Summary of Sigmund Freud's Totem and Taboo

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#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.

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