The fur of a bear resembles clothing. Like a person, a bear looks straight ahead, but the expressions of bears are not easy for us to read. Often the wide eyes of a bear suggest perplexity, making it appear that the bear is a human being whose form has mysteriously been altered. Bears, however, are generally far larger and stronger than people, so they could easily be taken for giants.
Perhaps the most wonderful characteristic of bears, however, is their ability to hibernate and then reemerge at the end of winter, which suggests death and resurrection. In part because bears give birth during hibernation, they have been associated with mothergoddesses. The descent into caverns suggests an intimacy with the earth and with vegetation, and bears are reputed to have special knowledge of herbs.
At Drachenloch, in a cave high in the Swiss Alps, skulls of the cave bear have been found that face the entrance in what appears to be a very deliberate arrangement. Some anthropologists believe this is a shrine consecrated to the bear by Neanderthals, which would make it the earliest known place of worship. Others dispute the claim; true or not, the very idea is testimony to the enormous power that the figure of the bear has over the human imagination.
A cult of the bear is widespread, almost universal, among peoples of the Far North, where the bear is both the most powerful predator and the most important food animal. Perhaps the principal example of this cult today is that followed by the Ainu, the earliest inhabitants of Japan. They traditionally adopt a young bear, raise it as a pet, and then ceremoniously sacrifice the animal. Before stories of the lion were imported, the bear was regarded throughout northern Europe as the king of beasts. Eskimo legends tell of humans learning to hunt from the polar bear. For the Inuit of Labrador, the polar bear is a form of the Great Spirit, Tuurngasuk.
Countless myths and legends record a sort of intimacy between human beings and bears. The Koreans, for example, traditionally believe that they are descended from a bear. The tiger and the female bear had watched humans from a distance, and they became curious.
As they talked together on a mountainside one day, both decided that they would like to become human. An oracle instructed them that they must first eat twenty-one cloves of garlic, then remain in a cave for one month. They both did as instructed, but after a while the tiger became restless and left the cave. The mother bear remained, and at the end of a month she emerged as a beautiful woman. The son of Heaven, Han Woon, fell in love with her and had a child with her, Tan Koon, who is the ancestor of the Koreans.
The bear was sacred to the Greek Artemis, the Roman Diana, goddess of the moon and protector of the animals. According to the Roman poet Ovid, the god Jupiter once disguised himself as Diana and raped her companion the nymph Callisto. On realizing that Callisto was pregnant, Diana banished the young girl from her presence. Eventually Callisto gave birth to a boy named Arcas. Juno, the wife of Jupiter, turned Callisto into a bear and forced her to roam the forest alone and in perpetual fear. Arcas grew to be a young man. He went hunting in the forest, saw his mother, and raised his bow to shoot her. At that moment, Jupiter looked down took pity on his former mistress and brought both mother and son up to Heaven, where they became the constellations of the great and little bear. This is only one version of the story among many, but the Arcadians traditionally trace their origin to Callisto and her son. The Hebrews, who were herders, regarded carnivorous animals as unclean, and the bear was no exception. In the Bible, the young David protected his flock against bears (1 Sam. 17:34). The bear became a scourge of God when small boys followed the prophet Elisha and made fun of his bald head. Elisha cursed them, and two she-bears came out of the woods and killed the children (2 Kings 2:23-24). According to tradition, however, Elisha was later punished with illness for his deed.
The Tlingit and many other Indian tribes on the northwest coast of the North American continent have told stories of a young woman who was lost in the woods and was befriended by a bear. At first she was afraid, but the bear was kindly and taught her the ways of the forest. Eventually she became his wife. She grew thick hair and hunted like a bear. When the couple had children, she at first tried to teach them the ways of both bears and human beings. Her human family, however, would not accept the marriage, and her brothers killed her husband, whereupon she broke completely with the ways of humans. Many tales pay tribute to the maternal role of the mother bear. Repeating a bit of lore found in the works of Pliny the Elder and other writers of antiquity, medieval bestiaries told of cubs that were completely formless at birth. Their mother would mold them with her tongue, literally licking the cubs into shape.
