Book
Totem and Taboo
Totem und Tabu
Four essays, first published in Imago in 1912–1913 and collected as a book by Hugo Heller in 1913, that compare the mental life of tribal peoples, as the anthropology of the time described it, with the mental life of neurotics. They treat in turn the horror of incest; taboo and the ambivalence of feeling; animism, magic and the omnipotence of thoughts; and the return of totemism in childhood. In the last essay Freud puts forward the hypothesis of a primal horde in which the brothers killed and devoured a violent father. Their remorse over the deed and their ambivalence toward him, he argues, gave rise to totemism, to the prohibitions on murder and incest, and to social organisation, morality and religion.
Main ideas
- The mental life of tribal peoples is compared with that of neurotics.
- Taboo is treated together with the ambivalence of feeling.
- Animism and magic are linked to the omnipotence of thoughts.
- Totemism returns in childhood.
- The murder of the primal father by the brothers of the horde, and their remorse, are proposed as the origin of totemism, the incest and murder prohibitions, morality and religion.
What it shows
- 1913
Sigmund Freud introduced Primal horde
Taking Darwin's hypothesis of a primal horde ruled by a jealous father, Freud built on it in the fourth essay of Totem und Tabu the myth of the brothers who kill and eat the father, then out of guilt raise the totem and the incest taboo. In 1921 he read the group as a revival of the primal horde.
- 1917
Sigmund Freud introduced Mourning
Freud had already said in Totem und Tabu that mourning has a psychical task to perform; Trauer und Melancholie makes it a concept, the work of mourning (Trauerarbeit), in which reality-testing shows that the loved object is gone and the libido is withdrawn from its memories bit by bit, and sets it against melancholia.