ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 comprises three aspects: first, the connection of totem to taboo and the origins of religion using the work of Tylor (1903), Durkheim (1915), and others. Totemism dominates two worlds: the symbolic and the material. I expand Freud's perspective on totem and taboo through the work of Levi-Strauss' concept of totemism (1962) as containing an internal, logical thinking component that challenges the view that the totemic relationship is a sensory phenomenon. Second, I examine the relationship between taboo, human propagation, and animal categories. Leach (1964) extends Douglas's (1966) categories of creatures (edible/inedible) to incest taboo and propagation categories. Taboo serves to separate the self from the world: the world is categorised into zones or margins of relative social distance corresponding to 1) very close (taboo); 2) close but further afield (partially permissible); 3) afield (permissible); and 4) too remote (taboo). A fifth category contains animals and persons classified as tabooed filth. This category has important ramifications for the development of dehumanisation through taboo. Third, I explore the miscegenation taboo between races. What characteristics do I share with a sex, clan, or group that make me part of that group and gives a feeling of belonging, containment, and structure? Colour of skin and hair is a visible demarcation between groups, whereby people of darker skin and hair shades have been labelled as inferior and less racially pure. In both cases, Leach's fourth and fifth categories fall under taboo. Such a taboo may apply to people of different world cultures, races, and skin colour. Dark colours emanating from the margin (skin) that cannot be lightened (purified) through ritual washing are particularly tabooed, linked to fear of unknown ‘shadow’ aspects crossing over the margin between the known (safety) and unknown (risk). I examine racial and gender differences (supposedly smaller brains, less intelligence etc.) used to marginalise ‘others.’
