This text is a translation from the second German edition, by Douglas Bryan, and bears a preface by Prof. Freud, who thought very highly of it, as a work on applied psychoanalysis. It was first published 25 years ago with some of its foundations in Freud's “Totem and Taboo”, and one finds excellent researches, discussions and analyses of the couvade, the psychogenesis of the fear of retaliation, the puberty rites of savages and an extensive presentation of the psychology of the shofar (ram's horn) in