Letter from Ernest Jones to Sigmund Freud, December 2, 1913

2 December 1913
69 Portland Court, London

Dear Professor Freud,

I append two extracts for your interest. The first, which you perhaps know already, but which seems to me a very pretty addition to your cameltotem story, is from Porphyry; a description of the Diipolia ceremony in Athens: “They choose some girls as water-carriers, and they bring water for sharpening the axe and the knife. When the axe has been sharpened, one person hands it and the other hits the ox, another slaughters him, others flay him, and they all partake of him. After this they sew up the hide of the ox and stuff it with hay and set it up, just like life, and yoke it to the plough as if it were going to draw it (Le roi est mort, vive le roil). A trial is held about the murder, and each passes on the blame for the deed to another. The water-carriers acuse those who sharpened the knife, the sharpeners blame the man who handed it, he passes on the guilt to the man who struck, the striker to the slaughterer, the slaughterer blames the