The bear is the most suitable animal to act as instructor and helper for those who are going to become shamans. Several hunting peoples regarded the bear as the shaman of the animal world (Rockwell 1991: p. 63-64). The annual descent of the bear into the depth of the earth, to spend the winter period in hibernation, was a sort of paradigmatic image of the symbolic death and rebirth constituting the initiation process which every novice shaman had to submit to. For example, the Lakota retained that the bear taught the knowledge of medicines and the techniques of healing and songs the shamans utilized in their therapeutic ceremonies. “He is a spirit that come to the shaman when the shaman seeks a vision. When a man sees the Bear in a vision, that man must become a medicine man” (Short Feather, in Walker 1980: 116).
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Statuette from a burial mound at Newark, Ohio, representing a personage, probably a shaman, wearing a bear skin. This object belongs to the Hopewell Culture, developed between 250 and 500 A.D.(Ohio Historical Society, Columbus)
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In 1832, the painter George Catlin had the opportunity to observe a Blackfoot shaman who treated a warrior, mortally wounded during a fight against his enemies which occurred that same day. Catlin describes in great detail the shaman’s costume: “his body and head were entirely covered with the skin of a yellow bear, the head of which (his own head being inside of it)served as a mask; the huge claws of which also were dangling on his wrists and ankles; in one hand he shook a frightful rattle, and in the other brandished his medicine spear or magic wand” (Catlin 1844 [1973, vol. 1: 40]). He furthermore emitted “horrid and appalling” grunts and yelps imitating the animal.
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Blackfoot medicine-man wearing a bear skin during a healing ritual (Painting by George Catlin, 1832, Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C.)
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The Bear Dances were very common in North America, and often they showed the participation of shamans or other individuals who owned special poker, and were regarded as ways to obtain the bear’s qualities. They were not simply imitations of the bear’s behaviour but ways through which the dancers felt themselves really transformed into animals. And sometimes the public who assisted to the ceremonies had the impression to see not human beings masked as animals but real animals, into which the dancers had changed themselves (Comba 2015). che erano molto comuni in Nord America e che spesso vedevano la partecipazione di sciamani e altri individui che disponevano di poteri particolari, erano considerate pratiche volte ad acquisire le qualità dell’animale. Non si trattava di semplici imitazioni del comportamento dell’orso bensì di modalità attraverso le quali i danzatori si sentivano realmente trasformati in animali e spesso coloro che assistevano a queste cerimonie avevano l’impressione di vedere non degli esseri umani camuffati da animali ma dei veri e propri animali, nei quali i danzatori si erano trasformati (Comba 2015).
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Dakota Bear Dance before a bear hunting expedition (Painting by George Catlin, 1832, Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C.) |
Animals