Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Note on the text
- Introduction: Malinowski's reading, writing, 1904–1914
- Malinowski's writings, 1904–1914
- 1 Observations on Friedrich Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy (1904/5)
- 2 On the principle of the economy of thought (1906)
- 3 Religion and magic: The Golden Bough (1910)
- 4 Totemism and exogamy (1911–1913)
- 5 Tribal male associations in Australia (1912)
- 6 The economic aspects of the intichiuma ceremonies (1912)
- 7 The relationship of primitive beliefs to the forms of social organization (1913)
- 8 A fundamental problem of religious sociology (1914)
- 9 Sociology of the family (1913–14)
- Notes
- References
- Index
4 - Totemism and exogamy (1911–1913)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Note on the text
- Introduction: Malinowski's reading, writing, 1904–1914
- Malinowski's writings, 1904–1914
- 1 Observations on Friedrich Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy (1904/5)
- 2 On the principle of the economy of thought (1906)
- 3 Religion and magic: The Golden Bough (1910)
- 4 Totemism and exogamy (1911–1913)
- 5 Tribal male associations in Australia (1912)
- 6 The economic aspects of the intichiuma ceremonies (1912)
- 7 The relationship of primitive beliefs to the forms of social organization (1913)
- 8 A fundamental problem of religious sociology (1914)
- 9 Sociology of the family (1913–14)
- Notes
- References
- Index
Summary
PART I
Occasioned by the book of J. G. Frazer, D.C.L., L.L.D., F.B.A. Totemism and Exogamy (4 vols. London, 1910)
The four-volume treatise on totemism and exogamy by Professor Frazer is undoubtedly the most important publication in the social sciences which has appeared in English in recent years. For not only is the subject one of the most interesting ethnological problems but the author of the treatise also possesses high scientific qualifications, and his name is, as it were, linked with the history of this question.
Although in the introduction to his work Professor Frazer, with his customary modesty, mentions the Scottish sociologist J. F. McLennan as the first who had drawn the attention of scholars to the totemic phenomena, the first systematic treatise on totemism was published in 1887 by Professor Frazer. Until the appearance of the present work, this small book was the classic treatment of totemic phenomena. It drew the general attention to them, exerted fundamental influence on further research, and was an invaluable source of facts and observations. It is well known that totemism is a form of primitive beliefs, and the essential substance of these beliefs consists in the conception that a close connection and interdependence exist between a given group of people and a given animal, plant, or inanimate object. This connection and dependence can be of various kinds. Sometimes we encounter the idea that the clan, or group of people of the same totem, and the animal totemically connected with this group descend from a common ancestor.
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- Information
- The Early Writings of Bronislaw Malinowski , pp. 123 - 200Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993