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.

Totemism

Si nous possédons les registres du procès en réhabilitation de Jeanne d'Arc (1450-1456) avec les témoignages donnés sous la foi du serment de plus de cent vingt témoins oculaires qui avaient connu la Pucelle à différentes périodes, de son enfance jusqu'à son martyre, de nombreuses zones d'ombre pèsent encore sur la vie et la mort d'un des plus célèbres personnages de l'Histoire de France.Le principal défaut du procès de réhabilitation est ce fait singulier, que deux personnes seulement furent appelées à donner leur témoignage sur les événements de la vie de Jeanne d'Arc, compris entre l'échec à Paris en septembre 1429 et sa prise à Compiègne en mai 1430. Aucune question ne fut posée sur cette période à son confesseur Pasquerel, par exemple, ni à son écuyer d'Aulon, omission qui ne saurait avoir son excuse dans le seul désir de ménager les sentiments du roi Charles VII.C'est en ce basant sur ces incohérences qu'Andrew Lang affûte au début du XXe siècle ses hypothèses, adoptant des méthodes d'investigation dignes de celles la police scientifique. Le silence sur l'action de Jeanne d'Arc entre 1429 et 1430 ainsi que d'autres faits troublants relatés dans les annexes de ce livre de 1908 donnent corps à une clef de lecture totalement originale et inédite dans les travaux publiés jusqu'ici sur la vie de la Pucelle de France.

La Pucelle de France : Histoire de la vie et de la mort de Jeanne d'Arc

The archaeologist studies human life in its material remains; he tracks progress (and occasional degeneration) from the rudely chipped flints in the ancient gravel beds, to the polished stone weapon, and thence to the ages of bronze and iron. He is guided by material "survivals"-ancient arms, implements, and ornaments. The student of Institutions has a similar method. He finds his relics of the uncivilised past in agricultural usages, in archaic methods of allotment of land, in odd marriage customs, things rudimentary-fossil relics, as it were, of an early social and political condition. The archaeologist and the student of Institutions compare these relics, material or customary, with the weapons, pottery, implements, or again with the habitual law and usage of existing savage or barbaric races, and demonstrate that our weapons and tools, and our laws and manners, have been slowly evolved out of lower conditions, even out of savage conditions.

The anthropological method in mythology is the same. In civilised religion and myth we find rudimentary survivals, fossils of rite and creed, ideas absolutely incongruous with the environing morality, philosophy, and science of Greece and India. Parallels to these things, so out of keeping with civilisation, we recognise in the creeds and rites of the lower races, even of cannibals; but there the creeds and rites are not incongruous with their environment of knowledge and culture. There they are as natural and inevitable as the flint-headed spear or marriage by capture. We argue, therefore, that religions and mythical faiths and rituals which, among Greeks and Indians, are inexplicably incongruous have lived on from an age in which they were natural and inevitable, an age of savagery.

Modern Mythology

Si nous possédons les registres du procès en réhabilitation de Jeanne d'Arc (1450-1456) avec les témoignages donnés sous la foi du serment de plus de cent vingt témoins oculaires qui avaient connu la Pucelle à différentes périodes, de son enfance jusqu'à son martyre, de nombreuses zones d'ombre pèsent encore sur la vie et la mort d'un des plus célèbres personnages de l'Histoire de France. 

Le principal défaut du procès de réhabilitation est ce fait singulier, que deux personnes seulement furent appelées à donner leur témoignage sur les événements de la vie de Jeanne d'Arc, compris entre l'échec à Paris en septembre 1429 et sa prise à Compiègne en mai 1430. Aucune question ne fut posée sur cette période à son confesseur Pasquerel, par exemple, ni à son écuyer d'Aulon, omission qui ne saurait avoir son excuse dans le seul désir de ménager les sentiments du roi Charles VII. 

C'est en ce basant sur ces incohérences qu'Andrew Lang affûte au début du XXe siècle ses hypothèses, adoptant des méthodes d'investigation dignes de celles la police scientifique. Le silence sur l'action de Jeanne d'Arc entre 1429 et 1430 ainsi que d'autres faits troublants relatés dans les annexes de ce livre de 1908 donnent corps à une clef de lecture totalement originale et inédite dans les travaux publiés jusqu'ici sur la vie de la Pucelle de France.

La Pucelle de France - Histoire de la vie et de la mort de Jeanne d'Arc

Excerpt from La Mythologie: Traduit de l'AnglaisIl va de sm que l'origine de la religion n'est pas en cause ici. L'homme a eu, d�s l'origine, la notion de la divinit�, et c'est cette conception m�me qui, en l'�levant eu - dessus des animaux auxquels il ressemble par tant de c�t�s, en a fait ce qu'il est, le couronnement et le chef - d'oeuvre de la cr�ation. Mais d�s l'origine aussi cette notion sublime s'obs curcit et s'impr�gna d'�l�ments �trangers et gros siers. Pr�tant � la nature qui l'environnait les pens�es et les sentiments dont il �tait agit� lui m�me, l'homme primitif vivait au milieu d'un monde qui lui renvoyait pour ainsi dire, son image prodigieusement agrandie. Ces explications qu'il s'�tait donn�es � lui-m�me des ph�nom�nes dont il �tait le t�moin, ces fables qu'on se racontait de g�n�ration en g�n�ration, finirent par former un ensemble tr�s complexe, que chaque �ge modifiait et augmentait � son tour et qui contenait comme un r�sum� de l'histoire psychologique de la race. C'est ce chaos que la mythologie cherche � d�brouiller, et on voit de prime - abord que la t�che n'est pas facile.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

La Mythologie: Traduit de l'Anglais

The question of the origin of totemism has more than the merely curious or antiquarian interest of an historic or prehistoric mystery. In the course of the inquiry we may be able to discern and discriminate the relative contributions of unreflecting passion, on one hand, and of deliberate reason, on the other, to the structure of the earliest extant form of human society.

The word 'Totem' is taken from the language of a tribe living near Lake Superior, in North America. It signifies the symbol or device of a gens or tribal division, that by which it is distinguished from all other such divisions. The kind of objects used as totems by the aborigines of North America may be seen from the names of the gentes into which the Ojibwa tribe is divided. These are twenty-three in number, and the totemic devices belonging to them comprise nine quadrupeds (the chief of which are the Wolf, the Bear, the Beaver, and the Turtle), eight birds, five fishes, and one reptile, the snake. There are numerous other totems among the American tribes, and they are not taken from the animal kingdom only...

Totem and Totemism - Origin and Theories

Persons not much interested in, or cognisant of, "antiquarian old womanries, " as Sir Walter called them, may ask "what all the pother is about, " in this little tractate. On my side it is "about" the veracity of Sir Walter Scott. He has been suspected of helping to compose, and of issuing as a genuine antique, a ballad, Auld Maitland. He also wrote about the ballad, as a thing obtained from recitation, to two friends and fellow-antiquaries. If to Scott?s knowledge it was a modern imitation, Sir Walter deliberately lied.

He did not: he did obtain the whole ballad from Hogg, who got it from recitation-as I believe, and try to prove, and as Scott certainly believed. The facts in the case exist in published works, and in manuscript letters of Ritson to Scott, and Hogg to Scott, and in the original copy of the song, with a note by Hogg to Laidlaw. If we are interested in the truth about the matter, we ought at least to read the very accessible material before bringing charges against the Sheriff and the Shepherd of Ettrick.

Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy

The stories in the Fairy Books have generally been such as old women in country places tell to their grandchildren. Nobody knows how old they are, or who told them first. The children of Ham, Shem and Japhet may have listened to them in the Ark, on wet days. Hector's little boy may have heard them in Troy Town, for it is certain that Homer knew them, and that some of them were written down in Egypt about the time of Moses.

People in different countries tell them differently, but they are always the same stories, really, whether among little Zulus, at the Cape, or little Eskimo, near the North Pole. The changes are only in matters of manners and customs; such as wearing clothes or not, meeting lions who talk in the warm countries, or talking bears in the cold countries. There are plenty of kings and queens in the fairy tales, just because long ago there were plenty of kings in the country. A gentleman who would be a squire now was a kind of king in Scotland in very old times, and the same in other places. These old stories, never forgotten, were taken down in writing in different ages, but mostly in this century, in all sorts of languages. These ancient stories are the contents of the Fairy books.

Totemism

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