the man who gave us nothing
A totem (from Ojibwe: ᑑᑌᒼ or ᑑᑌᒻ doodem) is a spirit being, sacred object, or symbol that serves as an emblem of a group of people, such as a family, clan, lineage, or tribe, such as in the Anishinaabe clan system.
A conceptual thing humans have is symbolism that provides great meaning for the tribe. There's a lot of Ganesha motifs in my everyday environment (I'm also named after said God). It's something a lot of people in my family can culturally and spiritually identify with. It's one type of social glue entity along with statues, totems, logos, flags, coat of arms, emblems and colour combinations. It's a simple way to scale a tribe.
This brings me to what Douglas Harding did for his tribe. Cursorily, he appears to be a spiritual mystic, which is not an inaccurate qualifier. He's a meditation guru in one sense, but he found his insight outside of the usual paths that emerge from religion.
He had an observation that stuck—from your point of view, you have no head. You cannot see your own head directly. Where your head should be, there is instead the whole of consciousness. He called this 'seeing'.
Yes, you can see your head in the mirror. But technically what you are seeing is a head "out there", not your head where it's supposed to be.

To some this seems like an inane observation. To others, like me, this is profound. I didn't "get" what meditation was for until I had this observation. There is a singular witness to existence, and it's not from inside your head. Because there isn't any.
Here's the part I find fascinating. I know about this guy, because he ended up creating a dedicated following that appears to mostly be coordinating through headless.org.
While kings, prophets, CEOs and other categories of tribal leaders build communities that identify with statues, totems, logos, flags, coat of arms, emblems and colour combinations, Douglas Harding's community identifies with a whole load of a headless nothing.
Pretty cool.
Written from the prompt on totems in the IndieWebClub Meetup, Bangalore.