ABSTRACT
I m p o r t a n t as totemism is as a stage of religious development, it is almost more important in the history of material civilisa tion, for totemism was the prime motor of all material progress. Material progress means the accumulation of wealth. Of the various forms which wealth can take, the most important is food, for until food is provided it is impossible to proceed to the production of any other kind of wealth. If the whole time and energies of a community are exhausted in scraping together just enough food to carry on with, there is no leisure or strength left for the production of any other kind of wealth. Now, that is the case in which those nomad clans find themselves who depend for their food upon hunting, fishing, and the gathering of fruits and roots-the “ natural basis of subsistence.” 1 But with those wandering clans which succeed in domesticating the cow, sheep, goat, and other animals, the case is very different. The labour of obtaining food is greatly economised, and the labour thus set free can be employed in the production of those other kinds of wealth which constitute the riches of a pastoral people. When cereals and other food-plants come to be cultivated, and agriculture makes a wandering life no longer possible, food-production is still further quickened, and “ the substitution of an artificial for a natural basis of subsistence” 2 is completed. Until this substitution takes place, civilisation is impossible; and whatever started this substitution, i.e. led to the domestication of plants and animals, started the movement of material progress.
