Freud - Complete Works (461 page)

   Moreover, the theories which I
have so far discussed are obviously inadequate. They might perhaps
explain the fact that primitive peoples adopt animal names for
their clans, but they could never explain the importance that has
become attached to this nomenclature - namely, the totemic system.
The theory belonging to this group which most deserves attention is
that proposed by Andrew Lang (1903 and 1905). He, too, regards the
giving of names as the heart of the problem, but he introduces two
interesting psychological factors and may thus claim to have led
the way towards the final solution of the enigma of totemism.

   Andrew Lang regards it as
initially a matter of indifference how clans obtained their animal
names. It is only necessary to assume that they awoke one day to
the consciousness that they bore such names and could give no
account of how this had come about.
The origin of the names had
been forgotten
. They would then attempt to arrive at an
explanation by speculating on the subject; and, in view of their
belief in the importance of names, they were bound to reach all the
ideas contained in the totemic system. Primitive races (as well as
modern savages and even our own children²) do not, like us,
regard names as something indifferent and conventional, but as
significant and essential. A man’s name is a principal
component of his personality, perhaps even a portion of his soul.
The fact of a primitive man bearing the same name as an animal must
lead him to assume the existence of a mysterious and significant
bond between himself and that particular species of animal. What
other bond could it be than one of blood relationship? Once the
similarity of names had led to this conclusion, the blood taboo
would immediately involve all the totemic ordinances, 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 - was needed to give rise to all
the totemic creeds and practices, including exogamy.’ (Lang,
1905, 125 f.)

  
¹
Fison and Howitt (1880, 165), quoted by
Lang (1905).

  
²
See the discussion of taboo above,
p. 2699 ff.

Totem And Taboo

2753

   Lang’s explanation falls
into two parts. One part of it traces the totemic system as a
matter of psychological necessity from the fact of the totems
having animal names - always presupposing that the origin of these
names had been forgotten. The second part of his theory goes on to
try to explain how the names in fact originated; as we shall see,
it is of a very different character from the first part.

   This second part of Lang’s
theory differs in no essential way from the other theories which I
have called ‘nominalist’. The practical necessity for
differentiation compelled the various clans to adopt names, and
they therefore acquiesced in the names by which each clan was
called by another clan. This ‘naming from without’ is
the special feature of Lang’s construction. The fact that the
names adopted in this way were borrowed from animals needs no
special comment and there is no reason why they should have been
regarded in primitive times as insulting or derisive. Moreover,
Lang has adduced not a few instances from later historical times in
which names that were originally given in derision by outsiders
have been accepted and willingly adopted (e.g. ‘
Les
Gueux
’, ‘Whigs’ and ‘Tories’).
The hypothesis that in the course of time the origin of these names
was forgotten connects this part of Lang’s theory with the
other part which I have already discussed.

Totem And Taboo

2754

(
β
)
Sociological Theories

   Reinach, who has been successful
in tracing survivals of the totemic system in the cults and usages
of later periods but who has always attached small importance to
the factor of descent from the totem, remarks confidently in one
passage that in his opinion totemism is nothing more than
‘
un hypertrophie de l’instinct social
’.
(Reinach, 1905-12,
1
, 41.) A similar view seems to run
through the recent book by Durkheim (1912). The totem, he argues,
is the visible representative of social religion among the races
concerned: it embodies the community, which is the true object of
their worship.

   Other writers have sought to find
a more precise basis for the participation of the social instincts
in the formation of totemic institutions. Thus Haddon (1902)¹
supposes that each primitive clan originally subsisted upon some
one species of animal or plant and perhaps traded in that
particular article of food and exchanged it with other clans. It
would inevitably follow that this clan would be known to the others
by the name of the animal which was of such importance to it. At
the same time the clan would be bound to become especially familiar
with the animal and develop a peculiar interest in it, though this
would be founded on no psychical motive other than the most
elementary and urgent of human needs, that is, on hunger.

   Against this most
‘rational’ of all the theories of totemism it has been
objected that feeding conditions of this kind are never found among
primitive races and have probably never existed. Savages are
omnivorous, and the more so the lower their condition. Nor is it
easy to see how an exclusive diet such as this could have developed
into an almost religious attitude to the totem, culminating in
absolute abstention from the favourite food.

  
¹
Quoted by Frazer (1910,
4
,
50).

Totem And Taboo

2755

   The first of the three theories
on the origin of totemism which Frazer himself has supported at
different times was a psychological one, and I shall deal with it
later. His second theory, with which we are here concerned, took
form under the influence of a momentous publication by two men who
had made researches among the natives of Central Australia.

   Spencer and Gillen (1899)
described a number of peculiar observances, usages and beliefs
found in a group of tribes known as the Arunta nation; and Frazer
agreed with their opinion that these peculiarities were to be
regarded as features of a primitive condition of things and might
throw light upon the original and true meaning of totemism.

   The peculiarities found in the
Arunta tribe (a portion of the Arunta nation) are as follows:

   (1) The Arunta are divided into
totem clans, but the totem is not hereditary but determined for
each individual in a manner to be described presently.

   (2) The totem clans are not
exogamous; but the restrictions upon marriage are based upon a
highly developed division into marriage-classes, which have no
connection with the totem.

   (3) The function of the totem
clans lies in their performing a ceremony which has as its aim the
multiplication of the edible totem object by a characteristically
magical method. (This ceremony is known as
intichiuma
.)

   (4) The Arunta have a peculiar
theory of conception and reincarnation. They believe that there are
places scattered over the country at each of which the spirits of
the dead of some one totem await reincarnation and enter the body
of any woman who passes by the spot. When a child is born, the
mother reports at which of these places she thinks it was
conceived, and the child’s totem is determined accordingly.
It is further believed that the spirits (both of the dead and of
the reborn) are intimately associated with certain peculiar stone
amulets, known as
churinga
, which are found at these same
centres.

   Two factors seem to have led
Frazer to suppose that the observances among the Arunta constitute
the oldest form of totemism. First, there was the existence of
certain myths which declared that the ancestors of the Arunta
regularly ate their totem and always married women of their own
totem. Secondly, there was the apparent disregard of the sexual act
in their theory of conception. People who had not yet discovered
that conception is the result of sexual intercourse might surely be
regarded as the most backward and primitive of living men.

Totem And Taboo

2756

   By focusing his judgement of
totemism upon the
intichiuma
ceremony, Frazer came all at
once to see the totemic system in an entirely new light: as a
purely practical organization for meeting the most natural of human
needs. (Cf. Haddon’s theory above.)¹ The system was
simply an example upon a large scale of ‘co-operative
magic’. Primitive men set up what might be described as a
magical producers’ and consumers’ union. Each totem
clan undertook the business of guaranteeing the plentiful supply of
one particular article of food. Where non-edible totems were
concerned (such as dangerous animals, or rain, wind, etc.) the duty
of the totem clan lay in controlling the natural force in question
and in counteracting its injurious possibilities. The achievements
of each clan were to the advantage of all the rest. Since each clan
might eat none, or only very little, of its own totem, it provided
that valuable material for the other clans and was itself provided
in exchange with what
they
produced as their social totemic
duty. In the light of the insight which he thus obtained from the
intichiuma
ceremony, Frazer came to believe that the
prohibition against eating one’s own totem had blinded people
to the more important element in the situation, namely the
injunction to produce as much as possible of an edible totem to
meet the needs of other people.

   Frazer accepted the Arunta
tradition that each totem clan had originally eaten its own totem
without restriction. But it was then difficult to understand the
next stage in development, at which the clansmen became content
with assuring a supply of the totem for others, while themselves
renouncing its enjoyment almost completely. He supposed that this
restriction had arisen, not from any kind of religious deference,
but perhaps from observing that animals never fed upon their own
kind: to do so might imply a breach in their identification with
their totem and consequently reduce their power of controlling it.
Or it might be that by sparing the creatures they hoped to
conciliate them. Frazer, however, makes no disguise of the
difficulties involved in these explanations (1910,
1
, 121
ff.); nor does he venture to suggest by what means the custom
described in the Arunta myths of marrying within the totem was
transformed into exogamy.

  
¹
‘There is nothing vague or mystical
about it, nothing of that metaphysical haze which some writers love
to conjure up over the humble beginnings of human speculation, but
which is utterly foreign to the simple, sensuous and concrete modes
of thought of the savage.’ (Frazer, 1910,
1
,
117.)

Totem And Taboo

2757

   The theory based by Frazer on the
intichiuma
ceremony stands or falls with the assertion of
the primitive character of the Arunta institutions. But in face of
the objections raised by Durkheim¹ and Lang (1903 and 1905),
that assertion appears untenable. On the contrary, the Arunta seem
to be the most highly developed of the Australian tribes and to
represent a stage of totemism in dissolution rather than its
beginnings. The myths which impressed Frazer so deeply because, in
contrast to the conditions that rule to-day, they lay stress upon
liberty to eat the totem and to marry within the totem - these
myths are easily explicable as wishful phantasies which, like the
myth of a Golden Age, have been projected back into the past.

(
γ
)
Psychological Theories

   Frazer’s first
psychological theory, formed before he became acquainted with
Spencer and Gillen’s observations, was based on the belief in
an ‘external soul’.² The totem, according to this
view, represented a safe place of refuge in which the soul could be
deposited and so escape the dangers which threatened it. When a
primitive man had deposited his soul in his totem he himself was
invulnerable, and he naturally avoided doing any injury to the
receptacle of his soul. Since, however, he did not know in which
particular individual of the animal species concerned his own soul
was lodged, it was reasonable for him to spare the whole
species.

  
¹
In
L’année socialogique
(1898, 1902, 1905, etc.); see especially ‘Sur le
totémisme’ (1902).

  
²
See Frazer,
The Golden Bough
, First
Edition (1890),
2
, 332 ff.

Totem And Taboo

2758

   Frazer himself subsequently
abandoned this theory that totemism was derived from a belief in
souls; and, after coming to know of Spencer and Gillen’s
observations, adopted the sociological theory which I have already
discussed. But he came to see himself that the motive from which
that second theory derived totemism was too ‘rational’
and that it implied a social organization which was too complicated
to be described as primitive.¹ The magical co-operative
societies now seemed to him to be the fruit rather than the seed of
totemism. He sought for some simpler factor, some primitive
superstition behind these structures, to which the origin of
totemism might be traced back. At last he found this original
factor in the Arunta’s remarkable story of conception.