Well, Freud said it, but it doesn't make it true. Everything for Freud comes from early childhood. ;)
Less flippantly, why would a primitive society feel the need to "give it up"? It's not like you can prove that the world ISN'T centered on you. In fact, it IS centered on you, from your point of view. I think the whole debate is informed by the (incorrect, in my view) presupposition that irrationality is something that has to be explained and is somehow "wrong," a misfunctioning of the mind.
--- Robert Wrubel <bobwrubel at yahoo.com> wrote: Didn't Freud say that religion arose out early childhood experience -- most generally, out of an inability to give up the comforting sense of a world centered on "me" and managed by protective (or punishing) dieties?
This is a broad enough description to apply to primitive societies, and it's hard to say whether it's a cultural formation or a private need.
BobW