Native Americans did not work with what we call symbols. This is not to imply, however, that you will have a physical conversation with a specific, individual animal. Talking to your pet cat, even when it answers, is not quite what is meant by speaking to the totems. The first step to understanding what is meant by totems is to examine the way we speak of them. We contact THE bear totem, THE hawk totem, etc.
Contact is made with THE spirit of all the individuals of each species.
To contact the bear totem is to attempt speech with the essence, the spirit of all bearness. All bears are reflections of the essential bear-ness which is the bear totem. This spirit of bearness is not a symbol. It is the essential reality of the bear spirit. Each individual bear is an expression of this spirit.