totem
/ˈtəʊtəm
/noun
A natural object or animal that is believed by a particular society to have spiritual significance and that is adopted by it as an emblem.The meat of one's clan totem was traditionally avoided; even today animals representing totems are rarely eaten....
- They make these animals their totems and are not allowed to hunt, eat, or even be around them.
- Premodern societies often had animal totems, and they saw animals and humans as intertwined through reincarnation.
Derivatives
totemic
/ adjective ...- Others are totemic, involving plants or animals that are symbolic of kin groups.
- The consubstantial kindreds known as totemic groups include both human and non-human kin.
- Among these patterns are those that cross-cut human and other species, creating the consubstantial kindreds known as totemic groups.
totemism
- I can begin to engage with this metaphysics most efficiently through a consideration of Australian Aboriginal totemism.
- This destabilises the popular notion that the Aboriginal relation to place through totemism and myth is timeless, and it is probably the case that a historicised Aboriginality is harder to negotiate through the land claim process.
- The last word, proclaiming the totemism of things that are ‘good to eat,’ is uttered in a cadence of triumph.
totemist
- Granted, totemism and therianthropy weave very closely in my life, and there may be some connection there, but I don't think I am a totemist solely because I am a therian.
- Of course, it must have been impossible for Durkheim to consider that maybe peoples like his totemists might have experienced the world as inherently sacred.
- Werecreatures, totemists and a few others have multiple natural shapes.
totemistic
- Drummer Joshua Delpech-Ramey tries to explain it: ‘Hot core means, to me, these four things: apocalyptic pop, brain rap, totemistic love rock and animalistic dance music.’
- True to Lacanian theory, the penis is not just a corporeal implement of sexual pleasure, but a totemistic phallus representing authority negotiated via speech.
- But most of the film could have been made by almost anyone, even though I doubt anyone else would have made so much of the connection Alexander has with a hawk - Stone loves his totemistic avatars.
Origin
Mid 18th century: from Ojibwa nindoodem 'my totem'.