Hungarian and Vogul Mythology: By Géza Róheim. Foreword by Warner Muensterberger. Monographs of the American Ethnological Society, XXIII. Locust Valley, New York: J. J. Augustin, Inc., 1954. 86 pp.

This posthumous work has been carefully edited by Dr. Esther Goldfrank with the assistance of John Lotz, Professor of Linguistics at Columbia, Harry Levy, Professor of Classics at Hunter, and others. Dr. Lotz contributes three valuable appendices on linguistic and historical questions.

Dr. Róheim begins by considering the relationships between Hungarian myths and history. He makes a good case for the view that fragments of ancient Ugric mythology survive in the Hungarian chronicles. He asserts that these fragments are myths of totemic origin. World-Surveyor-Man or Gander-Chief, the key figure in Vogul mythology, is interpreted as a solar deity. There follows an interesting chapter on North American parallels of Vogul themes. Totemism and shamanism are considered in psychoanalytic terms and also in relation to moieties and other aspects of social organization.

This reviewer is not competent to evaluate the book as a technical contribution to Uralic folklore. It is without doubt an immensely learned study. The bibliography of about two hundred titles includes items from six languages. It is somewhat surprising that Dr. Thomas Sebeok, who has written so much on Ural-Altaic folklore, is not included in this bibliography.

The bulk of the monograph is historical and descriptive. Psychoanalytic interpretations are relatively brief (mainly pp. 34-37, 67-68). Róheim sees as central in the myths the son in the Oedipus complex and the dream origin of the shamanistic myths of flight (flight and return of the soul). The primal scene is considered to be the motivation of the myths of the milky way, to which are also attributed a dream origin.

This compact and relatively restrained little book is well worthy