Animal Legends and Lore

[brotherbear]

Grizzly Years by Doug Peacock.

There is a whole chapter in Doug Peacock's book titled: THE SACRED BEAR OF THE BLACKFEET. There is far more than I have the energy or the necessary patience to copy one letter at a time by hand. But here is a small potion... American thinker and scholar Paul Shepard, writing with his colleague Barry Sanders, has said the Blackfeet myth of the bear has roots in some of the oldest of Asian religious traditions, customs which, like the American Indians', had a common origin in the prehistoric world and which live on in the language and ceremonies of the native peoples of the circumpolar north.

To the ancient Blackfeet the grizzly, whom they called Real Bear, was the most esteemed of all animals. Many surviving tales evolved from elements of the much older traditions of the Spirit Bear, the most common of which are variations in the story of the Medicine Grizzly.

The great bear was a healer and the source of power of the medicine pipe. The Blackfeet, following the way of the grizzly, held the pipe in both hands. Real Bear was killed only as a sacred enemy, and during such hunts the name of the bear was never spoken. Instead - and this indirect reference to bears occurred throughout the tribal cultures of circumpolar Europe, Asia, and North America - he was called Old Grandfather, Old Man, Old Honey Paws, or Crooked Tail. Reply