M3 - Learner Manual

11. Totemism

Rules and lore differ from one language group to another, depending on the environment and Dreaming stories or lore stories that belonged to that area. In lore, there are many rules associated with totems.

Some Aboriginal people may have several totems associated with animals, plants, landscape features and the weather. People who share the same totem have a special relationship with each other. Knowing a person’s totem means understanding a person’s relationship to the language group and to other people. Totems define people’s relationships to each other and give them particular rights, roles and restrictions within the language group.

Totemism is an integral feature of Indigenous spirituality and belief and best explained by the following quote:

A totem is a natural object, plant or animal that is inherited by members of a clan or family as their spiritual emblem. Totems define peoples' roles and responsibilities, and their relationships with each other and creation.

Totems are believed to be the descendants of the Dreamtime heroes, or totemic beings. Dreamtime heroes are linked to space and place. The places from which they emerged and travelled, and inter-acted with other spirit-beings, all become associated with the particular hero or heroes and are valued according to the importance of that part of creation to the local tribal group.

Each clan family belonging to the group is responsible for the stewardship of their totem: the flora and fauna of their area as well as the stewardship of the sacred sites attached to their area. This stewardship consists not only of the management of the physical resources ensuring that they are not plundered to the point of extinction, but also the spiritual management of all the ceremonies necessary to ensure adequate rain and food resources at the change of each season.

A typical boy’s story might begin before he is even born. As his mother becomes conscious of his first movement in the womb she immediately has to take note of the area so that the infant will become identified with the spirit of the particular area in which she is located. This is based on the belief that the spirit of that area has energised the infant in the womb and the child becomes inextricably linked with the spirit associated with the dominant creation of that place, as his conception totem.

Source: https://www.australianstogether.org.au/discover/indigenous-culture/aboriginal-spirituality