From: Alex Ferguson (alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk)
Date: Tue 06 Sep 1994 - 08:22:18 EEST
> ian i. gorlick said
> >Moose hsunchen should be regarded as somewhat more excitable than Storm
> >Bull berserkers with even less concern for personal safety.
David Dunham:
> This raises the question of whether hsunchen are just like their totems. I
> think not. They do bear many resemblences, but they are first and foremost
> people, and secondly omnivorous hunter-gatherers. Moose are neither.
I think of hsunchen as having broadly two kinds of attitudes towards their totems. One group beleives the they and their animal are essentially the same people, who just coincidentally have differing numbers of legs. The Telmori seem to think this way. Others draw a greater distinction, saying instead that these animals have special souls, which may be the "recycled" souls of their answers, or that they are some kind of tutelatory spirit.
In both cases I think the hsunchen regard the behaviour and characteristics of the totem as Good, and as being Just Like Us.
Where the totem animal is also the main prey of a group, these attitudes may be significantly different, but I don't think this relationship is usual for hsunchen.
Alex.
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