Totemism
Totemism (derived from the term "ototeman" in the Ojibwe language, which referred to "brother-sister kin") is a religious belief refers to the worship or veneration of totems. A totem is any animal, plant, or other objects, natural or supernatural, which has personal or social symbolic meaning to an individual and to whose phenomena and energy one feels closely associated with during one's life. For some tribes, totems can represent larger groups than the individual person, with a particular totem serving to demarcate particular groups. Special names and emblems typically are used to refer to the totem. This form of religious activity is most commonly found within tribal cultures and it is frequently associated with shamanistic religions and their rituals. Often, totems are seen as representative of desirable individual qualities, or the natural power from which a given social group is descended from. Thus, totems help to explain the mythical origin of the clan and reinforce clan identity and solidarity, and as such, killing, eating, or sometimes even touching a totem is often considered taboo.
Totemism as a Religious Classification
Totemism played an active role in the development of 19th and early 20th century theories of religion, initially spurring the interests of many thinkers who wanted to classify it as an early stage within an evolutionary progression of religion. This refers to the notion that all human religion was essentially unitary, having emerged through the same stages in various parts of the worldw with the progression of technology and modalities of thought. The first was John Ferguson McLennan, who attempted to argue that the entirety of the human race had passed through a totemic stage in which they worshipped animals and plants at one time in the distant past. Edward Burnett Tylor, the famous anthropologist, expanded totemism beyond the worship of plants and animals, and implicated its development in the human instinct the classify their surrounding world. Further, he argued that animism, rather than totemism, was the foundation of all human religion. Ethnologist Sir James Frazer provided a synthesis of much of the previous work on totemism and put forth the idea that totems bind people together in social groups, and serve as an impetus for the development of civilization. Further, he posited that totemic clans began through the explanation of the process of conception and birth. That is, a woman becomes pregnant as a totemic animal or plant spirit enters her body, which makes that particular totem exceedingly important in the child's life.
One of the key critics against such evolutionary notions which placed totemism at or near the beginning of human religious development was Alexander A. Goldenweiser, a Russian-American ethnologist, who called into question the notion that there was in fact a "psychic unity of mankind". Early on in his career, he pointed out that there was not necessarily a connection between the use of totemic classifications and the existence of clans, and the relationships of human being to totems. These three phenomena, he claimed, coexisted only in the rarest of occassions. This critique created an attitude of skepticism toward totemism concerning its importance in the span of human religious development. Regardless, additional evolutionary theories placing totemism at the initial stage arose, such as that of Émile Durkheim.
No thinker took totemism discussed totemism as thoroughly as Émile Durkheim, the founder of sociology, who concentrated their study on primitive societies (the term primitive societies was an acceptable description at the time). Drawing on the identification of social group with spiritual totem in Australian aboriginal tribes, Durkheim theorized that all human religious expression was intrinsically founded in the relationship to a group. While Tylor insisted that all religion arises from animism, and Frazer put forth that religion spawns from an understanding of magic, Durkheim found these insufficent. While these theories trace religion to something more fundamental than totemism, Durkheim claims that this is a mistake, since totemism is the most fundamental. Durkheim claimed that practicioners of totemism do not actually worship their chosen plant or animal totem; these totems are often arbitrary. Instead, they try to connect with an impersonal force which holds enormous power over the solidarity of the clan. Durkheim calls this the "totemic principle", which precedes belief in the supernatural. For Durkheim, totemism was the rubric for dividing sacred from the profane. For example, in the tribe Durkheim observed and many others, animals other than the totem can be killed and eaten. However, the totemic animal has a sacred status above the others which creates the taboo against killing it. Since the clan itself is considered to be one with its totem, the clan itself is sacred. This reinforces the taboo against killing other people in the clan, as well as other social mores. Also, totems mediate basic perceptions about the natural world around them, providing a schema for classification. The entire natural and social world is categorized based on totems. Hence, when the tribe gathers to worship the emblem representing its chosen totem, it is actually worshipping the tribe itself. The totem is not only the symbol of the clan, but actually the clan itself, represented in the form of the arbitrary animal or vegetable. The totem god is, in reality, a projection of the clan, and devotion to the totem is devotion to the clan. Here, a society can ascertain the commitment of any individual through his or her worship of the totem. All in all, the totem and its worship serves to reify the clan, reminding tribe members that they are committed to a real thing. According to Durkheim, it follows that belief in the soul is really just the implantation of the totemic principle into each individual. Rituals performed to the totem, then, are performed to promote consciousness of the clan, and to separate sacred from the profane.
Claude Lévi-Strauss reiterated Goldenweiser's skepticism toward evolutionary theories of totemism, claiming totemism to be an erroneous and outdated ethnological construct. In his essay Le Totemisme aujourdhui (Totemism Today; 1963), Claude Lévi-Strauss shows that human cognition, which is based on analogical thought, is independent of social context. For Lévi-Strauss, in contrast to the ideas functionalist anthropologist such as Sir Raymond Firth and Meyer Fortes, totems are not based on physical or psychological similarties between the clan and the totemic animal. Rather, totems are chosen arbitrarily for the sole purpose of making the physical world a comprehensive and coherent classificatory system. Lévi-Strauss argues that the use of physical analogies is not an indication of a more primitive mental capacity. On the contrary, it is actually a more efficient way to cope with this particular mode of tribal life in which abstractions are rare, and in which the physical environment is in direct friction with the society. The totemic classification system, he noted, was based on relationships of opposition between nature and culture. Dissimilarities among totemic creatures found in nature serve to differentiate otherwise indistinguishable human cultural units. For Lévi-Strauss, this precludes the possibility of any relationship between human social groups and their chosen totem based on analogy. Instead, totemism is simply another means by which groups of human beings classify the world around them. In The Savage Mind (1966) he puts forth the theory that totemic classifications are part of a the science of the concrete, a proto-scientific classificatory system enabling tribal individuals to classify the world in a rational fashion. This connects with the human instinct for qualitative classification and as such, Lévi-Strauss considers it as neither more nor less a science than any other classificatory system in the western world.
Variations of Totemism
Scholars of religion have identified two variations of totemism, group totemism and individual totemism. Group totemism is the most commonly discussed form, and entails all or some of the following traits. First, group totems have some kind of a mystic association with an entire social group, whether it be a lineage, clan, tribe, phratrie, or other arrangement. Secondly, the totems are passed down through some system of hereditary succession from one generation to the next. Thirdly, the name of the given group may be derived in some fashion from the name of the totem. In some cases, the name of the plant, animal or phenomena itself may be the name of the clan. This extends to the entire surrounding environment, both physical and social, as the various totemic may serve as the accepted system for classifying the various categories of reality among a group of people. In some cases, all experienced phenomena, from human groups to the weather, are assigned and grouped as totems. Fourthly, the emblems, symbols and taboos that are related to the totem apply to the entire group or else to large subdivisions of it. Finally, the stories and mythologies related to any given group totem often provide a valuable resource for understanding the origin of the group. A particular animal or plant which serves as a group totem may, for example, be conceived of as the progenitor of that entire group.
In contrast, there is also a form of individual totemism, which is expressed as a partnership or friendship between a person and a particular object or force occuring within nature. In some cases, particular traits and qualities of a group totem will be assigned to various members of the group, so that that aspect of the totem will aid and eventually come to characterize the individual. In this way, individual totems are viewed as bestowing special powers upon to their bearers. Closely related to the idea of the individual totem is the human soul, as a simultaneous existence, of sorts, is posited as developing between the totem and the person. Commonly, the fate of the totem or the individual, whether it be grave or fortuitous, is expected to be recapitulated in the other member of the partnership. As such, individual totems are of immense importance, often belonging only to clan members of higher status such as chiefs or shamans, and commanding the strictest taboos. Like the group totem, the individual totem is also passed on from generation to generation, but in this case it is passed from person to person. In many cases, group totems may actually have developed from the inheritance of the totem of a single person.
Examples of Totemism in Human Culture
North American
The totem poles of North America have many different designs (bears, birds, frogs, people, lizards, see pictogram). They have arms, wings and legs. The Chinese totim carvings also have many animal forms but are made with greater details; the smaller ones even have legs, arms and costumes.
Totem Poles are monumental sculptures carved from great trees, typically Western Redcedar, by a number of Native American cultures along the Pacific northwest coast of North America. The meanings of the designs on totem poles are as varied as the cultures which produce them. Totem poles may recount familiar legends, clan lineages, or notable events. Some poles are erected to celebrate cultural beliefs, but others are intended mostly as artistic presentations. Certain types of totem pole are part of mortuary structures incorporating grave boxes with carved supporting poles, or recessed backs in which grave boxes were placed. Poles are also carved to illustrate stories, to commemorate historic persons, to represent shamanic powers, and to provide objects of public ridicule. Totem poles were never objects of worship; the association with "idol worship" was an idea from local Christian missionaries.
Vertical order of images is widely believed to be a significant representation of importance. This idea is so pervasive that it has entered into common parlance with the phrase "low man on the totem pole". This phrase is indicative of the most common belief of ordering importance, that the higher figures on the pole are more important or prestigious. A counterargument frequently heard is that figures are arranged in a "reverse hierarchy" style, with the most important representations being on the bottom, and the least important being on top. Actually there have never been any restrictions on vertical order, many poles have significant figures on the top, others on the bottom, and some in the middle. Other poles have no vertical arrangement at all, consisting of a lone figure atop an undecorated column. The poles used for public ridicule are usually called "shame poles", and were erected to shame individuals or groups for unpaid debts. Shame poles are today rarely discussed, and their meanings have in many places been forgotten. However they formed an important subset of poles carved throughout the 19th century.
Each culture typically has complex rules and customs regarding the designs which are represented on poles. The designs themselves are generally considered the property of a particular clan or family group, and this ownership may not be transferred to the owner of a pole. As such, pictures, paintings, and other copies of the designs may be an infringement of posessory rights of a certain family or cultural group. Thus it is important that the ownership of the artistic designs represented on a pole are respected as private property to the same extent that the pole itself is property. Public display and sale of pictures and other representations of totem pole designs should be cleared with both the owners of the pole and the cultural group or tribal government associated with the designs on the pole.
Maori
Although the term is of Native American origin, totemistic beliefs are not limited to Native Americans. Similar totemism-like beliefs have been historically found throughout much of the world, including Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Africa, Australia and the Arctic polar region. Poles similar to totem poles are also found elsewhere in the world. Due to their similarities to totem poles, they are often described as being totem poles. Two most notable cultures with such example of having a totem pole-like objects are those by the Māori and the Ainu.
Among the Australia aborigines the Maori, their religion is said to be totemic. Māori religion conceived of everything, including natural elements and all living things as connected by common descent through whakapapa or genealogy. Their most important totemic groups are kangaroo, honey-ant, sun and the rain. Due to the importance of genealogy, ancestors, of both the mythical and actual variety, are of the utmost importance, serving as individual totems. It is thought that people behave as they do because of the presence within them of their ancestors. For instance, Rangi and Papa, the progenitor god and goddess of sky and the earth respectively, are seen not only as establishers of the earth, but also of the basic natures of men and women. In addition, Tane, the son of Rangi and Papa, and creator of the world world in its proper form, provides an archetypal character for Maori males.
Nor-Papua
Iban
Birhor
Shona
In Zimbabwe totems (mitupo) have been in use among the Shona people from the initial stages of their culture. The use of totems identifies the different clans that historically made up the ancient civilizations of the dynasties that ruled the Shona people from Great Zimbabwe. Most notably these symbols were associated with animal names. The purpose of the totem was meant to guard against incestuous behaviour; for the social identity of the clan; and also to praise someone in recited poetry. In contemporary Shona society there are at least 25 identifiable totems (mitupo) with at least 60 principal names (zvidawo).Every Shona clan is identified by a particular totem (mutupo) and principal praise name (chidawo). The principal praise name in this case is used to disitinguish people who have the same totem but are from different clans; for example clans that share the same totem Shumba (lion) will show their different clansmanship by using a particular praise name like Murambwe, or Nyamuziwa. The foundations of the totems are inspired in rhymes that reference the history of the totem.
The Clan is the core of every Shona chiefdom. It is a group of agnatically related kinsmen and women who trace their descent from a common founding ancestor.
Recent Developments
In modern times, some individuals, not otherwise involved in the practice of a tribal religion, have chosen to adopt as a personal totem an animal which has some kind of special meaning to them. This practice is prevalent in, but not limited to, the New Age movement. Beliefs regarding totems can vary, from merely adopting one as a whim, to adopting an animal that a person sees representing favorable traits reflected in their own behavior or appearance. A few believe their totem acts as a literal spirit guide. Some Native Americans and other followers of tribal religions take a dim view of New Agers' and others' adoption of totem animals, arguing that a non-adherent cannot truly understand totemism apart from the cultural context, and that at worst, it represents a commercialization of their religious beliefs
Signifigance of Totemism
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Garfield, Viola E. and Forrest, Linn A. The Wolf and the Raven: Totem poles of Southeastern Alaska. Revised edition. Seattle, Washington: University of Washington Press, 1961. ISBN 0-295-73998-3.
- Malin, Edward. Totem poles of the Pacific Northwest coast. Portland, Oregon: Timber Press, 1986. ISBN 0-88192-295-1.
- Pals, Daniel L. Seven Theories of Religion. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. ISBN 0195087240
- Stewart, Hillary. Looking at totem poles. Seattle, Washington: University of Washington Press, 1993. ISBN 0-295-97259-9.
- "Systems of Religious and Spiritual Belief." The New Encyclopedia Britannica: Volume 26 Macropaedia. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., 2002. 530-577.
- Wagner, Roy. "Totemism." Encyclopedia of Religion, Mercia Eliade, ed. New York: MacMillan Publishing, 1987. 573-576.
See also
- Charge (heraldry)
External links
- Totem Spirit Animals: Discovering Animal Totems, Dictionaries, Feathers
- Historical Wonders of Sanxingdui
- Welcome to Sanxingdui (with history of excavation)
- Totems in Zimbabwe
- Yale.edu Totem Poles of the North American Northwest Coast Indians
- Native online.com
- Royal BC Museum
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