The Algonquian Totem and Totemism: A Distortion of the ...

The Algonquian Totem and Totemism:

A Distortion of the Semantic Field

THERESA M. SCHENCK Rutgers University

In 1952 A. R. Radcliffe-Brown asked whether "totemism as a technical

term has not outlived its usefulness" (1965:117). The question is rather

whether it should ever have been used at all. After more than a century of

use and abuse, it is time to re-examine the earliest known use of the word,

and to trace the development of the idea of totemism through the historic

period. It can be shown that the meaning became distorted in the 19th

century, and that this distortion has in rum influenced contemporary usage.

The earliest recorded form of the Algonquin word totem is 8ten,

translated as 'village' by an unknown Jesuit missionary in his Dictionnaire

algonquin (Anonymous 1661:48). Since it was usually spoken as nind

otem 'my village', the word was soon heard as totem, or dodem. For the

Algonquin, however, the word did not connote a permanent group of

houses as the word village did for the French. Rather the 8ten was a group

of people tied together by kinship, who moved together seasonally. The

village was the people, not the place. In general, all the people of the

village were related (except, of course, the wives, who were necessarily of

different totems), hence "my village" was "my family". In fact, in his

Algonquin dictionary, Jean-Andre Cuoq gave the following explanation for

ote- 'village' from the Abbe Thavenet, an early 19th-century missionary at

Lac-des-Deux-Montagnes, Quebec: "it signifies family, all the persons

who live in the same lodge under the same chief (Cuoq 1886:312). The

French called these groups nations, a practice which has given rise to much

misunderstanding in m o d e m times. At the time of first contact each upper Great Lakes Algonquian village

had a symbol, usually an animal, which it used to designate itself and

which was used in turn by other groups to name them. According to Cuoq

the name was chosen because of its familiarity: it was the most beautiful,

the most friendly, or the most feared, the object of the hunt, or even

ordinary food. This animal, then, became the distinctive mark of each

family, and was transmitted to posterity as the perpetual symbol of that

group (Cuoq 1886:313).

342 THERESA M. SCHENCK

A m o n g the Algonquian of the upper Great Lakes many of the earliest

recorded village names were derived from animal names: Amikouet

(amik), Atchiligouan (name achigan), Outchougai (oshugai), Nikikouec

(nikik), Chichigouak (chichik), Malameg (malameg), Nouquet (mak8a)

(Thwaites 1896-1901, 18:229-231, 44:247-251, 57:221; Anonymous

1661; Andre 1688:10-11). The totem was the village, the village name,

and by extension, the mark or symbol of the village.

The relationship between village and symbol was recognized even in

the 17th century. Pierre Esprit Radisson, when he was in the vicinity of

Hudson Bay around 1660, noted that "all the nations are distinguished by

the representation of the beast or animals" (Adams 1961:146). In relating

a story about an old Potawatomi man who was of the Hare clan, the Jesuit

Allouez stated that "the man and the hare were of the same village"

(Thwaites 1896-1901,51:33). Nicolas Perrot, who spent nearly forty years

among the Indians of the Great Lakes, wrote that "their villages each bear

the name of the animal which has given its people their being — as that of

the crane, or the bear, or of other animals" (Blair 1911,1:37). Perrot also

reported that, in the ceremony at Sault Ste. Marie in which the French took

possession of the upper Great Lakes in 1671, all the chiefs signed with "the

insignia of their families; some of them drew a beaver, others an otter, a

sturgeon, a deer or an elk" (Blair 1911,1:347). And finally, in 1701, at the

ratification of peace with the Iroquois, each chief drew la marque du

village 'the mark or sign of his village': the Amikouet, a beaver; the Otag-

ami, a fox; the Missisagui, an eagle; and the Sauteurs, a crane (Figure 1).

Throughout the early 18th century most of the upper Great Lakes

Algonquian groups continued to be known by their totemic, or village,

names, even as new totemic groups (villages) were being formed and old

ones amalgamated. W h e n Charlevoix made his voyage in 1720, he found

several of the totemic groups already mixed, "each of them having a

distinct chief in every village" (Charlevoix 1761,2:22). In the enumeration

of Indian tribes taken in 1736 the "armorial bearing" or "device" of each

group was given. The Mississauga had a crane; the Monsoni, a moose;

the Ouace, a catfish; and the Cristinaux, a wild goose. The Sauteurs,

whose mark was earlier a crane, had now either been joined by other

groups or fissioned into smaller villages: at Sault Ste. Marie were the crane

and catfish totems, while at the Keweenaw Peninsula were the crane and

stag totems. The totemic device for the Sauteurs of Chagouamegon was not recorded (O'Callaghan and F e m o w 1853-87, 9:1052-8).

THE ALGONQUIAN TOTEM A N D TOTEMISM

Figure 1. Totemic marks of villages ratifying the Peace Treaty at Montreal, 4 August 1701. NAC, Archives des Colonies, M G 1, CllA F-19:43A.

The extended concept of totem, which was nothing more than a village

or family naming system, had many functions in early Algonquian society.

Not only was it the family name, but it also served to regulate exogamy1

and to establish a bond among relatives, however distant. As a symbol or

mark it identified a village or the route taken by members of a village, a

custom similar to that of the Huron, whose "armorial bearings" Gabriel

Sagard described in 1624 as "inscribed not only on a post erected in their

village, but also on birch bark along whatever route they took to let others

know they had passed by" (Sagard 1939:251-2). One additional, and

possibly later, use of the totem was on grave markers (Figure 2); as

Alexander Henry (1809:311) noted in the 18th century, it indicated "the

family to which the deceased belonged".

The basic idea of the totem as village or family continued well into the

19th century. Gradually, however, as the population grew and people of

1 Those who question exogamy should be aware of Andre's observation (1688:3^1) that "quod possunt, ducunt uxores ex alia natione quam ex sua" ('when they can, they take wives from another nation than their own').


4r*.

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V

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1;

Ii

II

M 1' • 1

» • ll

II II

(far I*-***. ->4

Figure 2. Grave post of Waubojig (White Fisher) of the Addick (caribou) totem. Other symbols tell of his leadership and success in battles. Drawn by S. Eastman. Schoolcraft 1851-57, v. 1, plate 50.

different totems or families came to live in one village, the totemic mark

came to be the sign of the family or clan only. This is reflected in the

different words for 'family' and 'village' in the 19th century. Frederick

Baraga (1878-80, 1:96, 278) recorded odem as 'family mark', and odena

as 'village'. It is likely by this time that the concept of village had taken

on another connotation as well, a location.

As indicative of the new mixed villages we find that, in numerous land

deeds in both the Canadian Archives and the Burton Collection, each group

signed the document not with one totem, but with the individual family

mark of each chief (Figure 3). It is probable that the Chippewa, Ottawa,

Potawatomi, and Mississauga who had been living in adjacent villages in

THE ALGONQUIAN TOTEM AND TOTEMISM

Figure 3. Chippewa signatures accompanying surrender of land on River Thames near Lake Sinclair, 7 September 1796. NAC, RG 10, v. 1840.

the Detroit area since the early 18th century had intermarried, thereby

adding new totems to each group.

Totems had likewise mixed and new ones had developed in other areas


Figure 4. Symbolic petition of Chippewa chiefs presented at Washington,

28 January 1848. Drawn by S. Eastman. Schoolcraft 1851-57, v. 1,

plate 60, pictograph A.

of the Great Lakes. In January 1849, at the instigation of a Metis inter

preter, a Chippewa delegation from the headwaters of the Wisconsin River

journeyed to Washington, D.C., to try to recuperate some of the land they

had ceded in the treaty of 1842. O n the letter of credence appear not the

individual names of the representatives, but their totems (Figure 4). The

group from Monmonceau was led by a chief of the crane totem; there were

three warriors from the marten totem, and one each of the bear, the catfish,

and the merman totems (Schoolcraft 1851-57, 1:415-7).

In a paper read before the Canadian Institute in 1857 the Odawa

Francis Assikinack described life in his younger days:

the inhabitants were divided into tribes; and... a tribe was again subdivided into sections or families according to then "Ododams;" that is their devices, signs, or what may be called according to the usage of civilised communities, "Coats of Arms." The members of a particular family kept themselves distinct, at least nominally, from the other members of the tribe; and in then large villages, all people claiming to belong to the same Ododam or sign, were required to dwell in that section of the village set apart for them specially... [Assikinack 1858:119]

In the 19th century the concept of the totem seems to have taken on

greater importance, as the native people lost their separate village identity

and much of their land base. The Ojibwa totem became more than a bond

of consanguinity; it developed into a matter of great pride. A s Schoolcraft

wrote in 1834:

The most striking trait in their moral history is the institution of the Totem — a sign manual, by which the affiliation of families is traced, agreeing,

THE ALGONQUIAN TOTEM A N D TOTEMISM 347

more exactly perhaps, than has been supposed, with the armorial bearings ot the feudal ages. And this institution is kept up, with a feeling of importance, which it is difficult to account for. An Indian, it is well known, will tell his specific name with great reluctance, but his generic or family name — in other words, his Totem, he will declare without hesitation, and with an evident feeling of pride. [Mason 1993:94]

Similarly, in 1839 the French geographer Joseph N. Nicollet noticed that,

while the native people were unwilling to reveal their personal name, they would not hesitate to disclose their totem name:

It is not a sacred name, neither is it connected with any favors of the spirits. There is no mystery attached to it. The totem being an institution of a purely civic nature, they are inclined to quote with pride the name of the great family to which they belong. [Bray 1970:187]

During his stay at La Pointe on Lake Superior in 1855, Johann Georg

Kohl learned about totemic pride. Mongo-sid (Loon-foot), a chief from

Fond du Lac, spoke so highly of his totem, the Loon totem, that he believed

it to be the oldest and noblest in the land. Then he met an old Metis,

probably Michel Cadotte, Jr., whose wife and mother were both of the Crane totem.

La marque des Grues est la plus noble et la plus grande marque parmi les Ojibbeways. Les Grues montentjusqu'au Deluge... Pour des siecles les Grues avaient le nom le plus haut... Enfin, monsieur, les Grues ont ere et sont encore partout les hommes les plus remarquables du monde. [Kohl 1985:148-9]

The most thorough treatment of the totem in the mid-19th century,

however, is that of William Warren, the Metis historian of the Southwest-

e m Ojibwa. From his grandmother, a member of the crane totem, and from

the elders w h o m he frequented as a young man, he learned the traditions

and stories of many of the then-prominent totems. Furthermore, he was

able to identify the totem of each village chief of the Wisconsin and

Minnesota Ojibwa. With unusual insight Warren understood that "the most

important link in solving the deep mystery which covers their origin" could

be found in the totemic history of the Ojibwa (Warren 1984:53).

B y this time the totems of the Upper Algonquian peoples may have

begun to take on some of the characteristics of the Central Algonquian

clans, each of the six major totems or families having a particular quality

or function, according to Warren. The Catfish were noted for being long-

lived and having scant, fine hair; the Cranes with their loud voice were

orators and chiefs; the Loons, too, wore a badge of honor as chiefs; the


Bears were the war chiefs and warriors; the Martens were fierce and war

like, and had absorbed the quarrelsome and once-powerful Moose totem.

Unlike the Central Algonquian clans, however, none of the Upper

Algonquian totems had ritual or ceremonial functions, and the Grand

Medicine, the Midewiwin, remained open to all without regard to totem

(Warren 1984:45-52).

The totemic system of the Southwestern Ojibwa, once the source of

such pride, began to disintegrate in some areas in the latter half of the 19th

century as so many native w o m e n married fur traders and voyageurs. Since

the totemic name was passed only from a man to his children, the children

of these mixed marriages had no totem, or else totems such as the chicken

which were invented in jest. In many cases today the totem remains a

symbol of past glory, and attempts are made to restore the totemic

designations.

In the mid-19th century, however, just as the totem was in danger of

being lost, the word was appropriated by ethnologists and anthropologists

and endowed with a new, and even antithetical, meaning. The perpetrators

of this linguistic crime understood neither the Algonquian totem nor

Algonquian spirituality. Rather they combined two very different ideas,

the totemic animal as group name and the animal spirit as personal

guardian, and applied the new concept to a socio-religious institution

common to the aboriginal people of Australia. The new totemism included

descent from the totemic animal and certain prohibitions with regard to

hunting and eating the animal, neither of which was found in the earlier

idea of the totem. The result was what Levi-Strauss (1962:17-18) has

termed "the totemic illusion" and "a distortion of the semantic field".

The person who seems to have originated this confusion was John

Long, an English trader who spent two seasons in the Lake Nipigon country

north of Lake Superior. In relating his travels in 1791 he described the

totem as a favorite or guardian spirit, "an animal they never kill, hunt or

eat", and coined the word totemism to mean 'destiny, the influence the

totem has on one's actions' (Quaife 1922:110-2). Certainly the Ojibwa,

like most native people in touch with the spiritual world around them, often

had a personal relationship with an animal spirit, a kind of protector or

guardian usually acquired through a dream in early adolescence after a

period of fasting. But this individual spirit was not his totem. In fact, if the

totem is understood as a village or family mark, then the very concept of


a personal totem is an oxymoron. Long's idea of totemism, however,

presented as it was in a then-popular format, a travel narrative, was to have

a more lasting and far-reaching influence than the better-informed works

of numerous other travelers and scholars. Contemporaries of John Long

understood and made clear the difference between totem and personal

manitou. Alexander Henry (the elder) explained the totem as a family

mark, but the guardian spirit as something quite distinct.

The Indians universally fix upon a particular object, as sacred to themselves; as the giver of their prosperity, and as then preserver from evil. The choice is determined by a dream, or by some strong predilection of fancy; and usually falls upon an animal, or part of an animal... [Henry 1809:286]

Peter Grant, w h o had been a partner in the North West Company at

Rainy Lake in 1791 and later superintendent of the Red River District,

called these spirits "demi-gods or patrons" and "powerful protectors"

(Masson 1889-90, 1:356). The totem, on the contrary, was not an individ

ual possession but a family name or mark, as described by Grant's contem

porary, Duncan Cameron (Masson 1889-90, 1:246-7). William H. Keat

ing, a scientist with the Long expedition in 1823, explained the totem as a

sort of family distinction, a sign taken from an animal or from some part

of it, which by no means implies a supposed relationship with that animal.

It is merely a distinguishing mark or badge, which appears to belong to every member of a family, whether male or female. The latter retain it even after matrimony, and do not assume that of then husbands. It does not appear that this implies the least obligation of the Indian, to the animal from which it is taken. He may kill it or eat it. The totem appears to answer no other purpose than that of distinguishing families... Independently of the name which he bears, and of the totem or badge of family to which he lays claim, an Indian has frequently a kind spirit to watch over him and assist him. This tutelar saint is, of course, held in high veneration, and nothing is done that could in the least offend him. [Keating 1959:117]

In 1830, when Dr. Edwin James published a list of 18 Ojibwa and

Odawa totems at the end of his Narrative of the captivity and adventures

of John Tanner, both he and Tanner made it clear that the totem was merely

a family name with certain social obligations attached (James 1955:166,

313-5). Likewise Albert Gallatin, noting the almost universal division of

American tribes into animal-named, exogamic clans, did not confuse these

clans with the distinctive Algonquian totem, which he recognized as "the

family name of the Chippeways" (Gallatin 1836:109). Nevertheless,


James's list of totems, combined with Gallatin's observations and Long's

misinterpretation, helped to lay the foundation for the new totemism of

19th-century ethnologists. The word was gradually extended to describe

the social organization of all North American tribes,2 as scholars began to

search for, and sometimes created, evidence that would link the Algonquian

totem with the Australian kabong and the African siboko. In this new,

invented totemism men regarded their totemic animal with religious —

even superstitious — reverence, believed they were descended from this

animal, and were forbidden to hunt or eat the totem. Thus the characteris

tics of Australian "totemism" were reassigned to Algonquian totemism.

While these practices may be found in varying degrees among some

native peoples, they do not appear to have been c o m m o n to the original

people of the totem. In fact, there seems to have been no special relation

ship between a man and his totem, no religious superstition, and certainly

no worship. Furthermore, not all villages even bore animal names — some

totemic names were merely geographic descriptions or locations, such as

a fork in a river, or sometimes even an artifact or a natural phenomenon.

The totemic name was, of course, respected and often drawn as a means of

identification, but it was not a spirit who protected the people.

As for belief in descent from the totemic animal, this was, in the rare

instances where it was found to exist, nothing more than an explanation

invented to account for the origin of a name. Perrot heard a story from the

upper Great Lakes Algonquian that the Amikouet were "descendants of the

Beaver", that they originated from the corpse of the Great Beaver. The

legend he then narrated is similar to several stories told by Algonquian

peoples involving a beaver who created water passages for the people,

building dams as he passed through the country (Blair 1911,1:62-63). But

this is not the origin myth which the Amikouet probably shared with other

Algonquian peoples, in which creation is the work of Ke-che-mun-e-do

(Warren 1984:58, Johnston 1990:13) orNanabojo (Kohl 1985:438). It is

rather one explanation offered to account for the name of the Amikouet, and is not to be taken literally.

There is a rich variety and lack of canonical rigidity in native belief, a

fact which has been difficult for many anthropologists to understand or

2 It may have been Henry R. Schoolcraft who first extended the use of the word totem beyond the Upper Algonquian peoples. In his History of the Indian tribes of the United States, he mentioned that the Neutral Nation had three totems (Schoolcraft


even accept. As William K. Powers has observed: "Rituals, myths, songs,

dances, prayers — in essence, the contents of religious belief— change

circumstantially" (Powers 1975:xv). This is perhaps best illustrated by

comparing two Ojibwa origin stories, both collected by Henry Schoolcraft

at Sault Ste. Marie. In the first, two young men were fleeing a cruel mother

when they came to the falls of St. Mary's. Unable to cross the rapids, they

were transported to the south side by a crane of extraordinary size and great

age. This crane also destroyed the w o m a n who was pursuing them by

throwing her into the rapids. Her skull became the whitefish so important

to the Sauteurs. The sons "took up their permanent abode at these falls,

becoming the progenitors of the present tribe, and in gratitude to their

deliverer adopted the Crane as their Totem" (Mason 1958:95-96). Thus

this myth explains the origin of both the whitefish and the totem. In the

second version, thought to illustrate the relationship between the Shawnee

and the Ojibwa, it was an osprey (oshugay) who transported the two

brothers, but the crane was waiting for them on the other side. Each bird

gave a feather to one of the brothers; soon these feathers appeared as

human beings w h o m the brothers were to consider as their sons (Williams

1956:269-273). In a similar origin tale collected by William Jones in the

early 20th century, and attributed to William Kabaoosa of Garden River,

the crane dreamed of a woman, and when he awoke, he found one lying

with him. They lived together and "from this pair came the Ojibwa people"

(Jones 1916:388-9). Only in this much later version is descent from the

crane postulated. Like a belief in descent from the totemic animal, a refusal to hunt or eat

the totemic animal may have developed and been practiced by some

individuals, but it was neither universal nor essential. Although the

Amikouet were the "People of the Beaver", they most certainly participated

in the beaver fur trade. W h e n the Ojibwa did not want to kill a certain

animal, such as a bear or a rattlesnake, it was not because of totemic

considerations, but because that animal in itself had power. Ruth Landes, who lived and worked among the Ojibwa of northwestern

Ontario, was told that the totemic name was "just a name", and that "the

eponymous creature is killed and used without any mystical associations"

(Landes 1936:31). Furthermore, she found no origin tales regarding the

totem, nor any interest in the subject. Sister Mary Inez Hilger, a contempo

rary of Landes who did field work among the Ojibwa of Wisconsin,


Michigan and Minnesota, found that the totemic animals "are treated with

friendliness, but are not considered sacred, nor are any taboos associated

with them. They are killed, skinned, and eaten like other animals" (Hilger

1951:154). Even where totemism has been lost, its exogamic function is still

remembered. As Maude Kegg told John D. Nichols: "A long time ago the

Indians had totems... They couldn't marry each other if they had the same

totem. Long ago that's how they were related to each other" (Nichols

1991:143). Similarly, David M c N a b (personal communication, 1996)

informed m e that "at Walpole Island totems are known as 'family crests'

still today. They are naming devices."

True totemism is nothing more than a collective naming system such

as men have used from earliest times (Mallery 1972, 1:376). A totemic

name is merely a village or clan name, not necessarily an animal name. If

an individual or group did not eat or hunt the totemic animal, if a myth of

descent from the totemic animal was created, these were certainly not

inherent in the idea of totemism. In fact, in many cases these prohibitions

appear only in m o d e m times, possibly even under the influence of the

inventors of the new totemism.

The study of totemism is valuable in that it reveals something about the

social organization of prehistoric peoples. But used to describe a universal

socio-religious phenomenon, it is indeed, as Levi-Strauss (1962:10) has

proclaimed it, "an artificial unity, existing solely in the mind of the

anthropologist, to which nothing specifically corresponds in reality".

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