Animal Totem

The archive review surveys the crowded animal-tarot field before placing Leeza Robertson and Eugene Smith's contribution: not one species, not one tradition's sacred beasts, but a full RWS tarot where every card's scene is carried by an animal suited to its meaning, the totem framing meaning kinship rather than any single culture's system. Smith's illustration keeps the scenes recognizably tarot, the animals enacting the cards rather than posing as symbols. The design solves the animal-deck's usual trade-off: single-species decks constrain range while grab-bag decks lose coherence, and mapping animal to meaning card by card keeps both breadth and fit. Robertson's companion writing, in her Llewellyn line, does the matchmaking's explaining. It suits animal-minded readers who want the full RWS machinery, beginners who learn meanings faster through creatures, and collectors of the genre's structural solutions. Readers whose totem practice is tradition-specific should note the deck's framing is deliberately general, which is either its openness or its limit, depending on where you stand.