Agenda
 Recap
 Emile Durkheim
 Biography
 The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life
 The Most Primitive Religion – Totemism
 Criticisms
 Legacy
Recap
 Tylor and Animism
 RR. Marett and Pre-Animistic Religion
 Frazer and Magic
Functionalism
• During the first decades of the 20th c. - the
preoccupation with the origins of religion
supplanted by other theoretical concerns
• Functional approach to religion
• Different questions:
– What is the function of religion?
– What does religion do for people, and for social
groups?
"If religion has given birth to all
that is essential in society, it is
because the idea of society is the
soul of religion."(Durkheim
1912: Elementary Forms of the
Religious Life)
Emile Durkheim
1858 - 1917
 The Division of Labour
in Society 1893
 Rules of the Sociological
Method 1895
 Suicide 1897
 The Elementary Forms
of the Religious Life, 1912
 an atheist, but did not believe
that so widespread a human
institution as religion was based on
pure illusion.
 felt that even “the most barbaric
and fantastic religious rites and
myths” must be based on some
human need.
unwilling to define religion
specifically in terms of the
supernatural or the extraordinary
dissatisfied with Tylor’s minimal
definition of religion as a “belief in
spiritual beings”.
 There is a need for a broader
definition of religion
Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912)
Primary purpose:
to describe and explain religion in “its most
primitive and simple form”
Secondary purpose:
to understand how things are categorized and how
are these ideas related to religion .
Defining Religion
Religion can be divided into two parts:
1. Beliefs
 All religious beliefs presuppose a classification of all the
things, real and ideal, into two classes or opposed
groups: the sacred and the profane
2. Rites
 rules of conduct which prescribe how one should behave
in the presence of sacred things
Sacred or Profane?
The profane
 the realm of routine experience,
 the secular, everyday world of work, toil and domestic
duties.
It is the sphere of adaptive behaviour, and is essentially
utilitarian
 People often take precautions to avoid contact with the
profane
anything not sacred—unholy, irreverent, contemptuous or
blasphemous
The Sacred
 a recognition of a belief, or power, or force
'non-utilitarian' - beyond the everyday.
 non-empirical - the sacred is beyond empirical nature - not based on
knowledge from the 5 senses
it is "supportive and strength giving" - it raises the individual above
himself/herself.
it impinges on human consciousness with moral obligation, and an
ethical imperative
 evokes an attitude of awe, reverence, and intense respect
What makes something sacred is not connection to the “divine” but
prohibitions setting it apart from the profane
Objects (sacred documents, books, chalices) Living creatures, Elements
of nature, Places, Days, abstract forces, persons, states of consciousness,
past events, ceremonies, and activities
Changing
from one state
to another is a
fundamental
metamorphosis
The sacred made Profane
Defining Religion
Religion can be divided into two parts:
1. Beliefs
 All religious beliefs presuppose a classification of all the
things, real and ideal, into two classes or opposed
groups: the sacred and the profane
2. Rites
 rules of conduct which prescribe how one should behave
in the presence of sacred things
A religion. Constitutes the union of beliefs and rites
Problem: this definition includes a body of facts ordinarily
distinguished from religion -- i.e., magic
Any definition of religion must therefore exclude magic
For Durkheim
Religion
 was a public, social, beneficent institution
 The really religious beliefs are always common to a determined
group or `Church'
 Church makes a profession of adhering to beliefs and
practicing the rites connected with them
 The individuals which compose it feel themselves united to
each other by the simple fact that they have a common faith
Magic
 Is private, selfish, and at least potentially maleficent
 The belief in magic does not result in binding together those
who adhere to it, nor in uniting them into a group leading a
common life..
" A religion is a unified system of beliefs
and practices relative to sacred things,
that is to say, things set apart and
forbidden -- beliefs and practices which
unite into one single moral community
called a Church, all those who adhere to
them."
Baldwin
Spencer
1860-1929
Frank Gillen
1855 - 1912
Native Tribes of Central
Australia (1899) -- a
study of totemic clans
Totemism
 from Ojibway - person's
family or tribe
the intimate, often mystical
relationship supposed to exist
between an individual or group
and a class of natural objects, i. e.
the totem
 The conviction of the intimate
union constitutes the religious
aspect of Totemism
 The customs which result there
from form its sociological aspect.
Haida Eagle and
Raven. Symbols
of the two
original clans of
the Haida
Peoples
Clanspeople of the crow believe
they are descended form the
Dreamtime's crow spirit who
became a man.
The totem is often viewed as a
companion, relative, protector,
progenitor, or helper
superhuman powers and abilities
are often ascribed to totems
Along Hawaii’s Big
Island’s South Kona
shore, traditional ki’i
totems near Captain
Cook guard the place
of refuge.
Photo: Alison Gardner
Totems are not only offered
respect or occasional veneration but
also can become objects of awe and
fear;
Often prohibition against killing,
eating, or touching the totem, even
as a rule to shun it;
hereditary transmission
Totemism and the Australian
Aborigines
their type of societal organization was the most rudimentary
known
Therefore Durkheim assumed their religion was the simplest
 members of each clan consider themselves bound together by a
special kind of kinship, based not on blood, but on the mere fact that
they share the same name.
 name, however is taken from an animal (usually) – the totem with which the clan members are assumed to enjoy the same
relations of kinship.
 But this "totem" is not simply a name; it is also an emblem.
Each totemic group has a collection of ritual objects (eg.
churingas)
The totem is a symbol of the clan; its flag. The sign by which
each clan distinguishes itself from the others.
Durkheim’s Explanation of
Totemic Beliefs
 Images, animals, and clan members are all sacred in the
same way;
 Thus, their sacred character is not due to the special
properties of one or the other, but rather is derived from
some common principle shared by all.
 Totemism, is really about an anonymous, impersonal
force, immanent in the world and diffused among its
various material objects.
 I.e. Society
 Society Divinized
sources of the sacred
1) totemic emblem – essential to totemic belief
– a design that represents the clan’s totemic entity
– confers sacredness to whatever it is marked on
– marks the sacred away from the profane (cannot be
touched etc)
2) totemic entity – animal or plant species
– dietary prohibitions
3) human clan members
– use of blood and bodily parts in the rituals
• totemism not essentially about the totemic
entity or the emblem but about the clan itself
• the experience of the social group alone can
generate in people intense feelings that sustain
religion
• totemic religion arose from collective tribal
life style
Ritual
 ritual events - generate a heightened emotional
state -> “delirium” or “collective effervescence”
 The function of rituals
– to strengthen the bonds attaching the believer to god
– to strengthen the bonds attaching the individual to
the social group
 Through ritual, the group becomes conscious of
itself.
 collective worship creates a feeling of
effervescence, invigorates the individual and
produces energy and power in people
Critique
 Too rigid separation between the sacred and the
profane
 many hunter-gatherers like the Andamanese lack
corporate kin groups and totems but do have religion
 “religion establishes and reaffirms group solidarity”
and has symbolic significance for a society.
– But society is not a homogeneous entity but divided into
social categories based on sex, class, ethnic affiliation etc.
 religious beliefs may have an ideological function
legitimating the domination of one group or class
over another
"If religion has given birth to all
that is essential in society, it is
because the idea of society is the
soul of religion."(Durkheim
1912: Elementary Forms of the
Religious Life)