Alexandra Luisa Popescu

Psychology, 2nd year

Totemism

Introduction

My essay is about totemism, one of the many religions in the world. I chose this subject because I consider it interesting, especially the way that people perceive it and behave. Totemism is not well known as Christianity is. Also the totemism traditions are unique. For example, not often there are people who consider their companions (pets or symbols) guardian spirits.

In my opinion, the uniqueness and some of the tradition determined totemism to be considered something taboo. I feel sad for people who decided to isolate themselves because they have not been understood and taged as primitive people.

I heard for the first time about totemism in some National Geographic advertising, showing some scenes like: prays and lifestyle. It made me curious, especially two years ago when a teacher mentioned totemism as one of the four forms of religiosity. I decided to study more about totemism.

I found some similarities between its followers and the non-totemist population, like: having a totem and the others having logos, the idea that something or somebody has a protective role, group divisions, etc.

1.Definition

Totemism is a system of belief in which each human is thought to have a spiritual connection or a kinship with another physical being, such as an animal or plant, often called a "spirit-being" or "totem." The totem is thought to interact with a given kin group or an individual and to serve as their emblem or symbol.

2.Etymology

The term totem is derived from the Ojibwa word ototeman, meaning "one's brother-sister kin." The grammatical root, ote, signifies a blood relationship between brothers and sisters who have the same mother and who may not marry each other. 3.Origin of totemism and the main principles. English, the word 'totem' was introduced in 1791 by a British merchant and translator who gave it a false meaning in the belief that it designated the guardian spirit of an individual, who appeared in the form of an animalan idea that the Ojibwa clans did indeed portray by their wearing of animal skins. It was reported at the end of the 18th century that the Ojibwa named their clans after those animals that live in the area in which they live and appear to be either friendly or fearful. The first accurate report about totemism in North America was written by a Methodist missionary, ,Peter Jones. Ojibwa, who died in 1856 and whose report was published posthumously. According to Jones, the Great Spirit had given toodaims ("totems") to the Ojibwa clans, and because of this act, members of the group are related to one another and on this account may not marry among themselves. 4.Why is totemism so complex? Totemism is a complex of varied ideas and ways of behaviour based on a worldview drawn from nature. There are ideological, mistycal, emotional, reverential and genealogical relationships of social groups or specific persons with animals or natural objects, the so-called totems. 5. The psychological, emotional and mystical views about totemism

It is necessary to differentiate between group and individual totemism. These forms share some basic characteristics, but they occur with different emphases and in different specific forms. For instance, people generally view the totem as a companion, relative, protector, progenitor, or helper, ascribe to it superhuman powers and abilities, and offer it some combination of respect, veneration, awe, and fear.

Most cultures use special names and emblems to refer to the totem, and those it sponsors engage in partial identification with the totem or symbolic assimilation to it. There is usually a prohibition or taboo against killing, eating, or touching the totem.

Although totems are often the focus of ritual behaviour, it is generally agreed that totemism is not a religion. Totemism can certainly include religious elements in varying degrees, just as it can appear conjoined with magic. Totemism is frequently mixed with different kinds of other beliefs, such as ancestor workship, ideas of the soul or animism. Such mixtures have historically made the understanding of particular totemistic forms difficult.

Social or collective totemism is the most widely disseminated form of this belief system. It typically includes one or more of several features, such as the mystic association of animal and plant species, natural phenomena, or created objects with unilineally related groups (lineages, clans, tribes, moieties, phatries) or with local groups and families; the hereditary transmission of the totems (patrilineal or matrilineal); group and personal names that are based either directly or indirectly on the totem; the use of totemistic emblems and symbols; taboos and prohibitions that may apply to the species itself or can be limited to parts of animals and plants (partial taboos instead of partial totems); and a connection with a large number of animals and natural objects (multiplex totems) within which a distinction can be made between principal totems and subsidiary ones (linked totems).

6. Cultural and social views. Individual or group totemism

Group totems are generally associated or coordinated on the basis of analogies or on the basis of myth or ritual. Just why particular animals or natural thingswhich sometimes possess no economic value for the communities concernedwere originally selected as totems is often based on eventful and decisive moments in a people's past.

Folk traditions regarding the nature of totems and the origin of the societies in question are informative, especially with regard to the group's cultural presuppositions. For example, a group that holds that it is derived directly or indirectly from a given totem may have a tradition in which its progenitor was an animal or plant that could also appear as a human being. In such belief systems, groups of people and species of animals and plants can thus have progenitors in common. In other cases, there are traditions that the human progenitor of a kin group had certain favourable or unfavourable experiences with an animal or natural object and then ordered that his descendants respect the whole species of that animal.

Group totemism was traditionally common among peoples in Africa, India, Oceania (especially in Melanesia), North America, and parts of South America. These peoples include, among others, the Australian Aborigines, the African Pygmies, Lobedu Sothos and Yorubas (the Leopard totem of the Akure clan of Yorubas serving as an example), and the various Native American peoplesmost notably the Northwest Coast Indians (predominantly fishermen), California Indians, and Northeast Indians. Moreover, group totemism is represented in a distinctive form among the Ugrians and west Siberians (hunters and fishermen who also breed reindeer) as well as among tribes of herdsmen in north and Central Asia.

Individual totemism is expressed in an intimate relationship of friendship and protection between a person and a particular animal or a natural object (sometimes between a person and a species of animal); the natural object can grant special power to its owner. Frequently connected with individual totemism are definite ideas about the human soul (or souls) and conceptions derived from them, such as the idea of an alter ego and nagualismfrom the Spanish form of the Aztec word naualli, "something hidden or veiled"which means that a kind of simultaneous existence is assumed between an animal or a natural object and a person; i.e., a mutual, close bond of life and fate exists in such a way that in case of the injury, sickness, or death of one partner, the same fate would befall the other member of the relationship. Consequently, such totems became most strongly tabooed; above all, they were connected with family or group leaders, chiefs, medicine men, shamans, and other socially significant persons.

Studies of

Individual totemism is widely disseminated. It is found not only among tribes of hunters and harvesters but also among farmers and herdsmen. Individual totemism is especially emphasized among the Australian Aborigines and the American Indians.7. The connection between soul and totem Among the Wiradjuri, an Aboriginal people who traditionally lived in New South Wales, Australia, totem clans are divided among two subgroups and corresponding matrilineal moieties. The group totem, named "flesh," is transmitted from the mother. In contrast to this, individual totems belong only to the medicine men and are passed on patrilineally. Such an individual totem is named bala, "spirit companion," or jarawaijewa, "the meat (totem) that is within him." There is a strict prohibition against eating the totem. Breach of the taboo carries with it sickness or death. It is said: "To eat your jarawaijewa is the same as if you were to eat your very own flesh or that of your father."

The medicine men identifies himself with his personal totem. Every offense or injury against the totem has its automatic effect upon the man who commits it. It is a duty of the totem to guard the ritualist and the medicine man while he is asleep. In the case of danger or the arrival of strangers, the animal goes back into the body of the medicine man and informs him. After the death of the medicine man, the animal stands watch as a bright flickering light near the grave. The individual totem is also a helper of the medicine man. The medicine man emits the totem in his sleep or in a trance so that it can collect information for him.

In this tradition, sorcery may also be practiced by the medicine man. By singing, for instance, the medicine man can send out his totem to kill an enemy; the totem enters the chest of the enemy and devours his viscera. The transmission of the individual totem to novices is done through the father or the grandfather, who, of course, himself is also a medicine man. While the candidate lies on his back, the totem is "sung into" him. The blood relative who is transmitting the totem takes a small animal and places it on the chest of the youngster. During the singing, the animal supposedly sinks slowly into his body and finally disappears into it. The candidate is then instructed on how he has to treat the animal that is his comrade, and he is further instructed in song and the ritual concentration that is necessary to dispatch the totem from his body.8. Totemism in world

Iban

Among the Iban of Sarawak, Malaysia, individual totemism has been the tradition. Particular persons dream of a spirit of an ancestor or a dead relative; this spirit appears in a human form, presents himself as a helper and protector, and names an animal (or sometimes an object) in which he is manifested. The Iban then observe the mannerisms of animals and recognize in the behaviour of the animals the embodiment of their protector spirit (ngarong).

Sometimes, members of the tribe also carry with them a part of such an animal. Not only this particular animal, but the whole species, is given due respect. Meals and blood offerings are also presented to the spirit animal.

Young men who wish to obtain such a protector spirit for themselves sleep on the graves of prominent persons or seek out solitude and fast so that they may dream of a helper spirit. Actually, only a few persons can name such animals as their very own. Individuals with protector spirits have also attempted to require from their descendants the respect and the taboo given the animal representing the spirit. As a rule, such descendants do not expect special help from the protector spirit, but they observe the totemistic regulations anyway.Birhor

The Birhor, a people that were traditionally residents of the jungle of Chota Nagpur Plateau in the northeast Decan (India), are organized into patrilineal, exogamous totem groups. According to one imperfect list of 37 clans, 12 are based on animals, 10 on plants, 8 on Hindu castes and localities, and the rest on objects. The totems are passed on within the group, and tales about the tribe's origins suggest that each totem had a fortuitous connection with the birth of the ancestor of the clan.

The Birhor think that there is a temperamental or physical similarity between the members of the clan and their totems. Prohibitions or taboos are sometimes cultivated to an extreme degree. In regard to eating, killing, or destroying them, the clan totems are regarded as if they were human members of the group. Moreover, it is believed that an offense against the totems through a breach of taboo will produce a corresponding decrease in the size of the clan. If a person comes upon a dead totem animal, he must smear his forehead with oil or a red dye, but he must not actually mourn over the animal; he also does not bury it.

The close and vital relationship between the totem and the clan is shown in a definite ceremony: the yearly offering to the chief spirit of the ancestral hill. Each Birhor community has a tradition of an old settlement that is thought to be located on a hill in the area. Once a year, the men of each clan come together at an open place. The elder of the clan functions as the priest who gives the offering. A diagram with four sections is drawn on the ground with rice flour. In one of these, the elder sits while gazing in the direction of the ancestral hill. The emblem of the particular totem is placed in one of the other sections of the diagram; depending on the circumstances, this emblem could be a flower, a piece of horn or skin, a wing, or a twig. This emblem represents the clan as a whole. If an animal is needed for such a ceremony, it is provided by the members of another clan who do not hold it as a totem. The Birhor show great fear of the spirits of the ancestral hill and avoid these places as far as possible.

During the later 20th century, anthropologists and sociologists became increasingly preoccupied with such issues as the construction of meaning and identity in a postcolonial world. Given that totemistic belief systems had proved to be relatively durable over the course of human history, many scholars asked whether it was useful, as Lvi-Strauss had advocated, to dispose of totemism as a "mere" social construct. As a result, investigations of totemism generally declined; those that were undertaken moved away from treatments of its universality (or lack thereof) and toward studies that considered totem systems in more specific contexts.

There are a number of theories or hypotheses concerning totemism. Many of them are marked by methodological deficiencies, preconceived ideas, and a prejudiced selection of source documents; nevertheless, some of these theories contain points of view that deserve consideration.

The first theory was proposed by the Scottish ethnologist John Ferguson McLennan. Following the vogue of 19th-century research, he wanted to comprehend totemism in a broad perspective, and in his study The Worship of Animals and Plants (1869, 1870) he did not seek to explain the specific origin of the totemistic phenomenon but sought to indicate that all of the human race had in ancient times gone through a totemistic stage.

9. Totemism in psychology and sociology A Russian American ethnologist, Alexander Goldenweiser, subjected totemistic phenomena to sharp criticism. His critique had lasting importance, especially in the United States, where it engendered a skeptical attitude concerning totemism. Goldenweiser saw in totemism three phenomena that could exist singly and actually coincided only in the rarest of cases. These phenomena were: (1) clan organization, (2) clans taking animal or plant names or having "emblems" obtained from nature, and (3) belief in a relationship between groups and their totems. Goldenweiser did not perceive these phenomena as a unity, since any of them could exist apart from the others.

In another treatise published in 1910, a German ethnologist, Richard Thurnwald, claimed to recognize in totemism the expression of a specific way of thinking among nonindustrial societies. He felt that such groups judge the natural environment according to its external appearance without analyzing it any closer and assume that there are sympathetic connections and combinations of natural things; from these ideas come lasting rules of behaviour such as taboos, respect, and social relationships. For the psychology of totemism, Thurnwald later (191718) put forth a detailed, systematic presentation; by means of concrete examples, he also raised questions about the connections of totemism with ancestor worship, notions of souls, and beliefs in power, magic, offerings, and oracles.

People isolated because they wanted to be want to label scientifically other cultures as "primitive". This was part of the 19th centuries to seal of the subconscious from their own moral universe.

But Freud taught us that there is no essential difference between states of mental health and those of mental illness. That is only involved modification in certain general operations.

Art critics thereby thought El Greco was abnormal. By regarding the hysteric where the artistic as abnormal, we accorded ourselves the luxury of believing that they did not concern us, that they did not put in question our moral or intellectual order.

The believe that primitive peoples didn't understand how babies were made gave moderns a convenient way to categorize them. This helped the "normal, white adult man" not recognize himself in others.

Apparently "totemism" ended in 1919. In 1938 Boas published general anthropology. It totally discounts the notion of totemism. One World War I troop had a totem. It was the rainbow. They call themselves the rainbows. And when they saw one they considered it good luck. Eventually they developed complex ideas systems around the rainbow. But Boas denied that cultural phenomenon can be brought together into a unity. "myths" and "totemism" were artificial unities.

Bibliography:

Internet:

http://www.culturism.us/booksummaries/totemism%20LeviStrauss5bk.html http://pediaview.com/openpedia/Totemism#A_short_history_of_totemistic_theory http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/06/aboriginal-australians/finkel-textBooks:

Totemism-by Claude Levi Strauss, translated By Rodney Needham, Merlin Press, London, 1965, Reprinted in 1991

Tabu si totem-by Sigmund Freud, Editura Antet, Bucuresti, 2009