There are a number of theories or hypotheses concerning totemism. Many of them are marked by methodological deficiencies, preconceived ideas, and a prejudiced selection of source documents; nevertheless, some of these theories contain points of view that deserve consideration.
The first theory was proposed by the Scottish ethnologist John Ferguson McLennan. Following the vogue of 19th-century research, he wanted to comprehend totemism in a broad perspective, and in his study The Worship of Animals and Plants (1869, 1870)[1][2] he did not seek to explain the specific origin of the totemistic phenomenon but sought to indicate that all of the human race had in ancient times gone through a totemistic stage.
In 1899 McLennan's theories were criticized by Sir Edward Burnett Tylor,[citation needed] an English anthropologist who rejected the confusion of totemism with mere worship of animals and plants. Tylor claimed to find in totemism the tendency of the human spirit to classify the world and its things. He thus viewed totemism as a relationship between one type of animal and a clan. But he was opposed to the idea of seeing totems as the basis of religion.
Another Scottish scholar, Andrew Lang, early in the 20th century advocated a nominalistic meaning for totemism, namely that local groups, clans, or phratries, in selecting totem names from the realm of nature, were reacting to a need to be differentiated.[3] If the origin of the names was forgotten, there followed a mystical relationship between the objects—from which the names were once derived—and the groups that bore these names. Lang wanted to explain the relationship through nature myths according to which animals and natural objects were considered as the relatives, patrons, or ancestors of the respective social units. He felt that thoughts by the tribes on these matters led eventually to taboos, and that group exogamy first originated in the formation of totemistic associations.
The first comprehensive work on totemism was Totemism and Exogamy, published in 1910 in four volumes by the British anthropologist Sir James George Frazer.[4] It presented a meritorious compilation of the worldwide data then available on the subject.
Basing his view on research done among indigenous peoples in Australia and Melanesia, Frazer saw the origin of totemism as an interpretation of the conception and birth of children, a belief he called "conceptionalism." According to Frazer, conceptualist cultures explain that women become impregnated when a spirit of an animal or a spiritual fruit enters into their wombs. As children therefore participate in the nature of the animal or plant, these plants or animals take on significance. Frazer thought that conceptualist explanations of conception resulted in the beginning of totem clans derived from a particular natural creature.