Totem is a sign and symbol to primitive groups of their kinfolks, ancestors and patron saint. It is the most original cultural phenomena of human history, whose emergence is founded on low social productivity and primitive people's ignorance to nature. It usually can infer many other things from using totem to interprete mythology, classical recordation and folk-custom. Totem was used as a clannish emblem or symbol for primitive man who believed faithfully that certain animal or natural substance had kinship with the clan.
PS: “最早的”不能贸然用earliest（早的,初期的），用original(最初的, 原始的)应该比较接近了。