Pre-publication draft of the following article: Frank, Roslyn M. Hunting the European Sky Bears: German Straw-bears" and their Relatives as Transformers / Die Jagd auf die europischen Himmelsbren Deutsche Strohbren und ihre Verwandten als Verwandler. In Michael and Barbara Rappenglck (eds.), Symbole der Wandlung - Wandel der Symbole. Proceedings of the Gesellschaft fr wissenschaftliche Symbolforschung / Society for the Scientific Study of Symbols. May 21-23, 2004, Kassel, Germany, pp. 141-166. Munich.

ROSLYN M. FRANK

Hunting the European Sky Bears: Germanic Straw-bears and their Relatives as Transformers

The origins of the Germanic Straw-bears have been subject to speculation for years. In this study the Straw-bears will be contextualized along with their European relatives so that their meaning can be better appreciated within a larger framework of European ritual belief and social practice. The cosmogony in question is grounded in the belief that humans descended from bears, a belief that continued into the 20th century among Basque-speakers. The transformative aspects of the Straw-bear performances will be examined in relation to Good-Luck Visits, a performance aimed at bringing good health and prosperity to the houses visited and in which Straw-bears and their relatives have played a major role.

Introduction: Theoretical considerations The past twenty years has witnessed increased interest in German folklore and more specifically in understanding the meaning of the popular performances associated with the Straw-bears and their European counterparts. At the same time, the revival of ritual practices related to these ursine performers has awakened interest in discovering the origins of the custom itself. However, until now most of these efforts seem to have been focused on two juxtaposed questions: 1) whether the origins of the Straw-bears are indeed ancient as some investigators have alleged;1 or 2) whether they are nothing more than relatively recent inventions, i.e., ritual reenactments of bear hunts that were instituted to commemorate hunting customs carried out in years past. The second thesis also contains the supposition that it was only at the point when real bears were no longer available did it occur to hunters to recreate the hunting scenario, having a human dress up as a bear.2 Finally, there

1 Cf. Jean Dominique Lajoux: L'homme et l'ours, Grenoble, 1996. Richard von

Wolfram: Brenjagen und Faschinglaufen im oberen Murtale, in: Wiener Zeitschrift fr Volkskunde, 1932, 37, p. 59-81.

2. For example, Pastoureau subscribes to the view that the ftes de lours found in the

Pyrenean-Cantabrian region came into being only a few centuries ago after the bear population of the zone became depleted. At the same time, however, he argues that the bear might have been the first deity of humankind. Cf. Michel Pastoureau: Lours. Histoire dun roi dchu, Paris, 2007, p. 23-52. Cf. also G. Caussimont: Le mythe de lours dans les Pyrnes occidentales, in: Hommes, Animal, Socit:

2

have been those who see in the Straw-bear performances which take place during the Spring Carnival period, nothing more than a profane parody of Christianity and the Passion of Christ.3 However, this latter hypothesis is far less prevalent among anthropologists and ethnographers who tend to subscribe to the belief that the origins of these customs are indeed ancient. In fact, some have suggested that hidden behind this Christian faade is a much older scenario involving the life, death and resurrection of an archetypal ursine protagonist.4

In this chapter I will argue on the side of the first position, namely, alleging that the belief system associated with the Straw-bears and associated ritual practices is grounded in a much earlier pan-European cosmogony, one that held that humans descend from bears.5 It is a cosmovision that has its ultimate origins in the world of Mesolithic or Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers rather than agro-pastoralists of the Neolithic. In the course of this study it will become evident that the meaning of the Germanic Straw-bears is tied to a set of pan-European performances in which human actors dress up as bears, while the actions of the performers themselves correspond to an archaic ritual narrative: the performance follows a preexisting script. In short, I will outline some of the reasons that have led me to the conclusion that the Germanic Straw-bears are best understood when they are resituated inside this larger interpretive context and associated pan-European narrative.

The paper consists of three main parts. In the first we will look at the ursine cosmology itself. Then in the second part we will examine the role of the Good-Luck Visits, and then in the last section we will analyze the spiritual dimension of the ursine belief system along with the transformative aspects of the Straw-bears and their relatives. Once we situate these performances firmly inside the interpretive framework of an ursine cosmology, the fundamental tenets of bear ceremonialism will come into view along with the transformative nature of the symbolism inherent in them. In this sense, the first step to understanding the transformative nature of the Straw-bears and their relatives is for us to learn how to move away from the anthropocentrically-oriented Western world view. As we do so, we will encounter a more animistic interpretive lens, a cognitive framework more consonant with the world of hunter-gatherers and in that way we will be able to recapture the deeper meaning and cultural conceptualizations that inform contemporary Straw-bear performances.

At this juncture in our discussion of the ursine cosmology, I would like to take the opportunity to draw attention to a well-

Actes du Colloque du Toulouse, 1987 (Alain Couret and Frderic Oge, eds.), Toulouse, 1989, p. 367-380.

3 Cf. Helmut Seebach: Strohgestalten in der sdwestdeutschen Fastnacht, in: Narri-

Narro, 2004, 4, http://www.narren-spiegel.de/Texte/strohbaeren.htm. 4 Cf. Lajoux: L'homme et l'ours, p. 53, 213-214.

5 This study forms part a larger research project entitled Hunting the European Sky

Bears, for example, cf. Roslyn M. Frank: Hunting the European Sky Bears: When Bears Ruled the Earth and Guarded the Gate of Heaven, in: Astronomical Traditions in Past Cultures (Vesselina Koleva and Dimiter Kolev, eds.), Sophia, 1996, p. 116-142. Hunting the European Sky Bears: Candlemas Bear Day and World Renewal Ceremonies, in: Astronomy, Cosmology and Landscape (Clive Ruggles, Frank Prendergast and Tom Ray, eds.), Bognor Regis, England, 2001, p. 133-157. Hunting the European Sky Bears: A Diachronic Analysis of Santa Claus and his Helpers, in: An Enquiring Mind: Papers in Honour of Alexander Marshack (Paul G. Bahn, ed.), Woodbridge, CT, in press.

3

known linguistic fact: that in Germanic and Slavic languages the Proto-Indo-European term for bear is not used, rather the terms that are present are avoidance terms, expressions that allude to the bear indirectly, e.g., as the brown one (Br, derived from *bher- bright, brown) in Germanic or as the honey-eater (medved) in Slavic.6 In other words, we have linguistic evidence that the bear played a special role in the earlier belief system of these peoples. What has not been suspected is that the avoidance pattern was part of far more complex animistic belief system by means of which the bodies and souls of humans and bears were bound together inextricably because of the belief that humans descended from bears.

Part 1. Ursine cosmology: The bear ancestor Many years ago, when I first decided to do fieldwork in Euskal Herria (Basque Country) it quickly became apparent to me that I would need to learn Euskera (Basque). Soon after I had gained enough proficiency in the language to carry on a basic conversation, a strange thing began to happen to me. People would take me aside and tell me the following in a low voice, as if they were sharing a very important yet almost secretive piece of knowledge: We Basques used to believe we descended from bears. The first time someone told me this, I had no idea what I should say in response. I found the statement totally amazing. Yet over and over again the same thing happened to me. People, who didnt know each other, who had no contact with each other, ended up telling me the same thing.

Finally, I came to the conclusion that I had come across a key piece of data. I just didnt know what to make of it. Subsequently, I tried to find references to this Basque belief in bear ancestors. But all my attempts were futile. There was nothing in the ethnographic literature; nothing written down anywhere. The belief seemed to have survived only orally, though oral transmission, passed down from one generation to the next, without any outsider ever noticing it. Later I would discover that the ursine genealogy was connected to a rich legacy of belief and performance art and complex cultural conceptualizations.

In 1986 I finally come across a concrete reference to this belief. In fact, the first written documentation of what my informants had been telling me was published in a brief article by the French-Basque ethnographer Txomin Peillen, entitled Le culte de l'ours chez les anciens basques.7 In it he reports on an interview he conducted in Zuberoa (Soule) with one of the last Basque-speaking bear hunters in the Pyrenees, Dominique Prbende, who was 48 years old at the time. Dominiques 83 year old father, Petiri Prbende, was also present. In that interview several statements were made that are relevant to our topic.

Although Dominique had participated in bear hunts, the 48 year-old declared that he himself had never killed a bear, adding that killing a bear brought you bad luck (r gaixtoa ekharten diz). Furthermore, any man who did so would receive nothing

6 Calvert Watkins: Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans, in: The American

Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Boston, 1969, p. 1509. 7 Txomin Peillen: Le culte de l'ours chez les anciens basques, in: L'ours brun:

Pyrenes, Agruzzes, Mts. Cantabriques, Alpes du Trentin (Claude Dendaletche, ed.), Pau, 1986, p. 171-173.

4

good from it (eztiz deuse hunik emaiten). He explained that he couldnt eat bear meat either because whenever he tasted it, he would vomit thinking of the animal that he had skinned; that it seemed to him to that bears have a strange human-like shape. Subsequently, in order to confirm what he had just said, Dominque brought out a bear paw and showed it to the interviewer, stating that a bear is just like a human being (dena jentia dz). While killing a bear, or admitting that one had killed a bear, brought bad luck, for the Basques the bears paw was highly esteemed for it was said to bring good luck. Indeed, it acted to protect the person from the evil eye and other kinds of illness.8

At the end of the interview, we discover what was motivating Dominique to speak as he had about the bear, insinuating that the creature had human-like characteristics. And as in the case of my own informants, Peillens informants show a reluctance to speak about this particular belief in public, that is, to those who were not Euskaldunak (Basque-speakers). In fact, it is only after the tape-recorder is turned off that Petiri, Dominiques father, is willing to confide in his visitors concerning the cosmogony in question. Apparently he assumed that that if the tape-recorder was not running, the secret he was going to share would be kept safe from the prying ears of outsiders. We need to remember that Petiri was speaking in Basque to other native speakers of Basque. Hence, it would seem that he waited to tell them the most important part until he felt confident that the knowledge would not be disseminated indiscriminately to outsiders. Peillen introduces Petiris confession of his belief in a bear ancestor by stating:

Cette croyance dcrite pour les Amrindiens et les Sibriens, nest pas dcrite pour lEurope notre connaissance, bien que tous les lments prcdents la fasse pressentir. Cest ainsi qualors que nous avions teint le magntophone, termin notre enqute, Petiri Prbende nous dclara tout de go: Lehenagoko eskaldnek gizona hartzetik jiten zela sinhesten zizien (les anciens basques croyaient que lhomme descendait de lours). Pri de rpter ses propos il ajouta que lhomme est fabriqu partir de lours. Il nous donnait la clef des croyances prcdents. The last statement by Petiri concerning the fact that humankind

est fabriqu partir de lours is probably a literal French translation of the Basque sentence: Gizona hartzak egina da. The expression could also be rendered as: The bear created humankind. Or, it could be glossed as: Our human origins go back to the bear who created us. When examined more closely, this cosmogenic belief in the bear ancestors resonates strongly with a hunter-gatherer mentality, that is, with what would be a Mesolithic or even Upper Palaeolithic mindset, and not with the agricultural world view characteristic of Neolithic agro-pastoralists. Moreover, we see that the persistence of this ursine cosmology is found not only in the folk memory of Basque speakers who are no longer emotionally committed to the tenets of the belief system, but also in the minds of individuals like Petiri and his son Dominique.

8. Peillen: Le culte de l'ours chez les anciens basques, p. 171-172. For a discussion of the widespread nature of this custom, cf. Rmi Mathieu: La patte de lours, in: LHomme 1984, XXIV (1), p. 5-42. Lajoux: L'homme et l'ours, p. 115-125

5

Indeed, their comments reveal that they are emotionally committed to the truth of what they are saying. In sum, we must conclude that among Basques the belief in the bear ancestors survived until the end of the 20th century and, therefore, earlier it was undoubtedly far more deeply held and wide spread. In the sections that follow we shall discuss other evidenceother types of cultural survivalsrelating directly and indirectly to this ursine cosmogony.

Part 2. Good-Luck Visits: An introduction The Great Bear (Ursa major) has been classified as belonging to the most archaic strata of the star figures. It has been assumed that scenes portrayed by certain other constellations were associated with some half-forgotten sky text handed down to us, albeit incompletely, through Greek mythology.9 In the case of Europe until now no truly archaic belief system or set of stories connected to this celestial bear has been identified.10 However, after years of extensive fieldwork in the Basque region of the Pyrenees, I was able to discover the existence of an archetypal hero called HartzKume in Basque whose name means Little Bear.11 The figure of this Bear Son, born of a great bear and human female, far from being exclusive to the Pyrenean zone, is identified with a cycle of stories and ritual performances found throughout Europe. The latter include what are called Good-Luck Visits. Indeed, variants of these visits and related social practices have survived surprisingly intact into the 21st century, forming a rich legacy of popular performance art whose cognitive roots and unique cultural conceptualizations reach back far in time. As we shall see, the Good-Luck Visits themselves have been a major factor in preserving the earlier belief system.

The Bear Son tales represent one of the most common motifs found in European folklore.12 The significance of the widespread distribution of the motif is best understood once we recognize that we are dealing with relatively archaic materials emanating from an earlier European cosmology that linked humans directly to bears. In this regard, the Bear Son tales are one component of this

9 Owen Gingerich: Astronomical scrapbook. The origin of the zodiac, in: Sky and

Telescope, 1984, 67, p. 218-220. 10

While there are extant Greek tales (e.g., associated with Callisto where being transformed into a bear is viewed as a punishment), these are clearly modern in their conceptualization, rather than reflecting a cosmology congruent with a hunter-gatherer mentality.

11 The expression derives from hartz bear and (k)ume infant, baby, little one.

12 Although initially, some thirty years ago, my field work and archival research focused almost exclusively on the Basque region of the Pyrenees, I soon discovered that the same cycle of Bear Son stories is found throughout Europe. Cf. Emmanual Cosquin: Jean lOurs in: Les Contes populaires de Lorraine, Paris, 1887, p. 1-27. Even though folklorists did not recognize the significance of the European stories, the surprisingly widespread distribution of the Bear Son tales caught their attention and was already an object of serious investigation by the 1880s. By 1910, 221 European variants of the 301story type, the descent of the Bear Son hero to the Under World, had been documented. In a study published in 1959, 57 Hungarian versions of the tale are mentioned (cf. G. Kiss: A 301-es mesetpus magyar redakcii (The Hungarian Redactions of the 301-Story Type), in: Ethnographia (Budapest), LXX, 1959, p. 253268). In 1992, Stitt recorded 120 variants of the Bear Son story for Scandinavia alone (cf. J. Michael Stiff: Beowulf and the Bear's Son: Epic, Saga and Fairytale in Northern Germanic Tradition, New York/London, 1992). The cycle of oral tales is present in all of the Indo-European languages of Europe as well as in Basque and Finno-Ugric. Cf. also Jose Arratibel: Kontu zaarrak, Bilbao, 1980.

6

cosmology, one that also includes ritual practices which, in turn, are intimately connected this earlier pan-European story of origins.

Evidence for the residual practice of bear ceremonialism in Europe is demonstrated in many forms, including ritual reenactments of the bear hunt and folkloric performances portraying scenes from the Bear Son saga itself.13 These social practices are particularly abundant not only in Western Europe but also in many parts of Central and Eastern Europe where dancing bears or their human counterparts are viewed similarly, i.e., as bringing good luck, health and prosperity to those visited.14 At the same time, the visits had a cleansing component for they purportedly guaranteed that evil spirits and other bad influences would be carried away.

In summary, there is reason to believe that the eco-centric discourse intrinsic to the Bear Son saga and related performance art antedates the anthropocentric discourse inherent in the celestially-coded Greek mythological materials. In contrast, the Bear Son saga contains a narrative that encapsulates the value system and worldview of hunter-gatherers. As such, the Bear Son tales have survived on the margins of elite discourse, confined to performance art and other folkloric practicessuch as the Good-Luck Visitswhich have been transmitted orally and quite unobtrusively from one generation to the next in villages across Europe.15

13 In certain zones of the Pyrenees the popular performances acted out each year by the villagers include vignettes that reproduce scenes from the Bear Son saga. Cf. Violet Alford: The Springtime Bear in the Pyrenees, in: Folklore 1930, XLI, p. 266-279; The Candlemas Bear, in: National and English Review 1931 (Feb.), p. 235-244; and Pyrenean Festivals: Calendar Customs, Music and Magic, Drama and Dance, London, 1937.

14 Frank: Hunting the European Sky Bears: When Bears Ruled the Earth and Guarded the Gate of Heaven, p. 133-135. Michel Praneuf: L'ours et les hommes dans les traditions europennes, Paris, 1989. Tihomir P. Vukanovi: Gypsy bear-leaders in the Balkan Peninsula, in: Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, 1959, 3 (37), p. 106-125.

15 The motif of the Bear Son's descent to the underworld has many scholarly labels. Aarne-Thompson classifies the story as The Three Stolen Princesses (Type 301) with the following variants: Quest for a Vanished Princess (301A); The Strong Man and His Companions Journey to the Land of Gold (301B); The Magic Objects (301C) and The Dragons Ravish Princesses (301D) (cf. A. Aarne-Stith Thompson: The Types of the Folktale: A Classification and Bibliography, 2nd Rev., Helsinki, 1961, p. 90-93). Hansen classifies the tale similarly with some modifications. He sees the story (301) combined often with Strong John (650) (Der Starke Hans), a version of which appears in Grimm (cf. Terrence L. Hansen: The Types of the Folktale in Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Spanish America, Berkeley/Los Angeles, 1957, p. 24-25, 75-77). At times a single story may elaborate on a series of elements belonging to the longer Bear Son saga. For example, the shamanically-coded Hungarian tale The Tree that Reached to the Sky includes several episodes found in the older Basque version of the Bear Son tale. Dgh has described it as containing elements from: The Three Stolen Princesses (Type 301); The Ogre's (Devil's) Heart in the Egg (Type 302); The Man on a Quest for his Lost Wife (Type 400); The Princess in the Sky Tree (Type 468), with elements of The Grateful Animals (Type 554); The Youth Transformed into a Horse (Type 314), and Three Animals as Brothers-in-Law (Type 552A) (cf. Linda Dgh: Folktales of Hungary, Chicago, 1965, p. 312-314). Substantial research has been done relating the Bear Son Tale to Beowulf (cf. Robert A. Barakat: John of the Bear and Beowulf, in: Western Folklore, 1967, 26 (1), p. 111. Stephen O. Glosecki: The Wolf of the Bees: Germanic shamanism and the Bear Hero, in: Journal of Ritual Studies, 1988, 2 (1): 31-53). In short, all these motifs should be viewed as variations on the Bear Son saga discussed in this study.

7

Morphology of the Good-Luck Visits: Shamanic components The Good-Luck Visits in question and the ritual repertoire associated with them derive their vitality specifically from their intimate connection to the cycle of pan-European tales centered on the exploits of the Bear Son who acts as the intermediary, the mediator between the world of humans and bears. The Bear Sons adventures portray the protagonist first as a young shaman apprentice, as a medicine man initiate who sets out on a vision quest to acquire his Spirit Animal Helpers and his Medicine Bundle. Later, as an adult, the Bear Son engages in a series of ritual battles with another shape-changing shaman. Significantly, for the most part the shape-shifting abilities of the two characters serve to set up narrative confrontations in which the Bear Son transforms himself into one predator animal after another. While his shaman adversary shape-shifts, too, each time he does, he plays the corresponding role of the prey, a narrative encapsulation of what Paul Shepard has referred to a trophic metaphysics where the complex network of food chain relationships is emphasized.16 The Bear Sons adversary has his own set of Spirit Animal Helpers. The battles between the two shamans take place on a ritual landscape typical of shamanism where the hero is seen climbing or flying up and down along a vertical axis. In some cases the movement is from Middle Earth to the Under World. In others, the shamanic figures journey takes him from the Upper World back down to Middle Earth.

In this regard, we might recall the fact that among contemporary hunter-gatherer societies the bear is considered the most powerful spirit animal, in part because of its remarkable ability to live for months without eating or drinking. Moreover, the bear was seen as a representative of and mediator between three spatial domains, the upper, the intermediate and the lower world. It is not surprising to discover that the shaman appealed to a bear-shaped spirit in order to save a sick mans soul,17 and in turn acted as an intermediary between these different worlds, motifs that are reflected in the Bear Son tales.

According to the spatial coordinates intrinsic to such a shamanistically-coded landscape, the vertical axis is often portrayed as a smoke-hole, a shaft, and it is through this aperture that the healer descends and ascends on his journeys, e.g., when seeking information about his patient, as well as hunting and retrieving lost souls.18 Furthermore, linked to the ritual journeys of the shaman healer are the actions carried out by the spirit of the earthly bear representative itself. In this regard, in times past a fundamental component of European bear ceremonialism appears to have been the bear hunt in which a representative of the ancestral animal was sacrificed, followed by a banquet, held in the animals

16 Paul Shepard: Bear essay (manuscript), 1995, p. 6.

17 va Schmidt: Bear Cult and Mythology of the Northern Ob-Ugrians, in: Uralic Mythology and Folklore (Mihly Hoppl and Juha Pentikinen, eds.), Budapest/Helsinki, 1989, p. 187-232.

18 Bill B. Brunton: Kootenai shamanism, in: Shamans and Cultures (Mihly Hoppl and Keith D. Howard, eds.), Budapest/Los Angeles, 1993, p. 136-146. Mihly Hoppl: Shamanism: Universal Structures and Regional Symbols, in: Shamans and Cultures (Mihly Hoppl and Keith D. Howard, eds.), Budapest/Los Angeles, 1993, p. 181-192.

8

honor where the creatures blood and flesh were eaten.19 Today in Europe such hunts are encountered as re-enactments, as Good-Luck performances in which a human actor mimes the role of the earthly bear. After chasing after those present, especially young women, the bear is captured, killed and falls down only to leap up once again, resurrected. Previously, there appears to have been a final interlude intended as a sending home ceremony in which the earthly bears soul was sent back to heaven so that it could give a report to the Sky Bear concerning the overall comportment of its human descendants, for instance, whether they treated the animal properly prior to killing it, whether they expressed their humility and gratitude for the sacrifice made by the animal when it gave up its life. The report, today often of a highly satiric nature, still forms part of the conclusion of many Good-Luck Visits, and represents a kind of evaluation or critique of the behavior of those visited or present.20

In short, the earthly bears report served to inform the celestial bear of the details of the behavior of its human offspring. A positive report card guaranteed the health and well being of the celestial bears human descendants. If the ceremonies were properly performed, in the spring the bones of the earthly bear would take on flesh anew in the form of bear cubs, while the souls of all the other beings were thought to be released by the bear in the spring when it awoke from hibernation, an action that in a hunter-gatherer society would have guaranteed an abundance of game.21

In the tales and related folk performances found across much of Europe, the Bear Son intermediary often appears dressed as a bear. This character, in turn, is often accompanied by a number of musicians and false faces, masked figures that portray his Spirit Animal Helpers, most particularly the White or Grey Mare and the Female Eagle, while the latter appears in the performances at times in the form of a Stork.22 Ritual bear hunts are still performed in the Franco-Cantabrian region and the Pyrenees, where today they are acted out publicly during the period of Winter Carnival.23 For example, in Andorra the Festa de lOssa is celebrated both on December 26th and during Spring Carnival.24 Other data strongly

19 Lajoux: Lhomme et lours, p. 175-198. Zoya P. Sokolova: The Bear Cult, in: Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia, 2000, 2 (2), p. 121-130.

20 Thomas Hollingsworth: A Basque Superstition, Folklore II, 1891, p. 132-133. Roslyn M. Frank: Recovering European ritual bear hunts: A comparative study of Basque and Sardinian ursine carnival performances, in: Insula (Cagliari, Sardinia), 2008, 3, p. 41-97, http://www.sre.urv.es/irmu/alguer/.

21 Boris Chiclo: Lours shaman, in: tudes mongoles et sibriennes, 1981, 12, p. 35-112. Ossian Elgstrm and Ernst Manker: Bjrnfesten, Lulea [Sweden], 1984. Praneuf : L'ours et les hommes dans les traditions europennes.

22 For further discussion and photos of contemporary European performances in which the bear and its trainer along with the White Mare and Stork appear, cf. Roslyn M. Frank: Hunting the European Sky Bears: Aquila and the Female Eagle Shaman. Presentation at the Oxford VIII International Conference on Archaeoastronomy / 15th Annual European Conference for Astronomy in Culture, Klaipeda, Lithuania, July 22-31, 2007, http://www.uiowa.edu/~spanport/people/frank-publications.html.

23 For a discussion of similar public re-enactments and Good-Luck Visits conducted on Candlemas Bear Day (February 2) and understood to form part of the world renewal ceremonies associated with the Spring Carnival period, cf. Frank: Hunting the European Sky Bears: Candlemas Bear Day and World Renewal Ceremonies, p. 133-157. Avelino Molina Gonzlez and Angel Vlez Prez: L'ours dans les ftes et carnavals d'hiver: La Vijanera en Valle d'Iguna, in: L'ours brun: Pyrnes, Abruzzes, Mts. Cantabriques, Alpes du Trentin (Claude Dendaletche, ed.), Pau, 1986, p.134-146.

24 Michel Praneuf: L'ours et les hommes dans les traditions europennes, p. 62.

9

suggest the ritual importance of these Good-Luck Visits or house calls to the community as a whole.25

Classification of Good-Luck Visits The Good-Luck Visits can be divided into two general categories. The first type is best understood as a form of preventative medicine, periodic cleansing rituals carried out with the intention of warding off future physical and spiritual disease in which the bear-shaman carried away the evil spirits causing the illness or misfortune. Initially, these prophylactic rituals appear to have taken place on a regular basis throughout the year. In contrast, the second type of Good-luck Visit was triggered when a family member or animal fell ill. In such cases the Bear Leader (trainer) was contacted to make a house callalong with his earthly bearand to perform a healing ceremony for an individual member of the community. In the Balkans such house calls were regularly conducted with a live bear into the 1930s.26

Originally it would seem that these Good-Luck Visits and attendant performances took place throughout the year, motivated by the specific needs of the patient, household or community in question. In this sense, the performers along with their flesh and blood dancing bear (or its human shamanic counterpart) would have functioned much in the same way as the members of the Society of False Faces of the Iroquois and the heyoka of the Sioux whose fierce masks were intended to frighten away the evil spirits that were causing the illness or misfortune. These Native American medicine men and women were the contraries or sacred clowns who performed when need be, in the homes of the afflicted.27

In Europe, such Good-Luck performances have tended to take place during the period from the beginning of November to early January, although there are other officially sanctioned periods for them: Candlemas Bear Day on February 2nd as well as during the Spring carnival. In New World locations such as Newfoundland and Labrador which have strong Germanic traditions, the masking practice continued to involve adults and persisted until quite recently. In contrast, in the United States the periods in question contain only three daysseparated in timein which masquerading is accepted and commonplace, i.e., when disguised characters regularly walk about the streets, namely, All Hallows Eve, Christmas Eve and New Years Eve.28 In the case of the Advent period homes are regularly visited by an adult disguised as St. Nicholas or Santa Claus. However, the black-faced and/or masked bear-like companion of St. Nicholaswho is still found throughout Germanic speaking zoneshas disappeared, the two-

25 Franoise Giroux: Carnavals et ftes d'hiver, Paris, 1984. Thierry Truffault: Contribution la connaissance de la permanence ursine dans les diverses manifestations culturelles, cultuelles et festives dans le primtre de l'ancienne province romain de Novempopulanie, in: Le rveil de l'ours Occitan, Turin, Italiy, in press.

26 Vukanovi: Gypsy bear-leaders in the Balkan Peninsula, p. 106-125. Geeta Seshamani and Kartick Satyanarayan: The Dancing Bears of India, 1997, p. 20-21, http://www.wspa-usa.org/download/6_dancing_bears_of_india.pdf.

27 Frank C. Speck: The Celestial Bear Comes Down to Earth: The Bear Ceremony of the Munsee-Mahican in Canada as Related by Nekatcit. In collaboration with Jesse Moses, Delaware Nation. Ohsweken, 1945.

28 The so-called Mardi Gras of New Orleans is a notable exception. Other than this French inspired celebration European carnival traditions have left few traces in the United States.

10

some having been replaced by a single fur-clad figure, the American consumer Santa whose costume is often stuffed with pillows so that he takes on a very robust appearance, albeit still fully anthropomorphic in nature.

In the sections that follow we will examine primarily European traditions (although including a few examples from the New World), where the role of the bear and its healing powerspowers associated with the performers and their bearunderwent a process of hybridization, marginalization and general secularized down-grading. This process of change came about gradually as the ursine symbolic order was repeatedly recontextualized, losing some elements while gaining others. At the same time, and perhaps most remarkably, we shall discover that certain core features remained relatively stable across time. That said, what contributed, at least in part, to the stability of these features seems to be, quite ironically, the prolonged contacts between groups defending opposing symbolic orders. The result was the entrenchment of the older animistic cosmology: it was tucked away quite securely inside the Christian interpretive framework. In what follows we will trace the development of these Good-Luck Visits and the way that the portrayal of the ursine main character has evolved over time.

However, first several additional comments should be made concerning the prototypical morphology of the European Good-Luck Visits. Frequently the Bear Leader is followed by a number of villagers dressed up as bears with their faces blackened, wearing bells about their waists and small jingles attached to their calves. In their manner of walking they often imitate the rocking gait of a bear.29 They are accompanied by a group of musicians and other guisers dressed as ancestral Spirit Animal Helpers. Perhaps the most popular and widespread of these creatures is the White or Grey Mare, an astrally-coded character with possible linkages to the pre-Greek constellation Centaurus, who in the Bear Son stories helps the hero kill his adversary, the Black Wolf Trickster.30.

In Germany this Hobby Horse character is called der Schimmel, a term used to refer to a white (or grey) horse. In some parts the two characters are fused in the figure of the Schimmelreiter (the White-horse rider). Nonetheless, even when emphasis is laid upon the rider, and the name Schimmelreiter is given, [it] is accompanied by a bear, a youth dressed in straw who plays the part of a bear tied to a pole.31 In short, according to Germanic tradition, der Schimmel is regularly accompanied by a bear actor called der Erbsenbr (Pea Haulm-Bear) or der Strohbr (the Straw-Bear), an actor covered with stalks of pea haulm or straw rather than fur.32

29 For a more extended discussion of this phenomenon, cf. Frank: Recovering European ritual bear hunts: A comparative study of Basque and Sardinian ursine carnival performances, p. 45. Cf. also http://barnekaldetik.blogspot.com/2007/04/joaldunak.html and http://www.dantzan.com/albisteak/joaldunak-eta-abar.

30 Roslyn M. Frank and Jesus Arregi Bengoa: Hunting the European Sky Bears: On the Origins of the Non-zodiacal Constellations, in: Astronomy, Cosmology and Landscape (Clive Ruggles, Frank Prendergast and Tom Ray, eds.), Bognor Regis, England, 2001, 15-43.

31 Clement A. Miles: Christmas Customs and Traditions: Their History and Significance, New York, [1912] 1976, p. 200.

32 Other materials used for the bears costume include moss and/or leaves. These actors, sometimes called men of the forestas were bears themselvesare identified also as wild-men. Roger Bartra: Wild Men in the Looking Glass: The

11

The Strohbr appears in the eastern part of Germany, Pomerania, Bavaria and Switzerland while a similarly dressed personage is found across the channel in England as well as in Poland and further west in the Pyrenees. In short, representatives of these Straw-bears can be found today in much of Western Europe, often accompanied by the White or Grey Mare and at times by the Stork.33 Indeed, far from disappearing, the Straw-bears appear to be gaining in popularity (Figures 1 & 2).

Figure 1. Strawbear of Whittlesea, England, 2001. Source: http://www.strawbear.org.uk/Bear in Waldurn.htm.

Mythic Origins of European Otherness, Ann Arbor, 1994. Pierre Duny-Ptr : Basa Jauna le seigneur sauvage dans les lgendes basques, in: Socit des Sciences Lettres et Arts de Bayonne, 1960, 92-94, p. 87-105. Christophe Gros: L'Homme Sauvage. Une figure rituelle du Carnaval alpin, in: Nous autres (Erica Deuber Ziegler and Genevive Perret, eds.), Gollion/Genve, p. 227-258, http://www.ville-ge.ch/meg/pdf/tabou_1.pdf. Thierry Truffaut: Apports des carnavals ruraux en Pays Basque pour l'tude de la mythologie: Le cas du 'Basa-Jaun', in: Eusko-Ikaskuntza. Sociedad de Estudios Vascos. Cuadernos de Seccin. Anthropologa Etnologa, 1988, 6, p. 71-81.

33 Ingeborg Weber-Kellermann: Das Weihnachtsfest: Eine Kultur- und Sozialgeschichte der Weihnachtszeit, Luzern und Frankfurt/M, 1978, p. 29. Violet Alford: The Hobby Horse and Other Animal Masks, London, 1978, p. 116. Praneuf : L'ours et les hommes dans les traditions europennes, p. 63.

12

Figure 2. Strawbear in Waldrn, Germany, 2001. Source: http://www.strawbear.org.uk/Bear in Waldurn.htm.

Hybridization: The dancing bear Martin, He who walks barefoot As we noted, one of the fundamental structural elements of the ursine cosmology has been the phenomenon of Good-Luck Visits, a social practice that has contributed directly to the cultural storage, preservation and stability as well the transmission of the tenets of the earlier ursine cosmology, across generations, by bringing into play mechanisms, reiterative and redundant in nature, typical of oral cultures. Nonetheless, under the influence of Christianity the central role of the bear was modified and some of its functions reassigned by the Church to a specific saint, even though it appears that both the clergy and the general populace were at least partially aware of the adjustments that were taking place. In order to illustrate more clearly how this process of symbolic hybridization works, we will examine at a concrete example: that of the transference of the functions of the bear to a particular saint, namely, St. Martin, while the role of his trainer was taken over by the figure of a bishop.

As was usually the case with such hagiographically-based legends, the bishop chosen was one whose historical origins were remote, shrouded in the mists of time, namely, St. Martin, Bishop of Tours, who was finally consecrated by the Church in the fifth century, and turned into the central character of a great Church festival, Martinmas, celebrated on November 11th. A curious story was propagated about this Martin. Indeed, there is reason to believe that the legend itself was a conscious attempt to link the saints name and performances conducted in his honor directly to those of the dancing bear (or vice-versa). In order to understand this process we need to recognize that in the Middle Ages across much of Europe a common nickname for any bear brought in to conduct a cleansing ceremony was Martin. In fact, this name was frequently modified by adding the phrase he who walks barefoot, e.g., as in the expression Mestre Mart au ps descaus, literally, Bare-Foot

13

Martin or Martin, he who walks barefoot, while the phrase he who walks barefoot was used to refer to bears in general.34

The Church spin-doctors concocted a series of pious legends that would seek to stitch the two belief systems together. Apparently the stories were an attempt, although quite an unsuccessful one, to counter the wide-spread belief in the efficacy of performances conducted by bear trainers and their dancing bears or at least to give them an air of legitimacy within the framework of Christian belief. The legend propagated by the Church with respect to St. Martin shows the ingeniousness of its authors, particularly with respect to the way in which they managed to elaborate such a convoluted plot for the story itself. It was one that told of the generosity of the Bishop of Tours, a man named Martin. When visited by his disciple and friend Valerius, a fifth-century bishop of Saint Lizier in the Pyrenees, Martin gave him an ass so that Valerius would no longer have to laboriously traverse the rugged mountainous terrain on foot and, consequently, would be better equipped to spread the good word. And Valerius, in turn, named his ass Martin. However, just when Valerius reached the path that would lead him to the Pyrenean town of Ustou, darkness overtook him.

The next morning much to his chagrin Valerius discovered an enormous bear standing next to the tree where he had had left his ass tied the night before. Realizing the beast was devouring the last remains of his pack animal, Valerius called out to him, The Devil take you! No one will ever say that you have kept me from spreading the good word across these mountains. Since you have eaten my friend Martin, you will take his place and carry me about. The bear approaches Valerius and sweetly agrees to do what he has been asked. When they arrive in the village of Ustou, the inhabitants crowd around Valerius and his bear. And at this point after being given a bit of honey, in a sign of his appreciation the bear Martin takes the bishops walking staff in his hand, raises himself up on two feet and begins to dance, according to the text, the most graceful of dances ever executed by a bear.35 But there is more. Because the villagers are so impressed by Valerius and his dancing bear Martin, they decide to set up their own school where little bears could be taught to dance. Moreover, the pious story could be understood equally to be one utilized to explain and legitimize the prestige, indeed, the European-wide reputation of the Bear Academy that was established in the Pyrenean village of Ustou, some 35 kilometers from St. Lizier.36

Such pious legends need to be examined more closely in terms of their psycho-social intentions as well as their actual consequences. For instance, the above legend, in all likelihood promoted by the Church and locals alike, gave the clergy a Christian-coded explanation for why bears were called Martin.37 In addition, it sought to identify Valerius, the bishop of St. Lizier,

34 Parc Nacional des Pyrnes: L'ours des Pyrnes, Parc Nacional des Pyrnes, 1990, p. 9. Claude Dendaletche: L'homme et la nature dans les Pyrnes, Paris, 1982, p. 92-93.

35 Jacques Bgoun: L'Ours Martin d'Arige-Pyrenes, in: Socit Arigeoise [des] Sciences, Lettres et Arts. Bulletin Annuel, 1996, XXII, p. 138-139.

36 Praneuf: L'ours et les hommes dans les traditions europennes, p. 66-70.

37 For additional discussion of this legend and similar ones associated with other saints, cf. Lajoux: L'homme et l'ours, p. 213-220. Pastoureau: Lours. Histoire dun roi dchu, p. 53-69.

14

with the person of the bear trainer. Even the dancing bears long pole, the standard prop of all bear trainers, was attended to narratively and reinterpreted as the bishops walking stick, his staff of office. As a result of these symbolic reinterpretations, the legend ended up providing the populace with an ingenious justification for conducting Good-Luck Visits: the narrative became a means of justifying deeply ingrained patterns of belief while slightly modifying them. At the same time by associating the dancing bear with a given saints day, those wishing to carry out Good-Luck Visits were given a green light. Indeed, in many locations the performances continued to be conducted with relatively little interference from the Church authorities.

For example, today in many parts of Europe on the saints day in question, November 11th, an actor appears in the guise of the bishop St. Martin. But, more importantly, when the individual dressed as a bishop does appear, he continues, as before, to be accompanied on his rounds by a bear-like creature, his pagan double. In short, these ursine administrants, in recent times merely ordinary human actors, perform their duties authorized by a kind of Christian dispensation that permits them to continue to preside, quite discreetly, over the festivities.38 In turn the bishop in question takes over the role and attributes of the bear trainer through this process of symbolic hybridization. Thus, the meaning of the bishops companion, the masked figure representing the bear, is transparently obvious once one understands the mechanisms of hybridization involved in the renaming processes themselves.39 In short, any attempt to discover the identity of the furry, often frightening, masked figures associated with St. Martins day must take these facts into account (Figure 3).

38 Miles: Christmas Customs and Traditions: Their History and Significance, p. 208.

39 In addition to the Pyrenean zone, across much of France and the rest of Western Europe the dancing bear is called Martin; in the Carpathian region of Romania among its nicknames are Mos Martin (Old Martin), Mos Gavrila (Old Gabriel), as well as Frate Nicolae (Brother Nicholas). In other parts of Europe the bear is often called Blaise, a name linked to the date of February 3 and to the figure of St. Blaise, the patron saint of bears. In addition, this saints day coincides neatly with the day after Candlemas Bear Day, the latter being celebrated on February 2. In the Balkans, however, it is St. Andrew who is presented as the patron of bears. Cf. Arnold Lebeuf: Des veques et des ourses: tudes de quelques Chapiteaux du Clotre de Saint Lizier en Couserans, in: Ethnologia Polona, 1987, 13, p. 257-280. Praneuf: L'ours et les hommes dans les traditions europennes, p. 61-71.

15

Figure 3. Names of the gift-bringers on St. Martins Day (November 11).40

Moreover, in case there were doubts on anyones part concerning the real identity of the bishops companion, in Germanic speaking zones his side-kick is referred to not as Martin, but rather as Pelzmrte, a term that could be interpreted, albeit mistakenly, as Furry Martin or perhaps Martin with a Fur Coat. In fact, the Pelzmrte frequently appears alone, without his bishop, on St. Martins day as well as on Christmas Eve. In regard to the Pelzmrte we should recall that in some parts of Europe the Good-Luck Visits conducted on St. Martins day eventually came to be transferred to the winter solstice.41

As has been noted previously, Martin was a particularly common name for a dancing bear in much of Europe. Given that the belief in the supernatural healing powers of the bear and its retinue harkens back to a pre-Christian cosmology, to encounter an unconscious or inadvertent reanalysis of preexisting pagan terminology would not be unusual. For example, there are two terms in German for the furry visitor that include the same prefixing element: pelz- fur, furry. We have the expression Pelznickel where the second element -nickel is equated with a kind of demon; then, if we continue with the same semantic logic, we have the compound Pelzmrte where the second element would also refer to a demon or some other sort of supernatural creature. The Germanic term -mrte is linked the modern German word mahr nightmare while the latter word is related to older phonological variants with the same meaning (i.e., a frightening spectral being, a ghost-like supernatural creature) in mrt, mrte, mrten, that, are curiously similar to the name given to dancing bears, i.e., Martin.42 In addition to the expression Pelzmrte, in

40 Adapted from Oswald Erich and Richard Beitl: Wrterbuch der Deutschen Volkskunde, Stuttgart, 1955, p. 509.

41 Miles: Christmas Customs and Traditions: Their History and Significance, [1912] 1976, p.167-247.

42 The English term nightmare derives from Germanic compounds such as Nachtmrt (the Night-Mare), discussed at length in Thorpe: Under all these denominations is designated that spectral being which places itself on the breast of the sleeping, depriving them of the powers of motion and utterance (cf. Benjamin

16

Germany we also find other similar compounds for the gift-bringer: Nufssmrte, Rollermrte, Schellenmrte as well as Mrteberta, while in the latter case, the second element Berta refers to a sometimes ominous pre-Christian female figure, also called Pertcha.43.

Consequently, the etymology often given for the German expression Pelzmrte, one that interprets the second element of the compound (mrte) as if it referred to the name Martin, is probably nothing more than a folk-etymology. Indeed, the fallacious assumption that mrte should be interpreted merely as Martin was probably reinforced by the celebration of Good-Luck Visits on St. Martins Day. As was shown in the narrative relating to how St. Martin acquired his bear and began to travel about with it, the introduction of a Christian saint served as a pretext for continuing the highly entrenched practice of Good-Luck Visits. In short, it was a Christianized rationalizationthe result of hybridizationthat served to legitimize the pre-existing tradition.

St. Nicholas and his dark furry companion In the case of St. Nicholas, said to be a fourth century bishop from Myra in Turkey, his saints day was celebrated in the spring until the thirteenth century. From the thirteenth century to the time of the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century, the individuals who dressed up as this bishop made their house calls on the sixth of December (Figure 4).44

Thorpe: Northern Mythology: Popular Traditions and Superstitions of Scandinavia, North Germany and the Netherlands, London, 1851-52, Vol. 3, p. 154-155, http://books.google.com/books?id=aj1LkG001QwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=northern+mythology). Today a common German synonym for der Mahr is der Alp and the description of its nocturnal actions is expressed by the compound Alpdrcke. For terms etymologically related to mahr in other Germanic languages, cf. Dan L. Ashliman: Night-mares: Legends and Superstitions about the Demons that Cause Nightmares, 1998-2005, http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/nightmare.html.

43 Erich and Beitl: Wrterbuch der Deutschen Volkskunde. p. 509. Weber-Kellermann: Das Weihnachtsfest: Eine Kultur- und Sozialgeschichte der Weihnachtszeit, p. 19-23.

44 It was not until after the Council of Trent (15451563) that the figure of Christkind or, in its diminutive form, das Christkindel, the Christ child, was introduced (cf. Alexander Tille: Yule and Christmas: Their Place in the Germanic Year, London, 1899, p. 119-137). He, too, was supposed to distribute gifts, but on Christmas Day. That practice eventually led St. Nicholas to change the date of his Good-Luck Visit to December 25th, at least in some locations, while, somewhat ironically, the expression das Christkindel, originally intended to designate little Jesus, evolved into Kris Kringle, one of the Germanic terms for Father Christmas. In the Netherlands, the bishop in question arrives on St. Nicholas eve (December 5th or the next morning) and is accompanied by Zwarte Piet, his faithful servant who has lost his bear-like demeanor, but not his role of carrying off misbehaving children in his giant sack or a large straw basket. In recent years Zwarte Piet has been converted into a fairly innocuous helper of a kindly child-loving Sinterklaas.

17

Figure 4. Names of the gift-bringers on St. Nikolauss Day (December 6).45

In addition, we find that historically St. Nicholas himself has a semantic counterpart in the Pelznickel, an expression that could easily have been interpreted or justified, albeit erroneously, as either as Furry Nicholas or Nicholas with a Fur Coat. The fierce Pelznickel goes by many other names. For example, in Austria the creature is known as the Krampus while in other parts of Germany two of the most popular names are Hans Trapp and Knecht Ruprecht. The Krampus appears either alone or in the company of an individual dressed as a bishop. In zones where the two characters appear together, the pair plays the role of white and black inquisitors.46 In conclusion, it is clear that the figures of St. Nicholas and his bear-like companion(s), including the Straw-bears and their other European relatives, form part of the repertoire of ritual performances associated with the ursine cosmogony.

Questions about Straw bear costumes It is also important to recognize that the Straw-bear phenomenon as it relates to the Good-Luck Visits is not limited to Germanic-speaking regions. Rather the Straw-bear is found in a very similar form in Poland, which is not that surprising given the geographic proximity. However, we also find Straw-bears in England and even Ireland.47 And when viewed more closely, the tradition of using straw in the construction of the costume for these bear-like performers, particularly the practice of stuffing vast quantities of it inside the outer garment worn by the actors, is quite wide-spread. In some cases we find pillows being employed to bulk up the

45 Adapted from Erich and Beitl: Wrterbuch der Deutschen Volkskunde, p. 564.

46 George Halpert: A Typology of Mumming, in: Christmas Mumming in Newfoundland: Essays in Anthropology, Folklore and History (Herbert Halpert and George M. Story, eds.), Toronto. 1969, p. 34-61. For further discussion of these characters as well as excellent illustrations of them, cf. Weber-Kellermann: Das Weihnachtsfest: Eine Kultur- und Sozialgeschichte der Weihnachtszeit, p. 24-42.

47 Ray Cashman: Mumming with the Neighbors in West Tyrone, in: Journal of Folklore Research, 2000, 37 (1), p. 73-84. For photos cf. http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/journals/folklore/feature/mumming.html.

18

appearance of the performers. In fact, the use of straw and/or its material substitutes can be found across much of Europe, including the northern parts of the Iberian Peninsula. In some instances, it appears that the furry outer garment worn by the act was removed at some point in time, leaving behind only the straw padding underneath whereas in the case of bear actors in other zones, e.g., the Pyrenean-Cantabrian region as well as in parts of eastern Europe, such as Hungary and Romania, the bear actor is outfitted in fur and skins. Indeed, quite often the outer part of the costume consists of a real bear skin with a mask made from the actual head of a brown bear.

Although it is still not entirely clear how the Straw-bears came to lose their outer furry coat, there are several possibilities. The first has to do with the well documented pressures exerted by the Church and civil authorities and the repeated attempts to ban these customs, especially the bear itself. Therefore, it is possible that because of these attacks and outright prohibitions, the performers deliberately removed the outer garment and/or bear mask, thus making it somewhat less obvious to outsiders that they were performing cleansing rituals as bears. Another possibility is that the removal of the outer coat had to do with demands brought about by a changing climate. Finally, it could have resulted from some inability on the part of those involved to obtain real bear skins, such as those still worn by those performing Good-Luck Visits in parts of eastern Europe.

A more intriguing question is why straw was used in the beginning. Again there are several possibilities and perhaps a combination of them is the best solution. First, by stuffing the costume with straw, the actor takes on a more bear-like and less-human appearance. Secondly, there is the strong possibility that one part of the Good-Luck Visit consisted of having the bear carry away the evil influences from the householders and their domestic animals. That ceremony appears to have involved flagellating or otherwise chastising the bear, e.g., for being lazy and not performing its duties, as well as perhaps insuring that the evil spirits would be driven away. Whether it was a way to insure that the bear did a good job or perhaps to punish him for not performing as desired is unclear. Nevertheless, there is cross-cultural evidence for this sort of treatment of the bear and/or its straw effigy or wooden iconic counterparts, e.g., among the Ostyaks, which could explain the practice of beating it, drowning it in water or burning it.48 In any case, there is evidence that a tightly-woven straw undergarment would have provided added protection against various types of physical abuse.

Part 3. Transformative and spiritual aspects of the ursine cosmogony As I have indicated, there is a very strong possibility that at some point in the remote past the pan-European ursine cosmogony was projected skyward by the knowledge keepers of that epoch. In other words, there is reason to believe that the Bear Son narrative gained celestial support by means of the symbolic projection of the bear

48 Lajoux: L'homme et l'ours, p. 216, citing Jean Bernard Muller: Les murs et usages des Ostyaks et la manire dont ils furent convertis la religion chrtienne du rite grec, Paris, 1732.

19

ancestor onto stars of the circumpolar region, stars known to us today as Ursa Major. And it was to that location that the soul of the slain bear was sent, after it had been properly venerated so that it could report on the treatment it had received from humankind. That is, the performance is structured in such a way that the bears soul offered a report to the Sky Bear concerning the comportment of humans. In this sense, it is a script that echoes the questions asked by St. Nicholas and/or his bear companion with respect to the behavior of those visited.

In this regard Sarmela has observed that: [i]n the mythologies of many Nordic peoples, the bear was believed to be of celestial origin, even the son of a god []. The bear appears as the original hero of nature, with a kind of a special position among other animals, or it has been the embodiment of the supernatural guardian spirits of the forest []. Ritual bear hunting is likely to have begun from a myth of the bears birth, which in Finland has survived as a verse in old metre.49

Narratives relating to the birth of the Finno-Ugric bear justify the structure and symbolism of the rituals that have been observed by Finno-Ugric peoples, including the obligation to facilitate the return of the bears soul back to heaven. The extant Finnish birth poems are usually brief, but contain the fundamental motifs of the narrative, namely, that the bear was born in the sky above, in Ursa Major, and was sent down to earth. Some variants describe how the bear was lowered to the top of a pine or spruce tree in a cradle suspended from golden chains.50

Similar stories and traditions are found among speakers of Ugric languages. Data available from the Ob River people of Siberia, a population speaking languages distantly related to Hungarian,51 demonstrate a wide variety of ritual activities reflecting a deeply ingrained belief in the sacredness of the bear. In this region bear shamanism is still practiced along with ritual song and dance in honor of their supreme deity Numi-torum, often conceived as an ursine being (i.e., as a celestial bear),52 and his delegate to the world, Little Bear.53 Among the Khanty (Ostyaks), hunting the earthly representative or incarnation of the astral bear is still done for real, rather than being purely ceremonial and/or pantomimed as it is today in other parts of Europe, particularly in the Pyrenean-Cantabrian zone where the brown bear (Ursus arctos) is on the verge of extinction.

For this reason, of particular interest are the narratives of Finno-Ugric peoples. The Finns, Khanty (Ostyaks) and Mansi

49 Matti Sarmela: The Bear in the Finnish Environment: Discontinuity of Cultural Existence. Trans. by Annira Silver (2005). Appendix: Ritva Boom (1982). Helsinki, 2006, http://www.kotikone.fi/matti.sarmela/bear.html.

50 Sarmela: The Bear in the Finnish Environment. Discontinuity of Cultural Existence.

51 Along with Hungarian (Magyar), Khanty and Mansi (Ob-Ugrian) make up the Ugric (or Yugric) branch of the Finno-Ugric family.

52 Schmidt uses the term astral bear rather than celestial bear. Cf. Schmidt: Bear Cult and Mythology of the Northern Ob-Ugrians, p. 192.

53 E. A. Alekseenko: The Cult of the Bear among the Ket (Yenisei Ostyaks), in: Popular Beliefs and Folklore Tradition in Siberia (Vilmos Diszegi, ed.), Bloomington, Indiana/The Hague, 1968, p. 175-191. B. Klmn: Two Purification Rites in the Bear Cult of the Ob-Ugrians, in: Popular Beliefs and Folklore Tradition in Siberia (Vilmos Diszegi, ed.), Bloomington, Indiana/The Hague, 1968, 85-92.

20

(Voguls) tell a story of the earthly bear's origin on a cloud near the Great Bear constellation. The bear comes down to earth to establish the Brenfest ceremony, and then returns to the sky. Like other bears since then, which are killed, the bears spirit was to be sent home in accordance with the ceremony that it had taught humans at the beginning of time.54 In the Khanty sacred tale, there is an explicit spatial dimension to the tale, a vertical axis so that when the tale begins the main character, a bear cub, is portrayed as inhabiting a hut in the Upper World. At this point in time bears still lived in heaven. Then, one day Father Bear goes out on a hunt. While he is absent, the little bear manages to break the lock on the hut and enters the courtyard of heaven. But being an ungainly cub, her paw sinks deep through the floor of the Upper World, and, looking through the hole, the cub glimpses Middle Earth and the people who inhabit it. She is so pleased by what she sees that she pleads with her father, Numi-torum, to allow her to visit the world below, and finally convinces him. However, she receives permission only after being instructed by her father to reward the good people and punish the wicked. She is also told to explain to humans how to conduct the bear ceremony, letting people how they are to act, and to communicate to them the meaning of ceremonys ritual component.55

Upon its demise, the slain bears soul was said to return home where it would convey the details of its death and the feast held in its honor to a chief or animal master, the Guardian of the Animals who, in turn, appears to have been identified with or otherwise connected to the celestial bear. In a fashion reminiscent of the actions attributed to the main character of the Finno-Ugric tale, we find that in the Basque version of the Bear Son saga, one day when Father Bear goes out to hunt, Little Bear manages to remove the stone blocking the entrance to the bear cave, breaking the lock so to speak, and he then heads off to explore the outer world, but without the explicit permission of his father, the Great Bear.

Because of the strong matrifocal nature of Khanty society, female shamanism was prevalent.56 For this reason in the Khanty texts, the figure of the Little Bear intermediary is portrayed as female rather than male. There is evidence for a female-oriented interpretation of the European materials also which may be reflected in the figures of the pre-Christian Basque goddess Mari and her animal helpers, the Italian Befana and the Germanic Percht(a)/Bercht(a). In the case of the latter figure we should keep in mind that the etymology of this term (and its phonological variants such as precht and brecht) takes us back to the etymon of Germanic words for bear, namely, *bher- bright, brown which also shows up in Hans Rupert/Ruprecht: Das Wort percht entspricht althochdeutsch peraht/beraht und bedeutet strahlend, glnzend, und es ist in dieser Bedeutung in Eigennamen wie

54 Paul Shepard and Barry Sanders: The Sacred Paw: The Bear in Nature, Myth and Literature, New York, NY, 1992, p. 62.

55 Shepard and Sanders: The Sacred Paw. The Bear in Nature, Myth and Literature, p. 63.

56 O. Nahodi: Mother Cult in Siberia, in: Popular Beliefs and Folklore Tradition in Siberia (Vilmos Diszegi, ed.), Bloomington, Indiana/The Hague, 1968, p. 387-406. Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer: Sacred Genders in Siberia: Shamans, Bear Festivals and Androgyny, in: Gender Reversals and Gender Cultures (Sabrina Petra Ramet, ed.), London/New York, 1996, p. 164-182. In this regard the ferocity and bravery displayed by a female bear when protecting her cubs should not be underestimated.

21

Berchthold, Albrecht, Rupprecht/Rupert bis heute erhalten. [] Mit der Etymologie des Namens Bercht(a)/Percht(a) hat man sich seit dem frhen 18.Jahrhundert beschftigt: Er wurde einerseits mit dem bereits erwhnten althochdeutschen Wort peraht/beraht in Verbindung gebracht; demgem wrde er also entweder die Leuchtende, Strahlende meinenoder aber die 'Frau der Perchtnacht'. 57

Religious connotations Shepard summarizes the Khanty beliefs, saying:

For the Ostyaks [Khanty], the bear serves as a delegate from the world of the supernatural, the world beyond man. The feast of the bear is intended to make clear the connection between the holy places where the ceremony was performed and heaven itself. By enacting the feast, the Ostyaks ensure that their souls will wander to that holy spot where the fate of humans is finally decided. In a sense, then, their lives rest in the hands of the bear.58

In contrast to the Finno-Ugric mythic traditions, the European Bear Son is born of a human female and a great bear. When he is seven years old he tells his mother that he wants to go out into the world, and gains her permission, sometimes saying that he wants to do so in order to play with human children. After the hero manages to remove the stone that serves as a lock on the bear cave, he takes off along with his mother, although soon afterwards she disappears from the story. While in these extant European Bear Son narratives there is no explicit mention of an association between the Bear Sons father and a celestial bear, there is other evidence that supports such a conclusion: there are clear indications of a residual belief in a celestially conceived ursine deity among the Basques.59 For example, the celestial bear is portrayed as residing in heaven, seated next to St. Peter, while the first question that St. Peter asks a persons soul upon its arrival at the Gate of Heaven is: How did you treat the bears? In the same regard, at local hermitages and sacred sites across Europe we encounter the presence of bear imagery, stories of saints and their bear companions. In fact, the names of saints connected to such sites (e.g., St. Ursula) often resonate linguistically with the former ursine occupants venerated by the local populace.60

Indeed, after analyzing residual linguistic and ethnographic evidence, the Basque researcher Patziku Perurena did not hesitate suggest that to the Bear Son hero, who is called Hamalau in Euskera, would be best understood as the central pre-Christian deity of the Basques (Hamalaua, gure Jaingo Hamalau, our

57 Erich Mller and Ulrich Mller: Percht und Krampus, Kramperl und Schiach-Perchten, in: Mittelalter-Mythen 2. Dmonen-Monster-Fabelwesen (Ulrich Mller and Werner Wunderlich, eds.), St. Gallen, 1999, p. 450, http://www.fmueller.net/krampus_de.html.

58 Shepard and Sanders: The Sacred Paw: The Bear in Nature, Myth and Literature, p. 63.

59 Cf. Frank and Arregi Bengoa: Hunting the European Sky Bears: On the Origins of the Non-Zodiacal Constellations, p. 15-43. Hollingsworth: A Basque Superstition, p. 132-133

60 For a more detailed account of the celestial bear and religious sites connected to it, cf. Roslyn M. Frank: Rethinking the Linguistic Landscape of Europe: The Indo-European Homeland in Light of Palaeolithic Continuity Refugium Theory (PCRT).

22

god).61 Other investigators have come to similar conclusions with respect to the widespread evidence for European traditions linked to bear ceremonialism, linguistic avoidance practices, ritual performances and the prevalence of ursine inspired actors such as the Straw-bears and their relatives discussed in this document. We might even say that a consensus is building in this respect, especially among French researchers who frequently characterize the bear as le premier dieu of Europeans. At this stage we also are confronted with the more complex question of the age of the belief system itself, given the evidence for what appears to be the ritualized manipulation of bears and their skeletal parts in prehistory, social practices dating back at least to the Upper Palaeolithic.62

In reference to the veneration of the bear ancestor and its celestial projection, Paul Shepard has argued that it is an eco-centric worldview that incarnates a kind of trophic metaphysics where the complex network of food-chain relations is understood and articulated in narrative and social practice. Furthermore he has suggested that initially the image of Ursa Major, the sidereal bear was projected on the upper world as the mythic celestial equivalent of these relations in the earthly world.63 Gary Snyder, on the other hand, speaks of the process of re-inhabitation where the separation and alienation between human and animal is bridged and the boundaries between Culture and Nature become diffuse.64 Certainly assuming that we descend from bears ruptures more familiar hierarchical anthropocentric modes of thought.

Sarmela compares the Finno-Ugric ursine cosmology to religious belief systems found in other parts of Europe, religions that are characterized, too, by the veneration of a deity that dies, is buried and then is resurrected.

Hunters would have invested their hopes in the bear who was born high in the heavens, descended to earth, died and was buried, but would be resurrected to live again as the first among all game animals or perhaps of all creation. The bear living in heaven had to descend and die, like people and all creatures on earth. [] The bear cult would thus manifest early hunters ideas of immortality, the continuation of eternal life. Each bear hunting drama would recreate the primeval mythical event and reinforce the order of life determined at that time, the natural cycle of life [and death].65

The proper performance of bear rituals insured the availability of forest game, and turned humans into key actors within this cosmic drama. Rather than being passive bystanders, humans become active participants and their behaviour as individuals was viewed as directly impacting the material and spiritual well-being of the community as a whole and, indeed, Nature itself.

If we were to view the Finno-Ugric bear rituals through the prism provided by the ursine genealogy we have documented in

61 Patziku Perurena: Euskarak Sorgindutako Numeroak, Donostia, 1993, p. 265.

62 Christian Bernadac: Le premier Dieu, Paris, 2000, p. 370. Lajoux: L'homme et l'ours, p. 213-220. Pastoureau: Lours. Histoire dun roi dchu, p. 23-51.

63 Shepard: Bear essay, p. 6. Paul Shepard: The significance of bears, in: Encounters with Nature: Essays (Florence R. Shepard, ed.), Washington, DC/Covelo, CA, 1999, p. 92-97.

64 Gary Snyder: The Practice of the Wild, San Francisco, 1990, p. 155-174.

65 Sarmela: The Bear in the Finnish Environment. Discontinuity of Cultural Existence.

23

this study, the bear would have been conceptualized as a form of human being, while for humans the opposite also would have been true: they would have formed part of bearkind. In short, we find that among these hunter-gatherer peoples there was no great distinction drawn between man and animals. The bear may have also been the redeemer of mans resurrection. The hunt drama would reflect mans struggle to solve the mystery of life and death. 66

As Shepard has observed, in the Bear Son stories the woman is mated with a divinity, the Great Bear, becoming herself a sacred procreator, and thus is involved with a form of immaculate conception. The Bear God dies for the welfare of his people, exacting atonement and propitiation from the hunters. He becomes the archetype of all bears who will die in the future and, therefore, will be able to judge the spiritual state of human hunters. As food, the slain bear becomes a sacramental entity.67 As a religious symbol, the bear has bridged language and culture barriers and conveyed its message across continents and through millennia. The most potent of those messages is that of its own life cycle.68 In summary, we could argue that in Europe through collective performances, albeit mimed, of the hunt, capture, killing and eating of the earthly bearthe transfigured body of the Bear Sonthe complex relationship holding between humans and their bear ancestor, the Great Bear in the sky, was reaffirmed.69

In conclusion, once the symbolic order that we have discussed is contextualized and viewed from this broader perspective, it becomes apparent that we are looking at a cultural product of a hunter-gatherer mentality, centered on the idea that that humans descended from bears, as well as the strong possibility that the animistic world view reflected in the Straw-Bears and their performances, also had a shamanic component. As we have noted, it is highly unlikely that such a belief system would have originated among pastoralists and farmers: it does not have the characteristics one would associate with a Neolithic mindset. On the other hand the European ursine cosmology resonates strongly with the symbolic order of historically attested hunter-gatherer cultures in other parts of the world, especially circumpolar populations, where the bear has had an analogous role in the symbolic order.70 In short, when the cultural survivals found in Germanic-speaking zones are

66 Sarmela: The Bear in the Finnish Environment. Discontinuity of Cultural Existence.

67 Shepard and Sanders: The Sacred Paw: The Bear in Nature, Myth and Literature, p. 59.

68 David Rockwell: Giving Voice to Bear: North American Indian Myths, Rituals and Images of the Bear, Niwot, Colorado, 1991, p. 193.

69 The following observations by Matheiu might be applicable to the ursine symbolic order embodied in European ritual practices: "On peut alors parler, au moins dans l'imaginaire, de mtamorphose du chamane en ours: des lgendes chinoise et amricaines content l'histoire de sorciers ou de hros rellement changs en ours. En fait, cette croyance en rvle une autre: si le chamane peut se transformer en ours, c'est parce que l'ours est lui-mme un homme mtamorphos. Dans les aires gographiques tudies ici, il n'est gure de conviction plus profondment ancre: il fut un temps o l'ours tait un homme; grattez sa peau, vous trouverez un tre humain (Mathieu : La patte de lours , p. 13).

70 Robert A. Brightman: 2002. Grateful Prey: Rock Cree Human-Animal Relationships, Regina, Saskatchewan. Boris Chiclo: Lours shaman, in: tudes mongoles et sibriennes, 1981, 12, p. 35-112. Irving A. Hallowell: Bear Ceremonialism in the Northern Hemisphere, in: American Anthropologist 1926, 28: 1-175. Elgstrm and Manker: Bjrnfesten. David Rockwell: Giving Voice to Bear: North American Indian Myths, Rituals and Images of the Bear.

24

compared to these more elaborated forms of bear ceremonialism we can appreciate the fact that the ursine cosmology has also played a major role in shaping the ecological and religious belief system not only of Germanic peoples but of Europeans in general.

Other transformative aspects of the ursine cosmogony The past decade has seen a flood of books dealing with different aspects of this topic and with increasing emphasis on documenting pan-European manifestations of bear ceremonialism. While these studies have frequently stressed shamanic connotations, far less emphasis has been placed on the transformative nature of the message communicated to us by the ursine cosmology. In this respect, the remarkable investigations of Jean Dominique Lajoux and Paul Shepard stand out in that they explicitly argue for a reinterpretation of the religious dimension of this ursine cosmogony.71 Indeed, a world view in which humans trace their ancestry back to bears requires us to rethink a large number of things, not the least of which is our relationship to non-human animals and Nature as a whole. It also calls into question the widely accepted Western dichotomy of Nature : Culturesetting humans totally apart from Naturewhich, in turn, underlies the equally fallacious Body : Mind opposition so dear to Western thought. And finally, if we want to recuperate the cosmovision embedded in this ursine cosmology and related performance art, we must be careful not to view it too narrowly, i.e., through a lens blurred by modern Western cultural conceptualizations.72 Rather, we must attempt to tease out additional knowledge from it concerning the earlier animistic conceptual framework and not fall into the trap of reconstructing nothing more than a mirror of Western post-Neolithic thought processes.73

As we have seen, throughout Europe still today we encounter abundant examples of the cultural practices that implicate the previous veneration of bears and the bear ancestor. In other words, a cosmogony that allows human animals to view themselves as the offspring of bears cannot be properly understood unless we attempt to see what it would look like through the eyes of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and/or their modern counterparts (modern day hunter-gatherer societies) whose lives and sustenance depend on Nature, as do our own, ultimately. At the same time, this self-exploration requires us to look deep inside our Western mindset and seek out patterns that are truly transformative, in that they might allow us to break out of habits of thought that are almost invisible or at least not readily accessible to us because of the fact that they form such an integral part of the Western thought, e.g., the aforementioned facile dichotomies such as Culture vs. Nature and its counterpart Civilization vs. Barbarism (Wilderness).74

71 Lajoux: L'homme et l'ours. Shepard and Sanders: The Sacred Paw: The Bear in Nature, Myth and Literature.

72 For a more detailed discussion of the value system embedded in the ursine cosmology, cf. Roslyn M. Frank: Shifting identities: A Comparative Study of Basque and Western Cultural Conceptualizations, in: Cahiers of the Association for French Language Studies 2005, 11 (2), p. 1-54, http://www.afls.net/Cahiers/11.2/Frank.pdf.

73 Nurit Bird-David: Animism Revisited: Personhood, Environment, and Relational Epistemology, in: Current Anthropology, 1999, 40, p. 67-91.

74 Cf. Frank: Shifting Identities: The Metaphorics of Nature-Culture Dualism in Western and Basque Models of Self, p. 66-95.

25

Moreover, there is another aspect of the ursine cosmology that we must keep in mind: that not only the main character, but humans in general are endowed with same combined nature. Stated differently, human beings saw themselves as partaking of two natures, two totally fused natures: they were both human and bear. Of course, this complex notion of self- and human-identity is quite foreign to us. Yet, there is a possibility that a kind of transformative power is conferred by the very act of conducting Good-Luck Visits, dressing as a Straw-bear or otherwise taking part in the European ftes de lours.75

In conclusion, the process of identifying relatives of the German Straw-bears, a search that led us across spatial as well as temporal boundaries, has constituted a trip back in time to a much earlier European cosmovision and an encounter with the widespread belief that humans descended from bears, a belief that continued into the 20th century among Basque-speakers. When viewed from within this larger European cosmological context, the role of the Germanic Straw-bears as transformers becomes apparent. They are ancient and pervasive symbols of transformation which cause us to reflect upon ourselves and the limitations of our contemporary Western mindset.

No longer is it is a worldview that represents humans as totally separate and superior to animals; nor is it one that sets up the dualistic opposition of Culture to Nature. The Straw-bear performances are survivals, forming part of what was once a vibrant pan-European legacy of archaic belief. As such, they remind us of our embeddedness in Nature and our continuity as human animals, across time and space. Viewed from this perspective, it would also seem that over many millennia human performers have acted as transformers in the following sense: by dressing as bears, they celebrated the dual nature of humankind and in the process allowed human animals to reconnect and identify with their ursine brethren and Nature itself.

Therefore, from this angle our study might be viewed as a tribute to all of those unnamed individuals who passed the Straw-bear tradition down from one generation to the next by taking part in Good-Luck Visits. In short, we see that the Germanic Straw-bears and related performance art could be transformed into vibrant 21st century symbols if they were infused with the older meanings, ones that, quite remarkably, resonate deeply with 21st century concerns about the future of our planet, global warming, the reckless exploitation of the earths natural resources, etc. Consequently, one of the major goals of this research initiative has been to breath new life and meaning into the symbolic order comprised by the Straw-bears and their European relatives.

75 Daniel Fabre and Charles Camberoque: La Fte en Languedoc: Regards sur le Carnaval aujourd'hui. Toulouse, [1977] 1990. Patrick Mabey: Smeared Soot and Black Blood: Reintroducing the Brown Bear to the Pyrenees and its Festivals (M.A. Thesis in Environmental Humanities), University of Utah, 2007.