The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim
CHAPTER V
131 words | Chapter 13
ORIGINS OF THESE BELIEFS
_Critical Examination of Preceding Theories_
I.--Theories which derive totemism from a previous religion: from
the ancestor cult (Wilken and Tylor); from the nature cult
(Jevons)--Criticism of these theories 168
II.--Theories which derive collective totemism from individual
totemism--Origins attributed by these theories to the
individual totem (Frazer, Boas, Hill Tout)--Improbability
of these hypotheses--Reasons showing the priority of the
collective totem 172
III.--Recent theory of Frazer: _conceptional_ and local
totemism--The begging of the question upon which it rests--The
religious character of the totem is denied--Local totemism is
not primitive 180
IV.--Theory of Lang: that the totem is only a name--Difficulties
in explaining the religious character of totemic practices from
this point of view 184
V.--All these theories explain totemism only by postulating other
religious notions anterior to it 186
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