Bears have been depicted throughout history by many different cultures and societies. Bears are very popular animals that feature in many stories, folklores, mythology and legends from across the world, ranging from North America, Europe and Asia. In the 20th century bears have been very popular in pop culture with several high profile characters and stories with depictions of bears e.g. Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Rupert Bear, Paddington Bear and Winnie the Pooh.
There is evidence of prehistoric bear worship, though archaeologists dispute the details. [1] It is possible that bear worship existed in early Chinese and Ainu cultures. [2] The prehistoric Finns, [3] Siberian peoples [4] and more recently Koreans considered the bear as the spirit of their forefathers. [5] [ need quotation to verify ] In many Native American cultures the bear symbolizes rebirth because of its hibernation and re-emergence. [6] The image of the mother bear was prevalent throughout societies in North America and Eurasia, based on the female's devotion to and protection of her cubs. [7] Japanese folklore features the Onikuma, a "demon bear" that walks upright. [8] The Ainu of northern Japan, as ethnically distinct from the Japanese, saw the bear instead as sacred; Hirasawa Byozan painted a scene in documentary style of a bear sacrifice in an Ainu temple, complete with offerings to the dead animal's spirit. [9]
In Korean mythology, a tiger and a bear prayed to Hwanung, the son of the Lord of Heaven, that they might become human. Upon hearing their prayers, Hwanung gave them 20 cloves of garlic and a bundle of mugwort, ordering them to eat only this sacred food and to remain out of the sunlight for 100 days. The tiger gave up after about twenty days and left the cave. However, the bear persevered and was transformed into a woman. The bear and the tiger are said[ by whom? ] to represent two tribes that sought the favor of the heavenly prince. [10] The bear-woman (Ungnyeo; 웅녀/熊女) was grateful and made offerings to Hwanung. However, she lacked a husband, and soon became sad and prayed beneath a "divine birch" tree (Korean : 신단수; Hanja : 神檀樹; RR : shindansu) to be blessed with a child. Hwanung, moved by her prayers, took her for his wife and soon she gave birth to a son named Dangun Wanggeom – who was the legendary founder of Gojoseon, the first ever Korean kingdom. [11]
Artio (Dea Artio in the Gallo-Roman religion) was a Celtic bear-goddess. Evidence of her worship has notably been found at Bern, itself named for the bear. Her name is derived from the Celtic word for "bear", artos. [12] In ancient Greece, the archaic cult of Artemis in bear form survived into Classical times at Brauron, where young Athenian girls passed an initiation right as arktai "she bears". [13] For Artemis and one of her nymphs as a she-bear, see the myth of Callisto.
In pagan myths of the Russian lands bear was considered to be a mystical master/owner of forests. Consequently the original Indo-European name for such mystical heavy-weight became taboo, and Russian-speakers came to use the euphemism medved (Russian : медведь), literally meaning "honey-eater". [14] In post-christianization Russian folklore bear often appears semi-anthropomorphized as Mikhailo Ivanovich, or even more familiarly as Misha . [15] Mikhailo Ivanovich, though respected for his strength, often falls victim to tricks and cunning ploys, planned (for example) by a fox.
Bears are mentioned in the Bible; the Second Book of Kings relates the story of the prophet Elisha calling on them to eat the youths who taunted him. [16] Legends of saints taming bears are common in the Alpine zone. In the coat of arms of the bishopric of Freising, the bear is the dangerous totem animal tamed by St. Corbinian and made to carry his civilized baggage over the mountains. Bears similarly feature in the legends of St. Romedius, Saint Gall and Saint Columbanus. This Church used this recurrent motif as a symbol of the victory of Christianity over paganism. [17] In the Norse settlements of northern England during the 10th century, a type of "hogback" grave-cover of a long narrow block of stone, with a shaped apex like the roof beam of a long house, is carved with a muzzled (and thus Christianized) bear clasping each gable end, as in the church at Brompton, North Yorkshire and across the British Isles. [18]
Lāčplēsis, meaning "Bear-slayer", is a Latvian legendary hero who is said to have killed a bear by ripping its jaws apart with his bare hands. However, as revealed in the end of the long epic describing his life, Lāčplēsis' own mother had been a she-bear, and his superhuman strength resided in his bear ears. The modern Latvian military award Order of Lāčplēsis, named for the hero, is also known as The Order of the Bear-Slayer.[ citation needed ]
In the Hindu epic poem The Ramayana, the sloth bear or Asian black bear Jambavan is depicted as the king of bears and helps the title-hero Rama defeat the epic's antagonist Ravana and reunite with his queen Sita. [19] [20]
In French folklore, Jean de l'Ours is a hero born half-bear, half-human. He obtains a weapon, usually a heavy iron cane, and on his journey, bands up with two or three companions. At a castle the hero defeats an adversary, pursues him to a hole, discovers an underworld, and rescues three princesses. The companions abandon him in the hole, taking the princesses for themselves. The hero escapes, finds the companions and gets rid of them. He marries the most beautiful princess of the three, but not before going through certain ordeal(s) set by the king. [21]
Bears, like other animals, may symbolize nations. The Eurasian brown bear has been used to personify Russia since the early 19th century. [22] In 1911, the British satirical magazine Punch published a cartoon about the Anglo-Russian Entente by Leonard Raven-Hill in which the British lion watches as the Russian bear sits on the tail of the Persian cat. [23] The Russian Bear has been a common national personification for Russia from the 16th century onward. [24] Smokey Bear has become a part of American culture since his introduction in 1944, with his message "Only you can prevent forest fires". [25] In the United Kingdom, the bear and staff feature on the heraldic arms of the county of Warwickshire. [26] Bears appear in the canting arms of two cities, Bern and Berlin. [27]
In Finland, the brown bear, which is also nicknamed as the "king of the forest" by the Finns, [28] [29] is even so common that it is the country's official national mammal, [30] and occur on the coat of arms of the Satakunta region is a crown-headed black bear carrying a sword, [31] possibly referring to the regional capital city of Pori, whose Swedish name Björneborg and the Latin name Arctopolis literally means "bear city" or "bear fortress". [32]
In Madrid, Spain, the east side of the Puerta del Sol has the Statue of the Bear and the Strawberry Tree , the statue is created by sculptor Antonio Navarro Santafé and inaugurated on 19 January 1967. [33] It presents a bear supports his paws on the strawberry tree and directs his attention towards one of the fruits, represents in a real-life form the coat of arms of Madrid.
Bears are popular in children's stories, including Winnie the Pooh, [34] Paddington Bear, [35] Gentle Ben [36] and The Brown Bear of Norway . [37] An early version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears , [38] was originally published as The Three Bears in 1837 by Robert Southey, many times retold, and illustrated in 1918 by Arthur Rackham. [39] In a continuation of the anthropomorphic themes of Goldilocks are the Berenstain Bears , which behave and act like a human family.
Teddy Bears' Picnic remains a popular children's song. In fact, bears are frequently depicted in children's media as cuddly and friendly companions, such as the depiction of Baloo in Disney's version of The Jungle Book .
The Hanna-Barbera character Yogi Bear has appeared in numerous comic books, animated television shows and films. [40] [41] The Care Bears began as greeting cards in 1982, and were featured as toys, on clothing and in film. [42] Around the world, many children—and some adults—have teddy bears, stuffed toys in the form of bears, named after the American statesman Theodore Roosevelt when in 1902 he had refused to shoot an American black bear tied to a tree. [43]
In both Brave and Brother Bear , the bears depicted are used as a supernatural story telling device – the bears in the two movies swap bodies with a human character in order to teach them a lesson about familial bonds.
The constellations of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, the great and little bears, are named for their supposed resemblance to bears, from the time of Ptolemy. [lower-alpha 1] [45] The nearby star Arcturus means "guardian of the bear", as if it were watching the two constellations. [46] Ursa Major has been associated with a bear for as much as 13,000 years since Paleolithic times, in the widespread Cosmic Hunt myths. These are found on both sides of the Bering land bridge, which was lost to the sea some 11,000 years ago. [47]
It is proposed by some authors that the Old Norse warriors, the berserkers, drew their power from the bear and were devoted to the bear cult, which was once widespread across the northern hemisphere. [48] [49] The berserkers maintained their religious observances despite their fighting prowess, as the Svarfdæla saga tells of a challenge to single-combat that was postponed by a berserker until three days after Yule. [50] The bodies of dead berserkers were laid out in bearskins prior to their funeral rites. [51] The bear-warrior symbolism survives to this day in the form of the bearskin caps worn by the guards of the Danish monarchs. [50]
The Ainu are an ethnic group of related indigenous people native to northern Japan, as well as the land surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk, including Hokkaido Island, Northeast Honshu Island, Sakhalin Island, the Kuril Islands, the Kamchatka Peninsula, and the Khabarovsk Krai; they have occupied these areas since before the arrival of the modern Japanese and Russians. These regions are often referred to as Ezo (蝦夷) in historical Japanese texts.
Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae. They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout most of the Northern Hemisphere and partially in the Southern Hemisphere. Bears are found on the continents of North America, South America, and Eurasia. Common characteristics of modern bears include large bodies with stocky legs, long snouts, small rounded ears, shaggy hair, plantigrade paws with five nonretractile claws, and short tails.
In Greek mythology, Callisto was a nymph, or the daughter of King Lycaon; the myth varies in such details. She was believed to be one of the followers of Artemis who attracted Zeus. Many versions of Callisto's story survive. According to some writers, Zeus transformed himself into the figure of Artemis to pursue Callisto, and she slept with him believing Zeus to be Artemis. She became pregnant and when this was eventually discovered, she was expelled from Artemis's group, after which a furious Hera, the wife of Zeus, transformed her into a bear, although in some versions Artemis is the one to give her an ursine form. Later, just as she was about to be killed by her son when he was hunting, she was set among the stars as Ursa Major by Zeus. She was the bear-mother of the Arcadians, through her son Arcas by Zeus.
Ursa Major is a constellation in the northern sky, whose associated mythology likely dates back into prehistory. Its Latin name means "greater bear", referring to and contrasting it with nearby Ursa Minor, the lesser bear. In antiquity, it was one of the original 48 constellations listed by Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD, drawing on earlier works by Greek, Egyptian, Babylonian, and Assyrian astronomers. Today it is the third largest of the 88 modern constellations.
In the Old Norse written corpus, berserkers were those who were said to have fought in a trance-like fury, a characteristic which later gave rise to the modern English word berserk. Berserkers are attested to in numerous Old Norse sources.
In Finnish mythology, Otso is a bear, the sacred king of animals and leader of the forest. It was deeply feared and respected by old Finnish tribes. Otso appears in the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala. Due to the importance of the bear spirit in historical Finnish paganism, bears are still considered by many Finns to be kings of the forest, and the bear is even the national animal of Finland.
Dangun or Tangun, also known as Dangun Wanggeom, was the legendary founder and god-king of Gojoseon, the first Korean kingdom, around present-day Liaoning province in Northeast China and the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. He is said to be the "grandson of heaven" and "son of a bear", and to have founded the kingdom in 2333 BC. The earliest recorded version of the Dangun legend appears in the 13th-century Samguk Yusa, which cites China's Book of Wei and Korea's lost historical record Gogi. However, it has been confirmed that there is no relevant record in China's Book of Wei. There are around seventeen religious groups that focus on the worship of Dangun.
Gojoseon, also called Joseon, was the first kingdom on the Korean Peninsula. According to Korean mythology, the kingdom was established by the legendary king Dangun. Gojoseon possessed the most advanced culture in the Korean Peninsula at the time and was an important marker in the progression towards the more centralized states of later periods. The addition of Go, meaning "ancient", is used in historiography to distinguish the kingdom from the Joseon dynasty, founded in 1392 CE.
Ainu music is the musical tradition of the Ainu people of northern Japan. Ainu people have no indigenous system of writing, and so have traditionally inherited the folklore and the laws of their culture orally, often through music.
Haneunim or Hanunim is the sky God of Cheondoism and Jeungsanism. In the more Buddhist-aligned parts of these religions, he is identified with Indra. In the more Taoist-aligned parts of these religions, he is also known as Okhwang Sangje and under that name, he is a deity in the Poncheongyo religion.
In Greek mythology, Helice was a name shared by several women:
Lāčplēsis is an epic poem by Andrejs Pumpurs, a Latvian poet, who wrote it between 1872 and 1887 based on local legends. It is set during the Livonian Crusades telling the story of the mythical hero Lāčplēsis "the Bear Slayer". Lāčplēsis is regarded as the Latvian national epic.
The Big Dipper or the Plough is a large asterism consisting of seven bright stars of the constellation Ursa Major; six of them are of second magnitude and one, Megrez (δ), of third magnitude. Four define a "bowl" or "body" and three define a "handle" or "head". It is recognized as a distinct grouping in many cultures. The North Star (Polaris), the current northern pole star and the tip of the handle of the Little Dipper, can be located by extending an imaginary line through the front two stars of the asterism, Merak (β) and Dubhe (α). This makes it useful in celestial navigation.
Hwanung is an important figure in the mythological origins of Korea. He plays a central role in the story of Dangun Wanggeom (단군왕검/檀君王儉), the legendary founder of Gojoseon, the first kingdom of Korea. Hwanung is the son of Hwanin, the "Lord of Heaven". Along with his ministers of clouds, rain, and wind, he instituted laws and moral codes and taught the humans various arts, medicine, and agriculture.
Bear worship is the religious practice of the worshipping of bears found in many North Eurasian ethnic religions such as among the Sami, Nivkh, Ainu, Basques, Germanic peoples, Slavs and Finns. There are also a number of deities from Celtic Gaul and Britain associated with the bear, and the Dacians, Thracians, and Getians were noted to worship bears and annually celebrate the bear dance festival. The bear is featured on many totems throughout northern cultures that carve them.
A kamuy is a spiritual or divine being in Ainu mythology, a term denoting a supernatural entity composed of or possessing spiritual energy.
High visibility of the star cluster Pleiades in the night sky and its position along the ecliptic has given it importance in many cultures, ancient and modern. Its heliacal rising, which moves through the seasons over millennia was nonetheless a date of folklore or ritual for various ancestral groups, so too its yearly heliacal setting.
Mu (Korean: 무) is the Korean term for a shaman in Korean shamanism. Korean shamans hold rituals called gut for the welfare of the individuals and the society.
In Greek mythology, Cynosura is the name of an Idaean Oread nymph from the island Crete who brought up a young Zeus during his early years when he hid from his father Cronus, and ended up among the stars.
The Adventures of Massang is a Kalmyk folktale about a strong hero born of a cow, who finds three companions and has further adventures. The tale was published in the Siddi-Kur, a compilation of Kalmyk and Mongolian stories.
in the Meiji period .. handscroll of paintings of Ainu dwellings and customs .. The painter was Hirasawa Byozan and he titled the work Scenes of the Daily Life of the Ezo. His paintings are documentary, even anthropological in intent, for all their beauty.
Праслав. *medvědь (первонач. 'поедатель меда', от мёд и *ěd-) представляет собой табуистическую замену исчезнувшего и.-е. *r̥kþos, др.-инд. r̥kṣas, греч. ἄρκτος, лат. ursus [...].
