[f. TOTEM + -IST.]
1. One who belongs to a totem clan, or has a totem.
1881. Cornh. Mag., Sept., 332. Our Aryan ancestor in person was a most undoubted totemist.
1883. F. Seebohm, Eng. Vill. Community, 362. The hasty conclusion that the Saxons were ‘totemists.’
1887. A. Lang, Myth, Ritual, & Relig., I. 73. Totemists … spare the beasts that are their own … kin.
1905. Athenæum, 21 Jan., 87/1. If the people were once true totemists, the traces thereof are indistinct.
2. One who is versed in the history of totemism.
1897. Edin. Rev., July, 239. Some of the highest authorities on the myths and customs of savage races are by no means on the side of the thoroughgoing totemist.
1902. Folk-Lore, Dec., 361. I am not aware that any totemists do make this assertion.
So Totemistic a., of, pertaining to, or characterized by totemism.
1881. Sat. Rev., 12 Feb., 276/2. Why were the ‘primary divisions,’ as Mr. Fison says they were, totemistic?
1882. Athenæum, 22 April, 502/1. While Huitzilopochtli had many features of the magician, he had also elemental and totemistic sides to his complex nature.
1884. Pall Mall G., 18 Oct., 5/1. Their society is Totemistic; that is to say, they are divided into stocks of kin (real or assumed), each designated by the name of its Totem plant, animal, or what not.
1905. C. Squire, Mythol. Brit. Isl., 20. An agricultural … people, still in the Stone Age, dwelling in totemistic tribes on hills.
