Andrew Lang’s Method in the Study of Totemism is an anthropological study concerned with the principles by which the varied institutions and customs called totemic should be compared and interpreted. Examining evidence from Australia and Indigenous societies of North America, Lang acknowledges that exogamous groups, names derived from animals or plants, religious attitudes toward totems, and related taboos do not appear in an identical form everywhere. He nevertheless argues that cultural variation does not justify treating these features as wholly unrelated customs, since they may represent historically connected elements of a changing institutional system. Rather than forcing every example into a single theory of origin or generalizing from isolated cases, the study emphasizes careful comparison of shared features, local differences, historical transformations, and the relationships among the various elements of totemism.
