Qantaqa wrote:
....so there are Native American ones too? I thought totems related to clan or family...at least thats what they taught in Canada...
Again, my knowledge of such matters is very broad, vague, general, and spotty - and therefore quite possibly entirely wrong. However, my understanding of the matter of "Totem" animals is that there are any number of ways of determining what a person's particular "Totem" is (or, sometimes are - some mystics in this tradition subscribe to the idea of a single "main" totem, others to a number of "major" and "minor" totems.) Some times totems are based on linage - entire clans may associate themselves with a totem. However frequently the individual will have "private" Totems (either in addition to or in place of this totem.)
Finding out what these private totems are can range from taking drug induced dream-vision-quests and seeing which of the beasties seems to like/guard/guide you, to consulting with a Shaman, to throwing bones or cards, to simply figuring out which animals you just "identify with." The whole mental excercise of "if I wasn an animal, what would I be?" - with the understanding that thus-and-such animal is associated with/representative of thus-and-such traits.
The occasion I had someone try to help me determine my totems, it involved a near-random determination of a slew of "minor" totems (something like 8 or 10) and my carefully considering the aspects of all the possible totems detailed and figuring out which I felt "resonated" most strongly with my own personality.
I ultimately wound up with "Turtle" as the totem expressing my emotional, supportive, passive, more "feminine" side and "Crow" as the intellectual, spiritual, active, more "masculine" side.
Again ... fun stuff to dabble in!
Cordially,
ElderTurtle (P.o.W.)
