Durkheim
argued that the significance of each *totem as a †symbol stemmed, not from any
intrinsic attribute, but from its position in the structure of clan totemism.
The influence that Durkheim’s theory of the social origin of the meaning of
totemic emblems had on †Saussure and the formulation of his structural theory
of †semiology is wellknown. Lévi-Strauss later developed the structural theory
of totemism, most notably in Chapter 4 of The Savage Mind. He here
compares the structural logic of central Australian totemism with that of the
Indian caste system. A structural approach is also taken in Stanner’s analyses
of Murinbata religion, which gains from its basis in Stanner’s own fieldwork
among the Murinbata. Stanner records, in a footnote, that he only learned of
Lévi-Strauss’s analysis after he had commenced publication of this series of
papers.
The
semiological approach to art and ritual was brilliantly taken up by Nancy Munn (1973)
in her studies of art among the Warlpiri, and by Morphy (1991) in his work on Yolngu
art. Both have taken a more generative approach to art and ritual, made
possible by Saussure’s development of the Durkheimian theory. In their work the
artistic tradition is seen to provide a grammar as well as a vocabulary of
visual signs, allowing artists opportunities to create new works rather than
simply to reproduce totemic emblems whose form is fixed by tradition. A similar
approach has been taken in the study of ceremony. It is questionable how many
performances of the major ceremonies which Warner describes in his ethnography
he actually observed, but Warner appears to commit the Durkheimian fallacy of
assuming that each performance of a ritual is identical and only amenable to
one level of interpretation. †Ronald Berndt restudied the two major Arnhem Land
cults documented by Warner and, while Warner’s ‘native’ exegesis appeared to
support a functionalist interpretation, Berndt’s informants opted for a more Freudian
reading of the rituals (Berndt 1951). More recently, Morphy has shown how Yolngu
ceremonies are to a certain extent constructed to suit the occasion, while Keen
(1994) has demonstrated that the Gunabibi and Wawilak cults are merely two
among many in the region which interpret common elements in different ways.
Special mention should also be made of †Kaberry’s pioneering work in the
Kimberleys, which showed that Aboriginal women had their own rituals, of which
male anthropologists had been unaware (Kaberry 1939).