Freud - Complete Works (460 page)

   The corresponding taboo
restriction prohibits members of the same totem clan from marrying
or having sexual intercourse with each other. Here we have the
notorious and mysterious correlate of totemism - exogamy. I have
devoted the whole of the first essay in the present work to that
subject, so that here I need only repeat that it originates from
the intensification among savages of the horror of incest, that it
would be fully explained as an assurance against incest under
conditions of group marriage, and that it is primarily aimed at
restraining the
younger
generation from incest and that only
as a later development does it interfere with the older
generation.

  
¹
Frazer (1910,
1
, 45). See my
discussion of sacrifice below.

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2747

   To Frazer’s account of
totemism - one of the earliest in the literature of the subject - I
will add a few extracts from one of the most recent ones. In his
Elemente der Völkerpsychologie
, Wundt (1912, 116 ff.)
writes as follows: ‘The totem animal is also usually regarded
as the ancestral animal of the group in question. "Totem"
is, on the one hand a group name, and, on the other, a name
indicative of ancestry. In the latter connection it has also a
mythological significance. These various ideas, however, interplay
in numerous ways. Some of the meanings may recede, so that totems
have frequently become a mere nomenclature of tribal divisions,
while at other times the idea of ancestry, or, perhaps also, the
cult significance, predominates. . . .’ The
concept of the totem has a decisive influence upon tribal division
and tribal organization, which are subject to certain norms of
custom. ‘These norms, and their fixed place in the beliefs
and feelings of the tribal members, are connected with the fact
that originally, at all events, the totem animal was regarded, for
the most part, as having not merely given its name to a group of
tribal members but as having actually been its fore
father. . . . Bound up with this is the further fact
that these animal ancestors possessed a cult. . . .
Aside from specific ceremonies and ceremonial festivals, this
animal cult originally found expression primarily in the relations
maintained towards the totem animal. It was not merely a particular
animal that was to a certain extent held sacred, but every
representative of the species. The totem members were forbidden to
eat the flesh of the totem animal, or were allowed to do so only
under specific conditions. A significant counter-phenomenon, not
irreconcilable with this, is the fact that on certain occasions the
eating of the totem flesh constituted a sort of
ceremony. . . .’

   ‘. . . The
most important social aspect of this totemic tribal organization,
however, consists in the fact that it involved certain norms of
custom regulating the intercourse of the separate groups with one
another. Of these norms, those governing marriage relations were of
first importance. The tribal organization of this period was bound
up with an important institution,
exogamy
, which originated
in the totemic age.’

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2748

   If we seek to penetrate to the
original nature of totemism, without regard to subsequent
accretions or attenuations, we find that its essential
characteristics are these:
Originally, all totems were animals,
and were regarded as the ancestors of the different clans. Totems
were inherited only through the female line. There was a
prohibition against killing the totem
(or - which, under
primitive conditions, is the same thing - against eating it).
Members of a totem clan were forbidden to practise sexual
intercourse with one another
.¹

   We shall now, perhaps, be struck
by the fact that in Reinach’s
Code du totémisme
one of the two principal taboos, that of exogamy, is not mentioned
at all, while the belief upon which the second one is founded,
namely descent from the totem animal, is only referred to in
passing. My reason, however, for selecting the account given by
Reinach (a writer, incidentally, who has made very valuable
contributions to the subject) was to prepare us for the differences
of opinion between the authorities - differences into which we must
now enter.

  
¹
The picture of totemism given by Frazer in
his second work on it (‘The Origin of Totemism’,
published in the
Fortnightly Revue
in 1899) agrees with what
I have written above: ‘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.’ Frazer then proceeds
(thus plunging us into the middle of the controversies on
totemism): ‘Whether the two sides - the religious and the
social - have always co-existed or are essentially independent, is
a question which has been variously answered.’

Totem And Taboo

2749

(2)

   The more incontestable became the
conclusion that totemism constitutes a regular phase in all
cultures, the more urgent became the need for arriving at an
understanding of it and for throwing light upon the puzzle of its
essential nature. Everything connected with totemism seems to be
puzzling: the decisive problems concern the origin of the idea of
descent from the totem and the reasons for exogamy (or rather for
the taboo upon incest of which exogamy is the expression), as well
as the relation between these two institutions, totemic
organization and prohibition of incest. Any satisfactory
explanation should be at once a historical and a psychological one.
It should tell us under what conditions this peculiar institution
developed and to what psychical needs in men it has given
expression.

   My readers will, I am sure, be
astonished to hear of the variety of angles from which attempts
have been made to answer these questions, and of the wide
divergences of opinion upon them put forward by the experts. Almost
any generalization that could be made on the subject of totemism
and exogamy seems open to question. Even the account that I have
just given, derived from the book published by Frazer in 1887, is
open to the criticism that it expresses the present writer’s
arbitrary preferences; and indeed it would be contested to-day by
Frazer himself, who has repeatedly changed his opinions on the
subject.¹

  
¹
He makes the following admirable comment
upon such changes of opinion: ‘That my conclusions on these
difficult questions 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
candid inquirer should shift his colours with the shifting colours
of the ground he treads.’ (Frazer, 1910,
1
,
xiii.)

Totem And Taboo

2750

   It is plausible to suppose that
an understanding of the essential nature of totemism and exogamy
would best be arrived at, if it were possible to come nearer to the
origins of the two institutions. But in this connection we must
bear in mind Andrew Lang’s warning that even primitive
peoples have not retained the original forms of those institutions
nor the conditions which gave rise to them; so that we have nothing
whatever but hypotheses to fall back upon as a substitute for the
observations which we are without.¹ Some of the attempted
explanations seem, in the judgement of a psychologist, inadequate
at the very outset: they are too rational and take no account of
the emotional character of the matters to be explained. Others are
based on assumptions which are unconfirmed by observation. Yet
others rely upon material which would be better interpreted in
another way. There is generally little difficulty in refuting the
various views put forward: the authorities are as usual more
effective in their criticisms of one another’s work than in
their own productions. The conclusion upon most of the points
raised must be a
non liquet
. It is not surprising,
therefore, that in the most recent literature on the subject (which
is for the most part passed over in the present work) an
unmistakable tendency emerges to reject any general solution of
totemic problems as impracticable. (See, for instance,
Goldenweiser, 1910.) In the discussion of these conflicting
hypotheses which follows, I have ventured to disregard their
chronological sequence.

(
a
)
THE ORIGIN OF
TOTEMISM

   The question of the origin of
totemism may be put in another way: how did it come about that
primitive men called themselves (and their clans) after animals,
plants and inanimate objects?²

   McLennan (1865 and 1869-70), the
Scot who discovered totemism and exogamy for the world of science,
refrained from publishing any opinion on the origin of totemism.
According to Andrew Lang (1905, 34) he was at one time inclined to
think that it originated from the custom of tattooing. I propose to
divide the published theories on the origin of totemism into three
groups - (
α
)
the nominalist, (
β
)
the sociological and (
γ
)
the psychological.

  
¹
‘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.’ (Lang, 1905, 27.) ‘Nowhere do we
see absolutely
primitive
man, and a totemic system in the
making.’ (Ibid., 29.)

  
²
In the first instance probably after
animals only.

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2751

(
α
)
Nominalist Theories

   My accounts of these theories
will justify my having brought them together under the title I have
adopted.

   Garcilasso de la Vega, a
descendant of the Peruvian Incas, who wrote a history of his people
in the seventeenth century, seems already to have attributed the
origin of what he knew of totemic phenomena to the need felt by
clans to distinguish themselves from one another by the use of
names. (Lang, 1905, 34.) Hundreds of years later the same idea was
again proposed. Keane¹ regards totems as ‘heraldic
badges’ by means of which individuals, families and clans
sought to distinguish themselves from one another. The same idea is
expressed once more by Max-Müller (1897):² ‘A totem
is a clan mark, then a clan name, then the name of the ancestor of
a clan, and lastly the name of something worshipped by a
clan.’ Julius Pikler,³ writing later, declares:
‘Mankind required both for communities and for individuals a
permanent name which could be fixed in
writing. . . . Thus totemism did not arise from the
religious needs of men but from their practical, everyday needs.
The core of totemism, nomenclature, is a result of the primitive
technique of writing. In its nature a totem is like an easily drawn
pictograph. But when once savages bore the name of an animal, they
went on to form the idea of kinship with it.’

   In the same way, Herbert Spencer
(1870 and 1893, 331-46) regards the giving of names as the decisive
factor in the origin of totemism. The personal characteristics of
particular individuals, he argues, prompted the idea of calling
them after animals, and in that way they acquired laudatory names
or nicknames which were handed on to their descendants. As a result
of the vagueness and unintelligibility of primitive speech, later
generations interpreted these names as evidence of descent from the
actual animals. Totemism would thus be shown to be a misunderstood
form of ancestor worship.

  
¹
Quoted by Lang.

  
²
Quoted by Lang.

  
³
Pikler and Somló. These authors
justly describe their attempted explanation of the origin of
totemism as ‘a contribution to the materialist theory of
history’.

Totem And Taboo

2752

   Lord Avebury (better known under
his earlier name of Sir John Lubbock) gives a very similar account
of the origin of totemism, though without insisting upon the
element of misunderstanding. If, he says, we wish to explain
animal-worship, 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 turned
his name into a clan-name. Thence it came about that the animal
itself would come to be regarded ‘first with interest, then
with respect and at length with a sort of awe’.

   What would seem to be an
incontrovertible objection to this derivation of totem names from
the names of individuals was brought forward by Fison.¹ He
showed from conditions in Australia that the totem is invariably
‘the badge of a group, not of an individual’. But even
if this were not so, and the totem was originally the name of an
individual, it could never - since totems are inherited through the
female line - be transmitted to his children.