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Totemizm dzisiaj
From the back cover: "This work is significant not only for students of anthropology but for students of philosophy and psychology as well. The distinguished anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss examines here the great variety of beliefs encompassed by totemism, the attacks to which it has been subject, and the constant attempts to restore useful meaning to it. His account deals with the views of such renowned anthropologists as Boas, van Gennep, Elkin, Fortes, Firth, Evans-Pritchard, and Radcliffe-Brown; it also brings to light some neglected observations by Bergson and Rousseau. In reviewing the major theories about totemism, the author notes that it has gradually come to be understood not as a distinctive institution, but as a way of thinking which is as characteristic of our own thinking as it is of the "primitives" for whom totemism was an integral part of life.
145 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1962
29 people are currently reading
886 people want to read
About the author
Claude Lévi-Strauss
229 books862 followersClaude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist, well-known for his development of structural anthropology. He was born in Belgium to French parents who were living in Brussels at the time, but he grew up in Paris. His father was an artist, and a member of an intellectual French Jewish family. Lévi-Strauss studied at the University of Paris. From 1935-9 he was Professor at the University of Sao Paulo making several expeditions to central Brazil. Between 1942-1945 he was Professor at the New School for Social Research. In 1950 he became Director of Studies at the Ecole Practique des Hautes Etudes. In 1959 Lévi-Strauss assumed the Chair of Social Anthroplogy at the College de France. His books include The Raw and the Cooked, The Savage Mind, Structural Anthropology and Totemism (Encyclopedia of World Biography).
Some of the reasons for his popularity are in his rejection of history and humanism, in his refusal to see Western civilization as privileged and unique, in his emphasis on form over content and in his insistence that the savage mind is equal to the civilized mind.
Lévi-Strauss did many things in his life including studying Law and Philosophy. He also did considerable reading among literary masterpieces, and was deeply immersed in classical and contemporary music.
Lévi-Strauss was awarded the Wenner-Gren Foundation's Viking Fund Medal for 1966 and the Erasmus Prize in 1975. He was also awarded four honorary degrees from Oxford, Yale, Havard and Columbia. Strauss held several memberships in institutions including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society (Encyclopedia of World Biography).
Some of the reasons for his popularity are in his rejection of history and humanism, in his refusal to see Western civilization as privileged and unique, in his emphasis on form over content and in his insistence that the savage mind is equal to the civilized mind.
Lévi-Strauss did many things in his life including studying Law and Philosophy. He also did considerable reading among literary masterpieces, and was deeply immersed in classical and contemporary music.
Lévi-Strauss was awarded the Wenner-Gren Foundation's Viking Fund Medal for 1966 and the Erasmus Prize in 1975. He was also awarded four honorary degrees from Oxford, Yale, Havard and Columbia. Strauss held several memberships in institutions including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society (Encyclopedia of World Biography).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
December 26, 2008
A seminal work. The topic is ostensibly totemism, but more profoundly, Levi-Strauss unveils an entire methodology, showing, inter alia, how metaphor organizes social organization.
August 15, 2021
một cuốn sách khó đọc, khó đọc không phải vì lý thuyết sâu xa phức tạp, mà khó đọc vì quá nhiều luồng tư tưởng, nhiều khi gây loạn, Lévi-Strauss khảo sát so sánh nhiều luồng tư tưởng về vấn đề vật tổ (totem), huyền thoại (myths), thân tộc (kinship) từ Franz Boas, Radcliffe-Brown, Elkin, Malinowski,... về các quan điểm từ chia nửa, vị lợi, tính cách xã hội học, tâm lý học, phân tích ký hiệu và âm vị của Jakobson. Tức là cần tầm nhìn rất rộng và khả năng nối kết tốt. Đọc cuốn này mình khá lúng túng trong việc ghi chép, highlight cũng vì thế. Dù sao cũng là cuốn sách hay, nhưng không đến mức đánh giá cao.
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December 19, 20221962, a lost era when nonfiction books didn’t need subtitles!
(Anyway, this is not so much a book as an after-dinner conversation with a worldly yet slightly inebriated French theorist.) (And its thesis leads surprisingly to … Bergson, who thought very much like an Osage Sioux Indian. Let me quote the Native American myth:
“Everything as it moves, now and then, here and there, makes stops. The bird as it flies stops in one place to make its nest, and in another to rest in its flight. A man when he goes forth stops when he wills. So the god has stopped.”)
Mysticism is for the French a frequent hobby.
(Anyway, this is not so much a book as an after-dinner conversation with a worldly yet slightly inebriated French theorist.) (And its thesis leads surprisingly to … Bergson, who thought very much like an Osage Sioux Indian. Let me quote the Native American myth:
“Everything as it moves, now and then, here and there, makes stops. The bird as it flies stops in one place to make its nest, and in another to rest in its flight. A man when he goes forth stops when he wills. So the god has stopped.”)
Mysticism is for the French a frequent hobby.
August 13, 2012
Unless you've done some reading on Totemism, this probably won't be an enjoyable read. Unlike some of his other stuff, where he starts fresh and brings in other works much later, this one is deep in the texts of early 1900s Anthropology. Expect to need to be familiar with Durkheim, "Papa" Boaz, Evans Prichard, and a host of members from the colorful cast that was the British school of Structuralism.
Hell, I was prone to like liking this as a fan of Levi-Strauss, but I didn't really get friendly with the book until C. L-S. dropped in Daddy D's and little Mauss' Primitive Classification, which is a gem, but needed a bit of the ol' critical sandblasting from a master like Levi-Strauss.
So...though I enjoyed it, I can't really recommend it to anyone who's not researching pre-vs-post-structuralism. There's so much textual background one needs before it starts making sense...and even then, you'll maybe be like me: loving the language but knowing that someone a decade later, in another field, would not only surpass the point, but absolutely blow right by it, and that the whole thing, though well argued, is just part of an abandoned wayside relic.
In short: If you're looking for something to read by this guy, check somewhere else, unless you've already been there.
Hell, I was prone to like liking this as a fan of Levi-Strauss, but I didn't really get friendly with the book until C. L-S. dropped in Daddy D's and little Mauss' Primitive Classification, which is a gem, but needed a bit of the ol' critical sandblasting from a master like Levi-Strauss.
So...though I enjoyed it, I can't really recommend it to anyone who's not researching pre-vs-post-structuralism. There's so much textual background one needs before it starts making sense...and even then, you'll maybe be like me: loving the language but knowing that someone a decade later, in another field, would not only surpass the point, but absolutely blow right by it, and that the whole thing, though well argued, is just part of an abandoned wayside relic.
In short: If you're looking for something to read by this guy, check somewhere else, unless you've already been there.
June 17, 2018
Like the effects of a powerful yet beneficent dose of LSD, this book, "Totemism," by eminent anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, slowly builds to a climax that will reveal to you the dawn of a new and profoundly wise way of looking at the phenomena of Totemism. Patiently laying the foundation for what was then the new theory of structuralism, Levi-Strauss summarizes, criticizes, and deflates, in a lucid and credible manner, the theories of Boas, Van Gennep, Evans-Pritchard, Malinowski, and others on the subjects of totemism, exogamy, and taboo. Through this patient yet still stimulating elucidation the reader is prepared for the final two chapters where the final philosophy of structuralism is revealed by exposing its precursors, Bergson and Rousseau. Here the ideas introduced by Levi-Strauss, that the nature of Totemism is produced by the very structure of the human mind, and is to be found in both primitive and modern societies, come to fruition, setting off in the reader a cascade of bliss that is comparable to the effects of the aforementioned illegal drug. Hyperbole? Possibly. Containing a kernel of truth? For sure. Either way, one must read this book in order to understand trends and ideas that have influenced the course of the history of ideas. You also learn quite a bit about primitive man. This is a good book!
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February 19, 2019Yapısal Antropoloji'den sonra Levi-Strauss'un en çok zorlandığım kitabı oldu. Çok fazla teorik tartışma ve şema var. İleride bir kez daha okuyacağım.
March 9, 2010
Everything I'm going to say in this review would be picked apart by Levi Strauss because he's very sharp. What I'm saying in this review wouldn't satisfy him or an expert on him so take it all with skepticism. This review is also an unedited mess.
Most of this book is a critique of other philosophers and anthropologists who study totemism. Most of the basis of what Levi Stauss says comes from an iteration of what someone else said. It is important to realize that Levi Strauss wrote this book with an enormous amount data, which he and others collected. Some of the concepts he describes are better understood with charts than with prose. If you want to fully understand what he's trying to convey, understanding the charts is important. Levi Strauss shies away, himself, from defining totemism. Totemism to him, it seems, is not just one thing. He even goes so far as to compare how Yin and Yang is loosely similar to connecting humans to how we conceptualize even the most abstract and metaphysical organizational structures in nature. He even raises how Scandinavians created Loki as a mischievous god and compares him to how a particular animal is seen in another culture. So first and foremost, I think his point is that totemism is a broad range of behavior that allegorically connects humans to animals, and structures human society around these allegories, to different degrees, like with patrilineal and matrilineal societies, prohibitions on diet, and other societal structures. Human interaction and observation, not just on a physical level, with what Levi Strauss calls the spiritual aspect of nature is most important to totemism. To us, the way humans who are very totemic view animals and their spirits is a very complicated and highly structured, multi-step process. That is part of what makes it so hard to define. While he tacitly asserts that everyone is totemic in some way, he mostly exemplifies totemism with cultures in which totemism pervasively occupies most parts of societal structure. There are layers of totemism and each society may or may not have a certain layer, and each layer in each society is different on some level.
Levi Strauss barely touches on why the human mind thinks this way, in the circumstances people who use totemism do. He does not call totemism an old way of thinking. He thinks it's just a way of thinking that people like me do not have. Through other philosophers and anthropologists, he suggests that it's a social, emotional, and evolutionary response to perhaps several human problems. The way totemism's potential purpose in our minds is described is similar to the way people sometimes describe why religion and superstition has a place in our minds. I'd draw criticism for using the words modern to describe why we do not identify ourselves as totemic, because there are people in modern times who still have this practice. I'd draw criticism for using the word civilized to describe those who do not use totemism, because people would think this is offensive to the people he's studying, but he calls them "savage" in another book, and also, it could be argued that modern and civilized people still have some aspects of totemic thought. Levi Strauss still finds a shred of totemism in modern and civilized society. People use semiotics to structure themselves. They find auspices based on symbols they associate themselves with. They change their behavior based on superstition associated with symbols. One, and I think it's the one and only, example he uses is a unit in WWI that called themselves Rainbows. They said "I am a Rainbow" like a savage person would have said "I am a potato." It's like when you compare your friends to animals. "He's like a dog. She's like a cat. Actually she and her friend are both like cats. They are similar." That's totemism at some level. I think totemism is something the occupies the superstitious slot in peoples' brain.
If you want to understand totemism better and receive the full impact of this book, you can research things like an Ogala Sioux Buffalo Dance, or something like that. They even have videos of it from the early 1900's. This book is begging for supplementary exposure to totemism, and not just through other thinkers. It would really help to have some familiarity with things like a few mythical stories from totemic cultures, which Levi Strauss also recants in the book. He also presupposes that the reader has some familiarity with other anthropologists. He does not help the reader much in explaining what other anthropologists thought. This is not a criticism because the book can be read on its own. It's just better with an exploration of its extensive bibliography.
My one huge criticism is that he, or the translator, makes a serious mistake in introducing a term for a particular type of totemism, on a couple of occasions. He uses the term "individual totemism" a few times, and each time, it means something different. He shouldn't introduce a term like this and use it later when it means something very different. It's a problem because each type of totemism is so different to begin with and he makes it seem, at first, like there is a particular category or common form of totemism he's identified, but there isn't. Terminology is very important in this book, but when terms are introduced as being fastened to some form of totemism, and then used more broadly when referring to how totemism takes form in another culture, it's very confusing. This makes a lot of what Levi Strauss says evanescent.
Totemism, and I mean the field and the book, is a terminological nightmare. The word itself comes from an Ojibwa word, so that's already a setback. It has a very specific meaning in that culture and it's been bastardized from the start. How can you expect anthropologists to start assigning terms to aspects of totemism if they can't even agree on what they're looking at? Levi Strauss and other anthropologists often deny the existences of observations of earlier totemic experts.
"The Savage Mind", also by Levi Strauss, was maybe the best non-fiction I've ever read. Totemism was good but not nearly as good as The Savage Mind, which I think encompasses a lot of what he says in this book, and more. Again, this book talks about thinkers ranging from J.J. Rousseau, who had some commentary on totemism, without calling it that, to Radcliffe-Brown. You could even read some of what Immanuel Kant said in "Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals" and form your own ideas on what totemism is. Levi Strauss draws from many sources to describe this way of thinking, which, in the end, seems to be too elusive to specifically define. What Levi Strauss has done, is identify it as a societal structure. I am convinced of this after reading The Savage Mind and Totemism.
Most of this book is a critique of other philosophers and anthropologists who study totemism. Most of the basis of what Levi Stauss says comes from an iteration of what someone else said. It is important to realize that Levi Strauss wrote this book with an enormous amount data, which he and others collected. Some of the concepts he describes are better understood with charts than with prose. If you want to fully understand what he's trying to convey, understanding the charts is important. Levi Strauss shies away, himself, from defining totemism. Totemism to him, it seems, is not just one thing. He even goes so far as to compare how Yin and Yang is loosely similar to connecting humans to how we conceptualize even the most abstract and metaphysical organizational structures in nature. He even raises how Scandinavians created Loki as a mischievous god and compares him to how a particular animal is seen in another culture. So first and foremost, I think his point is that totemism is a broad range of behavior that allegorically connects humans to animals, and structures human society around these allegories, to different degrees, like with patrilineal and matrilineal societies, prohibitions on diet, and other societal structures. Human interaction and observation, not just on a physical level, with what Levi Strauss calls the spiritual aspect of nature is most important to totemism. To us, the way humans who are very totemic view animals and their spirits is a very complicated and highly structured, multi-step process. That is part of what makes it so hard to define. While he tacitly asserts that everyone is totemic in some way, he mostly exemplifies totemism with cultures in which totemism pervasively occupies most parts of societal structure. There are layers of totemism and each society may or may not have a certain layer, and each layer in each society is different on some level.
Levi Strauss barely touches on why the human mind thinks this way, in the circumstances people who use totemism do. He does not call totemism an old way of thinking. He thinks it's just a way of thinking that people like me do not have. Through other philosophers and anthropologists, he suggests that it's a social, emotional, and evolutionary response to perhaps several human problems. The way totemism's potential purpose in our minds is described is similar to the way people sometimes describe why religion and superstition has a place in our minds. I'd draw criticism for using the words modern to describe why we do not identify ourselves as totemic, because there are people in modern times who still have this practice. I'd draw criticism for using the word civilized to describe those who do not use totemism, because people would think this is offensive to the people he's studying, but he calls them "savage" in another book, and also, it could be argued that modern and civilized people still have some aspects of totemic thought. Levi Strauss still finds a shred of totemism in modern and civilized society. People use semiotics to structure themselves. They find auspices based on symbols they associate themselves with. They change their behavior based on superstition associated with symbols. One, and I think it's the one and only, example he uses is a unit in WWI that called themselves Rainbows. They said "I am a Rainbow" like a savage person would have said "I am a potato." It's like when you compare your friends to animals. "He's like a dog. She's like a cat. Actually she and her friend are both like cats. They are similar." That's totemism at some level. I think totemism is something the occupies the superstitious slot in peoples' brain.
If you want to understand totemism better and receive the full impact of this book, you can research things like an Ogala Sioux Buffalo Dance, or something like that. They even have videos of it from the early 1900's. This book is begging for supplementary exposure to totemism, and not just through other thinkers. It would really help to have some familiarity with things like a few mythical stories from totemic cultures, which Levi Strauss also recants in the book. He also presupposes that the reader has some familiarity with other anthropologists. He does not help the reader much in explaining what other anthropologists thought. This is not a criticism because the book can be read on its own. It's just better with an exploration of its extensive bibliography.
My one huge criticism is that he, or the translator, makes a serious mistake in introducing a term for a particular type of totemism, on a couple of occasions. He uses the term "individual totemism" a few times, and each time, it means something different. He shouldn't introduce a term like this and use it later when it means something very different. It's a problem because each type of totemism is so different to begin with and he makes it seem, at first, like there is a particular category or common form of totemism he's identified, but there isn't. Terminology is very important in this book, but when terms are introduced as being fastened to some form of totemism, and then used more broadly when referring to how totemism takes form in another culture, it's very confusing. This makes a lot of what Levi Strauss says evanescent.
Totemism, and I mean the field and the book, is a terminological nightmare. The word itself comes from an Ojibwa word, so that's already a setback. It has a very specific meaning in that culture and it's been bastardized from the start. How can you expect anthropologists to start assigning terms to aspects of totemism if they can't even agree on what they're looking at? Levi Strauss and other anthropologists often deny the existences of observations of earlier totemic experts.
"The Savage Mind", also by Levi Strauss, was maybe the best non-fiction I've ever read. Totemism was good but not nearly as good as The Savage Mind, which I think encompasses a lot of what he says in this book, and more. Again, this book talks about thinkers ranging from J.J. Rousseau, who had some commentary on totemism, without calling it that, to Radcliffe-Brown. You could even read some of what Immanuel Kant said in "Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals" and form your own ideas on what totemism is. Levi Strauss draws from many sources to describe this way of thinking, which, in the end, seems to be too elusive to specifically define. What Levi Strauss has done, is identify it as a societal structure. I am convinced of this after reading The Savage Mind and Totemism.
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April 22, 2025《 A sua imagem é projetada, não recebida; não retira do exterior a sua substância. Porque, se a ilusão recobre uma parcela de verdade, esta não está fora de nós, mas em nós. 》
October 8, 2025
O sea está bien. Pero en lo personal sólo me leí tótem y tabú de freud así que se me escapan un poco las críticas del resto jeje.
May 23, 2023
Probably the best and most impressive work of Epistemology ever written. How courageous you have to be to affirm a concept that is presented in your own title only to, through this own line of affirmation, get to the inevitable and irreducible conclusion that this concept is nothing but false.
This is a work about how forms and phenomens break down; how theories can be created through and by its self-oblivion to its own fundaments. It's a work that reminds us how the Human appears exactly where its own illusions are broken by its very language.
This is a work about how forms and phenomens break down; how theories can be created through and by its self-oblivion to its own fundaments. It's a work that reminds us how the Human appears exactly where its own illusions are broken by its very language.
December 16, 2017
I always love you, love, love, love, love....
September 4, 2021
(Türkçe devamında)
It is a good resource about the different views of renowned names of anthropology on totemism. Levi-Strauss has a detailed analysis on their work to construct a meaningful understanding of totemism , sometimes through hypothetical approaches , sometimes with their beliefs . It is possible to see the evolution of their thinking as Levi-Strauss examines a period of these works. Another good attribute is the examples from different tribes. Whatever the different approaches , it is inspiring to think about the roots of human beings’ faith, practices and reflections on today. Totemism covers the relations with nature , gives a link to feeling and fear of people . Something is sometimes a totem because it is good to eat or has superpowers like flying or being good hunter or giving some illusions through natural reasons like some plants. Trying to get totem’s power , protecting the staple food for tribe , creating a meaningful relations with other members of clan or establishing lines of kinship for tribe , exercising magic , establishing the continuity between past and today.. many more behind totemism. The important thing is that It is a gate opener to think about the reflections on history and today. It is mainly for reader who has interest on the subject.
Antropolojinin önemli isimlerinin totemism konusundaki görüşleri için iyi bir kaynak. Levi-Strauss , onların ,bazen hipotezlerle bazen de inançları ile totemizmi anlamaya çalıştıkları bu çalışmaları hakkında detaylı bir analiz yapmış. Ayrıca bu analiz belli bir periyot üzerinden yapıldığı için, düşüncelerindeki evrimi de görmek mümkün. Bir diğer iyi nokta , tartışılan konular için kabile örneklerinin verilmesi. Görüşler ne olursa olsun, insan inancının , yaptıklarının ve bugüne yansımalarının kökenleri üzerine düşünmek için ilham verici. Totemizm doğayla ilişkiyi , insanın duygu ve korkularını kapsıyor. Bazen bir şey yemesi iyi olduğu için totem olurken , bazen iyi avcılığı , yüzebilmesi gibi üstün güçleri veya bazı bitkilerde olduğu gibi doğal sanrılar oluşturması yüzünden totemleşebiliyor. Totemin gücünü almak , kabilenin ana yiyeceğini korumak , klanın diğer üyeleri ile anlamlı ilişki kurabilmek veya kabilenin klanları arasında akrabalık hatları oluşturabilmek , büyü yapabilmek, geçmişle bugün arasında süreklilik sağlamak .. totemizmin arkasında bir çok köken olabilir. Önemli olan kısmı, tarihte ve bugüne olan yansımaları için düşünmeye kapı açması. Kitap , konuyla ilgili okuyucular için.
It is a good resource about the different views of renowned names of anthropology on totemism. Levi-Strauss has a detailed analysis on their work to construct a meaningful understanding of totemism , sometimes through hypothetical approaches , sometimes with their beliefs . It is possible to see the evolution of their thinking as Levi-Strauss examines a period of these works. Another good attribute is the examples from different tribes. Whatever the different approaches , it is inspiring to think about the roots of human beings’ faith, practices and reflections on today. Totemism covers the relations with nature , gives a link to feeling and fear of people . Something is sometimes a totem because it is good to eat or has superpowers like flying or being good hunter or giving some illusions through natural reasons like some plants. Trying to get totem’s power , protecting the staple food for tribe , creating a meaningful relations with other members of clan or establishing lines of kinship for tribe , exercising magic , establishing the continuity between past and today.. many more behind totemism. The important thing is that It is a gate opener to think about the reflections on history and today. It is mainly for reader who has interest on the subject.
Antropolojinin önemli isimlerinin totemism konusundaki görüşleri için iyi bir kaynak. Levi-Strauss , onların ,bazen hipotezlerle bazen de inançları ile totemizmi anlamaya çalıştıkları bu çalışmaları hakkında detaylı bir analiz yapmış. Ayrıca bu analiz belli bir periyot üzerinden yapıldığı için, düşüncelerindeki evrimi de görmek mümkün. Bir diğer iyi nokta , tartışılan konular için kabile örneklerinin verilmesi. Görüşler ne olursa olsun, insan inancının , yaptıklarının ve bugüne yansımalarının kökenleri üzerine düşünmek için ilham verici. Totemizm doğayla ilişkiyi , insanın duygu ve korkularını kapsıyor. Bazen bir şey yemesi iyi olduğu için totem olurken , bazen iyi avcılığı , yüzebilmesi gibi üstün güçleri veya bazı bitkilerde olduğu gibi doğal sanrılar oluşturması yüzünden totemleşebiliyor. Totemin gücünü almak , kabilenin ana yiyeceğini korumak , klanın diğer üyeleri ile anlamlı ilişki kurabilmek veya kabilenin klanları arasında akrabalık hatları oluşturabilmek , büyü yapabilmek, geçmişle bugün arasında süreklilik sağlamak .. totemizmin arkasında bir çok köken olabilir. Önemli olan kısmı, tarihte ve bugüne olan yansımaları için düşünmeye kapı açması. Kitap , konuyla ilgili okuyucular için.
February 29, 2020
Quando o autor de O Totemismo Hoje, Claude Lévi-Stauss fala da atualidade do termo, ele não está querendo fazer uma análise da nossa sociedade e de como ela se relaciona com esse fenômeno. O totemismo foi um temo e estudo muito caro por antropólogos de todo o mundo. Lá nos anos 1950, Claude Lévi-Strauss queria entender como a antropologia e a sociologia, mas principalmente a psicanálise através do primeiro postulado do livro Totem e Tabu de Sigmund Freud, evoluíram suas noções sobre o totemismo. Embora o livro Totem e Tabu de Freud tenha sido muito importante para a definição da psicanálise como é hoje, com seus interditos familiares e o pecado do incesto, Levi-Strauss não concorda que os totens das tribos primitivas levavam isso em conta. Deixando a análise do livro de lado, eu fiquei um pouco decepcionado, pois esperava uma análise do totemismo na sociedade atual e não como o totemismo dos primitivos era encarado ao longo dos tempos por seus estudiosos mais famosos. De qualquer forma, o quarto capítulo do livro dá um vislumbre nesse sentido, em que podemos traçar algumas semelhanças com os dias atuais.
June 11, 2022
This short book was written at the same time as his La Pensée Sauvage (The Savage Mind) -- the two books cite each other -- which is next up in my anthropology reading project. By 1962, totemism was basically a discredited theory, after having dominated the anthropology of religion for much of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Lévi-Strauss compares it in the introduction to the theory of "hysteria" before Freud, and suggests that they were essentially (but not necessarily consciously) attempts to exaggerate the otherness of mental patients and "primitives". But he also asks what the real explanations were for the phenomena which were lumped together under the heading of "totemism". He gives a brief history of the decline of totemism and the theories that were advanced to explain totemistic phenomena without the general theory of totemism, considering and critiquing the views of Durkheim, Radcliffe-Brown, his usual bête-noir Malinowski, Firth and Forte among others. At the end, he considers Henri Bergson and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, to argue that the overall structure was based on a dialectical unity of opposites.
September 1, 2023
eu entendi na melhor das hipóteses 20% do livro. não conhecia nada sobre totens, e não fiz a pesquisa necessária para entender o que estava a ser tratado. terminei este livro apenas porque sou teimoso e incoerente. mas tenho de mencionar ao menos o quanto me chateia este tipo de escrita académica. já que parece expor os argumentos de forma muito confusa. percebo no entanto que os conceitos e conclusões sejam muito complexas e difíceis de definir e delinear. gostei das referências a rousseau, acho que vou ler o seu livro sobre a origem da linguagem.
no entanto, se não tivesse pesquisado sobre os objetivos do estruturalismo antropológico, não teria compreendido a crítica de lévi-strauss neste livro.
também foi feita uma crítica a freud cujo significado me escapou.
demasiados autores, demasiada informação sobre clãs totémicos, mas tudo isto só mostra a minha ignorância e preguiça lógica/analítica.
acho que nunca vou regressar a este livro. talvez devesse ler os antropólogos e sociólogos mais fundamentais primeiro, para estabelecer uma base de preconceitos filosóficos que possa utilizar para uma análise mais profunda de textos assim.
no entanto, se não tivesse pesquisado sobre os objetivos do estruturalismo antropológico, não teria compreendido a crítica de lévi-strauss neste livro.
também foi feita uma crítica a freud cujo significado me escapou.
demasiados autores, demasiada informação sobre clãs totémicos, mas tudo isto só mostra a minha ignorância e preguiça lógica/analítica.
acho que nunca vou regressar a este livro. talvez devesse ler os antropólogos e sociólogos mais fundamentais primeiro, para estabelecer uma base de preconceitos filosóficos que possa utilizar para uma análise mais profunda de textos assim.
July 22, 2023
Hard to read. Totemism means that cultural artefacts have poetic meaning, i.e. informational content relating to perception, which is fundamentally dependant on the relationship to the group, which modern internet culture calls "matrix" meaning Mother. The matrix is the metaphysics of the group, difficult to grasp and trace by the individual who is not enlightened by wisdom
One Great insight, however, is that the poetic language of genesis portray aspects of animism or totemism, evident in the usage of the concepts SNAKE and the APPLE
Genesis, therefore, probably describes the origin of social life; all world cultures in its grand diversity are described by genesis- humanity started evolving culturally through the use of animism and totemism, this is what the story of genesis means! Furtheremore, the images of totemism structured properly by the bible, obviously still in an exhuastive manner adequately deacribe the dynamics of human perception and social life MUCH better than unreflected individualistic theories
One Great insight, however, is that the poetic language of genesis portray aspects of animism or totemism, evident in the usage of the concepts SNAKE and the APPLE
Genesis, therefore, probably describes the origin of social life; all world cultures in its grand diversity are described by genesis- humanity started evolving culturally through the use of animism and totemism, this is what the story of genesis means! Furtheremore, the images of totemism structured properly by the bible, obviously still in an exhuastive manner adequately deacribe the dynamics of human perception and social life MUCH better than unreflected individualistic theories
June 5, 2020
Текст високого польоту. Філософські порівняння у всіх традиціях наукової праці (посилання на численні джерела-розвідки, співставлення ідей минулого та авторського сьогодення).
Тільки третій розділ праці "Функціоналістичні тотемізми" радує зрозумілими прикладами вірувань конкретних племен, переважно з Океанії. Хтось бере тотемом економічно вигідну тварину чи рослину, хтось без логіки це робить, а в когось це дань забутій логіці пращурів. Зробив купу скріншотів, буду опрацьовувати 😊
Як висновок, автор дає таку тезу: тотемізми штучно відтіснили від панівних релігій, щоб люди не бачили їх споріднені риси.
Тільки третій розділ праці "Функціоналістичні тотемізми" радує зрозумілими прикладами вірувань конкретних племен, переважно з Океанії. Хтось бере тотемом економічно вигідну тварину чи рослину, хтось без логіки це робить, а в когось це дань забутій логіці пращурів. Зробив купу скріншотів, буду опрацьовувати 😊
Як висновок, автор дає таку тезу: тотемізми штучно відтіснили від панівних релігій, щоб люди не бачили їх споріднені риси.
September 26, 2020
Bueno, me habían advertido que hay que leerlo varias veces para entenderlo, pero no se me ocurre un motivo por el que quisiera volver a leerlo. Complicadisimo, histórico pero un dolor de cabeza.
No se lo recomendaría a nadie que no esté estudiando sobre la historia de la antropología.
Es un análisis histórico, extensivo y reflexivo de como se construyó el concepto de totemismo en la antropología. Un poco la moraleja es de que el conocimiento se construye, a partir de él se configura la realidad y esa realidad construida responde a fines muy concretos. Y obviamente Francia es el centro autoreferenciado al infinito de la intelectualidad del universo.
O eso entendí, no sé.
No se lo recomendaría a nadie que no esté estudiando sobre la historia de la antropología.
Es un análisis histórico, extensivo y reflexivo de como se construyó el concepto de totemismo en la antropología. Un poco la moraleja es de que el conocimiento se construye, a partir de él se configura la realidad y esa realidad construida responde a fines muy concretos. Y obviamente Francia es el centro autoreferenciado al infinito de la intelectualidad del universo.
O eso entendí, no sé.
October 20, 2024
Interesting... I think structuralism has some compelling insights, but begging Lévi-Strauss to actually get out in the field and do some real ethnography instead of just comparing other people's material. Furthermore, very ironic that he complains about the way in which other anthropologists focus excessively on theory at the expense of rich social reality, or are overly selective about their examples to match their desired theoretical argument... some self-awareness needed perhaps, as these are things structuralism is overly renowned for
November 17, 2018
Short piece on the definition and roles of the totem, Levi-Strauss also begins to relate it to the current culture and religious and social practices. That is probably the best part. Also, that most totems are arbitrary and don't necessarily reflect the world view of the group and can even be things that are fantastic rather than real. It's a really interesting view of how an object or animal gains importance to a group.
September 9, 2023
Written by a leading anthropologist in his day, Totemism by Claude Levi-Strass sure drives home the point of how complex and diverse totems are in Native Indian cultures around the world. Most of us just think of them as manifestations of animism that translate into myth. Levi-Strauss shows their many representations and how they guide the societies they represent. Interesting information written in very academic language
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June 22, 2021Li para uma disciplina da faculdade. Acredito que embora difícil de penetrar -- pois dialoga muito diretamente com discussões bem particulares da antropologia do século XX -- existe uma originalidade muito empolgante no pensamento de Levi Strauss. Seus textos fazem movimentos argumentativos que me parecem sempre terminar numa inquietação aberta, indicando mais um caminho que uma definição.
November 7, 2021
A good book but indicative of its time, solely. Don't judge this read on what we now know about the subject. That said, totemism is still the theoretical understanding of a world/cosmology very different to those who inhabit the industrialised west. Therefore, trying to comprehend this complex realm is still tough and I did struggle! Maybe read this for its historical value, principally?
January 16, 2025
Short read. Read this more to get a sense of Levi-Strauss’ thinking as a father of structuralism in anthropology, specifically the nature and culture dualism. Any student in anthropology should go through this book at some point to get the main premise/understand canonical structural thinking in the discipline.
August 31, 2020
Magnífico livro de Lévi-Strauss para um estudante de graduação em antropologia. Sem mais, é um livro perfeito para discutir toda a linhagem de pensamento sobre o totemismo nas ciências sociais francesa, inglesa e americana.
September 7, 2020
How to arrive at the very general principle from puzzling ethnographic accounts, and numerous intellectualist attempts making sense of it?
December 25, 2021
God source of references about the topic. However, as an artist, I expected a more creative and fundamental conclusion at the end.
December 9, 2022
This book has a brilliant conceit: that anthropology’s focus on the totem, rather than being misplaced, is evidence that what has been construed as “totemism” holds the clue to the emergence of modern conceptual thought. Lévi-Strauss puts forth the notion that totemism, or “primitive” man’s recourse to mythical relation with animals, is evidence of an early “analogy according to mutual difference,” through which relations of opposition and integration form the basis for structural classification (this ended up reminding me a lot of Sellars’ “manifest image”). Lévi-Strauss’ thesis is clearly indebted to the tradition of dialectics; his suggestion that “methodological integration of essence and form reflects, in its own way, a more necessary integration — that between method and reality,” is reminiscent of Hegelianism. He also manages to tie relevant concepts from Rousseau and Bergson to this theory, arguing that their larval articulation of similar concepts only further shows the inadequacies of anthropological study hitherto to reckon with the problem of totemism on its own terms.
Unfortunately, we only reach all of this in the last quarter of the book. The first 3/4 is dedicated to granularly poring through various surveys of totemism in tribal society, explaining the insights and failures of each theory. Though expository work is to be expected from a historical study of a scientific concept, it didn’t seem that much of this groundwork affected the end result to an extent significant enough to warrant its place in the book. I especially could have done without the tedious chapter on aboriginal Australian exogamous group relations. If you decide to check this one out, you might be best off reading the intro, chapter 1, and then jumping straight to the 4th chapter, “Toward the Intellect.”
Unfortunately, we only reach all of this in the last quarter of the book. The first 3/4 is dedicated to granularly poring through various surveys of totemism in tribal society, explaining the insights and failures of each theory. Though expository work is to be expected from a historical study of a scientific concept, it didn’t seem that much of this groundwork affected the end result to an extent significant enough to warrant its place in the book. I especially could have done without the tedious chapter on aboriginal Australian exogamous group relations. If you decide to check this one out, you might be best off reading the intro, chapter 1, and then jumping straight to the 4th chapter, “Toward the Intellect.”
July 16, 2014
It's funny the kinds of things you turn up when you dig through your physical bookshelves-- this is a book I bought, it's probably close to twenty years ago now, and never read. But since I read Freud's Totem and Taboo, I thought I'd give this one a shot.
For me, it's primarily interesting as a way to set up Derrida's argument in his "Structure and Sign" essay. The argument L-S is making, I think, is that totemism, which sure feels "natural" is bound up in exogamy (that is, the incest taboo) which is placed squarely in the category of culture. Levi-Strauss struggles with the nature-culture opposition (Derrida will exploit that), and how tenuous are his attempts to hold onto that, going so far in the end to bring in as bookends for his thought, Rousseau and Bergson.
I was surprised, too, to see the linguistic turn at the end. I could never in my mind quite follow the line from Saussure through the structuralists, but now I can see that more clearly.
I'm not a student of anthropology, and I don't mean to be mean. But this really feels like a castle built of sand, and in the process, L-S revelas a lot of theoretical weaknesses, threatens to bring down the whole edifice.
For me, it's primarily interesting as a way to set up Derrida's argument in his "Structure and Sign" essay. The argument L-S is making, I think, is that totemism, which sure feels "natural" is bound up in exogamy (that is, the incest taboo) which is placed squarely in the category of culture. Levi-Strauss struggles with the nature-culture opposition (Derrida will exploit that), and how tenuous are his attempts to hold onto that, going so far in the end to bring in as bookends for his thought, Rousseau and Bergson.
I was surprised, too, to see the linguistic turn at the end. I could never in my mind quite follow the line from Saussure through the structuralists, but now I can see that more clearly.
I'm not a student of anthropology, and I don't mean to be mean. But this really feels like a castle built of sand, and in the process, L-S revelas a lot of theoretical weaknesses, threatens to bring down the whole edifice.
May 18, 2009
no i did not have to read this for a class. I think for such a seminal Author and for how short the book is; everyone should read this book. I know that its isnt everyons cup of tea, but there are so many things to take from this. Just for a different point of sight is worth it enough. Let alone how people view in-animate objects in thier lives. Just the whole value and power of the use of "masks" can have you thinking for days on how this applies to modern cultural "masks".
Give it a try, youll be happy. And if you arent; make a paper-mache mask to show your angst.
Give it a try, youll be happy. And if you arent; make a paper-mache mask to show your angst.
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