Following on from his Social Origins, Lang takes on the leading anthropologists of his day over the origin of totemism. He weighs theories of primal promiscuity, the puzzling evidence of the Arunta of central Australia, and the ideas of Émile Durkheim, before setting out his own explanation of how animal names and kinship taboos arose among early human groups.
Lang at his most combative, for readers curious about the great Edwardian debates on religion and society. Download the free EPUB.