October 28, 2003

Our Totem Animals

           A totem, according to the Encyclopedia Americana, links a particular cultural group with a specific being or thing based on the religious principle of totemism that divides humankind and nature into classes and categories (374).  The University of Texas students, teachers, and faculty associate themselves with the longhorns to differentiate themselves from those enemies affiliated with A&M.  Though the two universities are located within the same region, each associates itself with a different animal to symbolize a “particular cultural group” (374) categorized.  While A&M holds its annual Midnight Yell in preparation for a big game, UT arouses campus-wide pride every year with the Torchlight Parade for its big game against archrival OU.  Each of the cultural groups holds its respective rituals, customs, and traditions.

According to the Encyclopedia Americana, “a totem animal may be neither killed nor harmed by those who consider themselves to be descendants except on certain ritual occasions when the animal might be eaten sacramentally” (374).  Under no circumstances should the sacred, totem animal ever be consumed.  In January 1920, the death of our totem animal, Bevo I, meant scrumptious barbecue for “men and women who had won letters in athletics” and who were worthy of his sacred meat.  Although I personally don’t believe the killing of the totem animal, much less the barbaric devouring of the totem animal, is honorable and ritualizing, the authors of “Longhorns at UT” regard it the “attain[ment] of immortality” (366). 

Furthermore, all UT Longhorns, in reference to the student and faculty attending the University of Texas, are guilty for consuming red meat or the meat resembling our beloved longhorn however distorted by the “crossbreeding with other species of cattle to create a ‘modern’ longhorn” (375).  How can the meat we so readily consume even remotely resemble the meat of our sacred totem animal?   Full-blood longhorns are in danger of becoming extinct “with each new generation of ‘show’ longhorns, bred with just about anything to get longer horns, beefier bodies, and dappled coats” (375B).  Simply put the impure cattle, man-made, commercial products of English cattle and longhorns, were preferred instead of naturally-evolved characteristics of laterally-twisted horns, tough stomach, rangy body, and general hardiness (376-377).  This weak crossbreed of cattle possessed the ability of quick maturity and aesthetic appeal (377).  The makers of the new crossbred claim to have “improved” the longhorn, but have they?  New cattle are susceptible to tick fever, a common cattle disease one that full-blood longhorns, could easily fend off.

On the other hand, the Texas cowboys associate themselves with their totem animal, the mustang.  I believe cowboys uphold the true definition of a totem animal which excludes the slaughtering and devouring of the sacred animal; instead, the mustang often disappears, is never seen again, and assumed to have died a natural death free from the power of mankind.  A natural death is probably the most honorable form of death for all animals, even humans, must resign to the law of nature in which every living thing must die at one point.  There is no escape to this law of nature.  Through numerous accounts, the cowboys have always portrayed the mustang as a white, elusive, majestic beast, and by doing so a respectable distance is developed that needs to be honored by the longhorn worshippers.  The longhorn worshippers, under no circumstances, should be allowed to consume their totem animal.