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The author of this volume is a Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology and something of a lay-analyst. He is a pioneer in the field of psychoanalytic interpretations of anthropological data. This field first opened by Freud in his “Totem and Taboo” has had an extraordinary fascination for some of our modern anthropologists who have hoped in this way to demonstrate the “brotherhood of mankind” in a psychological way using the most primitive of human groups for their case material. The results in many ways have been richly revealing of the common basic psychological operations of the institutions of the human mind. But unfortunately a good deal of the writings of this sort has been prone to go far beyond the evidence submitted and to lead to a good deal of obscure speculation.
Roheim has not been distinguished for the clarity of his style, nor the cogency of his thought in several of his previous books which the reviewer has read. This volume is somewhat more readable and more organized, and sticks a bit closer to the facts of his field work than usual. He has done field work among tribes of western and central Australia among the most primitive of human beings still living in this globe. Their customs and beliefs are a fairly undiluted and reliable source of primitive myth, symbolism, rites and ceremonies. The author has attempted to relate their myths to their history (by reconstruction) and to their ritual and symbolism. He has utilized dreams related to him by the natives by attempting a kind of dream-analysis using the native's free association. He has had them use free-association to their own myths in an endeavor to extract the more latent and universal meanings of these myths. He has “analyzed” their rituals and ceremonies. The dream analyses are fascinating and often revealing documents giving additional evidence of some of Freud's most fundamental assumptions—oedipus complex, castration, fears, etc.
Roheim believes he was working with a culture which was homogene