Bear and rodents mostly venerated by Native Americans (7)
I believe the answer is:
totemic
'venerated by native americans' is the definition.
The answer and definition are not the same part of speech. However, adjectives and past participle verbs occasionally mean the same thing.
'bear and rodents mostly' is the wordplay.
'bear' becomes 'tote' (I've seen this before).
'and' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'rodents' becomes 'mice' (mouse is a kind of rodent).
'mostly' means to remove the last letter (most but not all of the word).
'mice' with its final letter removed is 'mic'.
'tote'+'mic'='TOTEMIC'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for totemic that I've seen before include "Like something significant" , "worship?" , "(Of an object) having spiritual significance" , "Having emblematic and spiritual significance" , "Having significance as an emblem" .)
