totemicadj.

1846 H. R. Schoolcraft Notes on Iroquois 79 It will be necessary to go back, and examine..the curious and intricate principles of the Totemic Bond.

1867 F. Parkman Jesuits in N. Amer. Introd. p. lxviii The names of the totemic clans, borrowed in nearly every case from animals.

1885 E. Clodd Myths & Dreams i. vi. 99 The belief of the Moquis of Arizona, that after death they live in the form of their totemic animal.

1906 Athenæum 17 Mar. 332 There are many tabous on food which are certainly not totemic in origin.

1934 Oceania 5 173 The importance of the ‘dream-time’ tracks is seen in the custom of approaching sacred totemic and heroic sites by the actual path believed to have been followed by the hero or ancestor.

1999 Times 12 June (Metro section) 15/4 They exchanged artworks and his splendid totemic sculpture of a man stands in her studio.

2011 Jrnl. Folklore Res. 48 123 Totemic ancestors or culture heroes such as Native American Coyote or Raven are often ‘transformers’ more than ‘creators’.

1964 Times 19 May 16/6 As an object of totemic mystery the bowler hat retains a fascination for the artist [sc. René Magritte].

1988 E. Segal Doctors viii. 105 Harvard Medical School would have suited Hippocrates, the totemic father of all doctors.

2002 A. Davies Frog King 74 I want a home. Say it to yourself enough and you will understand how powerfully totemic the word is: home, home, home.

2015 Atlantic Jan. 19/3 The Palestinian cause has acquired totemic significance for Muslims from North Africa to Indonesia.

1853 H. R. Schoolcraft Information Indian Tribes U.S. III. 195 Totemically thus—a turtle totem denoted the brother or sister of a turtle family.

1902 Folk-Lore Dec. 373 Two cases in which Australian totem-groups averred that they were named totemically after a small species of opossum.

1982 Monthly Film Bull. Jan. 198 His main quarry is the black pimp Eldorado, whose colour becomes totemically inseparable from the violent degradation of women.

2009 C. Game in T. Casey Blair Legacy (new ed.) xiv. 208 CCT [= Compulsory Competitive Tendering] was totemically unpopular within the Labour movement, and its abolition became a political imperative.

2016 Africa News (Nexis) 6 May These clans are totemically identified by the use of specific sacred animals as totemic symbols.