Totem
a natural object, one of a class taken by a tribe, a family, or a single person, and treated with superstitious respect as an outward symbol of an existing intimate unseen relation.
TOTNES The totem is considered as helpful to the man, who in his turn abstains from killing it if an animal, or eating it if a plant, and who often assimilates himself to it by wearing its skin or the like, or tattooing its picture on his body. The whole members of the clan who have a totem in common count themselves of one blood, and claim the totem as their common ancestor. The restriction on killing and eating it is absolute, and sometimes men are tabooed from touching or even looking at it under pain of death or expulsion from the tribe. Elab< expulsion from the tribe. Elabprate ceremonies connected with birth, marriage, and death point more closely to the identification of the man and the totem, and such ceremonies as those of the Australians at puberty are intended to initiate the youth into the restrictions that must be observed in sexual commerce.