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The eminent American anthropologist offers in this book a series of essays published during the last ten years. Although he complains of a lack of unity in his book, the reader will observe that the leading idea is method, that stress is laid rather on the methodological aspect of problems than on their solutions.
The space at our disposal will not permit us to discuss all the papers, some of them very interesting (cf. especially p. 59, 'Psychology and Culture'); but a few words ought to be said about two papers, since they are fairly representative of the well-informed anthropologist's attitude towards psycho-analysis. The paper on Freud's theories (p. 201) is a review of Totem and Taboo. Goldenweiser as an anthropologist is of course justified in applying the critical method of anthropology to the great vistas set forth in Totem and Taboo, but I think a reader of this book should be able to understand the difference in the view-point of the anthropological specialist and of the psychologist. What Freud is really trying to explain is not totemism as defined by certain anthropological authorities (viz. clan system, etc.), but totemic phenomena: that is, animal symbolism, specific forms of sacrifice, taboo and exogamy. As regards sacrifice, for instance, the important point is not in how many cases sacrifices of the communion type are actually associated with clan totemism, but the sheer existence of this type of sacrifice in which the god, ancestor or deified animal is reverenced, killed and eaten at the same time. This sacrifice contains ample proof of the ambivalent attitude regarding a mythical representative of the father-imago, and this is what Freud is concerned with. In his ardour to refute the theory of the Cyclopean horde the author as anthropologist is sometimes wrong about his facts. He tells us that we do not hear of the eating of relatives; this is rather astonishing to the reviewer, as some of his personal friends (Pitchentara) have been doing