You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
In this study Róheim first points out the difference in content and structure between myth and folk tale. In myths we find divine actors, acting in a definite locality. The myth is a part of the creed believed by the narrator, mostly connected with a ritual. The folk tale seems to be purely fiction; it shows the dramatis personoe as human beings, the actors are nameless, the scene can be anywhere. But the contents of both myth and folk tale show their common origin, namely the unconscious conflicts around the Oedipus complex.
Róheim has collected a series of folk tales which were told him by the members of a primitive tribe, the Aranda, in Central Australia. The hero and heroine of these stories are always a beautiful couple. Their antagonists are giants with big penises and testicles; the females have enormous genitals and breasts. All narratives show the giants as cannibalistic, either attempting to devour the human beings, or actually doing so. They never show the humans retaliating in kind. The end of the folk tale is always happy. Róheim believes that the demons in the central Australian folk tales may represent the past of the native civilization, since they are pictured as more unbridled in lust and aggression than the central Australian natives of today. The institution of marriage is entirely absent in the folk tales and totemism is