CHAPTER II

TABOO AND THE AMBIVALENCE OF EMOTIONS

1

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 [Greek: ἁγος hagos]

of the Greeks and the Kodaush of the Hebrews must also have signified

the same thing which the Polynesians express 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 designated in Polynesian by the word _noa_ and signifies

something ordinary and generally accessible. Thus something like the

concept of reserve inheres in taboo; taboo expresses itself essentially

in prohibitions and restrictions. Our combination of ‘holy dread’ would

often express the meaning of taboo.

The taboo restrictions are different from religious 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 prohibitions lack all justification and are of

unknown origin. Though incomprehensible to us they are taken as a matter

of course by those who are under their dominance.

Wundt[32] 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 _Encyclopedia Britannica_

written by the anthropologist Northcote W. Thomas[33]:

“Properly speaking taboo includes only (a) the sacred (or unclean)

character of persons or things, (b) the kind of prohibition which

results from this character, and (c) the sanctity (or uncleanliness)

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 prohibitions 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 the taboo are many: 1. direct taboos aim at (_a_)

protection of important persons--chiefs, priests, etc.--and things

against harm; (_b_) safeguarding of the weak--women children and common

people generally--from the powerful mana (magical influence) of chiefs

and priests; (_c_) providing against the dangers incurred by handling or

coming in contact with corpses, by eating certain food, etc.; (_d_)

guarding the chief acts of life--births, initiation, marriage and sexual

functions--against interference; (_e_) securing human beings against the

wrath or power of gods and spirits[34]; (_f_) securing unborn infants

and young children who stand in a specially 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 automatic punishment

was expected from the power of the godhead. In other cases, probably as

a result of a further development of the idea, society took over the

punishment of the offender, whose action has endangered his companions.

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 penance 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 follows: “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 resist it;

the result of a violation of a taboo depends partly on the strength of

the magical influence 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 them; if

it is a chief or a priest, they are more powerful than those imposed by

a common person.”

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 priests and chiefs as well as the dead and everything

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 ecclesiastical 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 surely

due to the insufficient information I have given and to the omission of

all discussions concerning the relation of taboo to superstition, to

belief in the soul, and to religion. 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 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 reports that innocent transgressions of such

prohibitions have actually been punished automatically. 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 incomprehensible,

they seem to concern themselves with trifles and give the impression of

ceremonials. Something 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 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 contagion or dissemination.

However, the term ‘taboo’ includes all persons, localities, objects and

temporary conditions which are carriers or sources of this mysterious

attribute. The prohibition derived from this attribute 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

characteristic of these low grades of culture.

Now why should we take any interest at all in 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 essential

relation to this primitive taboo the explanation of which may in the end

throw light upon the dark origin of our own ‘categorical imperative.’

We are therefore inclined to listen with keen expectations when an

investigator like W. Wundt gives his interpretation of taboo, especially

as he promises to “go back to the very roots of the taboo concepts”[35].

Wundt states that the idea of taboo “includes all customs which express

dread of particular objects connected with cultic ideas or of actions

having reference to them”[36].

On another occasion he says: “In accordance with the general sense of

the word we understand 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

words....” Accordingly there would not be a single race or stage of

culture which had escaped the injurious effects of taboo.

Wundt then shows why he finds it more practical to study the nature of

taboo in the primitive states of Australian savages rather than in the

higher culture of the Polynesian races. In the case of the Australians

he divides taboo prohibitions into three classes according as they

concern animals, persons or other objects. The animal taboo, which

consists essentially of the taboo against killing and eating, forms the

nucleus of Totemism[37]. 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 delivery,

newly born children, the deceased and especially 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

manhood 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, houses and localities, are more variable and seem only to follow

the rule that anything which for any reason arouses dread or is

mysterious, becomes subject to taboo.

Wundt himself has to acknowledge that the changes which taboo undergoes

in the richer culture of the Polynesians and in the Malayan Archipelago

are not very profound. The greater social differentiation of these races

manifests 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_”[38]. “The taboo, which originally

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 autonomous power which has detached

itself from demonism. It becomes the compulsion of custom and tradition

and finally of the law. “But the commandment 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 expression and evolution of

the belief of primitive 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 readers 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 accepted 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 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 animal, 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 undifferentiated 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 existence of

an original agreement here between these two spheres which gave way to a

differentiation only as the result of further conditions through which

both finally developed into opposites.

The belief associated with the original taboo, according to which a

demonic power concealed in the object avenges the touching of it or its

forbidden 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 aversion.

How did this separation come about? According 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[39].

Wundt’s further elucidations refer to the relation of taboo to

lustration and sacrifice.

2

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 prohibitions for themselves, which

they follow as strictly as savages observe the taboos common to their

tribe or society. If he were not accustomed to call these individuals

‘compulsion neurotics’ he would find the term ‘taboo disease’ quite

appropriate for their malady. Psychoanalytic investigation 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 similarity 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 precipitates. It would

certainly be both premature and unprofitable to base conclusions

relating to inner 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 possibility

of such confusions.

The first and most striking correspondence between the compulsion

prohibitions of neurotics and taboo lies in the fact that the origin of

these prohibitions is just as unmotivated and enigmatic. They have

appeared at some time or other and must now be retained on account of an

unconquerable anxiety. An external threat of punishment is superfluous,

because an inner certainty (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 violate the prohibition. Of

what the harm is to consist is not known, and this inadequate

information is more likely to 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 neurotic prohibition is the

act of touching, whence we derive the name ‘touching phobia’ or _délire

de toucher_. The prohibition extends not only to direct contact with the

body but also to the figurative use of the phrase as ‘to come into

contact’ or ‘be in touch with some one or something’. 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 their purpose but others

strike us as incomprehensible, foolish and senseless. We designate such

commands as ‘ceremonials’ and we find that taboo customs show the same

variations.

Obsessive prohibitions possess an extraordinary 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 compulsion neurotics

act as if the ‘impossible’ persons and things were the carriers of a

dangerous contagion which is ready to displace itself through contact to

all neighbouring things. We have already emphasized the same

characteristics of contagion 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 transference 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 compulsion

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 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

chiefs breath conveyed through these intermediaries, would surely

die”[40].

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 prohibitions, entail the most

extraordinary renunciations 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, defence reactions, and purifications. The most common of

these obsessive acts is washing with water (washing obsession). A part

of the taboo prohibitions can also be replaced 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 preferred 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 motivation of the commandments, 2. in

their enforcement 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 suspect.

Presently the carrying out of this very pleasurable act of touching was

opposed by a prohibition from without[41]. The prohibition was accepted

because it was supported by strong inner forces[42]; it proved to be

stronger than the impulse which wanted to manifest itself through this

act of touching. But due to the primitive psychic constitution of the

child this prohibition did not succeed in abolishing the impulse. Its

only success 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

everything else emanated from the continued conflict between prohibition

and impulse.

The main characteristic of the psychic constellation which has thus gone

under fixation lies in what one might call the ambivalent behaviour[43]

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

touching), he sees in it the highest pleasure, but he may not carry it

out, and he even abominates it. The opposition between these two streams

cannot 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

prohibition becomes fully conscious, while the surviving pleasure of

touching remains unconscious, the person knowing nothing about it. If

this psychological factor did not exist the ambivalence could neither

maintain itself so long nor lead to such subsequent manifestations.

In the clinical history of the case we have emphasized the appearance of

the prohibition in early childhood as the determining factor; but for

the further elaboration of the neurosis this rôle 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 prohibition owes its strength--its

compulsive character--to its association with its unknown counterpart,

the hidden and unabated pleasure, that is to say, to an inner need into

which conscious insight is lacking. The transferability and reproductive

power of the prohibition reflect a process which harmonizes with the

unconscious pleasure and is very much facilitated through the

psychological determinants of the unconscious. The pleasure of the

impulse constantly undergoes displacement 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 prohibition also wanders and spreads to the new aims of the

proscribed impulse. Every new advance of the repressed libido is

answered by the prohibition with a new severity. The mutual inhibition

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 diseases that these

obsessive acts serve the impulse more and more and come nearer and

nearer to the original and 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 prohibitions which we shall

study are already secondary, 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. According to our assumption they must be incapable of telling us

anything about it since this motivation is ‘unconscious’ to them. But

following the model of the compulsive prohibition we shall construct 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 generation. These prohibitions concerned actions for which there

existed a strong desire. The prohibitions maintained themselves from

generation to generation, perhaps only as the result of a tradition set

up by paternal and social authority. But in later generations they have

perhaps already become ‘organized’ as a piece of inherited psychic

property. Whether there are such ‘innate ideas’ or whether these have

brought about the fixation of the taboo by themselves or by co-operating

with education no one could decide in the particular case in question.

The persistence of taboo teaches, however, one thing, namely, that the

original pleasure to do the forbidden 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 prohibitions 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

cannot 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 individuals, of something quite definite which psychoanalysts call

the central point of the infantile wish life and the nucleus of the

later neurosis[44].

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 forbidden action for which

there exists a strong inclination in the unconscious.

We know, without understanding it, that whoever 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

remains the same under all these different conditions? 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 property 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

incites to imitation and therefore he himself must be avoided.

But a person may become permanently or temporarily taboo without having

violated any taboos, for the simple reason that he is in a condition

which has the property of inciting the forbidden desires of others and

of awakening the ambivalent conflict in them. Most of the exceptional

positions and conditions have this character and possess this dangerous

power. The king or chieftain rouses envy of his prerogatives; everybody

would perhaps like to be king. The dead, the newly born, and women when

they are incapacitated 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. Therefore 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 inherent in the ‘mana’ of various

persons can neutralize 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

psychology this means: the subject who shrinks from the tremendous

temptation which contact with the king creates for him can brook the

intercourse 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 consideration 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

exceptionally 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 prohibition cannot possibly be of

so special a nature as in the case of a neurosis, we must not be

astonished to find that touching plays a similar rôle in taboo

prohibition as in the _délire de toucher_. To touch is the beginning of

every act of possession, 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 leading 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, however, if we assume it to be in

accord with a primitive 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 prohibition leads another to the same action, the

disobedience of the prohibition has been transmitted 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 renunciation is cancelled through a renunciation at some other

point. This would lead us to conclude that, as far as taboo ceremonials

are concerned, penance 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; persons who obey the taboo have an

ambivalent feeling 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

contagious, and because the prohibited desire becomes displacing in the

unconscious upon something else. The expiation for the violation of a

taboo through a renunciation proves that a renunciation is at the basis

of the observance of the taboo.

3

We may ask what we have gained from the comparison of taboo with

compulsion neurosis and what value can be claimed for the interpretation

we have given on the basis of this comparison? Our intrepretation is

evidently of no value unless it affords an advantage not to be had in

any other way and unless it affords a better understanding 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 genesis 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 psychological conditions for taboo with which we have

become acquainted in the case of compulsion neurosis. 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 defence reactions 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 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 fundamental taboo prohibitions

are inaccessible to our analysis because they belong to totemism;

another 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 tendencies 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_[45].

(_A_) THE TREATMENT OF ENEMIES

Inclined as we may have been to ascribe to savage and semi-savage races

uninhibited and remorseless 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 expiation, and purifications of the manslayer, and 4. certain

ceremonial rites. The incomplete reports do not allow us to decide with

certainty how general or how isolated such taboo customs may be among

these races, but this is a matter of indifference 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 practised on the island of Timor, after a

victorious band of warriors has returned with the severed heads of the

vanquished enemy, are especially significant because the leader of the

expedition is subject to heavy additional restrictions. “At the solemn

entry of the victors, sacrifices are made to conciliate the souls of the

enemy; otherwise one would have to expect harm to come to the victors.

A dance is given and a song is sung in which the slain enemy is mourned

and his forgiveness 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 remain friends? Then your

blood would not have been spilt and your head would not have been cut

off’”[46].

Similar customs are found among the Palu in Celebes; the Gallas

sacrifice to the spirits of their dead enemies before they return to

their home villages[47].

Other races have found methods of making friends, guardians and

protectors out of their former 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 address 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 treatment, horrible

though it may seem to us[48].

Observers have been struck by the mourning for the enemy after he is

slain and scalped, among several of the wild tribe 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 Indians

mourned in the same way. One authority mentions that the Osaga Indians

after mourning for their own dead mourned for their foes as if they had

been friends[49].

Before proceeding to the other classes of taboo customs for the

treatment of enemies, we must define our position in regard to a

pertinent objection. 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

reconciliation rules as well as the restrictions and expiations which we

shall discuss later can be logically deduced; moreover, the ceremonies

included in the fourth group also argue for this interpretation, since

the only explanation of which they admit is the effort to drive away the

spirits of the slain which pursue the manslayers[50]. Besides, the

savages themselves directly admit their fear for the spirits of their

slain foes and trace back the taboo customs under discussion to this

fear.

This objection is certainly pertinent and if it were adequate as well we

would gladly spare ourselves 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 impulses besides those that are merely

hostile find expression in the behaviour towards enemies. We see in them

manifestations of repentance, of regard for the enemy, and of a bad

conscience for having slain him. It seems that the commandment, 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 victorious manslayer are unusually frequent

and are mostly of a serious nature. In Timor (compare 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 put his food in his mouth.[51] Among some

Dayak tribes warriors returning from a successful expedition must remain

sequestered for several 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 intercourse 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 approach 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 mentioned by Frazer, and emphasize only such cases in

which the character of taboo is especially noticeable or where the

restriction appears in connection with expiation, purification and

ceremonial.

Among the Monumbos in German New Guinea a man who has killed an enemy in

combat becomes ‘unclean’, the same word being employed which is applied

to women during menstruation 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, during which he was not allowed to comb his hair. When

his head itched he was not allowed to scratch it with his hand but used

a small stick for this purpose.

After a Pima Indian had killed an Apache he had to submit himself to

severe ceremonies of purification and expiation. During a fasting period

of sixteen days he was not allowed to touch meat or salt, to look at a

fire or to speak to any one. He lived alone in the woods, where he was

waited upon by an old woman who brought him a small allowance of food;

he often bathed in the nearest river, and carried a lump of clay on his

head as a sign of mourning. On the seventeenth day there took place a

public ceremony through which he and his weapons were solemnly purified.

As the Pima Indians took the manslayer taboo much more seriously than

their enemies and, unlike them, did not postpone expiation and

purification until the end of the expedition, their prowess in war

suffered very much through their moral severity or what might be called

their piety. In spite of their extraordinary bravery they proved to be

unsatisfactory allies to the Americans in their wars against the

Apaches.

The detail and variations of these expiatory and purifying ceremonies

after the killing of an enemy would be most interesting for purposes of

a more searching study, but I need not enumerate any more of them here

because they cannot furnish us with any new points of view. I might

mention that the temporary or permanent isolation of the professional

executioner, which was maintained up to our time, is a case in point.

The position of the ‘free-holder’ in mediæval society really conveys a

good idea of the ‘taboo’ of savages[52].

The current explanation of all these rules of reconciliation,

restriction, expiation and purification, combines two principles,

namely, the extension of the taboo of the dead to everything that has

come into contact with him, and the fear of the spirit of the slain. In

what combination these two elements are to explain the ceremonial,

whether they are to be considered as of equal value or whether one of

them is primary and the other secondary, and which one, is nowhere

stated, nor would this be an easy matter to decide. In contradistinction

to all this we emphasize the unity which our interpretation gains by

deducing all these rules from the ambivalence of the emotion of savages

towards their enemies.

(_B_) THE TABOO OF RULERS

The behaviour of primitive races towards their chiefs, kings, and

priests, is controlled by two principles which seem rather to supplement

than to contradict each other. They must both be guarded and be guarded

against[53].

Both objects are accomplished through innumerable rules of taboo. Why

one must guard against rulers is already known to us; because they are

the bearers of that mysterious and dangerous magic power which

communicates itself by contact, like an electric charge, bringing death

and destruction to any one not protected by a similar charge. All direct

or indirect contact with this dangerous sacredness is therefore avoided,

and where it cannot be avoided a ceremonial has been found to ward off

the dreaded consequences. The Nubas in East Africa, for instance,

believe that they must die if they enter the house of their

priest-king, but that they escape this danger if, on entering, they bare

the left shoulder and induce the king to touch it with his hand. Thus we

have the remarkable case of the king’s touch becoming the healing and

protective measure against the very dangers that arise from contact with

the king; but it is probably a question of the healing power of the

intentional touching on the king’s part in contradistinction to the

danger of touching him, in other words, of the opposition between

passivity and activity towards the king.

Where the healing power of the royal touch is concerned we do not have

to look for examples among savages. In comparatively recent times the

kings of England exercised this power upon scrofula, whence it was

called ‘The King’s Evil’. Neither Queen Elizabeth nor any of her

successors renounced this part of the royal prerogative. Charles I is

said to have healed a hundred sufferers at one time, in the year 1633.

Under his dissolute son Charles II, after the great English revolution

had passed, royal healings of scrofula attained their greatest vogue.

This king is said to have touched close to a hundred thousand victims of

scrofula in the course of his reign. The crush of those seeking to be

cured used to be so great that on one occasion six or seven patients

suffered death by suffocation instead of being healed. The sceptical

king of Orange, William III, who became king of England after the

banishment of the Stuarts, refused to exercise the spell; on the one

occasion when he consented to practise the touch, he did so with words:

“May God give you better health and more sense”[54].

The following account will bear witness to the terrible effect of

touching by virtue of which a person, even though unintentionally,

becomes active against his king or against what belongs to him. A chief

of high rank and great holiness in New Zealand happened to leave the

remains of his meal by the roadside. A young slave came along, a strong

healthy fellow, who saw what was left over and started to eat it. Hardly

had he finished when a horrified spectator informed him of his offence

in eating the meal of the chief. The man had been a strong, brave

warrior, but as soon as he heard this he collapsed and was afflicted by

terrible convulsions, from which he died towards sunset of the following

day[55]. A Maori woman ate a certain fruit and then learned that it came

from a place on which there was a taboo. She cried out that the spirit

of the chief whom she had thus offended would surely kill her. This

incident occurred in the afternoon, and on the next day at twelve

o’clock she was dead[56]. The tinder box of a Maori chief once cost

several persons their lives. The chief had lost it, and those who found

it used it to light their pipes. When they learned whose property the

tinder box was they all died of fright[57].

It is hardly astonishing that the need was felt to isolate dangerous

persons like chiefs and priests, by building a wall around them which

made them inaccessible to others. We surmise that this wall, which

originally was constructed out of taboo rules, still exists to-day in

the form of court ceremony.

But probably the greater part of this taboo of the rulers cannot be

traced back to the need of guarding against them. The other point of

view in the treatment of privileged persons, the need of guarding them

from dangers with which they are threatened, has had a distinct share in

the creation of taboo and therefore of the origin of court etiquette.

The necessity of guarding the king from every conceivable danger arises

from his great importance for the weal and woe of his subjects. Strictly

speaking, he is a person who regulates the course of the world; his

people have to thank him not only for rain and sunshine, which allow the

fruits of the earth to grow, but also for the wind which brings the

ships to their shores and for the solid ground on which they set their

feet[58].

These savage kings are endowed with a wealth of power and an ability to

bestow happiness which only gods possess; certainly in later stages of

civilization none but the most servile courtiers would play the

hypocrite to the extent of crediting their sovereigns with the

possession of attributes similar to these.

It seems like an obvious contradiction that persons of such perfection

of power should themselves require the greatest care to guard them

against threatening dangers, but this is not the only contradiction

revealed in the treatment of royal persons on the part of savages. These

races consider it necessary to watch over their kings to see that they

use their powers in the right way; they are by no means sure of their

good intentions or of their conscientiousness. A strain of mistrust is

mingled with the motivation of the taboo rules for the king. “The idea

that early kingdoms are despotisms”, says Frazer[59], “in which the

people exist only for the sovereign, is wholly inapplicable to the

monarchies we are considering. On the contrary, the sovereign in them

exists only for his subjects: his life is only valuable so long as he

discharges the duties of his position by ordering the course of nature

for his people’s benefit. So soon as he fails to do so, the care, the

devotion, the religious homage which they had hitherto lavished on him

cease and are changed into hatred and contempt; he is ignominiously

dismissed and may be thankful if he escapes with his life. Worshipped as

a god one day, he is killed as a criminal the next. But in this changed

behaviour of the people there is nothing capricious or inconsistent. On

the contrary, their conduct is quite consistent. If their king is their

god he is or should be, also their preserver; and if he will not

preserve them he must make room for another who will. So long, however,

as he answers their expectations, there is no limit to the care which

they take of him, and which they compel him to take of himself. A king

of this sort lives hedged in by ceremonious etiquette, a network of

prohibitions and observances, of which the intention is not to

contribute to his dignity, much less to his comfort, but to restrain him

from conduct which, by disturbing the harmony of nature, might involve

himself, his people, and the universe in one common catastrophe. Far

from adding to his comfort, these observances, by trammelling his every

act, annihilate his freedom and often render the very life, which it is

their object to preserve, a burden and sorrow to him.”

One of the most glaring examples of thus fettering and paralysing a holy

ruler through taboo ceremonial seems to have been reached in the life

routine of the Mikado of Japan, as it existed in earlier centuries. A

description which is now over two hundred years old[60] relates: “He

thinks that it would be very prejudicial to his dignity and holiness to

touch the ground with his feet; for this reason when he intends to go

anywhere, he must be carried thither on men’s shoulders. Much less will

they suffer that he should expose his sacred person to the open air, and

the sun is not thought worthy to shine on his head. There is such a

holiness ascribed to all the parts of his body that he dares to cut off

neither his hair, nor his beard, nor his nails. However, lest he should

grow too dirty, they may clean him in the night when he is asleep;

because they say that what is taken from his body at that time, hath

been stolen from him, and that such a theft does not prejudice his

holiness or dignity. In ancient times, he was obliged to sit on the

throne for some hours every morning, with the imperial crown on his

head; but to sit altogether like a statue without stirring either hands

or feet, head or eyes, nor indeed any part of his body, because by this

means it was thought that he could preserve peace and tranquillity in

his empire; for if unfortunately, he turned himself on one side or

other, or if he looked a good while towards any part of his dominion, it

was apprehended that war, famine, fire or some other great misfortune

was near at hand to desolate the country.”

Some of the taboos to which barbarian kings are subject vividly recall

the restrictions placed on murderers. On Shark Point at Cape Padron in

Lower Guinea (West Africa), a priest-king called Kukulu lives alone in a

woods. He is not allowed to touch a woman or to leave his house and

cannot even rise out of his chair, in which he must sleep in a sitting

position. If he should lie down the wind would cease and shipping would

be disturbed. It is his function to keep storms in check, and in

general, to see to an even, healthy condition of the atmosphere[61]. The

more powerful a king of Loango is, says Bastian, the more taboos he must

observe. The heir to the throne is also bound to them from childhood on;

they accumulate about him while he is growing up, and by the time of

his accession he is suffocated by them.

Our interest in the matter does not require us to take up more space to

describe more fully the taboos that cling to royal and priestly dignity.

We merely add that restrictions as to freedom of movement and diet play

the main rôle among them. But two examples of taboo ceremonial taken

from civilized nations, and therefore from much higher stages of

culture, will indicate to what an extent association with these

privileged persons tends to preserve ancient customs.

The Flamen _Dialis_, the high-priest of Jupiter in Rome, had to observe

an extraordinarily large number of taboo rules. He was not allowed to

ride, to see a horse or an armed man, to wear a ring that was not

broken, to have a knot in his garments, to touch wheat flour or leaven,

or even to mention by name a goat, a dog, raw meat, beans and ivy; his

hair could only be cut by a free man and with a bronze knife, his hair

combings and nail parings had to be buried under a lucky tree; he could

not touch the dead, go into the open with bare head, and similar

prohibitions. His wife, the Flaminica, also had her own prohibitions:

she was not allowed to ascend more than three steps on a certain kind of

stairs and on certain holidays she could not comb her hair; the leather

for her shoes could not be taken from any animal that had died a

natural death but only from one that had been slaughtered or sacrificed;

when she heard thunder she was unclean until she had made an expiatory

sacrifice[62].

The old kings of Ireland were subject to a series of very curious

restrictions, the observance of which was expected to bring every

blessing to the country while their violation entailed every form of

evil. The complete description of these taboos is given in the _Book of

Rights_, of which the oldest manuscript copies bear the dates 1890 and

1418. The prohibitions are very detailed and concern certain activities

at specified places and times; in some cities, for instance, the king

cannot stay on a certain day of the week, while at some specified hour

this or that river may not be crossed, or again there is a plane on

which he cannot camp a full nine days, etc.[63]

Among many savage races the severity of the taboo restrictions for the

priest-kings has had results of historic importance which are especially

interesting from our point of view. The honour of being a priest-king

ceased to be desirable; the person in line for the succession often used

every means to escape it. Thus in Combodscha, where there is a fire and

water king, it is often necessary to use force to compel the successor

to accept the honour. On Niue or Savage Island, a coral island in the

Pacific Ocean, monarchy actually came to an end because nobody was

willing to undertake the responsible and dangerous office. In some parts

of West Africa a general council is held after the death of the king to

determine upon the successor. The man on whom the choice falls is

seized, tied and kept in custody in the fetish house until he has

declared himself willing to accept the crown. Sometimes the presumptive

successor to the throne finds ways and means to avoid the intended

honour; thus it is related of a certain chief that he used to go armed

day and night and resist by force every attempt to place him on the

throne[64]. Among the negroes of Sierra Leone the resistance against

accepting the kingly honour was so great that most of the tribes were

compelled to make strangers their kings.

Frazer makes these conditions responsible for the fact that in the

development of history a separation of the original priest-kingship into

a spiritual and a secular power finally took place. Kings, crushed by

the burden of their holiness, became incapable of exercising their power

over real things and had to leave this to inferior but executive persons

who were willing to renounce the honours of royal dignity. From these

there grew up the secular rulers, while the spiritual over-lordship,

which was now of no practical importance, was left to the former taboo

kings. It is well known to what extent this hypothesis finds

confirmation in the history of old Japan.

A survey of the picture of the relations of primitive peoples to their

rulers gives rise to the expectation that our advance from description

to psychoanalytic understanding will not be difficult. These relations

are of an involved nature and are not free from contradictions. Rulers

are granted great privileges which are practically cancelled by taboo

prohibitions in regard to other privileges. They are privileged persons,

they can do or enjoy what is withheld from the rest through taboo. But

in contrast to this freedom they are restricted by other taboos which do

not affect the ordinary individual. Here, therefore, is the first

contrast, which amounts almost to a contradiction, between an excess of

freedom and an excess of restriction as applied to the same persons.

They are credited with extraordinary magic powers, and contact with

their person or their property is therefore feared, while on the other

hand the most beneficial effect is expected from these contacts. This

seems to be a second and an especially glaring contradiction; but we

have already learned that it is only apparent. The king’s touch,

exercised by him with benevolent intention, heals and protects; it is

only when a common man touches the king or his royal effects that the

contact becomes dangerous, and this is probably because the act may

recall aggressive tendencies. Another contradiction which is not so

easily solved is expressed in the fact that great power over the

processes of nature is ascribed to the ruler and yet the obligation is

felt to guard him with especial care against threatening dangers, as if

his own power, which can do so much, were incapable of accomplishing

this. A further difficulty in the relation arises because there is no

confidence that the ruler will use his tremendous power to the advantage

of his subjects as well as for his own protection; he is therefore

distrusted and surveillance over him is considered to be justified. The

taboo etiquette, to which the life of the king is subject,

simultaneously serves all these objects of exercising a tutelage over

the king, of guarding him against dangers and of guarding his subjects

against danger which he brings to them.

We are inclined to give the following explanation of the complicated and

contradictory relation of the primitive peoples to their rulers. Through

superstition as well as through other motives, various tendencies find

expression in the treatment of kings, each of which is developed to the

extreme without regard to the other. As a result of this, contradictions

arise at which the intellect of savages takes no more offence than a

highly civilized person would as long as it is only a question of

religious matters or of ‘loyalty’.

That would be so far so good; but the psychoanalytic technique may

enable us to penetrate more deeply into the matter and to add something

about the nature of these various tendencies. If we subject the facts as

stated to analysis, just as if they formed the symptoms of a neurosis,

our first attention would be directed to the excess of anxious worry

which is said to be the cause of the taboo ceremonial. The occurrence of

such excessive tenderness is very common in the neurosis and especially

in the compulsion neurosis upon which we are drawing primarily for our

comparison. We now thoroughly understand the origin of this tenderness.

It occurs wherever, besides the predominant tenderness, there exists a

contrary but unconscious stream of hostility, that is to say, wherever

the typical case of an ambivalent affective attitude is realized. The

hostility is then cried down by an excessive increase of tenderness

which is expressed as anxiety and becomes compulsive because otherwise

it would not suffice for its task of keeping the unconscious opposition

in a state of repression. Every psychoanalyst knows how infallibly this

anxious excess of tenderness can be resolved even under the most

improbable circumstances, as for instance, when it appears between

mother and child, or in the case of affectionate married people. Applied

to the treatment of privileged persons this theory of an ambivalent

feeling would reveal that their veneration, their very deification, is

opposed in the unconscious by an intense hostile tendency, so that, as

we had expected, the situation of an ambivalent feeling is here

realized. The distrust which certainly seems to contribute to the

motivation of the royal taboo, would be another direct manifestation of

the same unconscious hostility. Indeed the ultimate issues of this

conflict show such a diversity among different races that we would not

be at a loss for examples in which the proof of such hostility would be

much easier. We learn from Frazer[65] that the savage Timmes of Sierra

Leone reserve the right to administer a beating to their elected king on

the evening before his coronation, and that they make use of this

constitutional right with such thoroughness that the unhappy ruler

sometimes does not long survive his accession to the throne; for this

reason the leaders of the race have made it a rule to elect some man

against whom they have a particular grudge. Nevertheless, even in such

glaring cases the hostility is not acknowledged as such, but is

expressed as if it were a ceremonial.

Another trait in the attitude of primitive races towards their rulers

recalls a mechanism which is universally present in mental disturbances,

and is openly revealed in the so-called delusions of persecution. Here

the importance of a particular person is extraordinarily heightened and

his omnipotence is raised to the improbable in order to make it easier

to attribute to him the responsibility for everything painful which

happens to the patient. Savages really do not act differently towards

their rulers when they ascribe to them power over rain and shine, wind

and weather, and then dethrone or kill them because nature has

disappointed their expectation of a good hunt or a ripe harvest. The

prototype which the paranoiac reconstructs in his persecution mania, is

found in the relation of the child to its father. Such omnipotence is

regularly attributed to the father in the imagination of the son, and

distrust of the father has been shown to be intimately connected with

the highest esteem for him. When a paranoiac names a person of his

acquaintance as his ‘persecutor’, he thereby elevates him to the

paternal succession and brings him under conditions which enable him to

make him responsible for all the misfortune which he experiences. Thus

this second analogy between the savage and the neurotic may allow us to

surmise how much in the relation of the savage to his ruler arises from

the infantile attitude of the child to its father.

But the strongest support for our point of view, which seeks to compare

taboo prohibitions with neurotic symptoms, is to be found in the taboo

ceremonial itself, the significance of which for the status of kinship

has already been the subject of our previous discussion. This ceremonial

unmistakably reveals its double meaning and its origin from ambivalent

tendencies if only we are willing to assume that the effects it produces

are those which it intended from the very beginning. It not only

distinguishes kings and elevates them above all ordinary mortals, but it

also makes their life a torture and an unbearable burden and forces them

into a thraldom which is far worse than that of their subjects. It would

thus be the correct counterpart to the compulsive action of the

neurosis, in which the suppressed impulse and the impulse which

suppresses it meet in mutual and simultaneous satisfaction. The

compulsive action is nominally a protection against the forbidden

action; but we would say that actually it is a repetition of what is

forbidden. The word ‘nominally’ is here applied to the conscious whereas

the word ‘actually’ applies to the unconscious instance of the psychic

life. Thus also the taboo ceremonial of kings is nominally an expression

of the highest veneration and a means of guarding them; actually it is

the punishment for their elevation, the revenge which their subjects

take upon them. The experiences which Cervantes makes Sancho Panza

undergo as governor on his island have evidently made him recognize this

interpretation of courtly ceremonial as the only correct one. It is very

possible that this point would be corroborated if we could induce kings

and rulers of to-day to express themselves on this point.

Why the emotional attitude towards rulers should contain such a strong

unconscious share of hostility is a very interesting problem which,

however, exceeds the scope of this book. We have already referred to the

infantile father-complex; we may add that an investigation of the early

history of kingship would bring the decisive explanations. Frazer has an

impressive discussion of the theory that the first kings were strangers

who, after a short reign, were destined to be sacrificed at solemn

festivals as representatives of the deity; but Frazer himself does not

consider his facts altogether convincing[66]. Christian myths are said

to have been still influenced by the after-effects of this evolution of

kings.

(_C_) THE TABOO OF THE DEAD

We know that the dead are mighty rulers: we may be surprised to learn

that they are regarded as enemies.

Among most primitive people the taboo of the dead displays, if we may

keep to our infection analogy, a peculiar virulence. It manifests itself

in the first place, in the consequences which result from contact with

the dead, and in the treatment of the mourners for the dead. Among the

Maori any one who had touched a corpse or who had taken part in its

interment, became extremely unclean and was almost cut off from

intercourse with his fellow beings; he was, as we say, boycotted. He

could not enter a house, or approach persons or objects without

infecting them with the same properties. He could not even touch his

food with his own hands, which were now unclean and therefore quite

useless to him. His food was put on the ground and he had no alternative

except to seize it as best he could, with his lips and teeth, while he

held his hands behind on his back. Occasionally he could be fed by

another person who helped him to his food with outstretched arms so as

not to touch the unfortunate one himself, but this assistant was then in

turn subjected to almost equally oppressive restrictions. Almost every

village contained some altogether disreputable individual, ostracized by

society, whose wretched existence depended upon people’s charity. This

creature alone was allowed within arm’s length of a person who had

fulfilled the last duty towards the deceased. But as soon as the period

of segregation was over and the person rendered unclean through the

corpse could again mingle with his fellow-beings, all the dishes which

he had used during the dangerous period were broken and all his clothing

was thrown away.

The taboo customs after bodily contact with the dead are the same all

over Polynesia, in Melanesia, and in a part of Africa; their most

constant feature is the prohibition against handling one’s food and the

consequent necessity of being fed by somebody else. It is noteworthy

that in Polynesia, or perhaps only in Hawaii[67], priest-kings were

subject to the same restrictions during the exercise of holy functons.

In the taboo of the dead on the Island of Tonga the abatement and

gradual abolition of the prohibitions through the individual’s own

taboo power are clearly shown. A person who touched the corpse of a dead

chieftain was unclean for ten months; but if he was himself a chief, he

was unclean for only three, four, or five months, according to the rank

of the deceased; if it was the corpse of the idolized head-chief even

the greatest chiefs became taboo for ten months. These savages are so

certain that any one who violates these taboo rules must become

seriously ill and die, that according to the opinion of an observer,

they have never yet dared to convince themselves of the contrary[68].

The taboo restrictions imposed upon persons whose contact with the dead

is to be understood in the transferred sense, namely the mourning

relatives such as widows and widowers, are essentially the same as those

mentioned above, but they are of greater interest for the point we are

trying to make. In the rules hitherto mentioned we see only the typical

expression of the virulence and power of diffusion of the taboo; in

those about to be cited we catch a gleam of the motives, including both

the ostensible ones and those which may be regarded as the underlying

and genuine motives.

Among the Shuswap in British-Columbia widows and widowers have to

remain segregated during their period of mourning; they must not use

their hands to touch the body or the head and all utensils used by them

must not be used by any one else. No hunter will want to approach the

hut in which such mourners live, for that would bring misfortune; if the

shadow of one of the mourners should fall on him he would become ill.

The mourners sleep on thorn bushes, with which they also surround their

beds. This last precaution is meant to keep off the spirit of the

deceased; plainer still is the reported custom of other North American

tribes where the widow, after the death of her husband, has to wear a

kind of trousers of dried grass in order to make herself inaccessible to

the approach of the spirit. Thus it is quite obvious that touching ‘in

the transferred sense’ is after all understood only as bodily contact,

since the spirit of the deceased does not leave his kin and does not

desist from ‘hovering about them’, during the period of mourning.

Among the Agutainos, who live on Palawan, one of the Philippine Islands,

a widow may not leave her hut for the first seven or eight days after

her husband’s death, except at night, when she need not expect

encounters. Whoever sees her is in danger of immediate death and

therefore she herself warns others of her approach by hitting the trees

with a wooden stick with every step she takes; these trees all wither.

Another observation explains the nature of the danger inherent in a

widow. In the district of Mekeo, British New Guinea, a widower forfeits

all civil rights and lives like an outlaw. He may not tend a garden, or

show himself in public, or enter the village or go on the street. He

slinks about like an animal, in the high grass or in the bushes, and

must hide in a thicket if he sees anybody, especially a woman,

approaching. This last hint makes it easy for us to trace back the

danger of the widower or widow to the danger of temptation. The husband

who has lost his wife must evade the desire for a substitute; the widow

has to contend with the same wish, and beside this, she may arouse the

desire of other men because she is without a master. Every such

satisfaction through a substitute runs contrary to the intention of

mourning and would cause the anger of the spirit to flare up[69].

One of the most surprising, but at the same time one of the most

instructive taboo customs of mourning among primitive races is the

prohibition against pronouncing the _name_ of the deceased. This is

very widespread, and has been subjected to many modifications with

important consequences.

Aside from the Australians and the Polynesians, who usually show us

taboo customs in their best state of preservation, we also find this

prohibition among races so far apart and unrelated to each other as the

Samojedes in Siberia and the Todas in South India, the Mongolians of

Tartary and the Tuaregs of the Sahara, the Aino of Japan and the Akamba

and Nandi in Central Africa, the Tinguanes in the Philippines and the

inhabitants of the Nikobari Islands and of Madagascar and Borneo[70].

Among some of these races the prohibition and its consequences hold good

only for the period of mourning while in others it remains permanent;

but in all cases it seems to diminish with the lapse of time after the

death.

The avoidance of the name of the deceased is as a rule kept up with

extraordinary severity. Thus, among many South American tribes, it is

considered the gravest insult to the survivors to pronounce the name of

the deceased in their presence, and the penalty set for it is no less

than that for the slaying itself[71]. At first it is not easy to guess

why the mention of the name should be so abominated, but the dangers

associated with it have called into being a whole series of interesting

and important expedients to avoid this. Thus the Masai in Africa have

hit upon the evasion of changing the name of the deceased immediately

upon his death; he may now be mentioned without dread by this new name,

while all the prohibitions remain attached to the old name. It seems to

be assumed that the ghost does not know his new name and will not find

it out. The Australian tribes on Adelaide and Encounter Bay are so

consistently cautious that when a death occurs almost every person who

has the same name as the deceased or a very similar one, exchanges it

for another. Sometimes by a further extension of the same idea as seen

among several tribes in Victoria and in North America all the relatives

of the deceased change their names regardless of whether their names

resemble the name of the deceased in sound. Among the Guaycuru in

Paraguay the chief used to give new names to all the members of the

tribe, on such sad occasions, which they then remembered as if they had

always had them[72].

Furthermore, if the deceased had the same name as an animal or object,

etc., some of the races just enumerated thought it necessary to give

these animals and objects new names, in order not to be reminded of the

deceased when they mentioned them. Through this there must have resulted

a never ceasing change of vocabulary, which caused a good deal of

difficulty for the missionaries, especially where the interdiction upon

a name was permanent. In the seven years which the missionary

Dobrizhofer spent among the Abipons in Paraguay, the name for jaguar was

changed three times and the words for crocodile, thorns and animal

slaughter underwent a similar fate[73]. But the dread of pronouncing a

name which has belonged to a deceased person extends also to the mention

of everything in which the deceased had any part, and a further

important result of this process of suppression is that these races have

no tradition or any historical reminiscences, so that we encounter the

greatest difficulties in investigating their past history. Among a

number of these primitive races compensating customs have also been

established in order to re-awaken the names of the deceased after a long

period of mourning; they are bestowed upon children who were regarded as

reincarnations of the dead.

The strangeness of this taboo on names diminishes if we bear in mind

that the savage looks upon his name as an essential part and an

important possession of his personality, and that he ascribes the full

significance of things to words. Our children do the same, as I have

shown elsewhere, and therefore they are never satisfied with accepting a

meaningless verbal similarity, but consistently conclude that when two

things have identical names a deeper correspondence between them must

exist. Numerous peculiarities of normal behaviour may lead civilized man

to conclude that he too is not yet as far removed as he thinks from

attributing the importance of things to mere names and feeling that his

name has become peculiarly identified with his person. This is

corroborated by psychoanalytic experiences, where there is much occasion

to point out the importance of names in unconscious thought

activity[74]. As was to be expected, the compulsion neurotics behave

just like savages in regard to names. They show the full ‘complex

sensitiveness’ towards the utterance and hearing of special words (as do

also other neurotics) and derive a good many, often serious, inhibitions

from their treatment of their own name. One of these taboo patients whom

I knew, had adopted the avoidance of writing down her name for fear that

it might get into somebody’s hands who thus would come into possession

of a piece of her personality. In her frenzied faithfulness, which she

needed to protect herself against the temptations of her phantasy, she

had created for herself the commandment, ‘not to give away anything of

her personality’. To this belonged first of all her name, then by

further application her hand-writing, so that she finally gave up

writing.

Thus it no longer seems strange to us that savages should consider a

dead person’s name as a part of his personality and that it should be

subjected to the same taboo as the deceased. Calling a dead person by

name can also be traced back to contact with him, so that we can turn

our attention to the more inclusive problem of why this contact is

visited with such a severe taboo.

The nearest explanation would point to the natural horror which a corpse

inspires, especially in view of the changes so soon noticeable after

death. Mourning for a dead person must also be considered as a

sufficient motive for everything which has reference to him. But horror

of the corpse evidently does not cover all the details of taboo rules,

and mourning can never explain to us why the mention of the dead is a

severe insult to his survivors. On the contrary, mourning loves to

preoccupy itself with the deceased, to elaborate his memory, and

preserve it for the longest possible time. Something besides mourning

must be made responsible for the peculiarities of taboo customs,

something which evidently serves a different purpose. It is this very

taboo on names which reveals this still unknown motive, and if the

customs did not tell us about it we would find it out from the

statements of the mourning savages themselves.

For they do not conceal the fact that they fear the presence and the

return of the spirit of a dead person; they practise a host of

ceremonies to keep him off and banish him[75]. They look upon the

mention of his name as a conjuration which must result in his immediate

presence[76]. They therefore consistently do everything to avoid

conjuring and awakening a dead person. They disguise themselves in order

that the spirit may not recognize them[77], they distort either his name

or their own, and become infuriated when a ruthless stranger incites the

spirit against his survivors by mentioning his name. We can hardly avoid

the conclusion that they suffer, according to Wundt’s expression, from

the fear of “his soul now turned into a demon,”[78].

With this understanding we approach Wundt’s conception who, as we have

heard, sees the nature of taboo in the fear of demons.

The assumption which this theory makes, namely, that immediately after

death the beloved member of a family becomes a demon, from whom the

survivors have nothing but hostility to expect, so that they must

protect themselves by every means from his evil desires, is so peculiar

that our first impulse is not to believe it. Yet almost all competent

authors agree as to this interpretation of primitive races.

Westermarck[79], who, in my opinion, gives altogether too little

consideration to taboo, makes this statement: “On the whole facts lead

me to conclude that the dead are more frequently regarded as enemies

than as friends and that Jevons and Grant Allen are wrong in their

assertion that it was formerly believed that the malevolence of the dead

was as a rule directed only against strangers, while they were

paternally concerned about the life and welfare of their descendants

and the members of their clan.”

R. Kleinpaul has written an impressive book in which he makes use of the

remnants of the old belief in souls among civilized races to show the

relation between the living and the dead[80]. According to him too, this

relation culminates in the conviction that the dead, thirsting for

blood, draw the living after them. The living did not feel themselves

safe from the persecutions of the dead until a body of water had been

put between them. That is why it was preferred to bury the dead on

islands or to bring them to the other side of a river: the expressions

‘here’ and ‘beyond’ originated in this way. Later moderation has

restricted the malevolence of the dead to those categories where a

peculiar right to feel rancour had to be admitted, such as the murdered

who pursue their murderer as evil spirits, and those who, like brides,

had died with their longings unsatisfied. Kleinpaul believes that

originally, however, the dead were all vampires, who bore ill-will to

the living, and strove to harm them and deprive them of life. It was the

corpse that first furnished the conception of an evil spirit.

The hypothesis that those whom we love best turn into demons after

death obviously allows us to put a further question. What prompted

primitive races to ascribe such a change of sentiment to the beloved

dead? Why did they make demons out of them? According to Westermarck

this question is easily answered[81]. “As death is usually considered

the worst calamity that can overtake man, it is believed that the

deceased are very dissatisfied with their lot. Primitive races believe

that death comes only through being slain, whether by violence or by

magic, and this is considered already sufficient reason for the soul to

be vindictive and irritable. The soul presumably envies the living and

longs for the company of its former kin; we can therefore understand

that the soul should seek to kill with them diseases in order to be

re-united with them....

“ ...A further explanation of the malevolence ascribed to souls lies in

the instinctive fear of them, which is itself the result of the fear of

death.”

Our study of psychoneurotic disturbances points to a more comprehensive

explanation, which includes that of Westermarck.

When a wife loses her husband, or a daughter her mother, it not

infrequently happens that the survivor is afflicted with tormenting

scruples, called ‘obsessive reproaches’ which raises the question

whether she herself has not been guilty through carelessness or neglect,

of the death of the beloved person. No recalling of the care with which

she nursed the invalid, or direct refutation of the asserted guilt can

put an end to the torture, which is the pathological expression of

mourning and which in time slowly subsides. Psychoanalytic investigation

of such cases has made us acquainted with the secret mainsprings of this

affliction. We have ascertained that these obsessive reproaches are in a

certain sense justified and therefore are immune to refutation or

objections. Not that the mourner has really been guilty of the death or

that she has really been careless, as the obsessive reproach asserts;

but still there was something in her, a wish of which she herself was

unaware, which was not displeased with the fact that death came, and

which would have brought it about sooner had it been strong enough. The

reproach now reacts against this unconscious wish after the death of the

beloved person. Such hostility, hidden in the unconscious behind tender

love, exists in almost all cases of intensive emotional allegiance to a

particular person, indeed it represents the classic case, the prototype

of the ambivalence of human emotions. There is always more or less of

this ambivalence in everybody’s disposition; normally it is not strong

enough to give rise to the obsessive reproaches we have described. But

where there is abundant predisposition for it, it manifests itself in

the relation to those we love most, precisely where you would least

expect it. The disposition to compulsion neurosis which we have so often

taken for comparison with taboo problems, is distinguished by a

particularly high degree of this original ambivalence of emotions.

We now know how to explain the supposed demonism of recently departed

souls and the necessity of being protected against their hostility

through taboo rules. By assuming a similar high degree of ambivalence in

the emotional life of primitive races such as psychoanalysis ascribes to

persons suffering from compulsion neurosis, it becomes comprehensible

that the same kind of reaction against the hostility latent in the

unconscious behind the obsessive reproaches of the neurotic should also

be necessary here after the painful loss has occurred. But this

hostility which is painfully felt in the unconscious in the form of

satisfaction with the demise, experiences a different fate in the case

of primitive man: the defence against it is accomplished by displacement

upon the object of hostility, namely the dead. We call this defence

process, frequent both in normal and diseased psychic life, a

_projection_. The survivor will deny that he has ever entertained

hostile impulses toward the beloved dead; but now the soul of the

deceased entertains them and will try to give vent to them during the

entire period of mourning. In spite of the successful defence through

projection, the punitive and remorseful character of this emotional

reaction manifests itself in being afraid, in self-imposed renunciations

and in subjection to restrictions which are partly disguised as

protective measures against the hostile demon. Thus we find again that

taboo has grown out of the soil of an ambivalent emotional attitude. The

taboo of the dead also originates from the opposition between the

conscious grief and the unconscious satisfaction at death. If this is

the origin of the resentment of spirits it is self-evident that just the

nearest and formerly most beloved survivors have to fear it most.

As in neurotic symptoms, the taboo regulations also evince opposite

feelings. Their restrictive character expresses mourning, while they

also betray very clearly what they are trying to conceal, namely, the

hostility towards the dead, which is now motivated as self-defence. We

have learnt to understand part of the taboo regulations as temptation

fears. A dead person is defenceless, which must act as an incitement to

satisfy hostile desires entertained against him; this temptation has to

be opposed by the prohibition.

But Westermarck is right in not admitting any difference in the savage’s

conception between those who have died by violence and those who have

died a natural death. As will be shown later[82], in the unconscious

mode of thinking even a natural death is perceived as murder; the person

was killed by evil wishes. Any one interested in the origin and meaning

of dreams dealing with the death of dear relatives such as parents and

brothers and sisters will find that the same feeling of ambivalence is

responsible for the fact that the dreamer, the child, and the savage all

have the same attitude towards the dead[83].

A little while ago we challenged Wundt’s conception, who explains the

nature of taboo through the fear of demons, and yet we have just agreed

with the explanation which traces back the taboo of the dead to a fear

of the soul of the dead after it has turned into a demon. This seems

like a contradiction, but it will not be difficult for us to explain it.

It is true that we have accepted the idea of demons, but we know that

this assumption is not something final which psychology cannot resolve

into further elements. We have, as it were, exposed the demons by

recognizing them as mere projections of hostile feelings which the

survivor entertains towards the dead.

The double feeling--tenderness and hostility--against the deceased,

which we consider well founded, endeavours to assert itself at the time

of bereavement as mourning and satisfaction. A conflict must ensue

between these contrary feelings, and as one of them, namely the

hostility, is altogether or for the greater part unconscious, the

conflict cannot result in a conscious difference in the form of

hostility or tenderness as, for instance, when we forgive an injury

inflicted upon us by some one we love. The process usually adjusts

itself through a special psychic mechanism, which is designated in

psychoanalysis as _projection_. This unknown hostility, of which we are

ignorant and of which we do not wish to know, is projected from our

inner perception into the outer world and is thereby detached from our

own person and attributed to the other. Not we, the survivors, rejoice

because we are rid of the deceased, on the contrary, we mourn for him;

but now, curiously enough, he has become an evil demon who would rejoice

in our misfortune and who seeks our death. The survivors must now defend

themselves against this evil enemy; they are freed from inner

oppression, but they have only succeeded in exchanging it for an

affliction from without.

It is not to be denied that this process of projection, which turns the

dead into malevolent enemies, finds some support in the real hostilities

of the dead which the survivors remember and with which they really can

reproach the dead. These hostilities are harshness, the desire to

dominate, injustice, and whatever else forms the background of even the

most tender relations between men. But the process cannot be so simple

that this factor alone could explain the origin of demons by projection.

The offences of the dead certainly motivate in part the hostility of the

survivors, but they would have been ineffective if they had not given

rise to this hostility and the occasion of death would surely be the

least suitable occasion for awakening the memory of the reproaches which

justly could have been brought against the deceased. We cannot dispense

with the unconscious hostility as the constant and really impelling

motive. This hostile tendency towards those nearest and dearest could

remain latent during their lifetime, that is to say, it could avoid

betraying itself to consciousness either directly or indirectly through

any substitutive formation. However, when the person who was

simultaneously loved and hated died, this was no longer possible, and

the conflict became acute. The mourning originating from the enhanced

tenderness, became on the one hand more intolerant of the latent

hostility, while on the other hand it could not tolerate that the latter

should not give origin to a feeling of pure gratification. Thus there

came about the repression of the unconscious hostility through

projection, and the formation of the ceremonial in which fear of

punishment by demons finds expression. With the termination of the

period of mourning, the conflict also loses its acuteness so that the

taboo of the dead can be abated or sink into oblivion.

4

Having thus explained the basis on which the very instructive taboo of

the dead has grown up, we must not miss the opportunity of adding a few

observations which may become important for the understanding of taboo

in general.

The projection of unconscious hostility upon demons in the taboo of the

dead is only a single example from a whole series of processes to which

we must grant the greatest influence in the formation of primitive

psychic life. In the foregoing case the mechanism of projection is used

to settle an emotional conflict; it serves the same purpose in a large

number of psychic situations which lead to neuroses. But projection is

not specially created for the purpose of defence, it also comes into

being where there are no conflicts. The projection of inner perceptions

to the outside is a primitive mechanism which, for instance, also

influences our sense-perceptions, so that it normally has the greatest

share in shaping our outer world. Under conditions that have not yet

been sufficiently determined even inner perceptions of ideational and

emotional processes are projected outwardly, like sense perceptions, and

are used to shape the outer world, whereas they ought to remain in the

inner world. This is perhaps genetically connected with the fact that

the function of attention was originally directed not towards the inner

world, but to the stimuli streaming in from the outer world, and only

received reports of pleasure and pain from the endopsychic processes.

Only with the development of the language of abstract thought through

the association of sensory remnants of word representations with inner

processes, did the latter gradually become capable of perception. Before

this took place primitive man had developed a picture of the outer world

through the outward projection of inner perceptions, which we, with our

reinforced conscious perception, must now translate back into

psychology.

The projection of their own evil impulses upon demons is only a part of

what has become the world system (‘Weltanschauung’) of primitive man

which we shall discuss later as ‘animism’. We shall then have to

ascertain the psychological nature of such a system formation and the

points of support which we shall find in the analysis of these system

formations will again bring us face to face with the neurosis. For the

present we merely wish to suggest that the ‘secondary elaboration’ of

the dream content is the prototype of all these system formations[84].

And let us not forget that beginning at the stage of system formation

there are two origins for every act judged by consciousness, namely the

systematic, and the real but unconscious origin[85].

Wundt[86] remarks that “among the influences which myth everywhere

ascribes to demons the evil ones preponderate, so that according to the

religions of races evil demons are evidently older than good demons.”

Now it is quite possible that the whole conception of demons was derived

from the extremely important relation to the dead. In the further course

of human development the ambivalence inherent in this relation then

manifested itself by allowing two altogether contrary psychic formations

to issue from the same root, namely, the fear of demons and of

_ghosts_, and the reverence for ancestors[87]. Nothing testifies so much

to the influence of mourning on the origin of belief in demons as the

fact that demons were always taken to be the spirits of persons not long

dead. Mourning has a very distinct psychic task to perform, namely, to

detach the memories and expectations of the survivors from the dead.

When this work is accomplished the grief, and with it the remorse and

reproach, lessens, and therefore also the fear of the demon. But the

very spirits which at first were feared as demons now serve a friendlier

purpose; they are revered as ancestors and appealed to for help in times

of distress.

If we survey the relation of survivors to the dead through the course of

the ages, it is very evident that the ambivalent feeling has

extraordinarily abated. We now find it easy to suppress whatever

unconscious hostility towards the dead there may still exist without any

special psychic effort on our part. Where formerly satisfied hate and

painful tenderness struggled with each other, we now find piety, which

appears like a cicatrice and demands: _De mortuis nil nisi_ _bene_.

Only neurotics still blur the mourning for the loss of their dear ones

with attacks of compulsive reproaches which psychoanalysis reveals as

the old ambivalent emotional feeling. How this change was brought about,

and to what extent constitutional changes and real improvement of

familiar relations share in causing the abatement of the ambivalent

feeling, need not be discussed here. But this example would lead us to

assume _that the psychic impulses of primitive man possessed a higher

degree of ambivalence than is found at present among civilized human

beings. With the decline of this ambivalence the taboo, as the

compromise symptom of the ambivalent conflict, also slowly disappeared._

Neurotics who are compelled to reproduce this conflict, together with

the taboo resulting from it, may be said to have brought with them an

atavistic remnant in the form of an archaic constitution the

compensation of which in the interest of cultural demands entails the

most prodigious psychic efforts on their part.

At this point we may recall the confusing information which Wundt

offered us about the double meaning of the word taboo, namely, holy and

unclean (see above). It was supposed that originally the word taboo did

not yet mean holy and unclean but signified something demonic, something

which may not be touched, thus emphasizing a characteristic common to

both extremes of the later conception; this persistent common trait

proves, however, that an original correspondence existed between what

was holy and what was unclean, which only later became differentiated.

In contrast to this, our discussion readily shows that the double

meaning in question belonged to the word taboo from the very beginning

and that it serves to designate a definite ambivalence as well as

everything which has come into existence on the basis of this

ambivalence. Taboo is itself an ambivalent word and by way of supplement

we may add that the established meaning of this word might of itself

have allowed us to guess what we have found as the result of extensive

investigation, namely, that the taboo prohibition is to be explained as

the result of an emotional ambivalence. A study of the oldest languages

has taught us that at one time there were many such words which included

their own contrasts so that they were in a certain sense ambivalent,

though perhaps not exactly in the same sense as the word taboo[88].

Slight vocal modifications of this primitive word containing two

opposite meanings later served to create a separate linguistic

expression for the two opposites originally united in one word.

The word taboo has had a different fate; with the diminished importance

of the ambivalence which it connotes it has itself disappeared, or

rather, the words analogous to it have vanished from the vocabulary. In

a later connection I hope to be able to show that a tangible historic

change is probably concealed behind the fate of this conception; that

the word at first was associated with definite human relations which

were characterized by great emotional ambivalence from which it expanded

to other analogous relations.

Unless we are mistaken, the understanding of taboo also throws light

upon the nature and origin of _conscience_. Without stretching ideas we

can speak of a taboo conscience and a taboo sense of guilt after the

violation of a taboo. Taboo conscience is probably the oldest form in

which we meet the phenomenon of conscience.

For what is ‘conscience’? According to linguistic testimony it belongs

to what we know most surely; in some languages its meaning is hardly to

be distinguished from consciousness.

Conscience is the inner perception of objections to definite wish

impulses that exist in us; but the emphasis is put upon the fact that

this rejection does not have to depend on anything else, that it is

sure of itself. This becomes even plainer in the case of a guilty

conscience, where we become aware of the inner condemnation of such acts

which realized some of our definite wish impulses. Confirmation seems

superfluous here; whoever has a conscience must feel in himself the

justification of the condemnation, and the reproach for the accomplished

action. But this same character is evinced by the attitude of savages

towards taboo. Taboo is a command of conscience, the violation of which

causes a terrible sense of guilt which is as self-evident as its origin

is unknown[89].

It is therefore probable that conscience also originates on the basis of

an ambivalent feeling from quite definite human relations which contain

this ambivalence. It probably originates under conditions which are in

force both for taboo and the compulsion neurosis, that is, one component

of the two contrasting feelings is unconscious and is kept repressed by

the compulsive domination of the other component. This is confirmed by

many things which we have learned from our analysis of neurosis. In the

first place the character of compulsion neurotics shows a predominant

trait of painful conscientiousness which is a symptom of reaction

against the temptation which lurks in the unconscious, and which

develops into the highest degrees of guilty conscience as their illness

grows worse. Indeed, one may venture the assertion that if the origin of

guilty conscience could not be discovered through compulsion neurotic

patients, there would be no prospect of ever discovering it. This task

is successfully solved in the case of the individual neurotic, and we

are confident of finding a similar solution in the case of races.

In the second place we cannot help noticing that the sense of guilt

contains much of the nature of anxiety; without hesitation it may be

described as ‘conscience phobia’. But fear points to unconscious

sources. The psychology of the neuroses taught us that when wish

feelings undergo repression their libido becomes transformed into

anxiety. In addition we must bear in mind that the sense of guilt also

contains something unknown and unconscious, namely the motivation for

the rejection. The character of anxiety in the sense of guilt

corresponds to this unknown quantity.

If taboo expresses itself mainly in prohibitions it may well be

considered self-evident, without remote proof from the analogy with

neurosis that it is based on a positive, desireful impulse. For what

nobody desires to do does not have to be forbidden, and certainly

whatever is expressly forbidden must be an object of desire. If we

applied this plausible theory to primitive races we would have to

conclude that among their strongest temptations were desires to kill

their kings and priests, to commit incest, to abuse their dead and the

like. That is not very probable. And if we should apply the same theory

to those cases in which we ourselves seem to hear the voice of

conscience most clearly we would arouse the greatest contradiction. For

there we would assert with the utmost certainty that we did not feel the

slightest temptation to violate any of these commandments, as for

example, the commandment: Thou shalt not kill, and that we felt nothing

but repugnance at the very idea.

But if we grant the testimony of our conscience the importance it

claims, then the prohibition--the taboo as well as our moral

prohibitions--becomes superfluous, while the existence of a conscience,

in turn, remains unexplained and the connection between conscience,

taboo and neurosis disappears. The net result of this would then be our

present state of understanding unless we view the problem

psychoanalytically.

But if we take into account the following results of psychoanalysis, our

understanding of the problem is greatly advanced. The analysis of

dreams of normal individuals has shown that our own temptation to kill

others is stronger and more frequent than we had suspected and that it

produces psychic effects even where it does not reveal itself to our

consciousness. And when we have learnt that the obsessive rules of

certain neurotics are nothing but measures of self-reassurance and

self-punishment erected against the reinforced impulse to commit murder,

we can return with fresh appreciation to our previous hypothesis that

every prohibition must conceal a desire. We can then assume that this

desire to murder actually exists and that the taboo as well as the moral

prohibition are psychologically by no means superfluous but are, on the

contrary, explained and justified through our ambivalent attitude

towards the impulse to slay.

The nature of this ambivalent relation so often emphasized as

fundamental, namely, that the positive underlying desire is unconscious,

opens the possibility of showing further connections and explaining

further problems. The pyschic processes in the unconscious are not

entirely identical with those known to us from our conscious psychic

life, but have the benefit of certain notable liberties of which the

latter are deprived. An unconscious impulse need not have originated

where we find it expressed, it can spring from an entirely different

place and may originally have referred to other persons and relations,

but through the mechanism of _displacement_, it reaches the point where

it comes to our notice. Thanks to the indestructibility of unconscious

processes and their inaccessibility to correction, the impulse may be

saved over from earlier times to which it was adapted to later periods

and conditions in which its manifestations must necessarily seem

foreign. These are all only hints, but a careful elaboration of them

would show how important they may become for the understanding of the

development of civilization.

In closing these discussions we do not want to neglect to make an

observation that will be of use for later investigations. Even if we

insist upon the essential similarity between taboo and moral

prohibitions we do not dispute that a psychological difference must

exist between them. A change in the relations of the fundamental

ambivalence can be the only reason why the prohibition no longer appears

in the form of a taboo.

In the analytical consideration of taboo phenomena we have hitherto

allowed ourselves to be guided by their demonstrable agreements with

compulsion neurosis; but as taboo is not a neurosis but a social

creation we are also confronted with the task of showing wherein lies

the essential difference between the neurosis and a product of culture

like the taboo.

Here again I will take a single fact as my starting point. Primitive

races fear a punishment for the violation of a taboo, usually a serious

disease or death. This punishment threatens only him who has been guilty

of the violation. It is different with the compulsion neurosis. If the

patient wants to do something that is forbidden to him he does not fear

punishment for himself, but for another person. This person is usually

indefinite, but, by means of analysis, is easily recognized as some one

very near and dear to the patient. The neurotic therefore acts as if he

were altruistic, while primitive man seems egotistical. Only if

retribution fails to overtake the taboo violator spontaneously does a

collective feeling awaken among savages that they are all threatened

through the sacrilege, and they hasten to inflict the omitted punishment

themselves. It is easy for us to explain the mechanism of this

solidarity. It is a question of fear of the contagious example, the

temptation to imitate, that is to say, of the capacity of the taboo to

infect. If some one has succeeded in satisfying the repressed desire,

the same desire must manifest itself in all his companions; hence, in

order to keep down this temptation, this envied individual must be

despoiled of the fruit of his daring. Not infrequently the punishment

gives the executors themselves an opportunity to commit the same

sacrilegious act by justifying it as an expiation. This is really one of

the fundamentals of the human code of punishment which rightly presumes

the same forbidden impulses in the criminal and in the members of

society who avenge his offence.

Psychoanalysis here confirms what the pious were wont to say, that we

are all miserable sinners. How then shall we explain the unexpected

nobility of the neurosis which fears nothing for itself and everything

for the beloved person? Psychoanalytic investigation shows that this

nobility is not primary. Originally, that is to say at the beginning of

the disease, the threat of punishment pertained to one’s own person; in

every case the fear was for one’s own life; the fear of death being only

later displaced upon another beloved person. The process is somewhat

complicated but we have a complete grasp of it. An evil impulse--a death

wish--towards the beloved person is always at the basis of the formation

of a prohibition. This is repressed through a prohibition, and the

prohibition is connected with a certain act which by displacement

usually substitutes the hostile for the beloved person, and the

execution of this act is threatened with the penalty of death. But the

process goes further and the original wish for the death of the beloved

other person is then replaced by fear for his death. The tender

altruistic trait of the neurosis therefore merely _compensates_ for the

opposite attitude of brutal egotism which is at the basis of it. If we

designate as social those emotional impulses which are determined

through regard for another person who is not taken as a sexual object,

we can emphasize the withdrawal of these social factors as an essential

feature of the neurosis, which is later disguised through

overcompensation.

Without lingering over the origin of these social impulses and their

relation to other fundamental impulses of man, we will bring out the

second main characteristic of the neurosis by means of another example.

The form in which taboo manifests itself has the greatest similarity to

the touching phobia of neurotics, the _Délire de toucher_. As a matter

of fact this neurosis is regularly concerned with the prohibition of

sexual touching and psychoanalysis has quite generally shown that the

motive power which is deflected and displaced in the neurosis is of

sexual origin. In taboo the forbidden contact has evidently not only

sexual significance but rather the more, general one of attack, of

acquisition and of personal assertion. If it is prohibited to touch the

chief or something that was in contact with him it means that an

inhibition should be imposed upon the same impulse which on other

occasions expresses itself in suspicious surveillance of the chief and

even in physical ill-treatment of him before his coronation (see above).

_Thus the preponderance of sexual components of the impulse over the

social components is the determining factor of the neurosis._ But the

social impulses themselves came into being through the union of

egotistical and erotic components into special entities.

From this single example of a comparison between taboo and compulsion

neurosis it is already possible to guess the relation between individual

forms of the neurosis and the creations of culture, and in what respect

the study of the psychology of the neurosis is important for the

understanding of the development of culture.

In one way the neuroses show a striking and far-reaching correspondence

with the great social productions of art, religion and philosophy, while

again they seem like distortions of them. We may say that hysteria is a

caricature of an artistic creation, a compulsion neurosis, a caricature

of a religion, and a paranoic delusion, a caricature of a philosophic

system. In the last analysis this deviation goes back to the fact that

the neuroses are asocial formations; they seek to accomplish by private

means what arose in society through collective labour. In analysing the

impulse of the neuroses one learns that motive powers of sexual origin

exercise the determining influence in them, while the corresponding

cultural creations rest upon social impulses and on such as have issued

from the combination of egotistical and sexual components. It seems that

the sexual need is not capable of uniting men in the same way as the

demands of self preservation; sexual satisfaction is in the first place

the private concern of the individual.

Genetically the asocial nature of the neurosis springs from its original

tendency to flee from a dissatisfying reality to a more pleasurable

world of phantasy. This real world which neurotics shun is dominated by

the society of human beings and by the institutions created by them; the

estrangement from reality is at the same time a withdrawal from human

companionship.