Freud - Complete Works (459 page)

   I am under no illusion that in
putting forward these attempted explanations I am laying myself
open to the charge of endowing modern savages with a subtlety in
their mental activities which exceeds all probability. It seems to
me quite possible, however, that the same may be true of our
attitude towards the psychology of those races that have remained
at the animistic level as is true of our attitude towards the
mental life of children, which we adults no longer understand and
whose fullness and delicacy of feeling we have in consequence so
greatly underestimated.

   One further group of taboo
observances, which have not hitherto been accounted for, deserve
mention, since they admit of an explanation which is familiar to
psycho-analysts. Among many savage peoples there is a prohibition
against keeping sharp weapons or cutting instruments in a house.
Frazer (1911
b
, 238) quotes a German superstition to the
effect that a knife should not be left edge upwards, for fear that
God and the angels might be injured on it. May we not recognize in
this taboo a premonitory warning against possible
‘symptomatic acts’ in the execution of which a sharp
weapon might be employed by unconscious evil impulses?

Totem And Taboo

2741

IV

THE
RETURN OF TOTEMISM IN CHILDHOOD

There are no grounds for fearing that
psycho-analysis, which first discovered that psychical acts and
structures are invariably overdetermined, will be tempted to trace
the origin of anything so complicated as religion to a single
source. If psycho-analysis is compelled - and is, indeed, in duty
bound - to lay all the emphasis upon one particular source, that
does not mean it is claiming either that that source is the only
one or that it occupies first place among the numerous contributory
factors. Only when we can synthesize the findings in the different
fields of research will it become possible to arrive at the
relative importance of the part played in the genesis of religion
by the mechanism discussed in these pages. Such a task lies beyond
the means as well as beyond the purposes of a psycho-analyst.

(1)

   In the first of this series of
essays we became acquainted with the concept of totemism. We heard
that totemism is a system which takes the place of a religion among
certain primitive peoples of Australia, America and Africa, and
provides the basis of their social organization. As we have heard,
it was a Scotsman, McLennan, who in 1869 first drew general
attention to the phenomena of totemism (which had hitherto been
regarded as mere curiosities) by giving voice to a suspicion that a
large number of customs and usages current in various societies
ancient and modern were to be explained as remnants of a totemic
age. Since that date science has fully accepted his estimate of
totemism. Let me quote, as one of the most recent statements on the
subject, a passage from Wundt’s
Elemente der
Völkerpsychologie
(1912, 139): ‘In the light of all
these facts, the conclusion appears highly probable that at some
time totemic culture everywhere paved the way for a more advanced
civilization, and, thus, that it represents a transitional stage
between the age of primitive men and the era of heroes and
gods.’

Totem And Taboo

2742

   The purpose of the present essays
obliges us to enter more deeply into the nature of totemism. For
reasons which will presently become clear I will begin with an
account given by Reinach, who, in 1900,¹ sketched out a
‘
Code du totémisme
’ in twelve Articles -
a catechism, as it were, of the totemic religion:

   (1) Certain animals may neither
be killed nor eaten, but individual members of the species are
reared by human beings and cared for by them.

   (2) An animal which has died an
accidental death is mourned over and buried with the same honours
as a member of the clan.

   (3) In some instances the eating
prohibition extends only to one particular part of the
animal’s body.

   (4) When one of the animals which
are usually spared has to be killed under the stress of necessity,
apologies are offered to it and an attempt is made by means of
various artifices and evasions to mitigate the violation of the
taboo - that is to say, the murder.

   (5) When the animal is made the
victim of a ritual sacrifice, it is solemnly bewailed.

   (6) On particular solemn
occasions and at religious ceremonies the skins of certain animals
are worn. Where totemism is still in force, they are the totem
animals.

   (7) Clans and individuals adopt
the names of animals - viz. of the totem animals.

   (8) Many clans make use of
representations of animals on their standards and weapons; the men
have pictures of animals painted or tattooed on their bodies.

   (9) If the totem is a formidable
or dangerous animal, it is supposed to spare members of the clan
named after it.

   (10) The totem animal protects
and gives warning to members of its clan.

   (11) The totem animal foretells
the future to the loyal members of its clan and serves them as
guide.

   (12) The members of the totemic
clan often believe that they are related to the totem animal by the
bond of a common ancestry.

   This catechism of the totemic
religion can only be seen at its proper value if we take into
account the fact that Reinach has included in it all the
indications and traces from which the earlier existence of a
totemic system can be inferred. The author’s peculiar
attitude to the problem is shown by his partial neglect of the
essential features of totemism. As we shall see, he has relegated
one of the two principal articles of the totemic catechism to the
background and entirely overlooked the other.

  
¹
Cf. Reinach (1905-12,
1
, 17
ff.).

Totem And Taboo

2743

   To obtain a correct picture of
the nature of totemism we must turn to another author, who has
devoted a four-volume work to the subject, which combines the
fullest collection of the relevant observations with the most
detailed discussion of the problems they raise. We shall remain
indebted to J. G. Frazer, the author of
Totemism and Exogamy
(1910), both for enjoyment and instruction, even if psycho-analytic
research may lead to conclusions which differ widely from
his.¹

  
¹
It may be as well, however, to warn the
reader, in advance, of the difficulties with which any statements
on the subject have to contend.

   In
the first place, those who collect the observations are not the
same as those who examine and discuss them. The former are
travellers and missionaries while the latter are students who may
never have set eyes on the objects of their researches. Again,
communication with savages is not an easy matter. The observers are
not always acquainted with the native language but may be obliged
to rely on the help of interpreters or to conduct their inquiries
through the medium of pidgin-English. Savages are not communicative
on the subject of the most intimate details of their cultural life
and they talk openly only to those foreigners who have lived among
them for many years. They often give false or misleading
information for a great variety of motives. (Cf. Frazer, 1910,
1
, 150 f.) It should not be forgotten that primitive races
are not young races but are in fact as old as civilized races.
There is no reason to suppose that, for the benefit of our
information, they have retained their original ideas and
institutions undeveloped and undistorted. On the contrary, it is
certain that there have been profound changes in every direction
among primitive races, so that it is never possible to decide
without hesitation how far their present-day conditions and
opinions preserve the primaeval past in a petrified form and how
far they are distortions and modifications of it. Hence arise the
all-too-frequent disputes among the authorities as to which
characteristics of a primitive civilization are to be regarded as
primary and as to which are later and secondary developments. The
determination of the original state of things thus invariably
remains a matter of construction. Finally, it is not easy to feel
one’s way into primitive modes of thinking. We misunderstand
primitive men just as easily as we do children, and we are always
apt to interpret their actions and feelings according to our own
mental constellations.

Totem And Taboo

2744

   ‘A totem’, wrote
Frazer in his first essay on the subject,¹ ‘is a class
of material objects which a savage regards with superstitious
respect, believing that there exists between him and every member
of the class an intimate and altogether special
relation . . . The connection between a man and his
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 fetish, 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. . . .

   ‘Totems are of at least
three kinds: (1) the clan totem, common to a whole clan, and
passing by inheritance from generation to generation; (2) the sex
totem, common either to all the males or to all the females of a
tribe, to the exclusion in either case of the other sex; (3) the
individual totem, belonging to a single individual and not passing
to his descendants. . . .’

   The last two kinds of totem do
not compare in significance with the clan totem. Unless we are
quite mistaken, they are late developments and of little importance
for the essential nature of the totem.

   ‘The clan totem is
reverenced by a body of men and women who call themselves by the
name of the totem, believe themselves to be of one blood,
descendants of a common ancestor, and are bound together by common
obligations to each other and by a common faith in the totem.
Totemism is thus both a religious and a social system. In its
religious aspect it consists of the relations of mutual respect and
protection between a man and his totem; in its social aspect it
consists of the relations of the clansmen to each other and to men
of other clans. In the later history of totemism these two sides,
the religious and the social, tend to part company; the social
system sometimes survives the religious; and, on the other hand,
religion sometimes bears traces of totemism in countries where the
social system based on totemism has disappeared. How in the origin
of totemism these two sides were related to each other it is, in
our ignorance of that origin, impossible to say with certainty. But
on the whole the evidence points strongly to the conclusion that
the two sides were originally inseparable; that, in other words,
the farther we go back, the more we should find that the clansman
regards himself and his totem as beings of the same species, and
the less he distinguishes between conduct towards his totem and
towards his fellow-clansmen.’

  
¹
Totemism
, Edinburgh, 1887, reprinted
in Frazer (1910,
1
, 3 ff.).

Totem And Taboo

2745

   In giving particulars of totemism
as a religious system, Frazer begins by stating that the members of
a totem clan call themselves by the name of their totem, and
commonly believe themselves to be actually descended from
it
. It follows from this belief that they will not hunt the
totem animal or kill or eat it and, if it is something other than
an animal, they refrain from making use of it in other ways. The
rules against killing or eating the totem are not the only taboos;
sometimes they are forbidden to touch it, or even to look at it; in
a number of cases the totem may not be spoken of by its proper
name. Any violation of the taboos that protect the totem are
automatically punished by severe illness or death.¹

   Specimens of the totem animal are
occasionally reared by the clan and cared for in captivity.² A
totem animal that is found dead is mourned for and buried like a
dead clansman. If it is necessary to kill a totem animal, this is
done according to a prescribed ritual of apologies and ceremonies
of expiation.

   The clan expects to receive
protection and care from its totem. If it is a dangerous animal
(such as a beast of prey or a venomous snake) there is a
presumption that it will do no harm to its clansmen; and if that
expectation is not fulfilled the injured man is expelled from the
clan. Oaths, in Frazer’s opinion, were originally ordeals;
thus, many tests of descent and legitimacy were submitted for
decision to the totem. The totem gives help in sickness and
delivers omens and warnings to its clan. The appearance of the
totem in or about a house is often regarded as an omen of death;
the totem has come to fetch his kinsman.³

  
¹
Cf. my earlier essay on taboo.

  
²
As is done to this day with the she-wolf in
her cage beside the steps leading up to the Capitol in Rome and
with the bears in their den at Berne.

  
³
Like the White Lady in certain aristocratic
families.

Totem And Taboo

2746

   In particular important
circumstances the clansman seeks to emphasize his kinship with the
totem by making himself resemble it externally, by dressing in the
skin of the animal, by incising a picture of the totem upon his own
body, and so on. This identification with the totem is carried into
effect in actions and words on the ceremonial occasions of birth,
initiation and burial. Various magical and religious purposes are
served by dances in which all the clansmen disguise themselves as
their totem and imitate its behaviour. Lastly, there are ceremonies
in which the totem animal is ceremoniously killed.¹

   The social aspect of totemism is
principally expressed in a severely enforced injunction and a
sweeping restriction.

   The members of a totem clan are
brothers and sisters and are bound to help and protect one another.
If a member of a clan is killed by someone outside it, the whole
clan of the aggressor is responsible for the deed and the whole
clan of the murdered man is at one in demanding satisfaction for
the blood that has been shed. The totem bond is stronger than that
of the family in our sense. The two do not coincide, since the
totem is as a rule inherited through the female line, and it is
possible that paternal descent may originally have been left
entirely out of account.