Totemism

This work is significant not only for students of anthropology but for students of philosophy and psychology as well. The distinguished anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss examines here the great variety of beliefs encompassed by totemism, the attacks to which it has been subject, and the constant attempts to restore useful meaning to it. His account deals with the views of such renowned anthropologists as Boas, van Gennep, Elkin, Fortes, Firth, Evans-Pritchard, and Radcliffe-Brown; it also brings to light some neglected observations by Bergson and Rousseau. In reviewing the major theories about totemism, the author notes that it has gradually come to be understood not as a distinctive institution, but as a way of thinking which is as characteristic of our own thinking as it is of the "primitives" for whom totemism was an integral part of life. Totemism 2 Contents 4 Translator's Note 5 Introduction 7 3 9 The Totemic Illusion 21 26 TOTEMISM 32 28 TOTEMISM 34 32 TOTEMISM 38 Australian Nominalism 39 34 TOTEMISM 40 38 TOTEMISM 44 40 TOTEMISM 46 42 TOTEMISM 48 44 TOTEMISM 50 48 TOTEMISM 54 54 TOTEMISM 60 Functionalist Theories of Totemism 62 62 TOTEMISM 68 66 TOTEMISM 72 70 TOTEMISM 76 Toward the Intellect 78 76 TOTEMISM 82 78 TOTEMISM 84 82 TOTEMISM 88 84 TOTEMISM 90 90 TOTEMISM 96 91 97 Totemism from Within 98 96 TOTEMISM 102 102 TOTEMISM 108 104 TOTEMISM 110 Bibliography 111 Notes 115 122]. 115 Index 117 114 TOTEMISM 120 116 TOTEMISM 122 "Levi-Strauss continues his assault on the myth of the primitice as savage by turning to the phenomena of totemism an totoemix classification ... to show, contrary to this myth, that primitive thought rests upon a rich and complex conceptual structure." – Commentary An examination of the beliefs encompassed by totemism