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
But a fact which is still more conclusive is that individual totemism,
far from having given birth to the totemism of the clan, presupposes
this latter. It is within the frame of collective totemism that it is
born and lives: it is an integral part of it. In fact, in those very
societies where it is preponderating, the novices do not have the right
of taking any animal as their individual totem; to each clan a certain
definite number of species are assigned, outside of which it may not
choose. In return, those belonging to it thus are its exclusive
property; members of other clans may not usurp them.[588] They are
thought to have relations of close dependence upon the one serving as
totem to the clan as a whole. There are even cases where it is quite
possible to observe these relations: the individual aspect represents a
part or a particular aspect of the collective totem.[589] Among the
Wotjobaluk, each member of the clan considers the personal totems of
his companions as being his own after a fashion;[590] so they are
probably sub-totems. Now the sub-totem supposes the totem, as the
species supposes the class. Thus the first form of individual religion
met with in history appears, not as the active principle of all public
religion, but, on the contrary, as a simple aspect of this latter. The
cult which the individual organizes for himself in his own inner
conscience, far from being the germ of the collective cult, is only this
latter adapted to the personal needs of the individual.
III
In a more recent study,[591] which the works of Spencer and Gillen
suggested to him, Frazer has attempted to substitute a new explanation
of totemism for the one he first proposed, and which we have just been
discussing. It rests on the postulate that the totemism of the Arunta is
the most primitive which we know; Frazer even goes so far as to say that
it scarcely differs from the really and absolutely original type.[592]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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