RÓHEIM, GÉZA. Géza Róheim (1891–1953) was born in Budapest and died in New York City. He immigrated to the United States from Hungary in 1938. Of Jewish descent, he was the only child of prosperous bourgeois parents. At an early age he developed an abiding interest in folklore, and he later chose to study ethnology in Leipzig and Berlin. It was during his time in Germany that he discovered the works of Sigmund Freud and his followers, which he embraced with great enthusiasm. Róheim is mainly remembered as a pioneer of psychoanalytic anthropology.

In 1915 and 1916 Róheim was analyzed by his compatriot and a member of Freud's inner circle, Sándor Ferenczi. With his wife Ilonka Róheim, he undertook fieldwork in various locations around the world between 1928 and 1931, including Somaliland...