Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 2.djvu/15

 PRIMITIVE MAN AND ENVIRONMENT 171.

this account all living beings come forth from the vagina of Maiso, who is represented as a woman of stone, ^ thus showing us that we have not been wilfully hunting for hidden meanings where there are none. Once more we have found the same atti- tude of ambivalency towards a part of man's environment, but in this case the positive aspect (cave dwelling, cave painting) seems to be the more archaic type of reaction, whilst progressive people do not find sufficient scope for their activity in the cram- ped possibilities of cave life. All that remains as the memory of these events of racial and individual Hfe is a feeling of the un- canny which is here again, as usual, the reaction-formation against the return of what was once only too familiar to man. 2 In this case we have supposed that the specific conditions of onto- genesis have influenced the cultural development, the race history of mankind, his connexion with a part of his environment and that these myths and cults can be used as evidence of the psy- chical attitude which leads man to choose certain places for habi- tation. In another case it is clear that we must start with phylo- genesis and search for the survival of pre-human conditions in the history of humanity and in individual symbolism. Klaatsch has in- geniously pointed out that the custom of burying the dead in trees in Australia may be the relic of the tree-life of our semi- human ancestors.* Thus the Bahau at Koetei believe that "men

> Ehrenreich: Mythen und Legenden, S. 33; Milller: Gcschichte der ame- rikanischen Urreligionen. 1867, S. 238, The Zuni version speaks of the Four Cave- Wombs of the Earth-Mother, and calls this rising from the Underworld "gestation", "birth", and "delivery". F. H. Gushing: Outlines of Zuni Creation Myths, XIII. Report Bureau of American Ethnology, XIII, pp. 381, 382.

2 See S. Freud: "Das Unheimliche", hnago, V, 5/6. Caves inhabited by demons; Tremearne: The Ban of the Bori, 1914, 235, Haunted; W. W. Skeat: Malay Magic, 1900, 14; Uncanny, magical: Westermarck: The Popular Ritual of the Great Feast in Morocco, Folk-Lore, 1911, pp. 179, 180; Th. J. Westropp: A Folklore Survey of County Clare, ibid. 1912, 54, On the folklore of caves; P. Saintyves: Porphyre, L'Antre des Nymphes, 1918,

> H. Klaatsch: Die Anfange von Kunst und Religion in der Urmensch- heit, 1913, S. 36. Cf. on tree-burial Th. Preuss: Die Begrabnisarten der Ame- rikaner und Nordostasiaten, 1894, S. 308; W, H. R. Rivers: The History of Melanesian Society, 1914, n, p. 266; R. Etheridge: The Dendrcglyps or "Carved Trees" of New South Wales. Ethnological Series, No. 3 (on carved trees in connection with burial); N. W. Thomas: "The Disposal of the Dead in Australia", Folk-Lore, XIX, p. 403; W. E. Roth: Burial Customs, North Queensland, Etknograpk. Bull. Vn, p. 397 (The wide-spread custom of platform burial is probably developed from the tree grave; but this problem