Abstract
The main concern of this article is the specificity of the social functions of religion in societies dominated by kinship relations. These dominate the entire social reality, because they organise the relations of production, and thereby con stitute also the infrastructure. Such social organisation is in response to a double constraint : production and reproduction. The first is related to the day-to-day organisation of material life, and the second to the exchange of women which becomes necessary for the survival of the group. At the level of representations one notes three sequences. The relationships with nature are represented by forces that are personified. The kinship relations which assure the unity of all the lineages inside the clan are represented by the totem. By itself, how ever, this has no religious overtone, because it represents a structure of exchange and not of domination. The last se quences refers to the global sense of the universe and of man. It is related to religious representation. In the lineage societies, linked with a weak development of productive forces, religion has an important function of protection. Because differen ciation is weak in this type of societies, elements of social symbolism (e.g. totem) have plurifunctional dimensions, which tend to introduce them also into the religious sphere (i.e. in relation to supernatural realities).