Totem

A totem, from the Ojibwe word *doodem* (ᑑᑌᒼ or ᑑᑌᒻ), is a spirit being, sacred object, or symbol that represents a group like a family, clan, lineage, or tribe—for example, within the Anishinaabe clan system. Although the English term comes from the Ojibwe language and is tied to that culture, the idea of tutelary spirits or deities exists in many other cultures around the world, each with its own names and practices. The word has also been taken up and sometimes redefined by anthropologists and philosophers from various backgrounds. Some contemporary movements—such as neoshamanic, New Age, and mythopoetic men's groups—that are not part of traditional tribal religions have used "totem" to describe a personal connection with a spirit guide or tutelary spirit.

Among the Anishinaabe, the people are organized into several *doodeman* (clans), each named mainly for an animal totem. In Anishinaabemowin, *ode'* means heart, and *doodem* roughly translates as "the expression of, or having to do with one's heart," referring to the extended family. According to oral tradition, long ago the Anishinaabe lived along the Atlantic coast when great Miigis beings emerged from the sea and taught the Mide way of life to the Waabanakiing peoples. Six of these beings stayed to establish the *odoodeman* for the eastern peoples. The five original Anishinaabe totems were Wawaazisii (bullhead), Baswenaazhi (echo-maker, or crane), Aan'aawenh (pintail duck), Nooke (tender, or bear), and Moozwaanowe ("little" moose-tail).

Totem poles, made by Pacific Northwestern Indigenous peoples, are large carved monuments featuring designs of bears, birds, frogs, people, supernatural beings, and aquatic creatures. They serve several purposes in their communities, similar to heraldry: they can act as crests for families or chiefs, tell stories owned by those families or chiefs, or mark special occasions. These stories are traditionally read from the bottom of the pole upward.

For Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders, the spiritual relationships between people and the natural world are often described as totems. Many Indigenous groups object to using the borrowed Ojibwe term "totem" for their own independent practices, though some do use it. In certain areas, "token" has replaced "totem." Among the Yuin of coastal New South Wales, a person may have multiple totems of different types, such as personal, family or clan, gender, tribal, and ceremonial. The *lakinyeri* (clans) of the Ngarrindjeri each had one or two plant or animal totems called *ngaitji*. Totems can also be linked to moiety relations, as with the Wangarr relationships of the Yolngu. Torres Strait Islanders have *auguds*, typically translated as totems, which can be a *kai augud* ("chief totem") or *mugina augud* ("little totem"). Early anthropologists sometimes explained Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander totemism as stemming from ignorance about procreation, believing that an ancestral spirit (the "totem") entering a woman caused pregnancy instead of insemination. James George Frazer, in *Totemism and Exogamy*, claimed Aboriginal people had no idea of procreation being linked to sexual intercourse and thought children could be born without it. This thesis was criticized by other anthropologists, including Alfred Radcliffe-Brown in *Nature* in 1938.

Early anthropologists and ethnologists like James George Frazer, Alfred Cort Haddon, John Ferguson McLennan, and W. H. R. Rivers saw totemism as a shared practice among indigenous groups in unconnected parts of the world, often reflecting a stage of human development. Scottish ethnologist John Ferguson McLennan, in his study *The Worship of Animals and Plants* (1869, 1870), addressed totemism broadly, not to explain its specific origin but to suggest that all of humanity had once passed through a totemistic stage. Another Scottish scholar, Andrew Lang, early in the 20th century, proposed a nominalistic explanation: local groups or clans chose totemistic names from nature to differentiate themselves. If the name's origin was forgotten, Lang argued, a mystical relationship developed between the object and the group, with animals and natural objects seen as relatives, patrons, or ancestors through nature myths. British anthropologist Sir James George Frazer published *Totemism and Exogamy* in 1910, a four-volume work based largely on his research among Indigenous Australians and Melanesians, along with other writers' work. By 1910, the idea of totemism having common properties across cultures was being challenged. Russian American ethnologist Alexander Goldenweiser sharply criticized totemistic phenomena, comparing Indigenous Australians and First Nations in British Columbia to show that supposedly shared qualities—such as exogamy, naming, descent from the totem, taboo, ceremony, reincarnation, and guardian spirits—were not universally present.