TOTEMISM is the systematic symbolization of social entities (individuals, social units) through concrete phenomenal images, often natural species, and the development of these symbols into relationships of identity, power, and common origin. The term totem derives from dotem, a term used by the Ojibwa, an Algonquin people of North America, to denote clan membership. As a concept, totemism has been treated in two distinct senses, or phases, of anthropological theory. In the first, or evolutionary sense, it was postulated as an institution of primitive thought, a necessary stage of religious conceptualization that all peoples must pass through in the course of cultural evolution. This notion was developed by such theorists as James G. Frazer and Émile Durkheim, and it was the subject of a definitive critique by Alexander A. Goldenweiser. The second, more modern sense of the term might be called its "systematic" sense, one that allows for...