H.—ANTHROPOLOGY. 151 
tribes, or may occupy a small and almost insignificant position. In different 
cultures totemism is not the same thing. 
When we examine totemism by the sociological method, the first thing 
we discover is that it is merely a special example, or rather a collection of 
special examples, of a larger class, namely of ritual relations established 
by the society between human beings and objects of nature such as 
animals or plants, and such things as rain. We find that there are 
important systems of beliefs and customs establishing such ritual relations 
which are not included under the term totemism. We find them among 
people such as the Eskimo or the Andaman Islanders, who have no 
totemism. The problem of totemism thus becomes a part or aspect of a 
much wider problem, that of the nature and function of the ritual relations 
between man and animals and plants in general. Thus, many years ago 
I wrote what was intended to be a direct contribution to the sociological 
theory of totemism in the form of a study of the relations between man 
and natural species in a non-totemic people, the Andaman Islanders, 
This problem, however, which is wider than the problem of totemism, 
is itself merely a small part of a still wider problem, that of the nature 
and function of ritual and mythology in general. If we wish to know why 
certain peoples treat wild animals and plants as sacred things, we must 
discover the general principles on the basis of which things of all kinds 
are treated as sacred. Thus the problem of totemism, as soon as it is 
fully stated, leads straight to one of the fundamental problems of Sociology, 
that of the nature and function of ritual and myth. This is characteristic 
of the sociological method, that any problem, however small, is part of a 
general fundamental problem of the nature of culture and of human 
‘society. 
Nevertheless we must, and we can, partially isolate particular problems 
or special study. The provisional conclusions we reach will be subject 
to revision when the particular problem we are dealing with is considered 
in relation to the general problem of which it is part. 
_ Without attempting the impossible task of trying to fit in to a brief 
statement the theory of the nature of ritual in general, I think we can 
formulate one important principle which is relevant to the problem of 
otemism.- This is that in societies in which the whole population, or the 
major portion of it, is engaged in immediate subsistence activities, those 
hings which are of vital importance in relation to subsistence become 
important objects of ritual. Perhaps we may be more cautious and say 
that there is a strongly marked tendency for this to happen. For there 
are possible exceptions, such as the lack of any record of a cattle cult 
amongst the Hottentots. 
_ Special examples of this law or tendency are the cattle cults of pastoral 
oples, the corn cults of tillage people, and the weather and season cults 
peoples of all kinds. The treatment of wild animals and plants as 
jects of ritual by hunting and collecting people is partly or very largely 
be regarded as simply another special example of this general tendency. 
Other factors come in, with which I have not time to deal, but once we 
ecognise their possibility they need not affect our argument. 
_ We have thus reached one provisional generalisation covering those 
customs and beliefs of which totemism is a part. But the special character 
