Puerh & the Peacock: The Animal Totem of the Yunnan Hilltribes

We’re all familiar with animal totems and how they come to represent a people. The bear symbolizes the Russians, the eagle the Americans, and the dragon the Chinese. Those are just the ones that are immediately obvious. One wonders, does the salmon take such a status among the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest or the frog (ahem) in France? Is the crawfish occupying the flag of some gulf-coast tribe and what about the lobster for Maine or the cod for the rest of the Northeast?

Well, the question could go on from one culture to the next. If we contrast the bear with the crawfish, there’s a clear difference where they lie on the food chain. Probably, when it comes to choosing totems, there’s a preference for choosing those creatures higher up on it…, the food chain that is.

Aegyptian Scarab Beetle

Then there are beasts of burden. The obvious examples being the camel and cow.  I heard a very interesting bit about India and the cow that actually ties to Aegypt, in particular the scarab beetle. The beetle processes the cow dung on which the vaunted entheogenic mushroom is grown. Both totems, at least according to this narrative, reference the netherworldly effects of the mushroom.  Imagine, two of our most ancient cultures could have taken totems for practices that are usually associated with the “degenerates” of the 60s.  Oooh, makes me wonder…

Now that we’ve been made to marvel if ever so briefly at what an interesting lot we humans can be, our attention is directed toward the tribespeople of China’s Southwest and their totem, the peacock.  More on that in part two.