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Róheim was one of those prolific writers who are best read in synoptic form, and this book contains a useful and concise introduction to Roheim's contribution to psychoanalytic anthropology. The history of this book is interesting. A few days before his death Róheim handed to Muensterberger “a voluminous bundle of material” gathered in 1929 during his field research in Australia among the primitive peoples of Pitjentara, the Aranda, and Lurittja, among whom he had spent eight months. It is therefore his last book and, in Róheim's opinion, his greatest.
It is refreshingly free from the prolixity that characterizes Róheim's other writings. He writes simply of these primitive people so that they become alive and we are given a clear picture of how they lived. The opening chapter gives a description of that maze of relationships which constitutes the kinship system. The unconscious motive for this complicated classificatory system is based on the assumption “that an incestuous libido exists within the family circle, that there is a compulsive mechanism of ‘series formation.’” It should not surprise us that there are degrees of incest. The “prototype of all forbidden sexual relationships is that of son and mother, while father-daughter and brother-sister relationships are less reprehensible.” He goes on to say that the Australian idea of the degrees of seriousness of the incest barrier are similar to our own.
What happens if two people should live together incestuously? First they are ostracized. If they continue so to live, the group takes more drastic action, for it is the group as a whole that becomes the offended party.
Within this cohesive society all kinds of relationship play their part. The uncle has a particularly important role—or rather many roles. The differences between father-son and father-daughter relationships are interesting. Mother and daughter form a sociological unit as they go on food-gathering expeditions. The relationship between brothers is of great