totem

Noun

totem (plural totems)

1. Any natural object or living creature that serves as an emblem of a tribe, clan or family; the representation of such an object or creature.
2. The clan whose kinship is defined in reference to such an object or creature.
   • The totem members were forbidden to eat the flesh of the totem animal, or were allowed to do so only under specific conditions.1921, Wilhelm Max Wundt, Edward Leroy Schaub, Elements of folk psychology: outlines of a psychological history
   • These meanings flow from bear-like characteristics imprinted on totem members. Members of the bear clan may have dispositional, cognitive, and physical capabilities similar to those of bear.2014, Michael Pomedli, Living with Animals: Ojibwe Spirit Powers, page 165
3. (figuratively) A symbol or personification.
   • “She became a totem,” he added. “She became the personification of a particular response to the pandemic, which people in the far-flung margins of the internet and the not so far-flung margins used against her.”2023 January 19, Damien Cave, quoting Richard Shaw, “How Covid’s Bitter Divisions Tarnished a Liberal Icon”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
4. An arbitrarily chosen object serving as a reminder to check whether one is awake or not, to aid in having lucid dreams.
   • The best way to determine if you are dreaming or not is to have a totem in your lucid dreams that does not exist in reality. Inducing yourself is as easy as waking up during the night and practicing as you fall back asleep. Say, "I will be aware I am dreaming while I am dreaming by seeing my totem."2010, ren, “Inception and Lucid Dreaming”, in alt.religion.wicca (Usenet)
5. A tall object resembling a totem pole.
   • Out the front of the Drive-in rose the town’s main tourist attraction, a totem of signs to bizarre places with impossible distances such as Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and so on.2014 February 4, Tom Hayllar, A Long Way Walkin’ in Australia: From the Tasman to the Timor Sea, Bloomington, Indiana: Balboa Press, →ISBN, page 207
   • There were rumors going around Clapham that he was some sort of wizard. Admittedly, the most striking feature of his estate did not help to dispel those rumors. From a little hillock in the yard, an eighty-foot pole projected into the sky, like a ship’s mast rising from dry land. [...] Despite his...2015, Steve Silberman, chapter 1, in Megan Newman, editor, NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, New York: Avery, →ISBN, pages 20–21