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Bear
Medicine
 "Come towards me now my brother
A bear has told me how, so
Friend come towards me now,
Come and see all these healings.
Come see these healings,
Brother bear has told me how."
Eagle Shield, 1914
Yavapai myth, tells us that at the dawn of time, the first great shaman
was Bear and in tales told by western sub-arctic tribes, Bear is said
to be an animal shaman who uses his powers to prophesy the future.
Shamanism is founded on
travelling to 'other worlds' to seek the help of spirit guides and helpers, both human and animal in form.
Bears live above the ground in the warmer months, and below the
ground during hibernation. For many shamanistic cultures, this represents
a liminal, or transitional state, and is often compared with
the initiatory rites of shamans. Furthermore, this ability to 'travel' above
and below the ground is symbolic of renewal and rebirth.
In many shamanistic
cultures, a shaman who is guided by Bear spirit is considered very
powerful and some even believe that bears and shamans are the same.
 ‘Whu! Bear!
Whu Whu!
So you say
Whu Whu Whu!
You come.
You’re a fine young man
You Grizzly Bear Medicine
You crawl out of your fur.
You come.
I
say Whu Whu Whu!
I
throw grease in the fire.
For you,
Grizzly Bear
We’re one!’
(Tlingit medicine song narrated
by David
Cloutier)
Bears and
traditional shamans both tend to be quite solitary: many shamans spend
much time alone in the wilderness seeking wisdom and spiritual
knowledge.
Knud Rasmussen, a
Danish explorer at
the beginning of the 20th century,
was told by an Eskimo shaman named Igjugarjuk:
‘True wisdom is
only to be found far away from people, out in the great solitude, and is
not found in play but through suffering. Solitude and suffering open a
person’s mind to things unseen, therefore a shaman must seek wisdom
there.’
Many North American Indian tribes have long thought of bears as a curing
animal, and have naturally linked this belief with the heal ing
capabilities of their shamans.
Almost all of the
Plains tribes believe that shamans with bear medicine are the most
powerful of all. These tribes include the Lakota, Yanktonai, Assiniboin,
Pawnee, Blackfeet, Cheyenne, Ponca, Mandan, Arapaho, and Iowa. This
belief is also shared by many of the eastern woodland and prairie tribes
such as the Potawatomi, Winnebago, Huron, Fox, Cree, and Objibwa. In the
southwest United States, the Pueblo word for shamans who cure the sick
is the same as the word they use for "bear".
Even more interestingly, bears have held
an important role in the cultures of many other cultures far outside of
North America, in places as far apart as England, Greece, Sweden and
throughout most of Northern Asia. In all of these places as well as many
others, Bears have been revered and considered almost as Gods, sometimes
even synonymous with Mother Earth, and most often, they have been seen
as powerful healers.
Roots and plants
have always been used for medicinal purposes. The
Cheyenne make a strong
tea from Yarrow leaves to treat colds; they use a root called “bear’s
food” to treat diarrhea. In the West,the genus name for Yarrow is
Achillea millefoliumm, derived from the mythical Greek character,
Archilles, who, it is said, carried it with his army to treat battle
wounds. It is also known as Soldier's Woundwort. The most medicinally
active part of the plant are the flowering tops which have a mild
stimulant effect, and have been used as a snuff. Today, yarrow is valued
mainly for its action in colds and influenza, and also for its effect on
the circulatory, digestive, and urinary systems. Interestingly, in I-Ching
divination, the stalks of yarrow are dried and used as a randomising
agent.
The C row use Kinnikinnick
(Arctostaphylos uva-ursi
) to treat canker
sores. The fruit of the plant is edible, and today, many people use it
for
its astringent
and diuretic
properties, to help with ailments involving inflammations of the
urinary and digestive tracts; they chew “bear root”
(Ligusticum
porteri) to soothe sore throats
and lung congestion. Bear root is a member of the parsley family and is
very difficult to cultivate: it is also known as Oshá, chuchupate, porter's lovage,
mountain ginseng, nipo, Indian root, mountain carrot, colorado cough
root, bear medicine, wild lovage, and wild parsley plant. Modern
herbalists recommend this plant as a remedy for reducing spasms,
increasing digestion, and increasing perspiration. Pueblo healers
have used bear root as a mild hallucinogen to "see" where
the medical problem lies, then the plant is administered to the patient
to heal the problem.
All of these plants, and many others used by
shamans, are foraged and eaten by bears.
“A root of herb you will eat,
at that place it stands,
A Bear said this to me.’
(Lakota medicine song quoted by Frances
Densmore)
The power and
value of Bear Medicine is widespread and very clear. In an account of the Lakota Bear
Doctor, Eagle Shield, Frances Den smore tells us that in the early 1900s
an Indian tried to commit suicide on the Standing Rock Reservation by
shooting himself in the side. The bullet missed his heart but shattered
part of his right shoulder blade. Although he survived the suicide
attempt, his arm was totally paralysed. Two white physicians told him
that he’d never recover the use of his arm and recommended amputation.
The Indian refused and sought the help of Eagle Shield who treated the
man with Yarrow and songs and ritual. The man regained full use of his
arm and paid Eagle Shield $100 plus a new white tent, a revolver and a
steer! The good news is that today, even without adjusting for
inflation, shamanic healing usually costs considerably less than this!
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