Totems are everywhere... not just in primitive groups. I like to think that perhaps somewhere out there in the natural world there is something that represents me... something outside myself... something that identifies me to me, even if it makes no sense at all to anybody else. A totem is chosen arbitrarily by the group it represents. A logo may be assigned, but not a totem. It is chosen as way of making sense of the world. It is an abstraction that gives meaning to mystery. A totem is an analogy. It provides a basis for comparison between the workings of nature and the workings of a human society.

I continue to be entranced by the totemic value of tree bark. If you’d like to see masks that have powerful totemic importance to several African tribes, go over to the San Diego Museum of Art and take a look at a special exhibit there. If you want to find a totem of your own, perhaps you should take a walk alone through a grove of melaleuca trees and look closely at whatever it is they show you.