FREE ESSAY ON TOTEM AND TABOO

TOTEM AND TABOO

Julien Rouleau 
In Totem and Taboo, Freud Sigmund explain the origin of religion of different tribe found
around the world. Although related, the two words have quite distinct meanings. According
to Compton's Encyclopedia, "totemism is a term of Ojibwa American Indian origin that
refers to an animal or plant associated either with a group of blood-related persons such
as a family or with part of a tribe". The plant or animal is a totem. As such, totemism
is a word used to define relationships. A taboo implies something forbidden or to be
avoided. The term is of Polynesian origin. It was first recorded by explorer James Cook
in 1771, when he found it used by the natives of the Tonga Islands in the South Pacific.
Both terms have their modern counterparts. People frequently discuss their astrological
signs and comment that they are, for example, Leos (lions), Pisces (fish), or Aries
(rams). Such animal associations with groups of individuals are comparable to totemism.
The most common taboo seen today is a No Smoking sign in public places. 
In chapter 1, Freud explain the stage of development of the primitive man: the inanimate
monuments and implements which he has left behind for us through our knowledge of his
art, his religion and his attitude toward life, which we have received either directly or
through the medium of legends, myth and fairy tales.
To show that this supposition is correct, Freud chooses to compare the "psychology of
primitive races" with the psychology of the neurotic. For different reasons he choose to
take the aborigines of the youngest continent: Australia. According to Freud, the 
aborigines of Australia are "look upon as a peculiar race". They don't build houses or
huts, do not cultivate soil or keep domestic animals. They only live of flesh of animals
that they kill. There is no chief, the decision are maid by the assembly. These primitive
tribes have a system of Totemism that divided them into separate and smaller clan with
each taking and choosing the name of its totem. According to Freud, a totem is "a plant
or a force of nature (rain, water), which stands in a peculiar relation to the whole
clan". Every member of a totem is under sacred obligation not to kill their totem member,
to eat its meat or from any other enjoyment of it. If those rules are violated a
punishment is given. A totem is not limited to a neighborhood or an area. The members of
each totem may live separated from one another. They can also live with people from
another totem. Every totem has sexual laws that forbid members of the same totem to have
sexual relation with each other and also cannot marry each other. If those rules are
broken, the whole tribe avenges a punishment as if it were a question of warding off a
danger that threatens the community as a whole or a guilt that weighs upon all.
Some severe punishment is also given when a temporary love affair has not resulted in
childbirth. Those tribes are called "consanguineous"(they are one family with the same
blood) because totem is hereditary through the maternal or paternal line. So any sexual
relation with someone of the same totem is incest.
The totem exogamy or prohibition of sexual relation between member of the same clan, is
probably the most appropriate means for the prevention of group incest. Marriage is a 
very complicated subject. Some tribes are so organized that they fall into two divisions
of marriage classes or "Phratries". Each of these marriage groups is exogenous and
includes a majority of totem groups. Each marriage group is also divided into two
subclasses. So the whole tribe is then divided into four classes. (Every division is
exogenous).
There is also a rule against the relation of boys with their mother and sisters. The boy
leaves home at a specific age to move to the clubhouse where he sleep and take meals. He
can still visit home to ask for food, but his sister is at home, he must go away before
he has eaten. If she is not about to eat, he may seat down to eat near to the door. If by
chance they meet each other, she has to turn away and conceal himself. He is not allowed
to say her name or use any current word if it forms part of her name. On the other hand
the reserve between mother and son increase with age and is more obligatory on the
mother's side. For example if she brings him something to eat, she must put it down
before him, and she is also no allowed to address him in any familiar manners.
In some other tribe like the Gazelle peninsula, when the sister get married, she may no
longer speak to her brother or mention his name.
In New-Mecklenburg, they are not allowed to approach each other, shake hands, or give
each other present.
However, they are allowed to talk to each other to a distance of several paces. Just like
every tribe, the penalty of incest with your sister is death.
The Barongos in Delagoa, in Africa, the precautions are directed toward the sister in
law, the wife of the brother of one's wife. If the man meets one of those people, he must
avoid 
them. He is not allowed to eat at the same table as her, or dare to enter her hut.
In the Akamba tribe in British East Africa, a girl must avoid her own father between her
puberty and her marriage. If she meets him on the street she should avoid him and never
sit down next to him. However, after the marriage nothing can stop her from having sexual
intercourse with her father. 
On the other hand there is also a prohibition in almost every tribe of intercourse of a
wife with her father in law but these laws are not so constant and serious. For example
on the Bank Islands these prohibition are very severe. A man will avoid hi smother in
law. If by chance they met, the woman must step aside and turn her back until he passed
or he does the same.
In Vanna Lava, a man will not even walk behind his mother in law along the beach until
the traces of her footstep are watched away.
Among the Basogas, a Negro tribe that lives in a region of the Nile, a man may talk to
his mother in law only if she is in another room of the house and is not visible to him.
According to Freud, he don't understand why "all these races should manifest such great
fear of temptation on the part of the man for an elderly woman, old enough to be his
mother."
Freud explains that psychoanalysis has taught us that the first object selection of the
boy in of an incestuous nature and that he is attracted to everything that is forbidden:
The mother, the sister. He also explains that psychoanalysis taught him the mature
individual try to free himself from this attraction.
In chapter 2, Freud explains the meaning of the word taboo. Taboo is a Polynesian word,
which means "sacer" for the ancient Romans and must have had the same meaning for the
Greeks and the Hebrews. According to Freud, the meaning of taboo brake into two opposite
directions. On one hand it means sacred and consecrated: on the other hand it means
uncanny, dangerous, forbidden, and unclean. The opposite for taboo is the Polynesian word
"Noa" that means something ordinary and generally accessible. The taboo restrictions are
different from the religious and normal constraint. They are not imposed by god but by
themselves.
To explain the meaning of taboo, Freud gives the interpretation of W.Wundt. Wundt says
that taboo is the oldest unwritten code of law, assuming that taboo is older than the
Gods and goes back to the pre-religious age. According to Wundt, taboo "includes all
customs which express dread of particular objects connected with cultic ideas on of
actions having reference to them".
Wundt also shows why he finds more practical to study the nature of taboo of the
Australian savages, instead of the Polynesian races.
For the Australians tribe, he divides taboo into three classes: animals, persons or other
object. The animal taboo consists of the taboo against killing and eating. The taboo of
persons, explain that tools, clothes and weapons are a permanent taboo for everybody
else. The taboo of object that apply to trees, plants, house, and localities are more
variable and seem only to follow the rules that anything which for any reason arouse 
dread or is mysterious, becomes subject to taboo. The animal, person or place, on which
there is a taboo is demonic, it is sacred and therefore "not clean".
Taboo also prohibits the act of touching. It prohibit not only the direct contact with
the body but also to the figurative use of the phrase as "to come into contact" or "be in
touch with someone or something". Anyone who ha s violated a taboo by touching something
which is a taboo become taboo himself, and no one may come into contact with him. For
example: " Maori chief would not blow on fire with his mouth; for his sacred breath would
communicate its sanctity to the fire, which would pass it on to the man who ate the meat
which was in the pot, which stood on the fire, which was breathed on by the chief; so
that the eater, infected by the chief's convoyed through these intermediaries, would
surely die".
The oldest and probably most important taboo prohibition 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.
As we know, an individual who has violated a taboo, becomes himself taboo because he has
the dangerous property of tempting others to follow his exemple. He is therefore really
contagious and then he 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
awakening the ambivalent conflict in them."
It is clear that the violation of certain taboo becomes a social danger that must be
punished by all the members of society. If they did not punish the violator, they would
therefore become aware that they want to imitate evil.
Among these races, taboo has become the general form of law imposed by chiefs and priests
to insure their property and privileges. Freud explains they're still remains a large
group of laws related to enemies, chiefs, and the dead.
First, let's talk about enemies. The punishment when you kill an enemy is different in
every tribe. For example, in Timor the leader of the expedition cannot return to his
house under any circumstances. A special hut is given for him in whom he spent two month
engaged in 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.
In the Dayak tribe, warriors returning from a successful expedition must remain
sequestered for several days and abstain from certain food. They may not touch iron and
must remain away from their wives.
The behavior of primitive races toward their chiefs, kings, and priest, is controlled by
two principles. They must both be guarded and be guarded against. They must be guarded
against ruler, 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 similar charge. All direct or indirect contact
with this dangerous sacredness is therefore avoided, and when it cannot be avoided, a
ceremonial has been found to prevent the consequences. For example, 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 his danger if, on entering, they bare the left shoulder and
induce the king to touch it with his hand. The necessity of guarding the king from every
danger arises from his great importance for the weal and woe of his subjects. He is a
person who regulate the "course of the world". His people have to thank him not only for
the rain and sunshine but also for the wind that brings the ships to their shore and for
the solid ground on which they set their feet. Every king just like his subject is
tempted by taboo. For example, on "Shark Point at Cape Padron in Lower Guinea (West
Africa), a priest called Kululu 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. The honor of being a priest or a king ceased to be desirable; the
person in line for the succession often used every means to escape it. On Niue a coral
island in the Pacific Ocean, monarchy actually ended because nobody was willing to take
responsibility. In some part of West Africa, a general council is held after the death of
the king to determine upon the successor. The man that is chosen is seized and kept in
custody in a "fetish house" until he is willing to accept the crown.
Among most primitive people, the taboo of the dead is the most important. The taboo
customs after bodily contact with the dead are the same all over Polynesia, Melanesia and
in part of Africa. Anyone who had touched a corpse or who had taken part in its interment
became extremely unclean and was cut from intercourse with his fellow beings; 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. 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 his hand were behind his back. 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 not be
used by anyone else.
Among the Agutainos, who live in Palawan, a widow may not leave her hut for the first
seven or eight days after her husband's death, except at night. On eof the most
surprising taboo customs of mourning is the prohibition against pronouncing the name of
the deceased. In South American tribes, it is considered the gravest insult to the
survivors to pronounce the name of the deceased in their presence. If the deceased had
the same name as an animal or an object, the animal or object names must be changed to
new ones in order no to be reminded of the deceased when they mentioned them.
In chapter three, Freud talks about animism, magic and the omnipotence of thought.
According to Freud, animism is the theory of psychic concepts and in the wider sense, of
spiritual beings in general. Animism is a system of thought; it gives not only the
explanation of a single phenomenon, but makes it possible to understand the totality of
the world from one point, as continuity.
According to Freud, sorcery is essentially the art of influencing spirits by treating
them like people under the same circumstances. Magic however, is something else; it does
not essentially concern itself with spirits, and uses special means, not the ordinary 
psychological method. Magic serve the most the most varied purposes. It is subject to the
process of nature to the will of man, protect the individual against enemies and dangers,
and give him power to injure his enemies. One of the most widespread magic procedures for
injuring an enemy consists of making a duplicate of him out of any kind of material. This
magic thecnique, instead of being used for private enmity can also be employed for pious
purposes and can thus be used to aid the gods against evil demons. Other method can be
used to injure enemies. One other method that is used to injure your enemies is to get a
hold of his hair, his nails, anything that he has discarded and do something hostile to
these things. This is just as effective as if you had dominated the person himself.
Freud explain that there is a great mass of magic actions which show a similar
motivation, but Freud only stress upon only two: the art of causing rain is produced by
magic means, by imitating it and by imitating the clouds and storm which produce it. 
For example, the Ainos of Japan make rain by pouring out water through a big sieve, while
others fir out a big bowl with sails and oars as if it were a ship, which is then dragged
about the village and gardens.
Freud adopted the term "omnipotence of thought" from an intelligent man, "a former
sufferer from compulsion neurosis, who, after being cured through psychoanalytic
treatment, was able to demonstrate his efficiency and good sense. He had coined this
phrase to designate all those peculiar and uncanny occurrences which seemed to pursue him
just as they pursue others afflicted with his malady". This means that if he happened 
to think of a person, he was actually confronted with this person as if he had conjured
him up.
In this last chapter, Freud decides to empathize the meaning of totemism. Totemism is a
religious as well as a social system. On its religious side it consist of the relations
of mutual respect and consideration between a person and his totem, and on its social
side it is composed of obligations of the members of the clan towards each other and
towards other tribes. Freud also brings up the origin of totemism. To explain the origin
of theory of totemism, he divided into three groups: The nomalistic theories, the
sociological theories, and the psychological theories. According to Herbert Spencer, "the
origin of totemism was to be found in the giving of the names." The attributes of certain
individuals had brought about their being named after animals so that they had come to
have names of honor or nicknames that continued in their descendants. To explain the
sociological theories, Freud affirms that "the totem is the visible representative of the
social religion of these races. It embodies the community, which is the real object of
veneration." 
To explain the psychological theories, Freud says that the totem was meant to represent a
safe place of refuge where the soul is deposited in order to avoid the dangers that
threaten it. After primitive man had housed his soul in his totem he became invulnerable
and he naturally took care of himself not to harm the bearer of his soul.
To also explain the origin of totemism, Freud explains the relation between human and
animals. At first the child attribute full equality to the animals; he feels more closely
related to the animal that to the adult that is still mysterious to him. At a part of his

adolescence, the child suddenly begins to fear certain animal species and to protect
himself against seeing or touching any individual of this species. Also one of the oldest
form of sacrifice, older than the use of fire and the knowledge of agriculture, was the
sacrifice of animals, whose flesh and blood was eaten by the God. According to Freud,
"psychoanalysis has revealed to us that the totem animal is really a substitute for the
father, and this really explains the contradiction that it is usually forbidden to kill
the totem animal, that the killing of it results in a holiday and that the animal is
killed and yet mourned." 
In this book, the attempt was to find the original meaning of totemism through its
infantile traces. Both totem and taboo are "held to have their roots in the Oedipus
complex, which lies at the basis of all neurosis" and, as Freud argued, it was also "the
origin of religion, ethics, society, and art"