Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

v] Totemistic Thinking a Stage in Epistemology 123
stages of development are prior to experience and observation,
they are due to suggestion. Anything suggested is received
unless there is strong reason, or rather emotion, to the contrary 1 .
It is not the acceptance of an opinion, however absurd, that needs
explanation ; it is its criticism and rejection 2 . Suggest
to a savage
that he has eaten tabooed food, he accepts the suggestion and
dies. The strongest form of suggestion is of course the collective
suggestion of his whole universe, his group, his public opinion.
Such suggestion will certainly be accepted without question, if it
appeal to a powerful or pleasing emotion.
That outlook on the universe, that stage in epistemology which
we call totemism has its source then not in any mere blunder of
the individual intellect, but in a strong collective emotion. The
next question that lies before us is naturally—What is the
emotion that finds its utterance, its expression, its representation,
in totemism ? To answer this question we must look at the
relations of primitive man to his totem. These relations are most
clearly marked and will be best understood in that large majority
of cases where the totem is an edible plant or animal.
As a rule a savage abstains from eating his totem, whether
plant or animal : his totem is tabu to him ;
—
to eat it would be
disrespectful, even dangerous. An Ojibway who had unwittingly
killed a bear (his totem) described how, on his way home after
the accident, he was attacked by a large bear who asked him why
he had killed his totem. The man explained, apologised, and
was dismissed with a caution 3 . This tabu on the eating of a totem
is natural enough. The man is spiritually, mystically, akin to his
totem, and as a rule you do not eat your relations. But this tabu
is in some parts of the world qualified by a particular and very
interesting injunction. A man may not as a rule eat of his totem,
but at certain times and under certain restrictions a man not only
1 W. James, Principles of Psychology, n. p. 319, 'the primitive impulse is to
affirm immediately the reality of all that is conceived,' 'we acquire disbelief,' and
p. 299, 'we believe as much as we can.'
2 This important point has been well brought out in an article in the Edinburgh
Review (vol. ccx. p. 106) on Fallacies and Superstitions. The anonymous writer
reminds us that the writer of the Problems attributed to Aristotle (6, p. 891, a. 7),
raised the question ' why do men cough and cows do not?' a difficulty he might have
spared himself had his judgments been based on observation.
3 Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy, i. p. 10.