Summary of Sigmund Freud's Totem and Taboo

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The Australian aborigines are a distinct race that shows neither physical nor linguistic relationship with their nearest neighbors, the Melanesian, Polynesian, and Malayan peoples. They do not build houses or permanent shelters, and they keep no domesticated animals except the dog. They live entirely on the flesh of animals and roots.

#2 The Australian system of Totemism is based on the relation between a tribe’s totem and the whole clan. The totem is the common ancestor of the clan, and it is their guardian spirit and helper. The clansmen are under a sacred obligation not to kill or destroy their totem.

#3 The same severe punishment is inflicted on passing love-affairs in the case of the Ta-ta-thi tribe, New South Wales, Australia. The reason for this is that the totems are hereditary and not changed by marriage, and therefore it is easy to follow the consequences of the prohibition.

#4 The Australian tribes, when speaking about their relatives, do not refer to two individuals, but to a relation between an individual and a group. This is what L. H. Morgan called the classificatory system of relationship.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Apr 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669394976

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Insights on Sigmund Freud's Totem and Taboo

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The Australian aborigines are a distinct race that shows neither physical nor linguistic relationship with their nearest neighbors, the Melanesian, Polynesian, and Malayan peoples. They do not build houses or permanent shelters, and they keep no domesticated animals except the dog. They live entirely on the flesh of animals and roots.

#2

The Australian system of Totemism is based on the relation between a tribe’s totem and the whole clan. The totem is the common ancestor of the clan, and it is their guardian spirit and helper. The clansmen are under a sacred obligation not to kill or destroy their totem.

#3

The same severe punishment is inflicted on passing love-affairs in the case of the Ta-ta-thi tribe, New South Wales, Australia. The reason for this is that the totems are hereditary and not changed by marriage, and therefore it is easy to follow the consequences of the prohibition.

#4

The Australian tribes, when speaking about their relatives, do not refer to two individuals, but to a relation between an individual and a group. This is what L. H. Morgan called the classificatory system of relationship.

#5

The Australian natives had a complex system of marriage restrictions, which was the result of a combination of totemic exogamy and the subdivisions of the marriage classes. The significance of the phratries seems to extend only to the regulation of marriage choice, while the significance of the totems seems to extend beyond that.

#6

The system of marriage-classes in its furthest developments is an attempt to go beyond the prevention of natural and group incest and to forbid marriage between even more distant groups of relatives.

#7

The