It has been alleged that there was totemism among the ancient Turks and evidences for this allegation included the consideration of the wolf as the ancestor, the respect shown to this animal and the idol-fetishes (töz-substances among Altay people, tangara among Yakut people) in relation with the "ancestors" that resembled to "şuringa" in the totemism that were determined among the Central Asian Turks in the 2nd half of 10th century (the traces of totemism and the "golden idol" among the Asian Hun people and the the pictures of the God that were cut off from the felt among the Gok-Turk people). When Reşid'üd-din classified 24 Oguz tribes in his work titled as Cami üt'-Tevarih (the first quarter of the 14th century), he had determined an "ongon" (totem) of a bird for each four tribes (this word of ongon was derived from the word of ong that expressed good luck with the meaning of totem in the Turkish language). However, it is difficult to consider that all these conditions constituted conclusive evidence for the existence of the totemism beliefs among the ancient Turks.
Actually, the totemism was not only composed of the consideration of an animal as ancestor. As a religious system, totemism had some social and legal aspects and these aspects were required to exist for the survival of the system in the society. While the "matriarchy" was effective in the totemism, the Turkish family was essentially based on "patriarchy" with the dominance of the male line. Although there was public property in the totemism that was a clan religion, the private property played an important role among the Turks. According to the religion of totemism, those that are the members of the same totem are considered as relatives with one another. However, there is a relative relationship based on blood tie among the Turks. While, the "sponger" economy (hunting and picking) is dominant in the totemic clan, the Turkish economy was based on stockbreeding and agriculture (nearly). Each clan had a different totem that it considered as its ancestor in the totemic communities.
However, there was only one animal that was considered as divine by the entire tribe among the Turks. In the totemism, anything such as a stone, rain water, etc. can be considered as totems apart from animals. It can be considered that the respect shown to the wolf resulted from the fact that it was the most dreadful animal of the steppe lands where the Turks had put out their herds composed of 100 thousands of animals to pasture. It is difficult to find a religious imagination as the basis of this respect. The uniting quality of the wolf legend is in contradiction with the totemic understanding and concepts that differentiated the clans from one another or placed them against each other. Each individual of the clan would use the name of the totem.
However, each individual and each family had a separate name among the Turks.
The ancient Turks had a tradition of organising some specific ceremonies in the cave that was considered as the place where the "wolf-ancestor" had lived. This tradition is related with the invigoration of an ancient memory that belonged to past days rather than the physical body of the wolf. As a matter of fact, the belief of the immortality of the spirit was not present among the clans in totemism, the ancient Turks had considered the universe as the world of spirits and the immortality of the spirit constituted one of the fundamental issues of the religious beliefs among the Turks. Therefore, votive animals would be wowed and sacrificial animals would be sacrificed for the sake of the spirits of the ancestors. The töz (tös= substances) that we have stated above were the symbols of their ancestors.
As for the term of "Ongon" (totem), the effect of the Mongolian influence is observed in this term. Actually, Mongolians that were composed of forest tribes constituted a community based on "sponger" economy with the dominance of "matriarchy" in the family that also had the "totem" beliefs. Although "ong" that was the root of the term of "Ongo" was a Turkish word, the term of "ongon" is not a Turkish word. Actually, this term was not cited within any documents of the Turkish language that were written in the period before the Mongolians (inscriptions, texts written in Uighur language).
The birds that were determined as the "ongon" (totems) of the Oguz tribes were not mentioned within the work of Kasgarli Mahmud (the seals determined by Reşidu'd-din were present as the same in this work) that listed the same Oguz tribes in the preceding periods before the Mongolian influence.
Nevertheless, it has been observed that the belief of "eagle" had an important place among the ancient Turks. An eagle claw was found within the Kurat Sepulchre in the Central Asia that was dated back to the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. There was an embossed design of an eagle with his wings open in the front side of the cap that was constructed in the bust of Kül-Tegin. The important place of eagle within various Asian Turkish communities of today is of great significance. The eagle that made its nest over the steep rocks could have posed a relation with the holiness and therefore, it was considered that the eagle was the symbol of domination that was widely encountered since the antiquity and the middle ages (in the ancient eastern tribes, Slav states, the Byzantine and the Western states) and this consideration was accepted as to have eastern origin. Accordingly, it was alleged that the eagle that was the symbol of sovereignty came from the origin of Turkish ancestors.