Durkheim’s totemic principle, shamanism and Southern African San religions

Richard A Northover

doi:10.4102/hts.v77i2.6709

Abstract

The study reappraised Emile Durkheim’s totemic principle in relation to the origins of religion and culture, using, amongst others, speech act theory and recent southern African epistemologies, especially David Lewis-Williams’ theory of shamanism, potency and altered states of consciousness. The study was text-based, qualitative and interpretive, and used key texts from anthropology, archaeology, history of religion, sociology and philosophy. It outlined Durkheim’s theory of the totemic principle and critiqued it, using performativity, cognitive neuroscience and southern African ethnography. Durkheim’s sociological reduction of God and religion to society and his dismissal of individual psychological experience were criticised. Lewis-Williams’ shamanism, both as a general theory and with particular reference to the San, was explored as an alternative to Durkheim’s totemism, animals playing a central but different function in each system. Although his understanding of performativity and sociopolitical relations in religion was inchoate, Durkheim helped demystify religion and establish social constructionism. He overestimated collective affect and sentiments and underestimated the role played by individual altered states of consciousness in the origin of religion.Contribution: The study critically evaluates Durkheim’s reduction of religion to society using current concepts of performativity, Matthias Guenther’s New Animism and David Lewis-Williams’ revised shamanism, particularly its ideas of trance dance, potency and altered states of consciousness, and posits shamanism rather than totemism as the probable origin of religion.

Highlights

This study critiques Durkheim’s concept of the totemic principle elaborated in The elementary forms of the religious life ([1915] 2013)
Durkheim argued that totemism is the most basic religion, that the totemic principle represents in the minds of its adherents a universal, impersonal supernatural power, but that this force really represents the moral and epistemological power of society
The ochre stick inscribed with geometric patterns found in Blombos Cave (c. 75 000 BCE) may be the earliest evidence of symbolic thought (Lewis-Williams 2004:22–25) and may depict certain patterns experienced in altered states of consciousness

Summary

Introduction

This study critiques Durkheim’s concept of the totemic principle elaborated in The elementary forms of the religious life ([1915] 2013). The study argues that David Lewis-Williams’ shamanistic theory critically illuminates aspects of Durkheim’s theory of totemism and acts as a corrective to Durkheim’s exclusion of the religious experiences of southern African San hunter-gatherer peoples, whose traditions are very ancient, evident in the facts that the San did not cultivate, venerate ancestors or practise blood sacrifice and arguably share shamanistic features with the hunter-gatherer cultures of the Ice Age. The birdman of Lascaux 25 000 BCE) is arguably the earliest depiction of a shaman or ur-shaman (ritual specialist). 75 000 BCE) may be the earliest evidence of symbolic thought (Lewis-Williams 2004:22–25) and may depict certain patterns experienced in altered states of consciousness. Contra Durkheim, this article argues that shamanism rather than totemism represents the earliest form of religion, that shamanism presupposes animism and that religious sentiment originates primarily in individual psychological experience rather than collective sentiment

Methodology and critical caveats

Conclusion