THE ELUSIVE TOTEMISM

BY

A. HULTKRANTZ

Stookholm

It may seem superfluous to write one more article on totemism, this hotly debated subject on which each scholar has a divergent opinion.l Still, the whole problem of totemism seems to have entered a new phase with the publication of Claude Levi-Strauss' work Le Totemisme aujourd'hui. Specifically, students of have been told by this scholar that totemism is a largely illusory phenomenon, identifiable only as a particular illustration of certain modes of think• ing,2 and that its religious implication is nihil. Levi-Strauss insists that "c'est l'obsession des choses religieuses qui a fait mettre Ie toMmisme dans la religion, tout en l'eloignant Ie plus possible, en Ie caricaturant au besoin, des dites civilisees ... ".3 The same author's reduction of the problem of totemism to a mode of thinking has as a final consequence the dismissal of . He declares, "si l'on attribue aux idees religieuses la meme valeur qu'a n'importe quel autre systeme conceptuel, qui est de donner acces au mecanisme de la pensee, l'anthropologie religieuse sera validee dans ses demarches, mais elle perdra son autonomie et sa specificiM."4 The larger problem as to whether our subject exists only as an application of Levi-Strauss' dialectic thinking shall not engage us here; his pretence is indeed formidable. The smaller problem which lies at the root of the larger problem is more worthy of consideration.

1 There are as many theories as there are students of totemism : !ee A. van Gennep, L'Etat aduel du probleme totemique (Paris 1920). See also the survey in J. Haekel, Der heutige Stand dea Totemiam'U8problema (Mitteilungen der Anthropologisohen Gesell• Bohaft in Wien, vol. 82, 1952, pp. 33 ff.). 2 c. Uvi-Strau88, Le Totemiame aujourd'hui (2nd ed., Paris 1965), p. 149; c/. also the same author, La PenBee 8auvage (Paris 1962). Uvi-StrausB is quoted here in Frenoh sinoe, as La. Edmund Leaoh has pointed out, the English versions of his works do not give justice to the subtle ambiguities in his French. 3 Uvi-Strauss, Le TotemiBme, p. 148. 4 Op. cit., pp. 148 f. THE ELUSIVE TOTEMISM 219

For a long time totemism has been thought of as both a sociological and a religio-historical phenomenon, although the exact interpre• tations have changed from scholar to scholar. And now, a dominant star in the sky of , and a host of lesser stars, proclaim that those scholars were all wrong. This is not the first time that totemism has been declared dead. As we remember, it was Goldenweiser who, more than sixty years ago, disclaimed totemism as a uniform phenomenon.! By empirical inves• tigations of totemic features in Australia and British Columbia he was able to show that the diagnostic traits of totemism - animal crest, descent from the totem, of the totem animal, naming of a social group after the totem, ceremonies around the totem, totemistic organisation, etc. - do not have the same distribution and do not occur together in identical constellations. Still, Goldenweiser found a certain psychological unity behind these "conglomerates of essentially independent features." "Totemism," he declared, "is the process of specific socialization of objects and symbols of emotional value."2 In other words, totemic symbolism and feelings are institu• tionalized by being transferred through descent between generations. 3 The hypercritical Robert Lowie was not satisfied with Goldenweiser's definition. Totemism, he said, should not be defined as a socialization of various elements of emotional value, but merely as the association of such elements with social groups, for the socialization process cannot be proved. 4 Lowie found that Goldenweiser's definition "saved totemism from becoming a catchword not corresponding to any reality whatsoever."5 He continued, "I am not convinced that all the acumen and erudition lavished upon the subject has established the reality of the totemic phenomenon ... For me the problem of totemism re• solves itself into a series of specific problems not related to one ano• ther."6 In other words, there is no such thing as totemism. We may, certainly, together with Kroeber regret that Lowie in

1 A. Goldenweiser, Totemism, an Analytical Study (Journal of American Folklore, vol. 23 (1910), pp. 115 ff. 2 Op. cit., reprint, p. 97. 3 In subsequent works (1918, 1931, 1942) Goldenweiser changed his views on tote• mism considerably. However, his later statements of the problem tv not interest us in this particular connection. 4 R. H. Lowie, A New Conception of Totemiam (Lowie's Selected Papers in Anthro• pology, ed. by C. Du Bois, Berkeley and LOB Angeles 1960), p. 309. o Lowie, Primitive Society (2nd ed., New York 1947), p. 140. 6 Lowie, Primitive Society, p. 145.