Full text of "Totem and taboo; resemblances between the psychic lives of savages and neurotics"

I TOTEM AND TABOO RESEMBLANCES BETWEEN THE PSYCHIC LIVES OF SAVAGES AND NEUROTICS BY PROFESSOR DR, SIGMUND FREUD, LL.D. Authorized English Translation with Introduction by A. A. BRILL, Ph.B., M.D. Asst. Prof, of Psychiatry, N. Y. Post Graduate Medical School; Lecturer in Psychoanalysis and Ab- normal Psychology, New York University: former Chief of Clinic of Psychiatry, Columbia University MOW-IN FERIOR A-sloy en£es NEW YORK MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 1919 Copyright, 1918, by MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY Second Printing, June, 1919 Lop i o<L AUTHORS PREFACE The essays treated here appeared under the subtitle of this book in the first numbers of the periodical "Imago" edited by me. They repre- sent my first efforts to apply view-points and re- sults of psychoanalysis to unexplained problems of racial psychology. In method this book con- trasts with that of W. Wundt and the works of the Zurich Psychoanalytic School. The former tries to accomplish the same object through as- sumptions and procedures from non-analytic psychology, while the latter follow the opposite course and strive to settle problems of individual psychology by referring to material of racial psychology. 1 I am pleased to say that the first stimulus for my own works came from these two sources. I am fully aware of the shortcomings in these essays. I shall not touch upon those which are characteristic of first efforts at investigation. The others, however, demand a word of explana- i Jung: Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido (Transformations and Symbols of the Libido) translated by Dr. Beatrice Hinkle under the title "The Psychology of the Unconscious," Moffat, Yard & Co., and "Principles of Psychoanalysis, Nervous and Men- tal Diseases," Monograph Series. iii iv PREFACE } tion. The four essays which are here collected will be of interest to a wide circle of educated peo- ple, but they can only be thoroughly understood and judged by those who are really acquainted with psychoanalysis as such. It is hoped that they may serve as a bond between students of ethnology, philology, folklore and of the allied sciences, and psychoanalysts; they cannot, how- ever, supply both groups the entire requisites for such cooperation. They will not furnish the former with sufficient insight into the new psychological technique, nor will the psycho- analysts acquire through them an adequate com- mand over the material to be elaborated. Both groups will have to content themselves with what- ever attention they can stimulate here and there and with the hope that frequent meetings be- tween them will not remain unproductive for sci- ence. The two principle themes, totem and taboo, which gave the name to this small book are not treated alike here. The problem of taboo is pre- sented more exhaustively, and the effort to solve it is approached with perfect confidence. The investigation of totemism may be modestly ex- pressed as : "This is all that psychoanalytic study can contribute at present to the elucidation of the problem of totemism." This difference in the treatment of the two subjects is due to the fact PREFACE v that taboo still exists in our midst. To be sure, it is negatively conceived and directed to different contents, but according to its psychological na- ture, it is still nothing else than Kant's "Cate- gorical Imperative,' ' which tends to act compul- sively and rejects all conscious motivations. On the other hand, totemism is a religio-social insti- tution which is alien to our present feelings ; it has long been abandoned and replaced by new forms. In the religions, morals, and customs of the civilized races of today it has left only slight traces, and even among those races where it is still retained, it has had to undergo great changes. The social and material progress of the history of mankind could obviously change taboo much less than totemism. In this book the attempt is ventured to find the original meaning of totemism through its infan- tile traces, that is, through the indications in which it reappears in the development of our own children. The close connection between totem and taboo indicates the further paths to the hypothesis maintained here. And although this hypothesis leads to somewhat improbable con- clusions, there is no reason for rejecting the pos- sibility that it comes more or less near to the reality which is so hard to reconstruct. TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION When one reviews the history of psycho- analysis * one finds that it had its inception in the study of morbid mental states. Beginning with the observation of hysteria and the other neu- roses 2 Professor Freud gradually extended his investigations to normal psychology and evolved new concepts and new methods of study. The neurotic symptoms were no longer imaginary troubles the nature of which one could not grasp, but were conceived as mental and emotional mal- adjustments to one's environment. The stamp of degeneracy impressed upon neurotics by other schools of medicine was altogether eradicated. Deeper investigation showed conclusively that a person might become neurotic if subjected to cer- tain environments, and that there was no definite dividing line between normal and abnormal. The hysterical symptoms, obsessions, doubts, phobias, as well as hallucinations of the insane, show the same mechanisms as those similar psy- i"The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement," translated by A. A. Brill. Nervous and Mental Disease Monograph Series. 2 "Selected Papers on Hysteria and Other Psychoneuroses," translated by A. A. Brill. Monograph Series. vii viii TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION chic structures which one constantly encounters in normal persons in the form of mistakes in talk- ing, reading, writing, forgetting, 3 dreams and wit. The dream, always highly valued by the populace, and as much despised by the edu- cated classes, has a definite structure and mean- ing when subjected to analysis. Professor Freud's monumental work, The Interpretation of Dreams, 4 marked a new epoch in the history of mental science. One might use the same words in reference to his profound analysis of wit. 5 Faulty psychic actions, dreams and wit are products of the unconscious mental activity, and like neurotic or psychotic manifestations repre- sent efforts at adjustment to one's environment. The slip of the tongue shows that on account of unconscious inhibitions the individual concerned is unable to express his true thoughts ; the dream is a distorted or plain expression of those wishes which are prohibited in the waking states, and the witticism, owing to its veiled or indirect way of expression, enables the individual to obtain pleasure from forbidden sources. But whereas s "The Psychopathology of Everyday Life," translated by A. A. Brill. T. Fisher Unwin, London, and the Macmillan Co., N. Y. 4 Translated by A. A. Brill, George Allen, and Unwin, London, and the Macmillan Co., N. Y. e "Wit and Its Relations to the Unconscious," translated by A. A. Brill. Moffat, Yard and Co., N. Y. TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION ix dreams, witticisms, and faulty actions give evi- dences of inner conflicts which the individual overcomes, the neurotic or psychotic symptom is the result of a failure and represents a morbid adjustment. The aforementioned psychic formations are therefore nothing but manifestations of the struggle with reality, the constant effort to ad- just one's primitive feelings to the demands of civilization. In spite of all later development the individual retains all his infantile psychic struc- tures. Nothing is lost; the infantile wishes and primitive impulses can always be demonstrated in the grown up and on occasion can be brought back to the surface. In his dreams the normal person is constantly reviving his childhood, and the neurotic or psychotic individual merges back into a sort of psychic infantilism through his mor- bid productions. The unconscious mental activ- ity which is made up of repressed infantile mate- rial forever strives to express itself. Whenever the individual finds it impossible to dominate the difficulties of the world of realitv there is a re- gression to the infantile, and psychic disturbances ensue which are conceived as peculiar thoughts and acts. Thus the civilized adult is the result of his childhood or the sum total of his early im- pressions; psychoanalysis thus confirms the old saying: The child is father to the man. x TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION; It is at this point in the development of psycho- analysis that the paths gradually broadened until they finally culminated in this work. There were many indications that the childhood of the individual showed a marked resemblance to the primitive history or the childhood of races. The knowledge gained from dream analysis and phantasies, 6 when applied to the productions of racial phantasies, like myths and fairy tales, seemed to indicate that the first impulse to form myths was due to the same emotional strivings which produced dreams, fancies and symptoms. 7 Further study in this direction has thrown much light on our great cultural institutions, such as religion, morality, law and philosophy, all of which Professor Freud has modestly formulated in this volume and thus initiated a new epoch in the study of racial psychology. I take great pleasure in acknowledging my indebtedness to Mr. Alfred B. Kuttner for the invaluable assistance he rendered in the transla- tion of this work. A. A. Brill. 6 Freud: "Leonardo Da Vinci," translated by A. A. Brill. Moffat, Yard and Co., N. Y. 7 Cf. the works of Abraham, Spielrein, Jung, and Rank. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I The Savage's Dread of Incest .... 1 II Taboo and the Ambivalence of Emotions 30 III Animism, Magic and the Omnipotence of Thought 124 IV The Infantile Recurrence of Totemism . 165 TOTEM AND TABOO CHAPTER I 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. CHAPTER II 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- l 3 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 h