterwards  derived 
from  the  secondary  sense  of  self-denial.  As  is 
demonstrated  the  first  sacrifice  was  nothing  else 
than  "an  act  of  social  fellowship  between  the 
deity  and  his  worshipers." 

Things  to  eat  and  drink  were  brought  as  sacri- 
fice; man  offered  to  his  god  the  same  things  on 
which  he  himself  lived,  flesh,  cereals,  fruits,  wine 
and  oil.  Only  in  regard  to  the  sacrificial  flesh 
did  there  exist  restrictions  and  exceptions.  The 
god  partakes  of  the  animal  sacrifices  with  his 
worshipers  while  the  vegetable  sacrifices  are  left 
to  him  alone.  There  is  no  doubt  that  animal 
sacrifices  are  older  and  at  one  time  were  the  only 
forms  of  sacrifice.  The  vegetable  sacrifices  re- 
sulted from  the  offering  of  the  first-fruits  and 

,   INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM     221 

correspond  to  a  tribute  to  the  lord  of  the  soil  and 
the  land.  But  animal  sacrifice  is  older  than 
agriculture. 

Linguistic  survivals  make  it  certain  that  the 
part  of  the  sacrifice  destined  for  the  god  was 
looked  upon  as  his  real  food.  This  conception 
became  offensive  with  the  progressive  dema- 
terialization  of  the  deity,  and  was  avoided  by 
offering  the  deity  only  the  liquid  part  of  the 
meaL  Later  the  use  of  fire,  which  made  the 
sacrificial  flesh  ascend  in  smoke  from  the  altar, 
made  it  possible  to  prepare  human  food  in  such 
a  way  that  it  was  more  suitable  for  the  deity. 
The  drink  sacrifice  was  originally  the  blood  of 
the  sacrificed  animals;  wine  was  used  later  as  a 
substitute  for  the  blood.  Primitive  man  looked 
upon  wine  as  the  "blood  of  the  grape,"  as  our 
poets  still  call  it. 

The  oldest  form  of  sacrifice,  older  than  the  use 
of  fire  and  the  knowledge  of  agriculture,  was 
therefore  the  sacrifice  of  animals,  whose  flesh  and 
blood  the  god  and  his  worshipers  ate  together. 
It  was  essential  that  both  participants  should 
receive  their  share  of  the  meal. 

Such  a  sacrifice  was  a  public  ceremony,  the 
celebration  of  a  whole  clan.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
all  religion  was  a  public  affair,  religious  duty 
was  a  part  of  the  social  obligation.  Sacrifice 
and  festival  go  together  among  all  races,  each 

222  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

sacrifice  entails  a  holiday  and  no  holiday  can  be 
celebrated  without  a  sacrifice.  The  sacrificial 
festival  was  an  occasion  for  joyously  transcend- 
ing one's  own  interests  and  emphasizing  social 
community  and  community  with  god. 

The  ethical  power  of  the  public  sacrificial 
feast  was  based  upon  primal  conceptions  of  the 
meaning  of  eating  and  drinking  in  common.  To 
eat  and  drink  with  some  one  was  at  the  same  time 
a  symbol  and  a  confirmation  of  social  community 
and  of  the  assumption  of  mutual  obligations; 
the  sacrificial  eating  gave  direct  expression  to 
the  fact  that  the  god  and  his  worshipers  are 
communicants,  thus  confirming  all  their  other 
relations.  Customs  that  to-day  still  are  in  force 
among  the  Arabs  of  the  desert  prove  that  the 
binding  force  resulting  from  the  common  meal 
is  not  a  religious  factor  but  that  the  subsequent 
mutual  obligations  are  due  to  the  act  of  eating 
itself.  Whoever  has  shared  the  smallest  bite 
with  such  a  Beduin,  or  has  taken  a  swallow  of 
his  milk,  need  not  fear  him  any  longer  as  an 
enemy,  but  may  be  sure  of  his  protection  and 
help.  Not  indeed,  forever,  strictly  speaking  this 
lasts  only  while  it  may  be  assumed  that  the  food 
partaken  remains  in  the  body.  So  realistically  is 
the  bond  of  union  conceived;  it  requires  repeti- 
tion to  strengthen  it  and  make  it  endure. 

But  why  is  this  binding  power  ascribed  to 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      223 

eating  and  drinking  in  common?  In  the  most 
primitive  societies  there  is  only  one  unconditional 
and  never  failing  bond,  that  of  kinship.  The 
members  of  a  community  stand  by  each  other 
jointly  and  severally,  a  kin  is  a  group  of  persons 
whose  life  is  so  bound  into  a  physical  unity  that 
they  can  be  considered  as  parts  of  a  common 
life.  In  case  of  the  murder  of  one  of  this  kin 
they  therefore  do  not  say:  the  blood  of  so  and 
so  has  been  spilt,  but  our  blood  has  been  spilt. 
The  Hebraic  phrase  by  which  the  tribal  relation 
is  acknowledged  is:  "Thou  art  my  bone  and 
my  flesh."  Kinship  therefore  signifies  having 
part  in  a  general  substance.  It  is  natural  then 
that  it  is  based  not  only  upon  the  fact  that  we 
are  a  part  of  the  substance  of  our  mother  who 
has  borne  us,  and  whose  milk  nourished  us,  but 
also  that  the  food  eaten  later  through  which  the 
body  is  renewed,  can  acquire  and  strengthen 
kinship.  If  one  shared  a  meal  with  one's  god 
the  conviction  was  thus  expressed  that  one  was 
of  the  same  substance  as  he,  no  meal  was  there- 
fore partaken  with  any  one  recognized  as  a 
stranger. 

The  sacrificial  repast  was  therefore  originally 
a  feast  of  the  kin,  following  the  rule  that  only 
those  of  kin  could  eat  together.  In  our  society 
the  meal  unites  the  members  of  the  family;  but 
the  sacrificial  repast  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 

224  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

family.  Kinship  is  older  than  family  life;  the 
oldest  families  known  to  us  regularly  comprised 
persons  who  belonged  to  various  bonds  of  kin- 
ship. The  men  married  women  of  strange  clans 
and  the  children  inherited  the  clan  of  the  mother; 
there  was  no  kinship  between  the  man  and  the 
rest  of  the  members  of  the  family.  In  such  a 
family  there  was  no  common  meal.  Even  to- 
day savages  eat  apart  and  alone,  and  the  relig- 
ious prohibitions  of  totemism  as  to  eating  often 
make  it  impossible  for  them  to  eat  with  their 
wives  and  children. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  sacrificial  animal. 
There  was,  as  we  have  heard,  no  meeting  of  the 
kin  without  animal  sacrifice,  but,  and  this  is  sig- 
nificant, no  animal  was  slaughtered  except  for 
such  a  solemn  occasion.  Without  any  hesita- 
tion the  people  ate  fruits,  game  and  the  milk  of 
domestic  animals,  but  religious  scruples  made  it 
impossible  for  the  individual  to  kill  a  domestic 
animal  for  his  own  use.  There  is  not  the  least 
doubt,  says  Robertson  Smith,  that  every  sacri- 
fice was  originally  a  clan  sacrifice,  and  that  the 
killing  of  a  sacrificial  animal  originally  belonged 
to  those  acts  which  were  forbidden  to  the  indi- 
vidual and  were  only  justified  if  the  whole  kin 
assumed  the  responsibility.  Primitive  men  had 
only  one  class  of  actions  which  were  thus  charac- 
terized, namely,  actions  which  touched  the  holi- 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM     225 

ness  of  the  kin's  common  blood.  A  life  which  no 
individual  might  take  and  which  could  be  sacri- 
ficed only  through  the  consent  and  participation 
of  all  the  members  of  the  clan  was  on  the  same 
plane  as  the  life  of  a  member  of  the  kin.  The 
rule  that  every  guest  of  the  sacrificial  repast 
must  partake  of  the  flesh  of  the  sacrificial  animal, 
had  the  same  meaning  as  the  rule  that  the  execu- 
tion of  a  guilty  member  of  the  kin  must  be 
performed  by  the  whole  kin.  In  other  words: 
the  sacrificial  animal  was  treated  like  one  of  kin ; 
the  sacrificing  community,  its  god,  and  the  sacri- 
ficial animal  were  of  the  same  blood,  and  the 
members  of  a  clan. 

On  the  basis  of  much  evidence  Robertson 
Smith  identifies  the  sacrificial  animal  with  the 
old  totem  animal.  In  a  later  age  there  were 
two  kinds  of  sacrifices,  those  of  domestic  animals 
which  usually  were  also  eaten,  and  the  unusual 
sacrifice  of  animals  which  were  forbidden  as 
being  unclean.  Further  investigation  then 
shows  that  these  unclean  animals  were  holy  and 
that  they  were  sacrificed  to  the  gods  to  whom 
they  were  holy,  that  these  animals  were  origin- 
ally identified  with  the  gods  themselves  and  that 
at  the  sacrifice  the  worshipers  in  some  way  em- 
phasized their  blood  relationship  to  the  god  and 
to  the  animal.  But  this  difference  between  usual 
and  "mystic"  sacrifices  does  not  hold  good  for 

226  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

still  earlier  times.  Originally  all  animals  were 
holy,  their  meat  was  forbidden  and  might  be 
eaten  only  on  solemn  occasions,  with  the  partici- 
pation of  the  whole  kin.  The  slaughter  of  the 
animal  amounted  to  the  spilling  of  the  kin's 
blood  and  had  to  be  done  with  the  same  precau- 
tions and  assurances  against  reproach. 

The  taming  of  domestic  animals  and  the  rise 
of  cattle-breeding  seems  everywhere  to  have  put 
an  end  to  the  pure  and  rigorous  totemism  of 
earliest  times.70  But  such  holiness  as  still  clung 
to  domestic  animals  in  what  was  now  a  "pas- 
toral" religion,  is  sufficiently  distinct  for  us 
to  recognize  its  totemic  character.  Even  in  late 
classical  times  the  rite  in  several  localities  pre- 
scribed flight  for  the  sacrificer  after  the  sacrifice, 
as  if  to  escape  revenge.  In  Greece  the  idea  must 
once  have  been  general  that  the  killing  of  an  ox 
was  really  a  crime.  At  the  Athenian  festival 
of  the  Bouphonia  a  formal  trial  to  which  all  the 
participants  were  summoned,  was  instituted  after 
the  sacrifice.  Finally  it  was  agreed  to  put  the 
blame  for  the  murder  upon  the  knife,  which  was 
then  cast  into  the  sea. 

In  spite  of  the  dread  which  protects  the  life 
of  the  animal  as  being  of  kin,  it  became  necessary 

70  "The  inference  is  that  the  domestication  to  which  totemism 
leads  (when  there  are  any  animals  capable  of  domestication)  is 
fatal  to  totemism."  Jevons,  "An  Introduction  to  the  History  of 
Religion,"  1911,  fifth  edition,  p.  120. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      227 

to  kill  it  from  time  to  time  in  solemn  conclave, 
and  to  divide  its  flesh  and  blood  among  the  mem- 
bers of  the  clan.  The  motive  which  commands 
this  act  reveals  the  deepest  meaning  of  the  es- 
sence of  sacrifice.  We  have  heard  that  in  later 
times  every  eating  in  common,  the  participation 
in  the  same  substance  which  entered  into  their 
bodies,  established  a  holy  bond  between  the  com- 
municants; in  oldest  times  this  meaning  seemed 
to  be  attached  only  to  participation  in  the  sub- 
stance of  a  holy  sacrifice.  The  holy  mystery  of 
the  sacrificial  death  was  justified  in  that  only  in 
this  way  could  the  holy  bond  be  established  which 
united  the  participants  with  each  other  and  with 
their  god.71 

This  bond  was  nothing  else  than  the  life  of  the 
sacrificial  animal  which  lived  on  its  flesh  and 
blood  and  was  shared  by  all  the  participants  by 
means  of  the  sacrificial  feast.  Such  an  idea  was 
the  basis  of  all  the  blood  bonds  through  which 
men  in  still  later  times  became  pledged  to  each 
other.  The  thoroughly  realistic  conception  of 
consanguinity  as  an  identity  of  substance  makes 
comprehensible  the  necessity  of  renewing  it  from 
time  to  time  through  the  physical  process  of  the 
sacrificial  repast. 

We  will  now  stop  quoting  from  Robertson 
Smith's  train  of  thought  in  order  to  give  a 

7i  1.  c,  p.  313. 

228  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

condensed  summary  of  what  is  essential  in  it. 
When  the  idea  of  private  property  came  into 
existence  sacrifice  was  conceived  as  a  gift  to  the 
deity,  as  a  transfer  from  the  property  of  man 
to  that  of  the  god.  But  this  interpretation  left 
all  the  peculiarities  of  the  sacrificial  ritual  unex- 
plained. In  oldest  times  the  sacrificial  animal 
itself  had  been  holy  and  its  life  inviolate ;  it  could 
be  taken  only  in  the  presence  of  the  god,  with  the 
whole  tribe  taking  part  and  sharing  the  guilt  in 
order  to  furnish  the  holy  substance  through  the 
eating  of  which  the  members  of  the  clan  assured 
themselves  of  their  material  identity  with  each 
other  and  with  the  deity.  The  sacrifice  was  a 
sacrament,  and  the  sacrificial  animal  itself  was 
one  of  the  kin.  In  reality  it  was  the  old  totem 
animal,  the  primitive  god  himself  through  the 
slaying  and  eating  of  whom  the  members  of  the 
clan  revived  and  assured  their  similarity  with  the 
god. 

From  this  analysis  of  the  nature  of  sacrifice 
Robertson  Smith  drew  the  conclusion  that  the 
periodic  killing  and  eating  of  the  totem  before 
the  period  when  the  anthropomorphic  deities 
were  venerated  was  an  important  part  of  totem 
religion.  The  ceremonial  of  such  a  totem  feast 
was  preserved  for  us,  he  thought,  in  the  de- 
scription of  a  sacrifice  in  later  times.  Saint 
Nilus  tells  of  a  sacrificial  custom  of  the  Beduins 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM     229 

in  the  desert  of  Sinai  towards  the  end  of  the 
fourth  century  A.  D.  The  victim,  a  camel,  was 
bound  and  laid  upon  a  rough  altar  of  stones ;  the 
leader  of  the  tribe  made  the  participants  walk 
three  times  around  the  altar  to  the  accompani- 
ment of  song,  inflicted  the  first  wound  upon  the 
animal  and  greedily  drank  the  spurting  blood; 
then  the  whole  community  threw  itself  upon  the 
sacrifice,  cut  off  pieces  of  the  palpitating  flesh 
with  their  swords  and  ate  them  raw  in  such  haste 
that  in  a  short  interval  between  the  rise  of  the 
morning  star,  for  whom  this  sacrifice  was  meant, 
and  its  fading  before  the  rays  of  the  sun,  the 
whole  sacrificial,  animal,  flesh,  skin,  bones,  and 
entrails,  were  devoured.  According  to  every 
testimony  this  barbarous  rite,  which  speaks  of 
great  antiquity,  was  not  a  rare  custom  but  the 
general  original  form  of  the  totem  sacrifice, 
which  in  later  times  underwent  the  most  varied 
modifications. 

Many  authors  have  refused  to  grant  any 
weight  to  this  conception  of  the  totem  feast  be- 
cause it  could  not  be  strengthened  by  direct  ob- 
servation at  the  stage  of  totemism.  Robertson 
Smith  himself  has  referred  to  examples  in  which 
the  sacramental  meaning  of  sacrifices  seems  cer- 
tain, such  as  the  human  sacrifices  of  the  Aztecs 
and  others  which  recall  the  conditions  of  the 
totem  feast,  the  bear  sacrifices  of  the  bear  tribe 

230  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

of  the  Ouataouaks  in  America,  and  the  bear  fes- 
tival of  the  Ainus  in  Japan.  Frazer  has  given 
a  full  account  of  these  and  similar  cases  in  the 
two  divisions  of  his  great  work  that  have  last 
appeared.72  An  Indian  tribe  in  California 
which  reveres  the  buzzard,  a  large  bird  of  prey, 
kills  it  once  a  year  with  solemn  ceremony,  where- 
upon the  bird  is  mourned  and  its  skin  and  feath- 
ers preserved.  The  Zuni  Indians  in  New 
Mexico  do  the  same  thing  with  their  holy  turtle. 

In  the  Intichiuma  ceremonies  of  Central  Aus- 
tralian tribes  a  trait  has  been  observed  which  fits 
in  excellently  with  the  assumptions  of  Robertson 
Smith.  Every  tribe  that  practices  magic  for 
the  increase  of  its  totem,  which  it  cannot  eat 
itself,  is  bound  to  eat  a  part  of  its  totem  at  the 
ceremony  before  it  can  be  touched  by  the  other 
tribes.  According  to  Frazer  the  best  example 
of  the  sacramental  consumption  of  the  otherwise 
forbidden  totem  is  to  be  found  among  the  Eini 
in  West  Africa,  in  connection  with  the  burial 
ceremony  of  this  tribe.73 

But  we  shall  follow  Robertson  Smith  in  the 
assumption  that  the  sacramental  killing  and  the 
common  consumption  of  the  otherwise  forbidden 

72  "The  Golden  Bough,"  Part  V,  "Spirits  of  the  Corn  and  of  the 
Wild,"  1912,  in  the  chapters:  "Eating  the  God  and  Killing  the 
Divine  Animal." 

73  Frazer,  "Totem  and  Exogamy,"  Vol.  II,  p.  590. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      231 

totem  animal  was  an  important  trait  of  the  totem 
religion.74 

5 

Let  us  now  envisage  the  scene  of  such  a  totem 
meal  and  let  us  embellish  it  further  with  a  few 
probable  features  which  could  not  be  adequately 
considered  before.  Thus  we  have  the  clan, 
which  on  a  solemn  occasion  kills  its  totem  in  a 
cruel  manner  and  eats  it  raw,  blood,  flesh,  and 
bones.  At  the  same  time  the  members  of  the 
clan,  disguised  in  imitation  of  the  totem,  mimic 
it  in  sound  and  movement  as  if  they  wanted  to 
emphasize  their  common  identity.  There  is  also 
the  conscious  realization  that  an  action  is  being 
carried  out  which  is  forbidden  to  each  individual 
and  which  can  only  be  justified  through  the  par- 
ticipation of  all,  so  that  no  one  is  allowed  to  ex- 
clude himself  from  the  killing  and  the  feast. 
After  the  act  is  accomplished  the  murdered  ani- 
mal is  bewailed  and  lamented.  The  death  la- 
mentation is  compulsive,  being  enforced  by  the 
fear  of  a  threatening  retribution,  and  its  main 
purpose  is,  as  Robertson  Smith  remarks  on  an 
analogous  occasion,  to  exculpate  oneself  from 
responsibility  for  the  slaying.75 

74  I  am  not  ignorant  of  the  objections  to  this  theory  of  sacrifice 
as  expressed  by  Marillier,  Hubert,  Mauss  and  others,  but  they 
have  not  essentially  impaired  the  theories  of  Robertson  Smith. 

75  "Religion  of  the  Semites,"  2nd  Edition,  1907,  p,  412, 

232  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

But  after  this  mourning  there  follows  loud 
festival  gaiety  accompanied  by  the  unchaining 
of  every  impulse  and  the  permission  of  every 
gratification.  Here  we  find  an  easy  insight  into 
the  nature  of  the  holiday. 

A  holiday  is  a  permitted,  or  rather  a  prescribed 
excess,  a  solemn  violation  of  a  prohibition.  Peo- 
ple do  not  commit  the  excesses  which  at  all  times 
have  characterized  holidays,  as  a  result  of  an  or- 
der to  be  in  a  holiday  mood,  but  because  in  the 
very  nature  of  a  holiday  there  is  excess ;  the  holi- 
day mood  is  brought  about  by  the  release  of  what 
is  otherwise  forbidden. 

But  what  has  mourning  over  the  death  of  the 
totem  animal  to  do  with  the  introduction  of  this 
holiday  spirit?  If  men  are  happy  over  the  slay- 
ing of  the  totem,  which  is  otherwise  forbidden 
to  them,  why  do  they  also  mourn  it? 

We  have  heard  that  members  of  a  clan  become 
holy  through  the  consumption  of  the  totem  and 
thereby  also  strengthen  their  identification  with 
it  and  with  each  other.  The  fact  that  they  have 
absorbed  the  holy  life  with  which  the  substance 
of  the  totem  is  charged  may  explain  the  holiday 
mood  and  everything  that  results  from  it. 

Psychoanalysis  has  revealed  to  us  that  the 
totem  animal  is  really  a  substitute  for  the  father, 
and  this  really  explains  the  contradiction  that  it 
is  usually  forbidden  to  kill  the  totem  animal,  that 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM     233 

the  killing  of  it  results  in  a  holiday  and  that  the 
animal  is  killed  and  yet  mourned.  The  ambiva- 
lent emotional  attitude  which  to-day  still  marks 
the  father  complex  in  our  children  and  so  often 
continues  into  adult  life  also  extended  to  the 
father  substitute  of  the  totem  animal. 

But  if  we  associate  the  translation  of  the  totem 
as  given  by  psychoanalysis,  with  the  totem  feast 
and  the  Darwinian  hypothesis  about  the  primal 
state  of  human  society,  a  deeper  understanding 
becomes  possible  and  a  hypothesis  is  offered 
which  may  seem  phantastic  but  which  has  the 
advantage  of  establishing  an  unexpected  unity 
among  a  series  of  hitherto  separated  phenomena. 

The  Darwinian  conception  of  the  primal  horde 
does  not,  of  course,  allow  for  the  beginnings  of 
totemism.  There  is  only  a  violent,  jealous 
father  who  keeps  all  the  females  for  himself  and 
drives  away  the  growing  sons.  This  primal 
state  of  society  has  nowhere  been  observed.  The 
most  primitive  organization  we  know,  which  to- 
day is  still  in  force  with  certain  tribes,  is  associa- 
tions of  men  consisting  of  members  with  equal 
rights,  subject  to  the  restrictions  of  the  totemic 
system,  and  founded  on  matriarchy,  or  descent 
through  the  mother.76     Can  the  one  have  re- 

76  For  a  recent  contribution  compare,  "The  Whole  House  of  The 
Chilkat,"  by  G.  T.  Emmons,  American  Museum  Journal,  Vol. 
XVI,  No.  7.     (Translator.) 

234  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

suited  from  the  other,  and  how  was  this  possible? 
By  basing  our  argument  upon  the  celebration 
of  the  totem  we  are  in  a  position  to  give  an 
answer:  One  day 77  the  expelled  brothers  joined 
forces,  slew  and  ate  the  father,  and  thus  put  an 
end  to  the  father  horde.  Together  they  dared 
and  accomplished  what  would  have  remained 
impossible  for  them  singly.  Perhaps  some  ad- 
vance in  culture,  like  the  use  of  a  new  weapon, 
had  given  them  the  feeling  of  superiority.  Of 
course  these  cannibalistic  savages  ate  their  vic- 
tim. This  violent  primal  father  had  surely  been 
the  envied  and  feared  model  for  each  of  the 
brothers.  Now  they  accomplished  their  identi- 
fication with  him  by  devouring  him  and  each 
acquired  a  part  of  his  strength.  The  totem 
feast,  which  is  perhaps  mankind's  first  celebra- 
tion, would  be  the  repetition  and  commemoration 
of  this  memorable,  criminal  act  with  which  so 
many  things  began,  social  organization,  moral 
restrictions  and  religion.78 

77  The  reader  will  avoid  the  erroneous  impression  which  this  ex- 
position may  call  forth  by  taking  into  consideration  the  conclud- 
ing sentence  of  the  subsequent  chapter. 

78  The  seemingly  monstrous  assumption  that  the  tyrannical 
father  was  overcome  and  slain  by  a  combination  of  the  expelled 
sons  has  also  been  accepted  by  Atkinson  as  a  direct  result  of 
the  conditions  of  the  Darwinian  primal  horde.  "A  youthful  band 
of  brothers  living  together  in  forced  celibacy,  or  at  most  in  poly- 
androus  relation  with  some  single  female  captive.  A  horde  as  yet 
weak  in  their  impubescence  they  are,  but  they  would,  when 
strength  was  gained  with  time,  inevitably  wrench  by  combined 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM     235 

In  order  to  find  these  results  acceptable,  quite 
aside  from  our  supposition,  we  need  only  assume 
that  the  group  of  brothers  banded  together  were 
dominated  by  the  same  contradictory  feelings 
towards  the  father  which  we  can  demonstrate  as 
the  content  of  ambivalence  of  the  father  complex 
in  all  our  children  and  in  neurotics.  They  hated 
the  father  who  stood  so  powerfully  in  the  way 
of  their  sexual  demands  and  their  desire  for 
power,  but  they  also  loved  and  admired  him. 

attacks  renewed  again  and  again,  both  wife  and  life  from  the 
paternal  tyrant"  ("Primal  Law,"  pp.  220-221).  Atkinson,  who 
spent  his  life  in  New  Caledonia  and  had  unusual  opportunities  to 
study  the  natives,  also  refers  to  the  fact  that  the  conditions  of 
the  primal  horde  which  Darwin  assumes  can  easily  be  observed 
among  herds  of  wild  cattle  and  horses  and  regularly  lead  to  the 
killing  of  the  father  animal.  He  then  assumes  further  that  a 
disintegration  of  the  horde  took  place  after  the  removal  of  the 
father  through  embittered  fighting  among  the  victorious  sons, 
which  thus  precluded  the  origin  of  a  new  organization  of  society: 
"An  ever  recurring  violent  succession  to  the  solitary  paternal 
tyrant  by  sons,  whose  parricidal  hands  were  so  soon  again 
clenched  in  fratricidal  strife"  (p.  228).  Atkinson,  who  did  not 
have  the  suggestions  of  psychoanalysis  at  his  command  and  did 
not  know  the  studies  of  Robertson  Smith,  finds  a  less  violent 
transition  from  the  primal  horde  to  the  next  social  stage  in  which 
many  men  live  together  in  peaceful  accord.  He  attributes  it  to 
maternal  love  that  at  first  only  the  youngest  sons  and  later  others 
too  remain  in  the  horde,  who  in  return  for  this  toleration  ac- 
knowledge the  sexual  prerogative  of  the  father  by  the  restraint 
which  they  practice  towards  the  mother  and  towards  their  sisters. 

So  much  for  the  very  remarkable  theory  of  Atkinson,  its  essen- 
tial correspondence  with  the  theory  here  expounded,  and  its  point 
of  departure  which  makes  it  necessary  to  relinquish  so  much  else. 

I  must  ascribe  the  indefiniteness,  the  disregard  of  time  interval, 
and  the  crowding  of  the  material  in  the  above  exposition  to  a  re- 
straint which  the  nature  of  the  subject  demands.  It  would  be 
just  as  meaningless  to  strive  for  exactness  in  this  material  as  it 
would  be  unfair  to  demand  certainty  here. 

236  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

After  they  had  satisfied  their  hate  by  his  removal 
and  had  carried  out  their  wish  for  identification 
with  him,  the  suppressed  tender  impulses  had  to 
assert  themselves.79  This  took  place  in  the  form 
of  remorse,  a  sense  of  guilt  was  formed  which 
coincided  here  with  the  remorse  generally  felt. 
The  dead  now  became  stronger  than  the  living 
had  been,  even  as  we  observe  it  to-day  in  the 
destinies  of  men.  What  the  father's  presence 
had  formerly  prevented  they  themselves  now 
prohibited  in  the  psychic  situation  of  "subsequent 
obedience"  which  we  know  so  well  from  psycho- 
analysis. They  undid  their  deed  by  declaring 
that  the  killing  of  the  father  substitute,  the 
totem,  was  not  allowed,  and  renounced  the  fruits 
of  their  deed  by  denying  themselves  the  liberated 
women.  Thus  they  created  the  two  funda- 
mental taboos  of  totemism  out  of  the  sense  of 
guilt  of  the  son,  and  for  this  very  reason  these 
had  to  correspond  with  the  two  repressed  wishes 
of  the  Oedipus  complex.  Whoever  disobeyed 
became  guilty  of  the  two  only  crimes  which 
troubled  primitive  society.80 

79  This  new  emotional  attitude  must  also  have  been  responsible 
for  the  fact  that  the  deed  could  not  bring  full  satisfaction  to  any 
of  the  perpetrators.  In  a  certain  sense  it  had  been  in  vain.  For 
none  of  the  sons  could  carry  out  his  original  wish  of  taking  the 
place  of  the  father.  But  failure  is,  as  we  know,  much  more  favorT 
able  to  moral  reaction  than  success. 

so  "Murder  and  incest,  or  offences  of  like  kind  against  the 
sacred  law  of  blood  are  in  primitive  society  the  only  crimes  of 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM     237 

The  two  taboos  of  totemism  with  which  the 
morality  of  man  begins  are  psychologically  not 
of  equal  value.  One  of  them,  the  sparing  of  the 
totem  animal,  rests  entirely  upon  emotional  mo- 
tives; the  father  had  been  removed  and  nothing 
in  reality  could  make  up  for  this.  But  the  other, 
the  incest  prohibition,  had,  besides,  a  strong  prac- 
tical foundation.  Sexual  need  does  not  unite 
men,  it  separates  them.  Though  the  brothers 
had  joined  forces  in  order  to  overcome  the  father, 
each  was  the  other's  rival  among  the  women. 
Each  one  wanted  to  have  them  all  to  himself  like 
the  father,  and  in  the  fight  of  each  against  the 
other  the  new  organization  would  have  perished. 
For  there  was  no  longer  any  one  stronger  than 
all  the  rest  who  could  have  successfully  assumed 
the  role  of  the  father.  Thus  there  was  nothing 
left  for  the  brothers,  if  they  wanted  to  live 
together,  but  to  erect  the  incest  prohibition — per- 
haps after  many  difficult  experiences — through 
which  they  all  equally  renounced  the  women 
whom  they  desired,  and  on  account  of  whom  they 
had  removed  the  father  in  the  first  place.  Thus 
they  saved  the  organization  which  had  made  them 
strong  and  which  could  be  based  upon  the  homo- 
sexual feelings  and  activities  which  probably 
manifested  themselves  among  them  during  the 

which  the  community  as  such  takes  cognizance  .  .  ."    "Religion  of 
the  Semites,"  p.  419. 

238  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

time  of  their  banishment.  Perhaps  this  situa- 
tion also  formed  the  germ  of  the  institution  of 
the  mother  right  discovered  by  Bachofen,  which 
was  then  abrogated  by  the  patriarchal  family  ar- 
rangement. 

On  the  other  hand  the  claim  of  totemism  to  be 
considered  the  first  attempt  at  a  religion  is  con- 
nected with  the  other  taboo  which  protects  the 
life  of  the  totem  animal.  The  feelings  of  the 
sons  found  a  natural  and  appropriate  substitute 
for  the  father  in  the  animal,  but  their  compul- 
sory treatment  of  it  expressed  more  than  the 
need  of  showing  remorse.  The  surrogate  for 
the  father  was  perhaps  used  in  the  attempt  to 
assuage  the  burning  sense  of  guilt,  and  to  bring 
about  a  kind  of  reconciliation  with  the  father. 
The  totemic  system  was  a  kind  of  agreement 
with  the  father  in  which  the  latter  granted  every- 
thing that  the  child's  phantasy  could  expect  from 
him,  protection,  care,  and  forbearance,  in  return 
for  which  the  pledge  wTas  given  to  honor  his  life, 
that  is  to  say,  not  to  repeat  the  act  against  the 
totem  through  which  the  real  father  had  per- 
ished. Totemism  also  contained  an  attempt  at 
justification.  "If  the  father  had  treated  us  like 
the  totem  we  should  never  have  been  tempted 
to  kill  him."  Thus  totemism  helped  to  gloss 
over  the  real  state  of  affairs  and  to  make  one 
forget  the  event  to  which  it  owed  its  origin. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      239 

In  this  connection  some  features  were  formed 
which  henceforth  determined  the  character  of 
every  religion.  The  totem  religion  had  issued 
from  the  sense  of  guilt  of  the  sons  as  an  attempt 
to  palliate  this  feeling  and  to  conciliate  the  in- 
jured father  through  subsequent  obedience.  All 
later  religions  prove  to  be  attempts  to  solve  the 
same  problem,  varying  only  in  accordance  with 
the  stage  of  culture  in  which  they  are  attempted 
and  according  to  the  paths  which  they  take ;  they 
are  all,  however,  reactions  aiming  at  the  same 
great  event  with  which  culture  began  and  which 
ever  since  has  not  let  mankind  come  to  rest. 

There  is  still  another  characteristic  faithfully 
preserved  in  religion  which  already  appeared  in 
totemism  at  this  time.  The  ambivalent  strain 
was  probably  too  great  to  be  adjusted  by  any 
arrangement,  or  else  the  psychological  conditions 
are  entirely  unfavorable  to  any  kind  of  settle- 
ment of  these  contradictory  feelings.  It  is  cer- 
tainly noticeable  that  the  ambivalence  attached 
to  the  father  complex  also  continues  in  totemism 
and  in  religions  in  general.  The  religion  of 
totemism  included  not  only  manifestations  of 
remorse  and  attempts  at  reconciliation,  but  also 
serves  to  commemorate  the  triumph  over  the  fa- 
ther. The  gratification  obtained  thereby  creates 
the  commemorative  celebration  of  the  totem  feast 
at  which  the  restrictions  of  subsequent  obedience 

240  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

are  suspended,  and  makes  it  a  duty  to  repeat  the 
crime  of  parricide  through  the  sacrifice  of  the 
totem  animal  as  often  as  the  benefits  of  this  deed, 
namely,  the  appropriation  of  the  father's  prop- 
erties, threaten  to  disappear  as  a  result  of  the 
changed  influences  of  life.  We  shall  not  be  sur- 
prised to  find  that  a  part  of  the  son's  defiance 
also  reappears,  often  in  the  most  remarkable  dis- 
guises and  inversions,  in  the  formation  of  later 
religions. 

If  thus  far  we  have  followed,  in  religion  and 
moral  precepts — but  little  differentiated  in  to- 
temism — the  consequences  of  the  tender  impulses 
towards  the  father  as  they  are  changed  into  re- 
morse, we  must  not  overlook  the  fact  that  for  the 
most  part  the  tendencies  which  have  impelled 
to  parricide  have  retained  the  victory.  The  so- 
cial and  fraternal  feelings  on  which  this  great 
change  is  based,  henceforth  for  long  periods 
exercises  the  greatest  influence  upon  the  devel- 
opment of  society.  They  find  expression  in  the 
sanctiflcation  of  the  common  blood  and  in  the  em- 
phasis upon  the  solidarity  of  life  within  the  clan. 
In  thus  ensuring  each  other's  lives  the  brothers 
express  the  fact  that  no  one  of  them  is  to  be 
treated  by  the  other  as  they  all  treated  the  father. 
They  preclude  a  repetition  of  the  fate  of 
the  father.  The  socially  established  prohibition 
against  fratricide  is  now  added  to  the  prohibition 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM     241 

against  killing  the  totem,  which  is  based  on  re- 
ligious grounds.  It  will  still  be  a  long  time 
before  the  commandment  discards  the  restriction 
to  members  of  the  tribe  and  assumes  the  simple 
phraseology:  Thou  shalt  not  kill.  At  first  the 
brother  clan  has  taken  the  place  of  the  father 
horde  and  was  guaranteed  by  the  blood  bond. 
Society  is  now  based  on  complicity  in  the  common 
crime,  religion  on  the  sense  of  guilt  and  the  con- 
sequent remorse,  while  morality  is  based  partly 
on  the  necessities  of  society  and  partly  on  the 
expiation  which  this  sense  of  guilt  demands. 

Thus  psychoanalysis,  contrary  to  the  newer 
conceptions  of  the  totemic  system  and  more  in 
accord  with  older  conceptions,  bids  us  argue  for 
an  intimate  connection  between  totemism  and 
exogamy  as  well  as  for  their  simultaneous  origin. 

6 

I  am  under  the  influence  of  many  strong 
motives  which  restrain  me  from  the  attempt  to 
discuss  the  further  development  of  religions  from 
their  beginning  in  totemism  up  to  their  present 
state.  I  shall  follow  out  only  two  threads  as  I 
see  them  appearing  in  the  weft  with  especial 
distinctness:  the  motive  of  the  totem  sacrifice 
and  the  relation  of  the  son  to  the  father.81 

si  Compare  "Transformations  and  Symbols  of  the  Libido/'  by 
C.  G.  Jung,  in  which  some  dissenting  points  of  view  are  repre- 
sented. 

242  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

Robertson  Smith  has  shown  us  that  the  old 
totem  feast  returns  in  the  original  form  of  sac- 
rifice. The  meaning  of  the  rite  is  the  same: 
sanctification  through  participation  in  the  com- 
mon meal.  The  sense  of  guilt,  which  can  only 
be  allayed  through  the  solidarity  of  all  the  par- 
ticipants, has  also  been  retained.  In  addition 
to  this  there  is  the  tribal  deity  in  whose  supposed 
presence  the  sacrifice  takes  place,  who  takes  part 
in  the  meal  like  a  member  of  the  tribe,  and  with 
whom  identification  is  effected  by  the  act  of  eat- 
ing the  sacrifice.  How  does  the  god  come  into 
this  situation  which  originally  was  foreign  to 
him? 

The  answer  might  be  that  the  idea  of  god  had 
meanwhile  appeared, — no  one  knows  whence — 
and  had  dominated  the  whole  religious  life,  and 
that  the  totem  feast,  like  everything  else  that 
wished  to  survive,  had  been  forced  to  fit  itself 
into  the  new  system.  However,  psychoanalytic 
investigation  of  the  individual  teaches  with  es- 
pecial emphasis  that  god  is  in  every  case  modeled 
after  the  father  and  that  our  personal  relation 
to  god  is  dependent  upon  our  relation  to  our 
physical  father,  fluctuating  and  changing  with 
him,  and  that  god  at  bottom  is  nothing  but  an 
exalted  father.  Here  also,  as  in  the  case  of 
totemism,  psychoanalysis  advises  us  to  believe 
the  faithful,  who  call  god  father  just  as  they 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      243 

called  the  totem  their  ancestor.  If  psychoanaly- 
sis deserves  any  consideration  at  all,  then  the 
share  of  the  father  in  the  idea  of  a  god  must  be 
very  important,  quite  aside  from  all  the  other 
origins  and  meanings  of  god  upon  which  psycho- 
analysis can  throw  no  light.  But  then  the  father 
would  be  represented  twice  in  primitive  sacrifice, 
first  as  god,  and  secondly  as  the  totem-animal- 
sacrifice,  and  we  must  ask,  with  all  due  regard 
for  the  limited  number  of  solutions  which  psy- 
choanalysis offers,  whether  this  is  possible  and 
what  the  meaning  of  it  may  be. 

We  know  that  there  are  a  number  of  relations 
of  the  god  to  the  holy  animal  (the  totem  and  the 
sacrificial  animal)  :  1.  Usually  one  animal  is 
sacred  to  every  god,  sometimes  even  several  ani- 
mals. 2.  In  certain,  especially  holy,  sacrifices, 
the  so-called  "mystical"  sacrifices,  the  very  ani- 
mal which  had  been  sanctified  through  the  god 
was  sacrificed  to  him.82  3.  The  god  was  often 
revered  in  the  form  of  an  animal,  or  from  another 
point  of  view,  animals  enjoyed  a  godlike  rever- 
ence long  after  the  period  of  totemism.  4.  In 
myths  the  god  is  frequently  transformed  into  an 
animal,  often  into  the  animal  that  is  sacred  to 
him.  From  this  the  assumption  was  obvious 
that  the  god  himself  wras  the  animal,  and  that  he 
had  evolved  from  the  totem  animal  at  a  later 

82  Robertson  Smith,  "Religion  of  the  Semites." 

244  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

stage  of  religious  feeling.  But  the  reflection 
that  the  totem  itself  is  nothing  but  a  substitute 
for  the  father  relieves  us  of  all  further  discussion. 
Thus  the  totem  may  have  been  the  first  form  of 
the  father  substitute  and  the  god  a  later  one  in 
which  the  father  regained  his  human  form.  Such 
a  new  creation  from  the  root  of  all  religious  evo- 
lution, namely,  the  longing  for  the  father,  might 
become  possible  if  in  the  course  of  time  an  essen- 
tial change  had  taken  place  in  the  relation  to  the 
father  and  perhaps  also  to  the  animal. 

Such  changes  are  easily  divined  even  if  we  dis- 
regard the  beginning  of  a  psychic  estrangement 
from  the  animal  as  well  as  the  disintegration  of 
totemism  through  animal  domestication.83  The 
situation  created  by  the  removal  of  the  father 
contained  an  element  which  in  the  course  of  time 
must  have  brought  about  an  extraordinary  in- 
crease of  longing  for  the  father.  For  the  broth- 
ers who  had  joined  forces  to  kill  the  father  had 
each  been  animated  bv  the  wish  to  become  like 
the  father  and  had  given  expression  to  this  wish 
by  incorporating  parts  of  the  substitute  for  him 
in  the  totem  feast.  In  consequence  of  the  pres- 
sure which  the  bonds  of  the  brother  clan  exer- 
cised upon  each  member,  this  wish  had  to  remain 
unfulfilled.  No  one  could  or  was  allowed  to  at- 
tain the  father's  perfection  of  power,  which  was 

83  See  above,  p.  127. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM     245 

the  thing  they  had  all  sought.  Thus  the  bitter 
feeling  against  the  father  which  had  incited  to 
the  deed  could  subside  in  the  course  of  time,  while 
the  longing  for  him  grew,  and  an  ideal  could 
arise  having  as  a  content  the  fullness  of  power 
and  the  freedom  from  restriction  of  the  con- 
quered primal  father,  as  well  as  the  willingness 
to  subject  themselves  to  him.  The  original 
democratic  equality  of  each  member  of  the  tribe 
could  no  longer  be  retained  on  account  of  the 
interference  of  cultural  changes;  in  consequence 
of  which  there  arose  a  tendencv  to  revive  the  old 
father  ideal  in  the  creation  of  gods  through  the 
veneration  of  those  individuals  who  had  dis- 
tinguished themselves  above  the  rest.  That  a 
man  should  become  a  god  and  that  a  god  should 
die,  which  to-day  seems  to  us  an  outrageous  pre- 
sumption, was  still  by  no  means  offensive  to  the 
conceptions  of  classical  antiquity.84  But  the 
deification  of  the  murdered  father  from  whom 
the  tribe  now  derived  its  origin,  was  a  much  more 
serious  attempt  at  expiation  than  the  former 
covenant  with  the  totem. 

s*  "To  us  moderns,  for  whom  the  breach  which  divides  the 
human  and  divine  has  deepened  into  an  impassable  gulf,  such 
mimicry  may  appear  impious,  but  it  was  otherwise  with  the 
ancients.  To  their  thinking  gods  and  men  were  akin,  for  many 
families  traced  their  descent  from  a  divinity,  and  the  deification 
of  a  man  probably  seemed  as  little  extraordinary  to  them  as  the 
canonization  of  a  saint  seems  to  a  modern  Catholic."  Frazer, 
"The  Golden  Bough,"  I;  "The  Magic  Art  and  the  Evolution  of 
Kings,"  II,  p.  177. 

246  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

In  this  evolution  I  am  at  a  loss  to  indicate  the 
place  of  the  great  maternal  deities  who  perhaps 
everywhere  preceded  the  paternal  deities.  But 
it  seems  certain  that  the  change  in  the  relation  to 
the  father  was  not  restricted  to  religion  but  logi- 
cally extended  to  the  other  side  of  human  life 
influenced  by  the  removal  of  the  father,  namely, 
the  social  organization.  With  the  institution  of 
paternal  deities  the  fatherless  society  gradually 
changed  into  a  patriarchal  one.  The  family  was 
a  reconstruction  of  the  former  primal  horde  and 
also  restored  a  great  part  of  their  former  rights 
to  the  fathers.  Now  there  were  patriarchs  again 
but  the  social  achievements  of  the  brother  clan 
had  not  been  given  up  and  the  actual  difference 
between  the  new  family  patriarchs  and  the  un- 
restricted primal  father  was  great  enough  to  in- 
sure the  continuation  of  the  religious  need,  the 
preservation  of  the  unsatisfied  longing  for  the 
father. 

The  father  therefore  really  appears  twice  in 
the  scene  of  sacrifice  before  the  tribal  god,  once 
as  the  god  and  again  as  the  totem-sacriflcial-ani- 
mal.  But  in  attempting  to  understand  this  sit- 
uation we  must  beware  of  interpretations  which 
superficially  seek  to  translate  it  as  an  allegory, 
and  which  forget'  the  historical  stages  in  the  pro- 
cess. The  twofold  presence  of  the  father  corre- 
sponds to  the  two  successive  meanings  of  the 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM     247 

scene.  The  ambivalent  attitude  towards  the 
father  as  well  as  the  victory  of  the  son's  tender 
emotional  feelings  over  his  hostile  ones,  have 
here  found  plastic  expression.  The  scene  of 
vanquishing  the  father,  his  greatest  degradation, 
furnishes  here  the  material  to  represent  his  high- 
est triumph.  The  meaning  which  sacrifice  has 
quite  generally  acquired  is  found  in  the  fact  that 
in  the  very  same  action  which  continues  the  mem- 
ory of  this  misdeed  it  offers  satisfaction  to  the 
father  for  the  ignominy  put  upon  him. 

In  the  further  development  the  animal  loses  its 
sacredness  and  the  sacrifice  its  relation  to  the 
celebration  of  the  totem;  the  rite  becomes  a  sim- 
ple offering  to  the  deity,  a  self -deprivation  in 
favor  of  the  god.  God  himself  is  now  so  exalted 
above  man  that  he  can  be  communicated  with 
only  through  a  priest  as  intermediary.  At  the 
same  time  the  social  order  produces  godlike  kings 
who  transfer  the  patriarchal  system  to  the  state. 
It  must  be  said  that  the  revenge  of  the  deposed 
and  reinstated  father  has  been  very  cruel ;  it  cul- 
minated in  the  dominance  of  authority.  The 
subjugated  sons  have  used  the  new  relation  to 
disburden  themselves  still  more  of  their  sense 
of  guilt.  Sacrifice,  as  it  is  now  constituted,  is 
entirely  beyond  their  responsibility.  God  him- 
self has  demanded  and  ordained  it.  Myths  in 
which  the  god  himself  kills  the  animal  that  is 

248  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

sacred  to  him,  which  he  himself  really  is,  belong 
to  this  phase.  This  is  the  greatest  possible  de- 
nial of  the  great  misdeed  with  which  society  and 
the  sense  of  guilt  began.  There  is  an  unmis- 
takable second  meaning  in  this  sacrificial  demon- 
stration. It  expresses  satisfaction  at  the  fact 
that  the  earlier  father  substitute  has  been  aban- 
doned in  favor  of  the  higher  conception  of  god. 
The  superficial  allegorical  translation  of  the 
scene  here  roughly  corresponds  with  its  psycho- 
analytic interpretation  by  saying  that  the  god 
is  represented  as  overcoming  the  animal  part  of 
his  nature.85 

But  it  would  be  erroneous  to  believe  that  in 
this  period  of  renewed  patriarchal  authority  the 
hostile  impulses  which  belong  to  the  father  com- 
plex had  entirely  subsided.  On  the  contrary, 
the  first  phases  in  the  domination  of  the  two  new 
substitutive  formations  for  the  father,  those  of 
gods  and  kings,  plainly  show  the  most  ener- 
getic expression  of  that  ambivalence  which  is 
characteristic  of  religion. 

ss  It  is  known  that  the  overcoming  of  one  generation  of  gods  by 
another  in  mythology  represents  the  historical  process  of  the  sub- 
stitution of  one  religious  system  by  another,  either  as  the  result 
of  conquest  by  a  strange  race  or  by  means  of  a  psychological 
development.  In  the  latter  case  the  myth  approaches  the 
"functional  phenomena"  in  H.  Silberer's  sense.  That  the  god 
who  kills  the  animal  is  a  symbol  of  the  libido,  as  asserted  by 
C.  G.  Jung  (1.  c),  presupposes  a  different  conception  of  the 
libido  from  that  hitherto  held,  and  at  any  rate  seems  to  me 
questionable. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM     249 

In  his  great  work,  "The  Golden  Bough," 
Frazer  has  expressed  the  conjecture  that  the  first 
kings  of  the  Latin  tribes  were  strangers  who 
played  the  part  of  a  deity  and  were  solemnly 
sacrificed  in  this  role  on  specified  holidays.  The 
yearly  sacrifice  (self-sacrifice  is  a  variant)  of  a 
god  seems  to  have  been  an  important  feature  of 
Semitic  religions.  The  ceremony  of  human  sac- 
rifice in  various  parts  of  the  inhabited  world 
makes  it  certain  that  these  human  beings  ended 
their  lives  as  representatives  of  the  deity.  This 
sacrificial  custom  can  still  be  traced  in  later  times 
in  the  substitution  of  an  inanimate  imitation 
(doll)  for  the  living  person.  The  theanthropic 
god  sacrifice  into  which  unfortunately  I  cannot 
enter  with  the  same  thoroughness  with  which  the 
animal  sacrifice  has  been  treated  throws  the  clear- 
est light  upon  the  meaning  of  the  older  forms  of 
sacrifice.  It  acknowledges  with  unsurpassable 
candor  that  the  object  of  the  sacrificial  action  has 
always  been  the  same,  being  identical  with  what 
is  now  revered  as  a  god,  namely  with  the  father. 
The  question  as  to  the  relation  of  animal  to 
human  sacrifice  can  now  be  easily  solved.  The 
original  animal  sacrifice  was  already  a  substitute 
for  a  human  sacrifice,  for  the  solemn  killing  of  the 
father,  and  when  the  father  substitute  regained 
its  human  form,  the  animal  substitute  could 
also  be  retransformed  into  a  human  sacrifice. 

250  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

Thus  the  memory  of  that  first  great  act  of 
sacrifice  had  proved  to  be  indestructible  despite 
all  attempts  to  forget  it,  and  just  at  the  moment 
when  men  strove  to  get  as  far  away  as  possible 
from  its  motives,  the  undistorted  repetition  of  it 
had  to  appear  in  the  form  of  the  god  sacrifice. 
I  need  not  fully  indicate  here  the  developments 
of  religious  thought  which  made  this  return  pos- 
sible in  the  form  of  rationalizations.  Robertson 
Smith  who  is,  of  course,  far  removed  from  the 
idea  of  tracing  sacrifice  back  to  this  great  event 
of  man's  primal  history,  says  that  the  ceremony 
of  the  festivals  in  which  the  old  Semites  cele- 
brated the  death  of  a  deity  were  interpreted  as 
a  "commemoration  of  a  mythical  tragedy"  and 
that  the  attendant  lament  was  not  characterized 
by  spontaneous  sympathy,  but  displayed  a  com- 
pulsive character,  something  that  was  imposed 
by  the  fear  of  a  divine  wrath.86  We  are  in  a 
position  to  acknowledge  that  this  interpretation 
was  correct,  the  feelings  of  the  celebrants  being 
well  explained  by  the  basic  situation. 

We  may  now  accept  it  as  a  fact  that  in  the 

86  "Religion  of  the  Semites,"  pp.  412-413.  "The  mourning  is 
not  a  spontaneous  expression  of  sympathy  with  the  divine  tragedy, 
but  obligatory  and  enforced  by  fear  of  supernatural  anger.  And 
a  chief  object  of  the  mourners  is  to  disclaim  responsibility  for  the 
god's  death — a  point  which  has  already  come  before  us  in  con- 
nection with  theanthropic  sacrifices,  such  as  the  'ox-murder  at 
Athens.' " 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      251 

further  development  of  religions  these  two  in- 
citing factors,  the  son's  sense  of  guilt  and  his 
defiance,  were  never  again  extinguished.  Every 
attempted  solution  of  the  religious  problem  and 
every  kind  of  reconciliation  of  the  two  opposing 
psychic  forces  gradually  falls  to  the  ground, 
probably  under  the  combined  influence  of  cul- 
tural changes,  historical  events,  and  inner  psychic 
transformations. 

The  endeavor  of  the  son  to  put  himself  in 
place  of  the  father  god,  appeared  with  greater 
and  greater  distinctness.  With  the  introduction 
of  agriculture  the  importance  of  the  son  in  the 
patriarchal  family  increased.  He  was  embold- 
ened to  give  new  expression  to  his  incestuous 
libido  which  found  symbolic  satisfaction  in  labor- 
ing over  mother  earth.  There  came  into  exist- 
ence  figures  of  gods  like  Attis,  Adonis,  Tammuz, 
and  others,  spirits  of  vegetation  as  well  as  youth-  *\ 
ful  divinities  who  enioved  the  favors  of  maternal 
deities  and  committed  incest  with  the  mother  in 
defiance  of  the  father.  But  the  sense  of  guilt 
which  was  not  allayed  through  these  creations, 
was  expressed  in  myths  which  visited  these  youth- 
ful lovers  of  the  maternal  goddesses  with  short 
life  and  punishment  through  castration  or 
through  the  wrath  of  the  father  god  appearing 
in  animal  form.     Adonis  was  killed  by  the  boar, 

252  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

the  sacred  animal  of  Aphrodite;  Attis,  the  lover 
of  Kybele,  died  of  castration.87  The  lamenta- 
tion for  these  gods  and  the  joy  at  their  resur- 
rection have  gone  over  into  the  ritual  of  another 
son  which  divinity  was  destined  to  survive  long. 

When  Christianity  began  its  entry  into  the 
ancient  world  it  met  with  the  competition  of  the 
religion  of  Mithras  and  for  a  long  time  it  was 
doubtful  which  deity  was  to  be  the  victor. 

The  bright  figure  of  the  youthful  Persian  god 
has  eluded  our  understanding.  Perhaps  we 
may  conclude  from  the  illustrations  of  Mithras 
slaying  the  steers  that  he  represented  the  son 
who  carried  out  the  sacrifice  of  the  father  by  him- 
self and  thus  released  the  brothers  from  their 
oppressing  complicity  in  the  deed.  There  was 
another  way  of  allaying  this  sense  of  guilt  and 
this  is  the  one  that  Christ  took.     He  sacrificed 

«7  The  fear  of  castration  plays  an  extraordinarily  big  role  in 
disturbing  the  relations  to  the  father  in  the  case  of  our  youthful 
neurotics.  In  Ferenczi's  excellent  study  we  have  seen  how  the 
boy  recognized  his  totem  in  the  animal  which  snaps  at  his  little 
penis.  When  children  learn  about  ritual  circumcision  they  iden- 
tify it  with  castration.  To  my  knowledge  the  parallel  in  the 
psychology  of  races  to  this  attitude  of  our  children  has  not  yet 
been  drawn.  The  circumcision  which  was  so  frequent  in  primor- 
dial times  among  primitive  races  belongs  to  the  period  of  initia- 
tion in  which  its  meaning  is  to  be  found;  it  has  only  secondarily 
been  relegated  to  an  earlier  time  of  life.  It  is  very  interesting 
that  among  primitive  men  circumcision  is  combined  with  or  re- 
placed by  the  cutting  off  of  the  hair  and  the  drawing  of  teeth, 
and  that  our  children,  who  cannot  know  anything  about  this, 
really  treat  these  two  operations  as  equivalents  to  castration  when 
they  display  their  fear  of  them. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      253 

his  own  life  and  thereby  redeemed  the  brothers 
from  primal  sin. 

The  theory  of  primal  sin  is  of  Orphic  origin; 
it  was  preserved  in  the  mysteries  and  thence 
penetrated  into  the  philosophic  schools  of  Greek 
antiquity.88  Men  were  the  descendants  of 
Titans,  who  had  killed  and  dismembered  the 
young  Dionysos-Zagreus;  the  weight  of  this 
crime  oppressed  them.  A  fragment  of  Anax- 
imander  says  that  the  unity  of  the  world  was 
destroyed  by  a  primordial  crime  and  everything 
that  issued  from  it  must  carry  on  the  punishment 
for  this  crime. S9  Although  the  features  of  band- 
ing together,  killing,  and  dismembering  as  ex- 
pressed in  the  deed  of  the  Titans  very  clearly 
recall  the  totem  sacrifice  described  by  St.  Nilus — 
as  also  many  other  myths  of  antiquity,  for  ex- 
ample, the  death  of  Orpheus  himself — we  are 
nevertheless  disturbed  here  by  the  variation  ac- 
cording to  which  a  youthful  god  was  murdered. 

In  the  Christian  myth  man's  original  sin  is 
undoubtedly  an  offense  against  God  the  Father, 
and  if  Christ  redeems  mankind  from  the  weight 
of  original  sin  by  sacrificing  his  own  life,  he 
forces  us  to  the  conclusion  that  this  sin  was 
murder.  According  to  the  law  of  retaliation 
which  is  deeply  rooted  in  human  feeling,  a  mur- 

ssReinach,  "Cultes,  Mythes,  et  Religions,"  II,  p.  75. 
89"Une  sorte  de  peche  proethnique,"  1.  c,  p.  76. 

254  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

der  can  be  atoned  only  by  the  sacrifice  of  another 
life;  the  self-sacrifice  points  to  a  blood-guilt.90 
And  if  this  sacrifice  of  one's  own  life  brings  about 
a  reconciliation  with  god,  the  father,  then  the 
crime  which  must  be  expiated  can  only  have  been 
the  murder  of  the  father. 

Thus  in  the  Christian  doctrine  mankind  most 
unreservedly  acknowledges  the  guilty  deed  of 
primordial  times  because  it  now  has  found  the 
most  complete  expiation  for  this  deed  in  the 
sacrificial  death  of  the  son.  The  reconciliation 
with  the  father  is  the  more  thorough  because 
simultaneously  with  this  sacrifice  there  follows 
the  complete  renunciation  of  woman,  for  whose 
sake  mankind  rebelled  against  the  father.  But 
now  also  the  psychological  fatality  of  ambival- 
ence demands  its  rights.  In  the  same  deed  which 
offers  the  greatest  possible  expiation  to  the 
father,  the  son  also  attains  the  goal  of  his  wishes 
against  the  father.  He  becomes  a  god  himself 
beside  or  rather  in  place  of  his  father.  The  re- 
ligion of  the  son  succeeds  the  religion  of  the 
father.  As  a  sign  of  this  substitution  the  old 
totem  feast  is  revived  again  in  the  form  of  com- 
munion in  which  the  band  of  brothers  now  eats 
the  flesh  and  blood  of  the  son  and  no  longer  that 
of  the  father,  the  sons  thereby  identifying  them- 

80  The  suicidal  impulses  of  our  neurotics  regularly  prove  to  be 
self-punishments  for  death  wishes  directed  against  others. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM     255 

• 

selves  with  him  and  becoming  holy  themselves. 
Thus  through  the  ages  we  see  the  identity  of  the 
totem  feast  with  the  animal  sacrifice,  the  thean- 
thropic  human  sacrifice,  and  the  Christian  euch- 
arist,  and  in  all  these  solemn  occasions  we  recog- 
nize the  after-effects  of  that  crime  which  so  op- 
pressed men  but  of  which  they  must  have  been  so 
proud.  At  bottom,  however,  the  Christian  com- 
munion is  a  new  setting  aside  of  the  father,  a  rep- 
etition of  the  crime  that  must  be  expiated.  We 
see  how  well  justified  is  Frazer's  dictum  that  "the 
Christian  communion  has  absorbed  within  itself 
a  sacrament  which  is  doubtless  far  older  than 
Christianity."  91 

7 

A  process  like  the  removal  of  the  primal  father 
by  the  band  of  brothers  must  have  left  ineradi- 
cable traces  in  the  history  of  mankind  and  must 
have  expressed  itself  the  more  frequently  in 
numerous  substitutive  formations  the  less  it  itself 
was  to  be  remembered.92     I   am  avoiding  the 

»i  "Eating  the  God,"  p.  51.  .  .  .  Nobody  familiar  with  the  litera- 
ture on  this  subject  will  assume  that  the  tracing  back  of  the 
Christian  communion  to  the  totem  feast  is  an  idea  of  the  author 
of  this  book. 

»2  Ariel  in  "The  Tempest": 

Full  fathom  five  thy  father  lies: 
Of  his  bones  are  coral  made; 
Those  are  pearls  that  were  his  eyes; 
Nothing  of  him  that  doth  fade 
But  doth  suffer  a  sea-change 
Into  something  rich  and  strange.  .  .  . 

256  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

temptation  of  pointing  out  these  traces  in  myth- 
ology, where  they  are  not  hard  to  find,  and  am 
turning  to  another  field  in  following  a  hint  of  S. 
Reinach  in  his  suggestive  treatment  of  the  death 
of  Orpheus.93 

There  is  a  situation  in  the  history  of  Greek  art 
which  is  strikingly  familiar  even  if  profoundly 
divergent,  to  the  scene  of  a  totem  feast  discov- 
ered by  Robertson  Smith.  It  is  the  situation  of 
the  oldest  Greek  tragedy.  A  group  of  persons, 
all  of  the  same  name  and  dressed  in  the  same 
way,  surround  a  single  figure  upon  whose  words 
and  actions  they  are  dependent,  to  represent  the 
chorus  and  the  original  single  impersonator  of 
the  hero.  Later  developments  created  a  second 
and  a  third  actor  in  order  to  represent  opponents 
in  playing,  and  off-shoots  of  the  hero,  but  the 
character  of  the  hero  as  well  as  his  relation  to 
the  chorus  remains  unchanged.  The  hero  of  the 
tragedy  had  to  suffer,  this  is  to-day  still  the  essen- 
tial content  of  a  tragedy.  He  had  taken  upon 
himself  the  so-called  "tragic  guilt,"  which  is  not 
always  easy  to  explain;  it  is  often  not  a  guilt  in 
the  ordinary  sense.  Almost  always  it  consisted 
of  a  rebellion  against  a  divine  or  human  authority 
and  the  chorus  accompanied  the  hero  with  their 
sympathies,  trying  to  restrain  and  warn  him,  and 

»3  La  Mort  d'Orphee,  "Cultes,  Mythes,  et  Religions,"  Vol.  II,  p. 
100. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM     257 

lamented  his  fate  after  he  had  met  with  what  was 
considered  fitting  punishment  for  his  daring 
attempt. 

,  But  why  did  the  hero  of  the  tragedy  have  to 
suffer,  and  what  was  the  meaning  of  his  "tragic" 
guilt?  We  will  cut  short  the  discussion  by  a 
prompt  answer.  He  had  to  suffer  because  he 
was  the  primal  father,  the  hero  of  that  primordial 
tragedy  the  repetition  of  which  here  serves  a  cer- 
tain tendency,  and  the  tragic  guilt  is  the  guilt 
which  he  had  to  take  upon  himself  in  order  to 
free  the  chorus  of  theirs.  The  scene  upon  the 
stage  came  into  being  through  purposive  distor- 
tion of  the  historical  scene  or,  one  is  tempted  to 
say,  it  was  the  result  of  refined  hypocrisy.  Ac- 
tualfy,  in  the  old  situation,  it  was  the  members 
of  the  chorus  themselves  who  had  caused  the  suf- 
fering of  the  hero;  here,  on  the  other  hand,  they 
exhaust  themselves  in  sympathy  and  regret,  and 
the  hero  himself  is  to  blame  for  his  suffering. 
The  crime  foisted  upon  him,  namely  presumption 
and  rebellion  against  a  great  authority,  is  the 
same  as  that  which  in  the  past  oppressed  the  col- 
leagues of  the  chorus,  namely,  the  band  of 
brothers.  Thus  the  tragic  hero,  though  still 
against  his  will,  is  made  the  redeemer  of  the 
chorus. 

When  one  bears  in  mind  the  suffering  of  the 
divine  goat  Dionysos  in  the  performance  of  the 

258  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

Greek  tragedy  and  the  lament  of  the  retinue  of 
goats  who  identified  themselves  with  him,  one  can 
easily  understand  how  the  almost  extinct  drama 
was  reviewed  in  the  Middle  Ages  in  the  Passion 
of^Christ. 

In  closing  this  study,  which  has  been  carried 
>out  in  extremely  condensed  form,  I  want  to  state 
f   the  conclusion  that  the  beginnings  of  religion, 
\     ethics,  society,  and  art  meet  in  the  Oedipus  com- 
\  jplex.     This  is  in  entire  accord  with  the  findings 
\of  psychoanalysis,  namely,  that  the  nucleus  of 
all  neuroses  as  far  as  our  present  knowledge  of 
them  goes  is  the  Oedipus  complex.     It  comes  as 
a  great  surprise  to  me  that  these  problems  of 
racial  psychology  can  also   be   solved  through 
a  single  concrete  instance,  such  as  the  relation 
to  the  father.     Perhaps  another  psychological 
problem  must  be  included  here.     We  have  so 
frequently  had  occasion  to  show  the  ambivalence 
of  emotions  in  its  real  sense,  that  is  to  say  the 
coincidence  of  love  and  hate  towards  the  same 
object,  at  the  root  of  important  cultural  forma- 
tions.    We  know  nothing  about  the  origin  of 
this  ambivalence.     It  may  be  assumed  to  be  a 
fundamental  phenomenon  of  our  emotional  life. 
But  the  other  possibility  seems  to  me  also  worthy 
of    consideration:  that    ambivalence,    originally 
foreign  to  our  emotional  life,  was  acquired  bjr 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      259 

mankind  from  the  father  complex,94  where  psy- 
choanalytic investigation  of  the  individual  to-day 
still  reveals  the  strongest  expression  of  it.85 

Before  closing  we  must  take  into  account  that 
the  remarkable  convergence  reached  in  these  il- 
lustrations, pointing  to  a  single  inclusive  rela- 
tion, ought  not  to  blind  us  to  the  uncertainties  of 
our  assumptions  and  to  the  difficulties  of  our  con- 
clusions. Of  these  difficulties  I  will  point  out 
only  two  which  must  have  forced  themselves 
upon  many  readers. 

In  the  first  place  it  can  hardly  have  escaped 
any  one  that  we  base  everything  upon  the  as- 
sumption of  a  psyche  of  the  mass  in  which 
psychic  processes  occur  as  in  the  psychic  life  of 
the  individual.  Moreover,  wre  let  the  sense  of 
guilt  for  a  deed  survive  for  thousands  of  years, 
remaining  effective  in  generations  which  could 
not  have  known  anything  of  this   deed.     We 

94  That  is  to  say,  the  parent  complex. 

95  I  am  used  to  being  misunderstood  and  therefore  do  not  think 
it  superfluous  to  state  clearly  that  in  giving  these  deductions  I 
am  by  no  means  oblivious  of  the  complex  nature  of  the  phenomena 
which  give  rise  to  them;  the  only  claim  made  is  that  a  new  factor 
has  been  added  to  the  already  known  or  still  unrecognized  origins 
of  religion,  morality,  and  society,  which  was  furnished  through 
psychoanalytic  experience.  The  synthesis  of  the  whole  explana- 
tion must  be  left  to  another.  But  it  is  in  the  nature  of  this  new 
contribution  that  it  could  play  none  other  than  the  central  rSJe 
in  such  a  synthesis,  although  it  will  be  necessary  to  overcome 
great  affective  resistances  before  such  importance  will  be  con 
ceded  to  it. 

260  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

allow  an  emotional  process  such  as  might  have 
arisen  among  generations  of  sons  that  had  been 
ill-treated  by  their  fathers,  to  continue  to  new 
generations  which  had  escaped  such  treatment  by 
the  very  removal  of  the  father.  These  seem  in- 
deed to  be  weighty  objections  and  any  other  ex- 
planation which  can  avoid  such  assumptions 
would  seem  to  merit  preference. 

But  further  consideration  shows  that  we  our- 
selves do  not  have  to  carry  the  whole  responsi- 
bility for  such  daring.  Without  the  assumption 
of  a  mass  psyche,  or  a  continuity  in  the  emo- 
tional life  of  mankind  which  permits  us  to  dis- 
regard the  interruptions  of  psychic  acts  through 
the  transgression  of  individuals,  social  psychol- 
ogy could  not  exist  at  all.  If  psychic  processes 
of  one  generation  did  not  continue  in  the  next, 
if  each  had  to  acquire  its  attitude  towards  life 
afresh,  there  would  be  no  progress  in  this  field 
and  almost  no  development.  We  are  now  con- 
fronted by  two  new  questions:  how  much  can  be 
attributed  to  this  psychic  continuity  within  the 
series  of  g  nerations,  and  what  ways  and  means 
does  a  generation  use  to  transfer  its  psychic 
states  to  the  next  generation?  I  do  not  claim 
that  these  problems  have  been  sufficiently  ex- 
plained or  that  direct  communication  and  tradi- 
tion, of  which  one  immediately  thinks,  are  ade- 
quate for  the  task.     Social  psychology  is  in  gen- 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      261 

eral  little  concerned  with  the  manner  in  which 
the  required  continuity  in  the  psychic  life  of 
succeeding  generations  is  established.  A  part 
of  the  task  seems  to  be  performed  by  the  inheri- 
tance of  psychic  dispositions  which,  however, 
need  certain  incentives  in  the  individual  life  in 
order  to  become  effective.  This  may  be  the 
meaning  of  the  poet's  words:  Strive  to  possess 
yourself  of  what  you  have  inherited  from  your 
ancestors.  The  problem  would  appear  more 
difficult  if  we  could  admit  that  there  are  psychic 
impulses  which  can  be  so  completely  suppressed 
that  they  leave  no  traces  whatsoever  behind  them. 
But  that  does  not  exist.  The  greatest  suppres- 
sion must  leave  room  for  distorted  substitutions 
and  their  resulting  reactions.  But  in  that  case 
we  may  assume  that  no  generation  is  capable  of 
concealing  its  more  important  psychic  processes 
from  the  next.  For  psychoanalysis  has  taught 
us  that  in  his  unconscious  psychic  activity  every 
person  possesses  an  apparatus  which  enables  him 
to  interpret  the  reactions  of  others,  that  is  to  say, 
to  straighten  out  the  distortions  which  the  other 
person  has  effected  in  the  expression,  fof  his  feel- 
ings. By  this  method  of  unconscious  under- 
standing of  all  customs,  ceremonies,  and  laws 
which  the  original  relation  to  the  primal  father 
had  left  behind,  later  generations  may  also  have 
succeeded  in  taking  over  this  legacy  of  feelings. 

262  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

There  is  another  objection  which  the  analytic 
method  of  thought  itself  might  raise. 

We  have  interpreted  the  first  rules  of  morality 
and  moral  restrictions  of  primitive  society  as  re- 
actions to  a  deed  which  gave  the  authors  of  it  the 
conception  of  crime.  They  regretted  this  deed 
and  decided  that  it  should  not  be  repeated  and 
that  its  execution  must  bring  no  gain.  This  cre- 
ative sense  of  guilt  has  not  become  extinct  with 
us.  We  find  its  asocial  effects  in  neurotics  pro- 
ducing new  rules  of  morality  and  continued 
restrictions,  in  expiation  for  misdeeds  committed, 
or  as  precautions  against  misdeeds  to  be  com- 
mitted.96 But  when  we  examine  these  neurotics 
for  the  deeds  which  have  called  forth  such  reac- 
tions, we  are  disappointed.  We  do  not  find 
deeds,  but  only  impulses  and  feelings  which 
sought  evil  but  which  were  restrained  from  car- 
rying it  out.  Only  psychic  realities  and  not 
actual  ones  are  at  the  basis  of  the  neurotics,'  sense 
of  guilt.  It  is  characteristic  of  the  neurosis  to 
put  a  psychic  reality  above  an  actual  one  and  to 
react  as  seriously  to  thoughts  as  the  normal  per- 
son reacts  only  towards  realities. 

May  it  not  be  true  that  the  case  was  somewhat 
the  same  with  primitive  men?  We  are  justified 
in  ascribing  to  them  an  extraordinary  over-valu- 
ation of  their  psychic  acts  as  a  partial  manifesta- 

96  Compare  Chapter  II. 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM      263 

tion  of  their  narcistic  organization.97  According 
to  this  the  mere  impulses  of  hostility  towards  the 
father  and  the  existence  of  the  wish  phantasy  to 
kill  and  devour  him  may  have  sufficed  to  bring 
about  the  moral  reaction  which  has  created  totem- 
ism  and  taboo.  We  should  thus  escape  the  ne- 
cessity of  tracing  back  the  beginning  of  our  cul- 
tural possession,  of  which  we  rightly  are  so  proud, 
to  a  horrible  crime  which  wounds  all  our  feelings. 
The  causal  connection,  which  stretches  from  that 
beginning  to  the  present  time,  would  not  be  im- 
paired, for  the  psychic  reality  would  be  of  suffi- 
cient importance  to  account  for  all  these  conse- 
quences. It  may  be  agreed  that  a  change  has 
really  taken  place  in  the  form  of  society  from 
the  father  horde  to  the  brother  clan.  This  is  a 
strong  argument,  but  it  is  not  conclusive.  The 
change  might  have  been  accomplished  in  a  less 
violent  manner  and  still  have  conditioned  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  moral  reaction.  As  long  as  the 
pressure  of  the  primal  father  was  felt  the  hostile 
feelings  against  him  were  justified  and  repent- 
ance at  these  feelings  had  to  wait  for  another  op- 
portunity. Of  as  little  validity  is  the  second  ob- 
jection, that  everything  derived  from  the  ambiva- 
lent relation  to  the  father,  namely  taboos,  and 
rules  of  sacrifice,  is  characterized  by  the  highest 
seriousness  and  by  complete  reality.     The  cere- 

»7  See  Chapter  III. 

264  TOTEM  AND  TABOO 

inonials  and  inhibitions  of  compulsion  neurotics 
exhibit  this  characteristic  too  and  yet  they  go  back 
to  a  merely  psychic  reality,  to  resolution  and  not 
to  execution.  We  must  beware  of  introducing 
the  contempt  for  what  is  merely  thought  or 
wished  which  characterizes  our  sober  world  where 
there  are  only  material  values,  into  the  world  of 
primitive  man  and  the  neurotic,  which  is  full  of 
inner  riches  only. 

We  face  a  decision  here  which  is  reallv  not 
easy.  But  let  us  begin  by  acknowledging  that 
the  difference  which  may  seem  fundamental  to 
others  does  not,  in  our  judgment,  touch  the  most 
important  part  of  the  subject.  If  wishes  and 
impulses  have  the  full  value  of  fact  for  primitive 
man,  it  is  for  us  to  follow  such  a  conception  in- 
telligently instead  of  correcting  it  according  to 
our  standard.  But  in  that  case  we  must  scruti- 
nize more  closely  the  prototype  of  the  neurosis 
itself  which  is  responsible  for  having  raised  this 
doubt.  It  is  not  true  that  compulsion  neurotics, 
who  to-day  are  under  the  pressure  of  over-moral- 
ity, defend  themselves  only  against  the  psychic 
reality  of  temptations  and  punish  themselves  for 
impulses  which  they  have  only  felt.  A  piece  of 
historic  reality  is  also  involved ;  in  their  childhood 
these  persons  had  nothing  but  evil  impulses  and 
as  far  as  their  childish  impotence  permitted  they 
put  them  into  action.     Each  of  these  over-good 

INFANTILE  RECURRENCE  OF  TOTEMISM     265 

persons  had  a  period  of  badness  in  his  childhood, 
and  a  perverse  phase  as  a  fore-runner  and  a 
premise  of  the  later  over  morality.  The  anal- 
ogy between  primitive  men  and  neurotics  is  there- 
fore much  more  fundamentally  established  if  we 
assume  that  with  the  former,  too,  the  psychic  real- 
ity, concerning  whose  structure  there  is  no  doubt, 
originally  coincided  with  the  actual  reality,  and 
that  primitive  men  really  did  what  according  to 
all  testimony  they  intended  to  do. 

But  we  must  not  let  our  judgment  about  prim- 
itive men  be  influenced  too  far  by  the  analogy 
with  neurotics.  Differences  must  also  be  taken 
into  account.  Of  course  the  sharp  division  be- 
tween thinking  and  doing  as  we  draw  it  does  not 
exist  either  with  savages  or  with  neurotics.  But 
the  neurotic  is  above  all  inhibited  in  his  actions, 
with  him  the  thought  is  a  complete  substitute  for 
the  deed.  Primitive  man  is  not  inhibited,  the 
thought  is  directly  converted  into  the  deed,  the 
deed  is  for  him  so  to  speak  rather  a  substitute  for 
the  thought,  and  for  that  reason  I  think  we  may 
well  assume  in  the  case  we  are  discussing,  though 
without  vouching  for  the  absolute  certainty  of 
the  decision,  that,  "In  the  beginning  was  the 
deed." 

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