TOTEM & TOTEMISM

In British Columbia we found Totem poles and is also found among Eskimos , studied by FranzBoas .
Totems are the representation of ancestors in holy symbol. TOTEM & TOTEMISM have been studied by various anthropologists , let us discuss them .

Facts

Arunta tribe in Africa has eagle totem . Gonds have several clans and hence several totems , one of them is Teak tree . 

 UNDERSTANDING TOTEM & TOTEMISM

Classical evolutionists such as Frazer considered Totem and Totemism to describe a kinship system , linking humans ancestrally to powerful symbols existing in the natural world . Totemic systems are said to be build around totems which are fundamentally signs of kinship running between human societies and individuals .

The classical definition of Totemism as given by James Frazer was Totemism is an intimate relation which is supposed to exist between a group of persons related by a kinship relation and who trace their ancestry to a particular life form plant or animal and attribute symbols to their own group occasionally even worshiping them .

For Frazer the aspect of worshiping might have emerged eventually but fundamentally totems connect people based on ancestry and dictate the possibility of marriageability i.e. totems and Totemism fundamentally divide people into exogamous or endogamous entity .

Different anthropologists presented different interpretations of the term Totemism . For Frazer it is more to do with dealing with social relations and guiding the process of mate selection .

Emile Durkheim’s idea of Totemism refers to a stage in the evolution of religion . According to him totemic believes are universal phenomena among the elementary forms of culture i.e the early primitive and isolated cultures possessed totems as a part of the pure cultural aspects ( by pure he refers to the cultures that are unadulterated or the ones that didn’t change due to culture contact ) .

According to Durkheim the concept of totem refers to any symbol , a group identifies itself with so that it can be linked to the group consciousness or the one helping in the emergence of we-ness ( extreme togetherness ) among the members of the group .

According to RC Brown Totemism can only be referred to as a set of symbols and the characteristics of spiritual power attributed to totem is only imaginary .

For Malinowski , similar to ny other cultural entity totems can be explained within the realm of social , psychological and biological context of the members . As an Extreme functionalist , for Malinowski totems along with any other cultural characteristics or culture traits have a function of fulfilling some set of human needs . In other words , totems can help ensure survival of specific ways of life .

The 21st century anthropologists Elekin studied southern Australian tribes including Totemism among them . According to Elkin , Totems can form a link between the humans and the other elements of world . The reverance towards totems reflects the respect human communities show towards the natural world .

According to Levi’s Strauss , totems can be seen as the result of binary opposition’s based on which human minds operate . In his structural study of Totemism , he identified 4 different types of totems –

1. A group of people identifying with specific species of plant or animal .
2. An individual identifying with a species of plant or animal .
3. A specific animal or plant identified with a specific individual .
4. A specific animal or plant identified with a particular group of people .

According to Levi’s Strauss the treatment of the totem by the members of the group and the treatment of the specific totem members by the other culture group indicate the mental processes that get established due to enculturation , mythology etc..

In the contemporary times , totems are associated both in terms of supernatural and the symbols in the non – supernatural social realm. Hence any contemporary anthropological work in providing ethnographs tries to increase Totemism and totemic symbol .