Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/431

 REVIEWS.

ToTEMiSM AND ExoGAMY. A Treatise on Certain Early Forms of Superstition and Society. By J. G. Frazer, D.C.L., etc. 4 vols. Macmillan, 1910. 8vo, pp. xix + 579, vii + 640, vii + 583, iii + 378. Maps.

In 1887 appeared a modest little treatise on toteraism ; the author was J. G. Frazer. It is safe to say that he little imagined that in less than twenty-five years four large volumes, nearly two thousand two hundred pages, would be needed to contain his materials and speculations on the same subject. And even now the materials, as the author himself knows better than anyone, are far from exhausted.

The work falls roughly into three portions : firstly, reprints of the early treatise on totemism, with certain later articles on the Australian facts that have come to light in the last dozen years ; secondly, an ethnographical survey of totemism, much of it material hitherto unpublished, occupying two and a half volumes ; and, thirdly, a discussion of origins and criticism of previous theories, occupying half the fourth volume, the rest of which is devoted to notes and addenda.

The problems which Dr. Frazer sets himself are two — firstly, to determine the origin of totemism ; and, secondly, that of exogamy, for in the present work he recants his first view that exogamy is an essential part of totemism, and does so on the ground of the evidence from Central Australia.

Briefly stated, the two theories put forward by the author are as follows : (i), Totemism was originally a primitive theory of concep- tion ; ignorance of the facts of procreation led a pregnant woman to imagine that her condition should be attributed to something