A totem (from oj, ᑑᑌᒼ, italics=no or ''

doodem The Anishinaabe, like most Algonquian-speaking groups in North America, base their system of kinship on patrilineal clans or totems. The Ojibwe word for clan () was borrowed into English as totem. The clans, based mainly on animals, were in ...

'') is a spirit being, sacred object, or symbol that serves as an emblem of a group of

people A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...

, such as a

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

, clan, lineage, or

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confli ...

, such as in the

Anishinaabe clan system The Anishinaabe, like most Algonquian-speaking groups in North America, base their system of kinship on patrilineal clans or totems. The Ojibwe word for clan () was borrowed into English as totem. The clans, based mainly on animals, were in ...

. While ''the word'' totem itself is an anglicisation of the Ojibwe term (and both the word and beliefs associated with it are part of the

Ojibwe language Ojibwe , also known as Ojibwa , Ojibway, Otchipwe,R. R. Bishop Baraga, 1878''A Theoretical and Practical Grammar of the Otchipwe Language''/ref> Ojibwemowin, or Anishinaabemowin, is an indigenous language of North America of the Algonquian lan ...

and

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups ...

), belief in tutelary spirits and deities is not limited to the Ojibwe people. Similar concepts, under differing names and with variations in beliefs and practices, may be found in a number of cultures worldwide. The term has also been adopted, and at times redefined, by anthropologists and philosophers of different cultures. Contemporary neoshamanic,

New Age New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs which rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars consi ...

, and

mythopoetic men's movement The mythopoetic men's movement was a body of self-help activities and therapeutic workshops and retreats for men undertaken by various organizations and authors in the United States from the early 1980s through the 1990s. The term ''mythopoetic ...

s not otherwise involved in the practice of a traditional, tribal religion have been known to use "totem" terminology for the personal identification with a tutelary spirit or

spirit guide A spirit guide, in Western spiritualism, is an entity that remains as a discarnate spirit to act as a guide or protector to a living incarnated human being. Description In traditional African belief systems, well before the spread of Christ ...

. However, this can be seen as

cultural misappropriation Cultural appropriation is the inappropriate or unacknowledged adoption of an element or elements of one culture or identity by members of another culture or identity. This can be controversial when members of a dominant culture appropriate from ...

.Aldred, Lisa, "Plastic Shamans and Astroturf Sun Dances: New Age Commercialization of Native American Spirituality" in: ''The American Indian Quarterly'' 24.3 (2000) pp. 329–352. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Ojibwe ''doodemen''

The Anishinaabe peoples are divided into a number of (in syllabics: or ), or clans, (singular: ) named mainly for animal totems (or , as an

Ojibwe The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains. According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...

person would say this word). In Anishinaabemowin, means heart. or clan literally would translate as 'the expression of, or having to do with one's heart', with referring to the extended family. In the Anishinaabe oral tradition, in prehistory the Anishinaabe were living along the coast of the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

when the great beings appeared from the sea. These beings taught the Mide way of life to the '' Waabanakiing'' peoples. Six of the seven great beings that remained to teach established the for the peoples in the east. The five original Anishinaabe totems were ( bullhead), (echo-maker, i.e., crane), ( pintail duck), (tender, i.e., bear) and ("little"

moose The moose (in North America) or elk (in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is a member of the New World deer subfamily and is the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is the largest and heaviest extant species in the deer family. Most adult ma ...

-tail).

Totem poles

The totem poles of the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Tho ...

ern

Indigenous peoples of North America The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples. Many Indigenous peoples of the Am ...

are carved,

monument A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, hist ...

al poles featuring many different designs (bears, birds, frogs, people, and various supernatural beings and aquatic creatures). They serve multiple purposes in the communities that make them. Similar to other forms of heraldry, they may function as crests of families or chiefs, recount stories owned by those families or chiefs, or commemorate special occasions. These stories are known to be read from the bottom of the pole to the top.

Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders

The spiritual, mutual relationships between

Aboriginal Australians Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Isl ...

Torres Strait Islanders Torres Strait Islanders () are the Indigenous Melanesian people of the Torres Strait Islands, which are part of the state of Queensland, Australia. Ethnically distinct from the Aboriginal people of the rest of Australia, they are often groupe ...

, and the natural world are often described as totems. Many Indigenous groups object to using the imported

term "totem" to describe a pre-existing and independent practice, although others use the term. The term "token" has replaced "totem" in some areas. In some cases, such as the

Yuin The Yuin nation, also spelt Djuwin, is a group of Australian Aboriginal peoples from the South Coast of New South Wales. All Yuin people share ancestors who spoke, as their first language, one or more of the Yuin language dialects. Sub-group ...

of coastal New South Wales, a person may have multiple totems of different types (personal, family or clan, gender, tribal and ceremonial). The or clans of the

Ngarrindjeri The Ngarrindjeri people are the traditional Aboriginal Australian people of the lower Murray River, eastern Fleurieu Peninsula, and the Coorong of the southern-central area of the state of South Australia. The term ''Ngarrindjeri'' means "belo ...

were each associated with one or two plant or animal totems, called . Totems are sometimes attached to moiety relations (such as in the case of Wangarr relationships for the Yolngu). Torres Strait Islanders have ''auguds,'' typically translated as totems. An ''augud'' could be a ''kai augud'' ("chief totem") or ''mugina augud'' ("little totem"). Early anthropologists sometimes attributed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander totemism to ignorance about procreation, with the entrance of an ancestral spirit individual (the "totem") into the woman believed to be the cause of pregnancy (rather than

insemination Insemination is the introduction of sperm into a female’s reproductive system for the purpose of impregnating, also called fertilizing, the female for sexual reproduction. The sperm is introduced into the uterus of a mammal or the oviduct of a ...

). James George Frazer in ''Totemism and Exogamy'' wrote that Aboriginal people "have no idea of procreation as being directly associated with sexual intercourse, and firmly believe that children can be born without this taking place". Frazer's thesis has been criticised by other anthropologists, including Alfred Radcliffe-Brown in ''Nature'' in 1938.

Anthropological perspectives

Early anthropologists and ethnologists like James George Frazer, Alfred Cort Haddon, John Ferguson McLennan and W. H. R. Rivers identified totemism as a shared practice across indigenous groups in unconnected parts of the world, typically reflecting a stage of human development. Scottish

ethnologist Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology) ...

John Ferguson McLennan, following the vogue of 19th-century research, addressed totemism in a broad perspective in his study ''The Worship of Animals and Plants'' (1869, 1870).MacLennan, J., ''The worship of animals and plants'',

Fortnightly Review ''The Fortnightly Review'' was one of the most prominent and influential magazines in nineteenth-century England. It was founded in 1865 by Anthony Trollope, Frederic Harrison, Edward Spencer Beesly, and six others with an investment of £9,000 ...

, vol. 6-7 (1869-1870) McLennan did not seek to explain the specific origin of the totemistic phenomenon but sought to indicate that all of the human race had, in

ancient times Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history cov ...

, gone through a totemistic stage. Another Scottish scholar,

Andrew Lang Andrew Lang (31 March 1844 – 20 July 1912) was a Scottish poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectures at the University o ...

, early in the 20th century, advocated a nominalistic explanation of totemism, namely, that local groups or clans, in selecting a totemistic name from the realm of nature, were reacting to a need to be differentiated.Andrew Lang A., ''Method in the Study of Totemism'' (1911) If the origin of the name was forgotten, Lang argued, there followed a mystical relationship between the object—from which the name was once derived—and the groups that bore these names. Through nature myths, animals and natural objects were considered as the relatives, patrons, or ancestors of the respective social units. British anthropologist Sir James George Frazer published ''Totemism and Exogamy'' in 1910, a four-volume work based largely on his research among

Indigenous Australians Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

and

Melanesians Melanesians are the predominant and indigenous inhabitants of Melanesia, in a wide area from Indonesia's New Guinea to as far East as the islands of Vanuatu and Fiji. Most speak either one of the many languages of the Austronesian language f ...

, along with a compilation of the work of other writers in the field.''Totemism and Exogamy. A Treatise on Certain Early Forms of Superstition and Society'' (1911-1915) By 1910, the idea of totemism as having common properties across cultures was being challenged, with Russian American ethnologist Alexander Goldenweiser subjecting totemistic phenomena to sharp criticism. Goldenweiser compared Indigenous Australians and

First Nations in British Columbia First Nations in British Columbia constitute many First Nations governments and peoples in the province of British Columbia. Many of these Indigenous Canadians are affiliated in tribal councils. Ethnic groups include the Haida, Coast Salish, K ...

to show that the supposedly shared qualities of totemism—exogamy, naming, descent from the totem, taboo, ceremony, reincarnation, guardian spirits and secret societies and art—were actually expressed very differently between Australia and British Columbia, and between different peoples in Australia and between different peoples in British Columbia. He then expands his analysis to other groups to show that they share some of the customs associated with totemism, without having totems. He concludes by offering two general definitions of totemism, one of which is: "Totemism is the tendency of definite social units to become associated with objects and symbols of emotional value".Goldenweiser A., ''Totemism; An analytical study'', 1910 The founder of a French school of sociology,

Émile Durkheim David Émile Durkheim ( or ; 15 April 1858 – 15 November 1917) was a French sociologist. Durkheim formally established the academic discipline of sociology and is commonly cited as one of the principal architects of modern social science, al ...

, examined totemism from a

sociological Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and ...

and theological point of view, attempting to discover a pure religion in very ancient forms and claimed to see the origin of religion in totemism. The leading representative of British social anthropology, A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, took a totally different view of totemism. Like Franz Boas, he was skeptical that totemism could be described in any unified way. In this he opposed the other pioneer of social anthropology in England, Bronisław Malinowski, who wanted to confirm the unity of totemism in some way and approached the matter more from a biological and psychological point of view than from an ethnological one. According to Malinowski, totemism was not a cultural phenomenon, but rather the result of trying to satisfy basic human needs within the natural world. As far as Radcliffe-Brown was concerned, totemism was composed of elements that were taken from different areas and institutions, and what they have in common is a general tendency to characterize segments of the community through a connection with a portion of nature. In opposition to Durkheim's theory of sacralization, Radcliffe-Brown took the point of view that nature is introduced into the social order rather than secondary to it. At first, he shared with Malinowski the opinion that an animal becomes totemistic when it is “good to eat.” He later came to oppose the usefulness of this viewpoint, since many totems—such as crocodiles and flies—are dangerous and unpleasant.Radcliffe-Brown A., ''Structure and Function in Primitive Society'', 1952 In 1938, the structural functionalist anthropologist A. P. Elkin wrote ''The Australian Aborigines: How to understand them.'' His typologies of totemism included eight "forms" and six "functions". The forms identified were: * individual (a personal totem), * sex (one totem for each gender), * moiety (the "tribe" consists of two groups, each with a totem), * section (the "tribe" consists of four groups, each with a totem), * subsection (the "tribe" consists of eight groups, each with a totem), * clan (a group with common descent share a totem or totems), * local (people living or born in a particular area share a totem) and * "multiple" (people across groups share a totem). The functions identified were: * social (totems regulate marriage, and often a person cannot eat the flesh of their totem), * cult (totems associated with a secret organization), * conception (multiple meanings), * dream (the person appears as this totem in others' dreams), * classificatory (the totem sorts people) and * assistant (the totem assists a healer or clever person). The terms in Elkin's typologies see some use today, but Aboriginal customs are seen as more diverse than his typologies suggest. As a chief representative of modern structuralism, French ethnologist

Claude Lévi-Strauss Claude Lévi-Strauss (, ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social An ...

, and his ("Totemism Today"

958 Year 958 ( CMLVIII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * October / November – Battle of Raban: The Byzantines under John Tzimiskes ...

(Lévi-Strauss C., ''Le Totémisme aujourd'hui''(1958); english trans. as ''Totemism'', by

Rodney Needham Rodney Needham (15 May 1923 – 4 December 2006 in Oxford) was an English social anthropologist. Born Rodney Phillip Needham Green, he changed his name in 1947; the following year he married Maud Claudia (Ruth) Brysz. The couple would collabora ...

. Boston: Beacon Press, 1963 are often cited in the field. In the 21st century, Australian anthropologists question the extent to which "totemism" can be generalized even across different Aboriginal Australian peoples, let alone to other cultures like the Ojibwe from whom the term was originally derived. Rose, James and Watson write that:

Literature

Poets, and to a lesser extent fiction writers, often use anthropological concepts, including the anthropological understanding of totemism. For this reason, literary criticism often resorts to psychoanalytic, anthropological analyses.Maryniak, Irena. Spirit of the Totem: Religion and Myth in Soviet Fiction, 1964-1988, MHRA, 1995Berg, Henk de. Freud's Theory and Its Use in Literary and Cultural Studies: An Introduction. Camden House, 2004

References