Totemism & Animism
For many it seems that the origin of "Spirit Guides" gets cloudy so let's just clarify this so everyone can please not be so judgmental when someone other than a Native American, by the way I am, says they see or talk to their spirit guide. We all have a form of spirit guide. No one has cornered the market. We don't own the term. Be free and love each other brothers and sisters. Blessed be.)O(✨ Totemism, a system of belief practised by the Native American Indian people, and the Australian Aboriginal people for example, incorporates the notion that each human being has a spiritual connection to another physical being (e.g. a plant or animal). The Kpelle people of Liberia for instance, possess animal, plant and natural phenomena (wind, rain etc.) totems that are thought to guide and protect their people. Their totems are also thought to be a form of alter ego, or second self. Animism, on the other hand, is more of a world view held by many Buddhist, Shinto, Pagan and Neopagan groups of people, that all plants, animals and objects have spirits.