Bear cult

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The bear cult is a religious ritual of Nordic ethnic groups in which bears are particularly worshiped. Throughout the shamanistic influenced cultural complex Siberia and paleo-Siberia , as well as Korea to the Ainu , but also in the North American cultural complex Subarctic or was the bear worship is exercised. The descent of humans from the bear is generally accepted in the local ethnic religions and the " lord of the animals " - the most important deity of animistic hunters - lives deep in the taiga and is in the form of a bear. The cult includes various ritual acts in bear hunting, the bear feast and the treatment of its remains, as well as special songs, performances or games. Even with the northern European Sami - especially with the Skolt seeds northeast of Lake Inari - part of the earlier bear cult has been preserved despite centuries of forced Christianization . The bear festival iyomante of the Ainu on Hokkaidō ( Japan ) is particularly important and well known .

Bears have long impressed people, Grizzly, USA

The term also describes a theory popular in the 20th century by religious scholars such as Mircea Eliade and Joseph Campbell , according to which so-called early humans (members of now extinct species of the homo genus ) practiced hunting magic and a bear cult. (see Religion in the Paleolithic )

The bear in mythology

Bears are not only impressive and sometimes dangerous mammals for people who hunt and search for caves . When erected, they also appear human-like, they inhabit or occupy caves and occur both individually and in smaller family groups.

They play a correspondingly important role in the mythology of hunting peoples and in the stories of modern societies to this day. The discussions about the shooting down of the bear Bruno in Bavaria in June 2006 or about the survival of the polar bear cub Knut in Berlin at the beginning of 2007 show the emotional impact of the animal in the present.

In the north of the Cretan peninsula Akrotiri , this grotto is named after a bear-shaped stalagmite , dedicated to Panagia Arkoudiotissa (Holy Virgin of the Bear Cave), or Arkoudospilios, for the cave of the she-bear. There are indications that the cave was used for cultic purposes in the Neolithic and Minoan times. In ancient times , the goddess Artemis was worshiped here. To the left of the cave entrance is a small chapel from the 16th century, in which elements of the ancient cult have been preserved.

In Greek mythology, the bear is the attribute of several deities, most notably Artemis , the goddess of the hunt. According to mythical tradition, the Artemis sanctuary of Brauronia (today's Vraona, not far from Athens) was built to atone for the killing of a bear that had eaten a child. In the sanctuary from the 6th century until the Hellenistic epoch, festivities in honor of Artemis were carried out every five years in spring, at the end of which there was the sacrifice of a she-bear. Young girls who were brought up in the sanctuary of Artemis were called Arktoi : "(little) bears".

The myth of Atalante , who according to some authors was the only woman to take part in the Argonauts' procession, tells that she was raised by a she-bear after her father, Jasus, King of Arcadia , abandoned his daughter on Mount Parthenion.

Even Paris , son of Priam and Hecuba said to have been raised by a she-bear: Before his birth Hecuba dreamed that it would bring no child but a torch to the world that Troy will set on fire. Priam then wanted to get rid of the newborn and sent one of his servants to kill Paris in a forest. The servant took pity on the child and left him on Mount Ida , where a she-bear took care of him. Later, Paris was raised by shepherds .

Greek mythology also knows cases of sexual connections between bears and humans, for example in the myth of Polyphonte , who had made a vow of chastity in honor of Artemis, which evoked the wrath of Aphrodite . She tempted and made gifts to Polyphonte in a number of ways. But Polyphonte remained steadfast, which provoked Aphrodite's lust for vengeance, so that Polyphonte was inflamed with passion for a bear. The union of Polyphontes with the bear resulted in Agrios (the savage) and Oreios (the mountain dweller), two beings of immense power who feared neither humans nor gods. Zeus therefore asked Hermes to kill her. But Ares , an ancestor of Polyphontes, took pity on the mother and her two sons and turned them all three into birds, an owl and two vultures. The mythical hunter Kephalos , famous for his extraordinary beauty, suffered from childlessness. He therefore consulted the Oracle of Delphi, who advised him to unite with the first female he would meet on the way back. He met a she-bear, united with her, and she gave birth to Arkeisios, one of whose descendants Odysseus was .

In Celtic mythology, the bear is the attribute of the goddess Artio . A votive figure (from the 2nd century) found in Muri near Bern in 1832 shows the goddess with a bear.

With the myth of Juan Oso , the son of a bear and a woman he abducted, and the dance of the bears (ukuku) among the Quechua people in Cusco , the bear cult still has a place in the mythology and folklore of indigenous peoples in Latin America .

The bear cult among the Ainu

Iyomante around 1930

Not the only, but by far the most famous bear cult comes from the Ainu , the indigenous people of the island of Hokkaidō, which today belongs to Japan .

In the Ainu language , the bear is called kamuy , which is also the term for “god”. In the animistic belief system of this hunter-gatherer people , the gods ( kamuy ) take predominantly animal forms to visit the world and people. Young bears are caught and raised as Kamuy ambassadors until they are around two years old before they are sent back during the bear festival ( iyomante or iomante ), i.e. H. killed and ritually worshiped.

In the course of a newly awakening self-confidence and also through the UN's struggle for recognition since the 1970s against the previously prevalent assimilation policy of Japan, the culture and religion of the Ainu have become known worldwide.

The bear cult as a theory of religious studies

The discussion about whether early humans had developed spiritual gifts, descriptions of ethnology, for example about the Ainu Bear Festival and finds of apparently aligned bear skulls and bones in several caves, dating to during or before the Paleolithic , also led the religious scholar Mircea Eliade to the assumption even as hunters, early humans cultivated a bear cult that is widespread worldwide. This thesis can be found in popular scientific literature to this day and was advocated more recently by Joseph Campbell , for example .

However, more detailed research has shown that the apparent alignment of the (wedge-shaped) bear skulls can be explained much better by the action of water in the caves than by humans, i.e. it is more coincidental and apparent. The communal appearance of cave bear skeletons is also nothing special, as they like to retreat to caves to rest and thus often die.

In addition, the ethnological findings also speak against the thesis of a widespread bear cult, for example in the archaic Homo sapiens . Because bears often play an important role in the existing beliefs of hunters , but they are not alone. Without exception, other animals, such as preferred hunting prey, are also venerated. Corresponding ritual places around other animals are not occupied for the early and middle Paleolithic .

The recent bear cults are also expressed in very complex rituals with high participation, sacrifices and prepared sites, whereas the alleged Erectus bear cult sites do not show any entry of human artifacts .

From a scientific point of view, the thesis of a widespread bear cult before the Middle Paleolithic must therefore be considered refuted. In terms of the history of science, however, the repercussions of recent trends and discoveries on the formation of theories in the history of mankind and the fact that contemporary hunters were declared to be the supposedly rigid guardians of traditions over centuries in order to defend the innovative potential of early humans remain interesting .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christian F. Feest : Animated Worlds - The religions of the Indians of North America. In: Small Library of Religions , Vol. 9, Herder, Freiburg / Basel / Vienna 1998, ISBN 3-451-23849-7 , p. 147.
  2. ↑ Käthe Uray-Köhalmi: Sibirische Religionen, published in: Horst Balz et al. (Ed.): Theologische Realenzyklopädie , Volume 28: "Pürstinger - Philosophy of Religion". Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York 1997, ISBN 978-3-11-019098-4 , pp. 236-240
  3. ^ Ina Wunn: Natural religions. In: Peter Antes (ed.): We believe in it - diversity of religions. Completely revised new edition, Lutherisches Verlagshaus, Hannover 2012, ISBN 978-3-7859-1087-0 , pp. 276–277.
  4. ↑ Marija Gimbutas: The living goddesses . University of California Press, 2001, ISBN 978-0-520-92709-4 , pp. 144 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  5. ↑ Hope B. Werness: The Continuum Encyclopedia of Animal Symbolism in World Art . Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006, ISBN 978-0-8264-1913-2 , pp. 36 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  6. ↑ Michel Pastoureau: The Bear. Story of a fallen king. Wunderkammer Verlag. Neu-Isenburg 2008, pp. 41–44.
  7. ↑ Ibid., P. 48.

literature

  • Joseph Campbell: Mythology of the indigenous peoples (= The Masks of God, Vol. 1). dtv. Munich 1996, ISBN 3-423-30571-1 .
  • Mircea Eliade: History of Religious Ideas. Vol. I. From the Stone Age to the Mysteries of Eleusis . Basel, Freiburg, Vienna 1978.
  • Richard B. Lee et al .: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers . Cambridge University Press 2006 (also: Ainu, iyomante).
  • André Leroi-Gourhan : The religions of prehistory: Paleolithic . Suhrkamp Verlag. Frankfurt am Main 1981, ISBN 3-518-11073-X .
  • Ina Wunn et al .: The religions in prehistoric times (= The religions of mankind, Vol. 2). Kohlhammer 2005, ISBN 3-17-016726-X (refutation).
  • Michel Pastoureau: The Bear. Story of a fallen king. Wunderkammer Verlag. Neu-Isenburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-939062-09-7 .