The Elementary Forms of the Religious LifeDurkheim, Émile
Religion
The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life
Durkheim, Émile
Cults; Religion; Religion -- Philosophy; Rites and ceremonies; Totemism
We are beginning to see that totemism is a much more complex religion
than it first appeared to be. We have already distinguished three
classes of things which it recognizes as sacred, in varying degrees: the
totemic emblem, the animal or plant whose appearance this emblem
reproduces, and the members of the clan. However, this list is not yet
complete. In fact, a religion is not merely a collection of fragmentary
beliefs in regard to special objects like those we have just been
discussing. To a greater or less extent, all known religions have been
systems of ideas which tend to embrace the universality of things, and
to give us a complete representation of the world. If totemism is to be
considered as a religion comparable to the others, it too should offer
us a conception of the universe. As a matter of fact, it does satisfy
this condition.
I
The fact that this aspect of totemism has generally been neglected is
due to the too narrow notion of the clan which has been prevalent.
Ordinarily it is regarded as a mere group of human beings. Being a
simple subdivision of the tribe, it seems that like this, it is made up
of nothing but men. But in reasoning thus, we substitute our European
ideas for those which the primitive has of man and of society. For the
Australian, things themselves, everything which is in the universe, are
a part of the tribe; they are constituent elements of it and, so to
speak, regular members of it; just like men, they have a determined
place in the general scheme of organization of the society. "The South
Australian savage," says Fison, "looks upon the universe as the Great
Tribe, to one of whose divisions he himself belongs; and all things,
animate and inanimate, which belong to his class are parts of the body
corporate whereof he himself is a part."[427] As a consequence of this
principle, whenever the tribe is divided into two phratries, all known
things are distributed between them. "All nature," says Palmer, in
speaking of the Bellinger River tribe, "is also divided into class
[phratry] names.... The sun and moon and stars are said ... to belong
to classes [phratries] just as the blacks themselves."[428] The Port
Mackay tribe in Queensland has two phratries with the names Yungaroo and
Wootaroo, as do the neighbouring tribes. Now as Bridgmann says, "all
things, animate and inanimate, are divided by these tribes into two
classes, named Yungaroo and Wootaroo."[429] Nor does the classification
stop here. The men of each phratry are distributed among a certain
number of clans; likewise, the things attributed to each phratry are in
their turn distributed among the clans of which the phratry is composed.
A certain tree, for example, will be assigned to the Kangaroo clan, and
to it alone; then, just like the human members of the clan, it will have
the Kangaroo as totem; another will belong to the Snake clan; clouds
will be placed under one totem, the sun under another, etc. All known
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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