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Year 4 students Penny (left) and Lillian are among those planting a garden for the school totem. Source: SBS News
Educators say the project aims to help students understand the meaning and significance of totems in Aboriginal communities. Source: SBS News

What is a totem?

It’s how they recognise each other as different groups of people within one community.

How are totems inherited?

A close-up of a man's face with a white beard.
Richard Fejo, a Larrakia Senior Elder and academic at Flinders University, says there is no single totem system shared uniformly across Australia. Source: Supplied

Totems, kinship and caring for Country

We don’t know how old the system is, but it’s still practised today and it still has that range of practice where some places are stronger, some places less practised.


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