James Frazer - Savage Quotes

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The awe and dread with which the untutored savage contemplates his mother-in-law are amongst the most familiar facts of anthropology.

James Frazer

The old notion that the savage is the freest of mankind is the reverse of the truth. He is a slave, not indeed to a visible master, but to the past, to the spirits of his dead forefathers, who haunt his steps from birth to death, and rule him with a rod of iron.

James Frazer

The notion that we can transfer our guilt and sufferings to some other being who will bear them for us is familiar to the savage mind. It arises from a very obvious confusion between the physical and the mental, between the material and the immaterial.

James Frazer

When all is said and done our resemblances to the savage are still far more numerous than our differences from him.

James Frazer

Some of the old laws of Israel are clearly savage taboos of a familiar type thinly disguised as commands of the Deity.

James Frazer