Extract from Totem and Taboo

Totem and Taboo - Sigmund Freud

2

Taboo and Emotional Ambivalence

Pg.21

(1) 'Taboo' is a Polynesian word. It is difficult for us to find a translation for it, since the concept connoted by it is once which we no longer possess. It was still current among the ancient Romans, whose 'sacer' was the same as the Polynesian 'taboo'. So, too, the 'ayoc' of the greeks and the 'kadesh' of the Hebrews must have had the same meaning as is expressed 'taboo' by the Polynesians and in analogous terms by many other races in America, Africa (Madagascar) and North and Central Asia.

The meaning of 'taboo', as we see it, diverges in two contrary directions. To use it means, on the one hand, 'sacred', 'consecrated', and on the other 'uncanny', 'dangerous', 'forbidden', 'unclean'. The converse of 'taboo' in Polynesian is 'noa', which means 'common' or 'generally accessible'. Thus 'taboo' has about it a sense of something unapproachable and it is principally expressed in prohibitions and restrictions. Collocation 'Holy dead' would often coincide in meaning with 'taboo'.

Pg. 26

The word 'taboo' denotes everything, whether a person or a place or a thing or a transitory condition, which is the vehicle or source of this mysterious attribute. It also denotes the prohibitions arising from the same attribute. And, finally, it has a connotation which includes alike 'sacred' and 'above the ordinary' as well as 'dangerous', 'unclean' and 'uncanny'.

This word and the system denoted by it give expression to a group of mental attitudes and ideas which seem remote indeed from our understanding. In particular, there would seem to be no possibility of our coming into closer contact with them without examining the belief in ghosts and spirits which is a characteristic of these low levels of culture.

Why, it may be asked at this point, should we concern ourselves at all with this riddle of taboo? Not only, I think, because it is worth while trying to solve any psychological problem for its own sake, but for other reasons as well. It may begin to dawn on us that the taboos of the savage Polynesians are after all not so remote from us as we were inclined to think at first, that the moral and conventional prohibitions by which we ourselves are governed may have some essential relationship with these primitive taboos and that an explanation of taboo might throw a light upon the obscure origin of our own 'categorical imperative'.

Hi Everyone,

Give these extracts a quick read when you have five minutes. As the last blog discussed the relationship between mentality and taboo, existing extracts and articles are essential towards the finalisation of our exhibition. This form of fragility isn't as directed towards Dales work as it is with Beth and Kerryannes'. Both these artists express the definition of this term by exploring, 'taboo.'

 

 

Becky