ABSTRACT
Metaphorical representations of human procreation are also evident in the range of institutions usually called “ritual kinship” or “pseudokinship”. The highest degree of iconicity in pseudo-procreative symbolism is exemplified by those forms to which B. Bettelheim called attention, wherein native exegesis or some other obvious indicator expressly likens the usage in question to focal signs of procreation. The idea of wealth accumulation as anal pseudo-procreation has an established place in psychoanalytic theory and has been explored ethnographically by A. Dundes, Bill Epstein, and others. Pseudo-procreation, then, has to do with the magical conquest of the mortal implications of procreation, and, like certain other forms of such conquest known to psychoanalytic theory, it partakes of its supposed antitheses. J. L. Brain’s book is an indication of the human and theoretical impoverishment of anthropology as an academic discipline that the bold work has received scant attention.
