CHAPTER I_Totem and taboo

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TOTEM AND TABOO

BY DR. S. FREUD

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TOTEM AND TABOO

RESEMBLANCES BETWEEN THE PSYCHIC

LIVES OF SAVAGES AND NEUROTICS

PROFESSOR 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 Abnormal

Psychology, New York University;

former Chief of Clinic of Psychiatry,

Columbia University

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LONDON

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1919

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AUTHOR’S PREFACE

The essays treated here appeared under the subtitle of this book in the

first numbers of the periodical _Imago_ edited by me. They represent my

first efforts to apply view-points and results of psychoanalysis to

unexplained problems of racial psychology. In method this book contrasts

with that of W. Wundt and the works of the Zurich Psychoanalytic School.

The former tries to accomplish the same object through assumptions 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 explanation. The four essays

which are here collected will be of interest to a wide circle of

educated people, 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, however, supply both groups the entire requisites for such

co-operation. They will not furnish the former with sufficient insight

into the new psychological technique, nor will the psychoanalysts

acquire through them an adequate command over the material to be

elaborated. Both groups will have to content themselves with whatever

attention they can stimulate here and there and with the hope that

frequent meetings between them will not remain unproductive for science.

The two principal themes, totem and taboo, which give the name to this

small book are not treated alike here. The problem of taboo is presented

more exhaustively, and the effort to solve it is approached with perfect

confidence. The investigation of totemism may be modestly expressed 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 that taboo still exists

in our midst. To be sure, it is negatively conceived and directed to

different contents, but according to its psychological nature, it is

still nothing else than Kant’s ‘Categorical Imperative’, which tends to

act compulsively and rejects all conscious motivations. On the other

hand, totemism is a religio-social institution 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 to-day

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 infantile 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 conclusions, there is no reason for rejecting the

possibility that it comes more or less near to the reality which is so

hard to reconstruct.

CONTENTS

CHAP. 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 125

IV THE INFANTILE RECURRENCE OF TOTEMISM 166

TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION

When one reviews the history of psychoanalysis[2] one finds that it had

its inception in the study of morbid mental states. Beginning with the

observation of hysteria and the other neuroses[3] 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 maladjustments 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

certain 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 psychic structures which one constantly

encounters in normal persons in the form of mistakes in talking,

reading, writing, forgetting[4], dreams and wit. The dream, always

highly valued by the populace, and as much despised by the educated

classes, has a definite structure and meaning when subjected to

analysis. Professor Freud’s monumental work, _The Interpretation of

Dreams_[5], marked a new epoch in the history of mental science. One

might use the same words in reference to his profound analysis of

wit[6].

Faulty psychic actions, dreams and wit are products of the unconscious

mental activity, and like neurotic or psychotic manifestations represent

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 dreams, witticisms, and faulty actions give evidences 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

adjust one’s primitive feelings to the demands of civilization. In spite

of all later development the individual retains all his infantile

psychic structures. 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

morbid productions. The unconscious mental activity which is made up of

repressed infantile material for ever tries to express itself. Whenever

the individual finds it impossible to dominate the difficulties of the

world of reality there is a regression 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 impressions; psychoanalysis thus confirms the old saying:

The child is father to the man.

It is at this point in the development of psychoanalysis 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[7], 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[8].

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 translation of

this work.

A. A. BRILL.

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 implements

which he has left behind for us, through our knowledge of his art, his

religion and his attitude 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 representatives 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-preserved, early stage of our own development.

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

neighbours, 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 exclusively 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

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 rigour in guarding against

incestuous sexual relations. In fact their whole social organization

seems to serve this object or to have been brought into relation with

its attainment.

Among the Australians the system of _Totemism_ takes the place of all

religious and social institutions. 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

dangerous 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 obligation not to kill

(destroy) their totem, to abstain from eating its meat or from any other

enjoyment of it. Any violation of these prohibitions 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 maternal or the paternal

line; (maternal transmission probably always preceded and was only later

supplanted by the paternal). The attachment to a totem is the foundation

of all the social obligations of an Australian: it extends on the one

hand beyond the tribal relationship, and on the other hand it supersedes

consanguineous relationship[9].

The totem is not limited to district or to locality; the members of a

totem may live separated from one another and on friendly terms with

adherents of other totems[10].

And now, finally, we must consider that peculiarity of the totemic

system which attracts the interest of the psychoanalyst. Almost

everywhere the totem prevails there also exists the 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 remarkable. 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 attributes; 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. However

that may be, the association of totemism and exogamy exists, and proves

to be very strong.

Let us elucidate the meaning of this prohibition 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 prohibitions 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 sentences from Frazer’s book[11]

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 offence 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 violations 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, becomes improbable.

(_c_) As the totem is hereditary and is not changed by marriage, the

results of the prohibition, 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 children, both boys and girls, are all Emu. According 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[12].

(_d_) But we need only a reminder to realize that the exogamy connected

with the totem accomplishes 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

consanguineously related to him, by treating all these women like blood

relations. The psychological justification for this extraordinary

restriction, which far exceeds anything comparable to it among civilized

races, is not, at first, evident. All we seem to understand is that the

rôle of the totem (the animal) as ancestor is taken very seriously.

Everybody descended from the same totem is consanguineous; that is, of

one family; and in this family the most distant grades of relationship

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 remains a riddle, the solution of which is perhaps bound

up with the explanation of the totem itself. Of course it must be

remembered that with a certain freedom of sexual intercourse, extending

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

conditions and festive occasions at which the exclusive conjugal right

of a man to a woman is violated.

The linguistic customs 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 relationship between two individuals, but between

an individual and his group; they belong, according to the expression of

L. H. Morgan, to the ‘classifying’ 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 ‘sisters’ 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 approach 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 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 marriage

institutions which the Rev. L. Fison has called ‘group marriage’,

characterized by a number 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 Marriage_[13], 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 classificatory

relationship names must be considered as survivals from the period of

group marriages. And, according to Spencer and Gillen[14], a certain

form of group marriage can be established as still existing to-day among

the tribes of the Urabunna and the Dieri. Group marriage therefore

preceded individual marriage among these races, 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 exogamy then became fixed and

long survived its original motivation.

Although we believe 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 bewildering complication. For

there are only few tribes in Australia which show no other prohibition

besides 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 subclasses (subphratries), and the whole tribe is therefore

divided into four classes; the subclasses thus standing between the

phratries and the totem groups.

The typical and very often intricate scheme of organization of an

Australian tribe therefore looks as follows:

[Illustration]

The twelve totem groups are brought under four subclasses and two main

classes. All the divisions are exogamous[15]. The subclass c forms an

exogamous unit with e, and the subclass d with f. The success or the

tendency of these arrangements is quite obvious; they serve as a further

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 11/12 of all the women of

the tribe to choose from. The existence of the two phratries reduces

this number to 6/12 or 1/2; a man of the totem [Greek: α alpha] can only

marry a woman from the groups 1 to 6. With the introduction of the two

subclassess the selection sinks to 3/12 or 1/4; a man of the totem

[Greek: α alpha] must limit his marriage choice to a 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 exogamy makes

the impression of a sacred statute which sprang into existence, no one

knows how, and is therefore a custom, the complicated institutions 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 influence 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

generally ceases when the regulation of the marriage choice at which

they aimed has been accomplished.

In the further development of the classification of the marriage system

there seems to be a tendency to go beyond the prevention of natural and

group incest, and to prohibit marriage between more distant group

relations, in a manner similar to the Catholic church, which extended

the marriage prohibitions always in force for brother and sisters, to

cousins, and invented for them the grades of spiritual kinship[16].

It would hardly serve our purpose to go into the extraordinarily

intricate and unsettled discussion 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[17]. 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 behaviour 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 the Australian totem

races. But here again I must ask the reader to be content with a

fragmentary 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 there regularly

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 may 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 Caledonia. If brother and sister meet, she

flees into the bush and he passes by without turning his head toward

her[18].

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 circumlocution[19].

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[20].

These rules of avoidance are especially severe in the Fiji Islands where

they concern not only consanguineous 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 prohibition instead of being astonished at

it[21].

Among the Battas of Sumatra these laws of avoidance affect all near

relationships. For instance, 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 missionary 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 extreme intimacy,

and as they expect all kinds of punishments and evil consequences from

consanguineous intercourse they do quite right to avoid all temptations

by means of such prohibitions[22].

Among the Barongos in Delagoa Bay, in Africa, the most rigorous

precautions are directed, 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 her hut, and greets her only with a trembling

voice[23].

Among the Akamba (or Wakamba) in British East Africa, a law of avoidance

is in force which one would have expected to encounter more frequently.

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 engagement. But after her marriage no further obstacle

is put in the way of her social intercourse with her father[24].

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 probably 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 objects of

avoidance.

As we are less interested in the ethnographic dissemination than in the

substance and the purpose 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 footsteps. 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[25].

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[26].

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 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 ceremonial requirements.

Communication between them must either be made through a third person or

else they may shout at each other at a considerable distance if they

have some barrier between them as, for instance, the enclosure of a

kraal. Neither may utter the other’s name[27].

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[28].

Whereas all observers have interpreted the purpose and meaning of the

avoidances between near relatives as protective measures against incest,

different interpretations have been given for those prohibitions which

concern the relationship with the mother-in-law. It was quite

incomprehensible why all these races should manifest such great fear of

temptation on the part of the man for an elderly woman, old enough to be

his mother[29].

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 impossible 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 behaviour 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 indignation 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

in which this last condition does not remove the prohibition, this

explanation is subject to the objection 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 sexual factor, and that it does not

take into account the almost sacred loathing which finds expression in

the laws of avoidance[30].

A Zulu woman who was asked about the basis for this prohibition showed

great delicacy of feeling in her answer: “It is not right that he

should see the breasts which nursed his wife.”[31]

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

organization. Although laws of avoidance no longer exist in the society

of the white races of Europe and America, much quarrelling and

displeasure would often be avoided if they did exist and did not have to

be re-established by individuals. Many a European will see an act of

high wisdom 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 mother-in-law and son-in-law which

furthers hostilities between them and renders living together difficult.

The fact that the witticisms of civilized 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 ‘ambivalent’, that is, it is composed

of conflicting feelings 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 delivered, and shows a tendency

to maintain the dominating 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 emanates 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 spontaneity which makes his wife precious to him.

The knowledge of hidden psychic feelings which psychoanalytic

investigation of individuals has given us, makes it possible to add

other motives to the above. Where the psycho-sexual needs of the woman

are to be satisfied in marriage and family life, there is always the

danger of dissatisfaction through the premature termination of the

conjugal relation, and the monotony in the wife’s emotional life. The

ageing mother protects 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

eliminates one of the best means to endure the necessary resignation

imposed upon the individual through marriage. This emotional

indentification 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 emotional 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-in-law. Very often it is just this harsh and sadistic

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 persons 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 primitive selection, against which everything in him

resists. 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

happens that a man falls in love with his subsequent mother-in-law

before his inclination is transferred 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 explanations for the ‘avoidances’

which these primitive races observe so strictly, we would therefore give

preference to the opinion originally expressed by Fison, who sees

nothing in these regulations but a protection against possible incest.

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 conscious; in the other case, which includes the

mother-in-law relation, the incest would be a phantasy temptation

brought about by unconscious intermediary links.

We have had little opportunity in this exposition 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 incest dread of savages has

long been known as such, and is in need of no further interpretation.

What we can add to the further appreciation of incest dread is the

statement that it is a subtle infantile trait and is in striking

agreement with the psychic life of the neurotic. Psychoanalysis has

taught us that the first object selection of the boy is of an incestuous

nature and that it is directed to the forbidden objects, the mother and

the sister; pyschoanalysis has taught us also the methods through which

the maturing individual frees himself from these incestuous attractions.

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 rôle 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 naturally 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 centre 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 to his former incest wishes which

have since succumbed to repression. It is therefore of importance to us

to be able to show that man’s incest wishes, which later are destined to

become unconscious, are still felt to be dangerous by savage races who

consider them worthy of the most severe defensive measures.