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METHOD IN THE STUDY OF TOTEMISM

BY

ANDREW LANG


GLASGOW

Printed at the University Press by

ROBERT MACLEHOSE & CO. LTD.

1911




METHOD IN THE STUDY OF TOTEMISM


Is there any human institution which can be safely called "Totemism"?
Is there any possibility of defining, or even describing Totemism? Is
it legitimate--is it even possible, with due regard for "methodology"
and logic--to seek for the "normal" form of Totemism, and to trace it
through many Protean changes, produced by various causes, social and
speculative? I think it possible to discern the main type of Totemism,
and to account for divergences.

Quite the opposite opinion appears to be held by Mr. H. H. Goldenweizer
in his "Totemism, an Analytic Study."[1] This treatise is acutely
critical and very welcome, as it enables British inquirers about
totemism to see themselves as they appear "in larger other eyes than
ours." Our common error, we learn, is this: "A feature salient in the
totemic life of some community is seized upon only to be projected into
the life of the remote past, and to be made the starting-point of the
totemic process. The intermediary stages and secondary features are
supplied from local evidence, by analogy with other communities, or 'in
accordance with recognised principles of evolution' [what are they?]
and of logic. The origin and development, thus arrived at, are then
used as