| 释义 |
totem, n.|ˈtəʊtəm|
Also 8 totam, 9 otem.
[From Odjibewa, or some kindred Algonquin dialect. Mentioned (apparently) in 1609 by Lescarbot as aoutem (in Acadia); by Long 1791 as totam, by Henry a 1776, Cooper 1826, Catlin 1841, as totem, by Rev. P. Jones (a native Odjibewa) 1861, as toodaim, by Francis Assikinak (an Ottawa Indian) as Ododam, while the Abbé Thavenel gives the simple form as ote, ‘the possessive of which is otem’. The initial t is explained by some as the final letter of a prec. possessive pronoun. The meaning given by most of these is ‘mark’; by the younger Henry ‘tribe’; Thavenel gives ‘mark’ and ‘family or tribe’, app. meaning ‘that which marks the family or tribe’. Lescarbot and Long explain it as applied to a familiar spirit.]
1. a. Among the American Indians: The hereditary mark, emblem, or badge of a tribe, clan, or group of Indians, consisting of a figure or representation of some animal, less commonly a plant or other natural object, after which the group is named; thus sometimes used to denote the tribe, clan, or division of a ‘nation’, having such a mark; also applied to the animal or natural object itself, sometimes considered to be ancestrally or fraternally related to the clan, being spoken of as a brother or sister, and treated as an object of friendly regard, or sometimes even as incarnating a guardian spirit who may be appealed to or worshipped.
[1609Lescarbot Hist. Nouvelle France vi. 683 Son dæmon appellé Aoutem, lequel ceux de Canada nomment Cudonagni.] 1760–76A. Henry (the elder) Travels (1809) 305 To these are added his badge, called, in the Algonquin tongue, a totem, and which is in the nature of an armorial bearing. 1791J. Long Voy. Indian Interpr. 86 One part of the religious superstition of the Savages, consists in each of them having his totam, or favourite spirit, which he believes watches over him. This totam they conceive assumes the shape of some beast or other, and therefore they never kill, hunt, or eat the animal whose form they think this totam bears. Ibid., One of them, whose totam was a bear. 1799–1808A. Henry (the younger) Journals (1897) I. 106 Should he not belong to the clan (totem). 1826F. Cooper Mohicans (1829) II. x. 162 There was one chief of his party who carried the beaver as his peculiar symbol, or ‘totem’. 1841Catlin N. Amer. Ind. II. liv. 168 Here are to be seen (and will continue to be seen for ages to come), the totems and arms of the different tribes, who have visited this place for ages past. Ibid. 170 We [a Mandan chief and his tribe] left our totems as marks on the rocks. We cut them deep in the stones, they are there now. 1851Schoolcraft Indian Tribes 294 A single element in the system attracted early notice. I allude to the institution of the Totem, which has been well known among the Algonquin tribes from the settlement of Canada. 1855Longfellow Hiaw., Picture Writing 23 From what old, ancestral Totem, Be it Eagle, Bear, or Beaver, They descended, this we know not. 1865J. G. Hodgins Hist. Canada 101 The totem, or outline of some animal, (from do-daim, a family mark,) was always the chief's signature to a treaty. 1861P. Jones Hist. Ojebways 138 Each ‘nation’ is subdivided into a number of tribes or clans called ‘toodaims’, and each tribe is distinguished by certain animals or things, as for instance: the Ojebway nations have the following toodaims:—the Eagle, Reindeer, Otter, Bear, Buffalo, Beaver, Catfish, Pike, Birch⁓bark, White Oak Tree, Bear's liver, etc., etc. The Mohawk nation have only three divisions or tribes—the Turtle, the Bear, and the Wolf. 1865Tylor Early Hist. Man. x. 281 The Indian tribes are usually divided into clans, each distinguished by a totem (Algonquin do-daim, that is ‘town-mark’) which is commonly some animal, as a bear, wolf, deer, etc., and may be compared on the one hand to a crest, and on the other to a surname. 1885Clodd Myths & Dr. i. vi. 106 The Dacotahs would neither kill nor eat their totems. 1887L. Oliphant Episodes 72 Twelve of these placed their totems opposite my signature; each totem consisting of the rude representation of a bear, a deer, an otter, a rat, or some other wild animal. 1893A. Lang Custom & Myth 105 Prof. Max Müller (Academy, Jan., 1884) says the word should be, not Totem, but Ote or Otem. Mr. Tylor's enquiries among the Red Men support this.
b. By anthropologists the name has been extended to refer to other peoples and tribes, which (though they may not use totem marks) are similarly divided into groups or clans named after animals, etc.; such animals, animal-names, or animal-named groups, being spoken or written of as their totems, and their organization, their complex system of mutual and marriage relations and religious usages, being styled totemism, q.v.
There are also said to be among certain races (as the Australian Aboriginals) sex-totems, peculiar to men or to women, and personal totems, pertaining to the individual and not hereditary.
[1851–9Prichard in Man. Sci. Enq. 263 The institution of the Totem as it was termed among the North American nations has its counterpart among the nations of Australia.] 1874Lubbock in Manch. Sci. Lect. Ser. v. & vi. 248 In Australia we seem to find the Totem, or, as it is there called, the ‘kobong’, in the very process of deification. 1879A. Lang in Academy 11 Jan. 24/3 A man or woman is born of such or such a totem, and choice has nothing whatever to do with the matter. 1883― in Contemp. Rev. Sept. 415 The totem was but a badge worn by all the persons who found themselves existing in close relations. 1887J. G. Frazer Totemism 52–3 Clearly these sex totems are not to be confounded with clan totems... The sex totem seems to be still more sacred than the clan totem; for men who do not object to other people killing their clan totem will fiercely defend their sex totem against any attempt of the opposite sex to injure it. 1888― in Encycl. Brit. XXIII. 467/1 A totem is a class of material objects which a savage regards with superstitious respect, believing that there exists between him and every member of the class an intimate and altogether special relation. 1905Athenæum 21 Jan. 87/1 They have no special word answering to ‘totem’ for such animals. Ibid., M. van Gennep..uses ‘totem’ only in the sense of the hereditary name-giving animal or other object of the kin. 1909tr. Hopf's Hum. Species 300 The necessity for setting up sub-totems first arose from the great extension of the totem in a single tribe, and it was convenient to take the sub-totem from the father who transferred his totem-name to his son.
c. fig.
1890Pall Mall G. 30 June 7/2 The vulgar embroidered smoking-cap, which used to be the distinctive totem of the bazaar debauchee. 1893Times 11 May 9/5 Mr. Bryce, whose totem is very different, threatened the Unionists that their vote against a bogus second chamber would be remembered against them.
d. ellipt. = totem-pole (a), esp. in fig. phr. low on the totem. colloq.
1974K. Millett Flying (1975) ii. 167 Counting on faculty privilege. Almost too low on the totem even to deserve it. 1977D. Bagley Enemy xviii. 148 ‘What's your status here?’ ‘Low man on the bloody totem... I have a line into the Embassy but that's for emergency use only.’
2. attrib. and Comb., as totem ancestor, totem animal, totem clan, totem figure, totem god, totem group, totem kin, totem name, totem people, totem plant, totem soul, totem stage, totem system, totem tree, totem worship, etc.: totem exogamy, the custom of marrying only one of a different totem or totem-clan; totem-pole, (a) a post carved and painted with totem figures, erected by the Indians of the north-west of North America in front of their houses; also fig., esp. in colloq. phr. low on the totem pole, of lowly status (see also sense 1 d); (b) Electronics, an arrangement of two output transistors or valves in which one takes the place of the load of the other, the output being taken from between the two; also totem-post; totem-stone, a stone with markings supposed to be prehistoric totemic figures.
1869M'Lennan in Fortn. Rev. Oct. 408 Men in, what we may call, the Totem stage of developement. 1870Ibid. Feb. 213 The tribesmen..esteem themselves as of the species of the Totem-god. 1871Tylor Prim. Cult. II. xv. 213 Some accounts describing the totem-animal as being actually regarded as the sacred object. Ibid. 214 Considering it [animal-worship] as inherited from an early totem-stage of society. Ibid. 215 The systematic division of a whole people into a number of totem-clans. 1872Morley Voltaire v. 241 The needs and aspirations..of the developed polytheist [would not be satisfied] by totem-worship. 1880S. Jackson Alaska & Missions on North Pacific Coast ix. 263 Daylight found us near Fort Tongas... From the water there seemed to be a whole forest of..totem poles. 1882Athenæum 22 Apr. 501/3 Even ethnologists..will maintain that the totem-kin became the gens. 1888J. G. Frazer in Encycl. Brit. XXIII. 468/1 The Bechuanas in South Africa..have a well-developed totem system. Ibid. 470/1 The fundamental rules of totem societies. Ibid. 470/2 The Australian ceremony at initiation of pretending to recall a dead man to life by the utterance of his totem name. 1889W. Robertson Smith Relig. Semites viii. 276 Among totem peoples..the sacred animal is forbidden food, it is akin to the men who acknowledge its sanctity. 1891Cent. Dict. s.v., Totem Posts, Canadian Pacific Coast. 1896F. B. Jevons Introd. Hist. Relig. xx. 294 The sacramental eating first of totem-animals and then of totem-plants. 1897B. W. James Alaska 75 It has ever been an unanswerable question as to the origin of these totem poles. 1901Athenæum 7 Dec. 779/1 Mr. N. W. Thomas exhibited a collection of ‘totem-stones’. 1902Folk-Lore Dec. 363 To savage reasoners, the totem-soul may perhaps seem to tenant each plant or animal of its species. 1907C. Hill-Tout Brit. N. Amer., Far West ix. 177 The family or kin totem-figures which are customarily carved on the beams or painted on the sides of their houses. 1910Seligmann Melanesians of Brit. N. Guinea Introd. 10 Totem exogamy is still generally observed. 1910A. F. Chamberlain in Encycl. Brit. XIV. 470/1 The wood art of the Indians of the North Pacific coast (masks, utensils, houses, totem-poles, furniture, &c.). 1937Jrnl. Anthrop. Inst. XL. 413 It is thus clear that the gi is nothing other than the totem-ancestor. 1940L. MacNeice Last Ditch 18 And under the totem poles—the ancient terror—between the enormous fluted Ionic columns There seeps..The guttural sorrow of the refugees. 1945Sun (Baltimore) 3 Sept. 1/7 The lowest brass to sign the surrender documents was Colonel L. Moore Cosgrave... ‘He's low man on the totem pole,’ murmured an Australian correspondent. 1949J. Campbell Hero with Thousand Faces 390 An unconscious identification took place, and this was finally rendered conscious in the half human, half-animal, figures of the mythological totem-ancestors. 1967Electronics 6 Mar. 155/2 High leakage of the multiple-emitter transistor may load a circuit excessively. To offset this..the totem pole output stage is used. 1973‘B. Mather’ Snowline iii. 36 Just how far up the Departmental totem pole was Hallaby? 1978Jrnl. R. Soc. Arts CXXVI. 456/2 In looking at the heritage of ideas or values we are looking at the totem poles of the heritage, symbols that are of more importance to us for what they represent than for themselves. 1978D. Bagley Flyaway xxxiii. 311 Kissack..was pretty low on the totem pole—a hired hand. 1981P. M. Chirlian Analysis & Design Integrated Electronic Circuits v. 114 The load resistance of Fig. 5–10 has been replaced by an enhancement MOSFET. This ‘load’ is called an active load or active pull-up... The circuit is also called a totem pole because the elements are drawn one above the other in the schematic diagram.
Hence ˈtotem v., trans. to draw, paint, or tattoo (a totem mark).
1894S. Jackson Educ. in Alaska in Educ. Rep. (U.S.) 1891–2, 890 Some [Tchuktchi men] have a small mark or figure totemed on their cheek. |