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Latah is the Malay term for a behavioral syndrome found throughout the world, including Maine, and characterized by echolalia, coprolalia, echopraxia, automatic obedience and echominia. In a comprehensive but somewhat roundabout fashion, Yap reviews the whole subject of latahlike reactions citing the early and modern literature. He presents seven cases to illustrate that latah is a specific reaction produced by sudden psychological shock in naïve, undeveloped or poorly endowed personalities. Pathodynamically it is characterized by disintegration of the boundaries of the ego with impairment of volition as well as attention. The factors of fright, tickling, habituation, aging and hysterical gain are discussed. It is concluded that latah is a special form of fright or traumatic neurosis with minimal hysterical elaborations, culturally maintained and found only in persons whose powers of mastery and defense are limited by the level of their own cultural development. The one undoubted feature common to all those cultures which show latah (including the Maine Jumpers) is that they are all at a low level of technological development and have not discovered or developed techniques to master their natural environment to the same extent that other civilizations have. This is a lengthy but fascinating paper.