Totemic locus
Ancestral relation · living identity
The totemic locus is a chest-centred visual marker for a person's living relation to ancestral beings, kin, and Country. Totemic identities are tied to particular communities and places, so this broad point must not be read as a universal heart organ or a generic Aboriginal totem map.
Point 3 of 3 in Aboriginal Miwi — Belly Soul
Cross-tradition overlaps
No overlapping points are registered for this point.
Sources
Ronald M. Berndt and Catherine J. Berndt with John E. Stanton, A World That Was (scholarly_modern)
The Yaraldi ethnography documents kinship, clan relations, ceremony, and totemic life in a specific South Australian setting; it does not define one heart-centred totemic organ.
W. E. H. Stanner, On Aboriginal Religion (scholarly_modern)
Stanner's analysis of ancestral beings, ritual, and place supports the relational totemic language; the chest coordinate is a visual synthesis.