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TOTEM AND TABOO
den to many savage races to keep in the house sharp weapons and instruments for cutting.[1] Frazer cites a German superstition that a knife must not be left lying with the edge pointing upward because God and the angels might injure themselves with it. May we not recognize in this taboo a premonition of certain “symptomatic actions”[2] for which the sharp weapon might be used by unconscious evil impulses?