Totem and Taboo

By Sigmund Freud

2. Taboo and Emotional Ambivalence

1) The meaning of 'taboo' diverges on the one hand to mean 'sacred' and 'consecrated' and on the other 'uncanny', 'dangerous', 'forbidden' and 'unclean'. The word 'taboo' denotes everything whether a person, or a place or a thing or a transitory condition, which is the vehicle or source of this mysterious attribute. Freud looks at the views of a notable investigator in this area - Wilhelm Wundt, (1906) who holds that 'Taboo is originally nothing other than the objectified fear of the "demonic" power which is believed to lie hidden in a tabooed object.' He also divides taboo prohibitions into three classes, those against animals (totemism), those against humans, and those against plants, which are the least stable. In these terms, Wundt emphasizes that taboo in its earliest form is neither 'sacred' nor 'unclean', but an intermediate - 'demonic', and only splits at a later stage into objects of veneration and horror.

2) Freud then looks at the similarities between 'taboos' and neurotic, psychologically ill patients. Since it can often be seen that these patients have created for themselves individual taboo prohibitions of this very kind, which they obey just as strictly as savages obey the communal taboos of their society. Yet Freud emphasizes that any similarity may only apply to the forms of the taboos and obsessions, and not extend to their essential character. The similarities that Freud draws between taboo usages and obsessional symptoms may be summarized as follows:

(i) their prohibitions lack any assignable motive;
(ii) they are maintained by an internal necessity;
(iii) they are easily displaceable and there is a risk of infection from the prohibited object;
(iv) they give rise to injunctions for the performances of ceremonial acts.

Freud then points out that these psychical fixations follow from the subject's ambivalent attitude towards a single object - the continuing conflict between the (noisily conscious) prohibition and the (unconscious) instinct/desire. This therefore accommodates savages' inability to tell us the real reason for their prohibitions - the origin of the taboo - since it would follow that their real reason must be 'unconscious'. Furthermore, the most ancient and important taboo prohibitions and laws of totemism - not to kill the totem animal and to avoid sexual intercourse with members of the totem clan of the opposite sex - these must be the most important and oldest of human desires.

(3) The value of these parallels that Freud has drawn is then assessed by looking at its applicability to various examples of taboo. Freud then looks at taboos attaching to:

(i) enemies,
(ii) chiefs
(iii) to the dead

using material from Frazer's Taboo and the Perils of the Soul (1911) and The Golden Bough.

(a) Freud notes that even the killing of men is governed by usages of taboo, which demand (1) the appeasement of the slain enemy (2) restrictions upon the slayer (3) acts of expiation and purification by him and (4) certain ceremonial observances. Whilst Freud admits that due to incomplete information on this subject the universality of these usages is hard to assess, but seems probable. Freud then cites examples of each of the four usage from various places (Timor, Celebes, Borneo, North American tribes etc.) and discusses objections - for example that examples of 'appeasement' are possibly, rather than to do with 'ambivalence' to do with superstitious fear of the ghosts of the slain. However Freud argues back that all rites of appeasement would follow logically from this superstition. In the explanation of observances of appeasement, restriction, expiation and purification, Freud proposes that two principles are combined: the extension of the taboo from the slain man on to everything that has come into contact with him, and the fear of the slain man's ghost. However, how these two are combined into ceremonials, whether one is to be given more weight etc. is unclear, rather Freud lays stress on the unity of his view that derives all of the above observations from emotional ambivalence towards the enemy.

(b) The Taboo upon rulers seems to be governed by two complementary rather than contradictory principles - "A ruler must not only be guarded, he must also be guarded against" (Frazer, 1911) - since rulers are vehicles of mysterious and dangerous powers, yet contact with the king is remedy and protection against the dangers provoked by contact with the king - a contract between a passive and an active relation to the king. Examples of Kings' healing powers is found in recent western lineages as well as savage equivalents, and Freud also describes examples of fearful effects of contact with a king. Freud proposes that the technique of psychoanalysis allows more detailed analyses of these impulses, as though they were symptoms of neurosis - taking as a starting point the excessive apprehensiveness and solicitude associated with these taboos concerning rulers. These point in turn to both over affection and hostility towards rulers - emotional ambivalence. Freud cites as the strongest support for this, the taboo ceremonials themselves. These ceremonials unmistakably reveal their double meaning, since obsessional act here, is ostensibly a protection against the prohibited act and applies to the conscious part of the mind, but Freud then argues that it is in fact actually a repetition of the prohibited act, and as such represents the unconscious part of the mind. Freud finished by suggesting that these relationships with rulers may also have a reciprocal relationship with the father complex./p>

(c) The Taboo on the dead, is manifest in the consequences that follow contact with the dead, and in the treatment of mourners. A common feature against those who have touched the dead, being prohibition of touching food themselves, this observance hinting at the contagious power of the taboo. However Freud cites additional examples to hint at other aspects of the taboo - for example laying thorn bushes around beds to keep the dead person's ghost at a distance. Other observations (such as strict solitude for widows and widowers) hint at the danger of the bereaved to temptation to find a substitute for the lost one. Another widespread observance is the prohibition against uttering the name of the dead person, an obvious explanation being that savages regard a name as an essential part of a man's personality, so uttering the name is clearly a derivative of having contact with him. Psychoanalytic practice also often reports the importance of names in unconscious mental activities. Unsurprisingly, therefore, obsessional neurotics behave exactly like savages in their 'complexive sensitiveness' to names.

Contagious power aside, there is also the obvious taboo of horror roused by dead bodies and the changes in them, however to account for all the details of the taboo, it seems important to mention that they are afraid of the presence or the return of the dead person's ghost, so the ceremonies are to keep him at distance or drive him off. In the words of Wundt (1906) they are victims to a fear of "the dead man's soul which has become a demon." - confirming the idea that fear of demons is the essence of taboos.

The hypothesis that after death those most beloved are transformed into demons raises questions though - such as why would primitive men attribute such a change of feeling to those once so dear to them? And why make them into demons? Westermarck (1906-8) and others cited as a motive the fact that primitive peoples emotional life is very ambivalent, and therefore after such a painful bereavement savages should be obliged to produce a reaction against the hostility in their unconscious. In primitive peoples defence against this hostility is dealt with by displacing it onto the dead themselves - 'projection'. So, once again it is found that the taboo has come from a basis of an ambivalent emotional attitude.

(4) So, having explained the taboo on the dead, Freud proceeds to increase understanding of taboos in general. In doing so he raises various points, firstly, that projection, as described above, is not only used in defence but also has roles in the projection of internal perceptions of emotional and thought processes. Furthermore Freud suggests that from the researches documented thus far, it seems that the primitive men's psychical impulses are more ambivalent than those of modern civilised man, and that as this ambivalence diminished, taboo (the symptom of the ambivalence and a compromise between the two conflicting impulses) slowly disappeared.

Despite maintaining essential similarities between taboo prohibitions and moral prohibitions, Freud does not deny that there must be a psychological difference between them. Indeed, he sees the next task as being to explain the difference between a neurosis and a cultural creation such as taboo. Whilst he maintains that both have a fear of death or illness, or other punishment if a rule or taboo is violated, he argues that in cultural creations, the emotions are determined by showing consideration for another person without taking him as a sexual object. Therefore the fact that is characteristic of the neurosis is the preponderance of the sexual over the social instinctual elements.

To conclude, Freud cites this as support for the importance of the study of psychology of neuroses, in developing an understanding of the growth of civilization.