Past Exhibitions

Bear Medicine
Bears and people have lived together on the continent of North America for thousands of years. Both walked the same trails, fished the same streams, dug roots from the same field, and year after year harvested the same berries, seeds and nuts. People came face to face with the bear when both coveted the same berry patch or when a hunter returning to claim a kill came across the bear lying on the mound of the buried animal, causing one or the other to flee. The relationship was based on mutual respect but went well beyond this.

Artifacts courtesy of the Glenbow Museum Collection,
Calgary, Alberta

All across North America, native cultures honored bears. Bears were often central to the most basic rites of many tribes; the initiation of youth into adulthood, the sacred practices of shamanism, the healing of the sick and injured, and the rites surrounding a hunt.

Native people feared the bear. They were strong animals and one of the few that posed a real threat to them. Many ritual practices, myths and tales reflect this fear. But, fear alone does not account for the rich relationship between bear and man. There was also the deepest kinship towards bears. The physical similarities were especially meaningful. Standing on hind legs, sometimes-walking upright, with a high level of dexterity with their paws, for those observing, alluded to human motives and spoke in human terms.

In native terms, all animals represent a different aspect of life and they look to each for guidance and support. The wolf, as hunter, was the spiritual strength for the hunt and war parties. The buffalo represented virtue. The bear knew the secrets of the plants and was considered master and keeper of that knowledge. He was the “mysterious herbalist collecting medicines in the dense undergrowth of the wet bottomlands.”

Joseph Epes Brown wrote in his book The Spiritual Legacy of the American Indian, that for the Plains Indians, animals and other natural forms reflected aspects of God;

Animals were created before human beings, so that in their anteriority and divine origin they have a certain proximity to the Great Spirit…, which demands respect and veneration. In them the Indian sees actual reflections of the qualities of the Great Spirit, which serve the same function as revealed scriptures in other religions. They are intermediaries or links between human beings and God. This explains not only why religious devotions may be directed to the deity through the animals, but it also helps us to understand why contact with or from the Great Spirit, comes almost exclusively through visions involving animals or other natural forms.

The Shaman’s primary function was also to heal and as the two, bear and Shaman, foraged through the forests and meadows in search of the various roots, leaves and berries, they were often brought together. Nearly all the Plains people considered a Shaman with bear power to be the greatest healers of all. Such a Shaman might behave like a bear when performing the healing rites. There are many stories of how the Shaman was capable of “crossing the line”, and becoming a bear.

Native people gathered plants for medicines as well as food. Every tribal group relied on herbal medicines to treat illness and injuries and used plants for healing. Bears were known to eat the plants native people used for food but also the plants used for medicines and ceremonies. It was natural to associate bears with that of healing. As the animal gatherer of herbs and roots, the bear served as guardian of the first medicines and communicator of the knowledge of healing.