Abstract
CU-CHULAINN AND ToTEMISM.—In Man for June, Dr. Géza Roheim, whose ingenious and suggestive psychoanalytic study of totemism in Australia has just been published in Great Britain, applies the same analytical method to the Cu-chulainn cycle of Irish legend with reference to its bearing upon the problem of totemic origins. Not only is the dog taboo of Cu-chulainn probably totemic, but also he becomes a dog by killing a dog. In other words, the legend contains more or less veiled references to the father- and-son conflict for the women of the Cyclopean family, from which, Freud holds, totemism and exogamy arose; of the animal symbol arising out of a feeling of guilt for the act of parricide; and of incest committed by the hero. Cu-chulainn slays the dog of Cu-lain the smith, and serves in its stead, as other Aryan heroes served a term of apprentice- ship with a smith, from whom they usually obtained their terrific weapon. But the smith and his dog are to be regarded as identical and the former repre sents the father. The slaying is therefore parricide. Cu-chulainn fights with and kills his own son; but Lugaid, who deals him his death-blow, is probably also his own son by an incestuous union, although ostensibly the son of Curoi. Curoi, the archaic form of the Oak King, is also to be regarded as the father of Cu-chulainn by whom he is killed. If then the smith is equated with his hound, the combat is between two heroes of the dog clan, and when Cu-chulainn breaks the taboo he is slain by his son Lugaid, a parallel being the case of the Baja King, who eats his totem animal when death at the hand of his son and heir draws near.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Research Items. Nature 116, 148–149 (1925). https://doi.org/10.1038/116148a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/116148a0