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Animals and Totems carries 43 debated or debunked facts of 356 total, twelve point one percent, against an atlas wide baseline under one percent. Read animal by animal, forty of the forty three are not forty different disputes about forty different animals. They are the identical objection, said forty times.

The Same Objection, Whichever Animal Is Named

Forty of the type's 64 live animals, Bear, Wolf, Eagle, Coyote, Owl, Raven, Turtle, Salmon, Dolphin and thirty one more, carry the byte identical debated note: "the objection is stated by living communities in the present tense and is not a historical episode. What is disputed is not that people feel a kinship with animals, that is very widely attested and belongs to no one, but the use of specific Indigenous terms and claimed lineages to license a practice sold to outsiders. The atlas records the animal, records that the modern practice exists, and records that the objection is made."

What Changes and What Does Not

The animal changes. The sentence does not. Butterfly and Elephant, Peacock and Whale, Rat and Rooster all carry the identical text describing an identical modern dispute over an identical commercial practice, a single argument applied to the type's roster rather than forty separate findings about forty animals.

Three Animals Carry a Different Debate Entirely

Condor carries a live Peruvian wildlife law dispute over a threatened species used in ceremony, its own separate question. Leopard carries a historicity question about colonial era trial records, how much of the record describes a real practice and how much describes fear of one. Unicorn carries a translation and attestation debate about single horned animals reported by Greek writers independent of any biblical text. None of the three is the commercialization objection above, and none is folded into it here.

Where To Read More

• BearMammalsBear, one of forty animals carrying the identical objection to spirit animal commercialization word for word
• WolfMammalsWolf, one of forty animals carrying the identical objection word for word
• EagleBirdsEagle, one of forty animals carrying the identical objection word for word
• CoyoteMammalsCoyote, one of forty animals carrying the identical objection word for word
• OwlBirdsOwl, one of forty animals carrying the identical objection word for word
• RavenBirdsRaven, one of forty animals carrying the identical objection word for word
• TurtleReptilesTurtle, one of forty animals carrying the identical objection word for word
• SalmonFishSalmon, one of forty animals carrying the identical objection word for word
• DolphinMammalsDolphin, one of forty animals carrying the identical objection word for word