marichiko

Hey! What could be more American than Bill the CAT? What's alien bout him?

The trouble with totem animals is that they seem to be far more complex than most white folks realize. My Zuni friend is from the Badger clan, so you'd think his totem would be the badger, right? Wrong! When he did his coming of age ritual, he encountered bears, so the bear is his totem animal, but his affinity is for the lynx.

I think its too easy to get caught up in New Age BS and accidently misunderstand or even disrepect other people's traditions. Its easy to take a quiz on the Internet and decide your totem is a cocker spaniel or something; its quite a different thing to go to a sacred, wild space for 5 days with no weapon, no trail mix, no sleeping bag and encounter a bunch of bears (or whatever).