ABSTRACT
The word “archaic” means primal—original. While it is one of the most difficult and thankless of tasks to say anything of importance about civilized man of today, we are apparently in a more favourable position with regard to archaic man. In the first case we try to reach a commanding point of view, but actually are caught in the same presuppositions and blinded by the same prejudices as are those about whom we wish to speak. In the case of the archaic man, however, we are far removed from his world in time, and our mental capacities are more differentiated than his. It is therefore apparently possible for us to occupy a point of vantage from which we can overlook his world and the meaning it held for him.
