The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (Unabridged). Durkheim Émile

197 Notably by Klaatsch, Schlussbericht über meine Reise nach Australien, in Zeitschrift f. Ethnologie, 1907, pp. 635 ff.

198 The book of K. Langloh Parker, The Euahlayi Tribe, that of Eylmann, Die Eingeborenen der Kolonie Südaustralien; that of John Mathews, Two Representative Tribes of Queensland, and certain recent articles of Mathews all show the influence of Spencer and Gillen.

199 A list of these publications will be found in the preface to his Nat. Tr., pp. 8-9.

200 London, 1904. Hereafter we shall cite this work by the abbreviation Nat. Tr., but always mentioning the name of Howitt, to distinguish it from the first work of Spencer and Gillen, which we abbreviate in the same manner.

201 Totemism and Exogamy, 4 vols., London, 1910. The work begins with a re-edition of Totemism, reproduced without any essential changes.

202 It is true that at the end and at the beginning there are some general theories on totemism, which will be described and discussed below. But these theories are relatively independent of the collection of facts which accompanies them, for they had already been published in different articles in reviews, long before this work appeared. These articles are reproduced in the first volume (pp. 89-172).

203 Totemism, p. 12.

204 Ibid., p. 15.

205 Ibid., p. 32.

206 It should be noted that in this connection, the more recent work, Totemism and Exogamy, shows an important progress in the thought as well as the method of Frazer. Every time that he describes the religious or domestic institutions of a tribe, he sets himself to determine the geographic and social conditions in which this tribe is placed. Howsoever summary these analyses may be, they bear witness nevertheless to a rupture with the old methods of the anthropological school.

207 Undoubtedly we also consider that the principal object of the science of religions is to find out what the religious nature of man really consists in. However, as we do not regard it as a part of his constitutional make-up, but rather as the product of social causes, we consider it impossible to find it, if we leave aside his social environment.

208 We cannot repeat too frequently that the importance which we attach to totemism is absolutely independent of whether it was ever universal or not.

209 This is the case with the phratries and matrimonial classes; on this point, see Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes, ch. iii; Howitt, Native Tribes, pp. 109 and 137-142; Thomas, Kinship and Marriage in Australia, ch. vi and vii.

210 Division du Travail social, 3rd ed., p. 150.

211 It is to be understood that this is not always the case. It frequently happens, as we have already said, that the simpler forms aid to a better understanding of the more complex. On this point, there is no rule of method which is applicable to every possible case.

212 Thus the individual totemism of America will aid us in understanding the function and importance of that in Australia. As the latter is very rudimentary, it would probably have passed unobserved.

213 Besides, there is not one unique type of totemism in America, but several different species which must be distinguished.

214 We shall leave this field only very exceptionally, and when a particularly instructive comparison seems to us to impose itself.

      BOOK II

       THE ELEMENTARY BELIEFS

       Table of Contents