[155] Ernest Jones, loc. cit.
[156] "Totem and Taboo," 70 ff.
[157] For a brief general account of projection cp. Bernard Hart, "The Psychology of Insanity," 117 ff.
[158] A certain priestly king in West Africa may not even quit his chair, in which he has to sleep sitting. Frazer, "Taboo and the Perils of the Soul," 123.
[159] Frazer, op. cit., 124.
[160] Frazer, op. cit., 18.
[161] We may briefly mention here a few of the main lines along which the evidence for the identification of regicide and parricide proceeds:—
(1) The very person who performs the deed of murder is frequently the one who succeeds to the throne; taking this in combination with the fact that it is usually the son or some other near relative who is the recognised successor, it is evident that there exists a natural tendency for the murderer to belong to the murdered king's own family.
(2) The birth of a son is very frequently associated with the idea of danger to the father. This danger would appear to be the principal motive for the widespread custom of killing the king's son, which seems to be regarded as, in many respects, an alternative to the killing of the king himself (see Frazer, "The Dying God," Ch. VI, 160 ff.) Cp. the very frequent legends (of which the story of Œdipus is one) in which a kingly father, to avoid threatened danger to himself, exposes or otherwise attempts to murder his young son. See Rank, "The Myth of the Birth of the Hero."
(3) There exist many cases in legend, and some in actual fact, in which the son fights with his father for the privileges of chieftainship; while in at least one case (Frazer, "The Dying God," 190) the king is made to abdicate as soon as his son is born.