One of the most concrete and persistent convictions of the Indians of a
large part of California is the belief in the existence of persons of
magic power able to turn themselves into grizzly bears. Such shamans
are called “bear doctors” by the English-speaking Indians and their
American neighbors. The belief is obviously a locally colored variant
of the widespread were-wolf superstition, which is not yet entirely
foreign to the emotional life of civilized peoples. The California
Indians had worked out their form of this concept very definitely. Thus
Dr. Kroeber says:[1]
A special class of shamans found to a greater or less extent among
probably all the Central tribes, though they are wanting both
in the Northwest and the South, are the so-called bear doctors,
shamans who have received power from grizzly bears, often by being
taken into the abode of these animals--which appear there in
human form,--and who after their return to mankind possess many
of the qualities of the grizzly bear, especially his apparent
invulnerability to fatal attack. The bear shamans can not only
assume the form of bears, as they do in order to inflict vengeance
on their enemies, but it is believed that they can be killed an
indefinite number of times when in this form and each time return
to life. In some regions, as among the Pomo and Yuki, the bear
shaman was not thought as elsewhere to actually become a bear,
but to remain a man who clothed himself in the skin of a bear
to his complete disguisement, and by his malevolence, rapidity,
fierceness, and resistance to wounds to be capable of inflicting
greater injury than a true bear. Whether any bear shamans actually
attempted to disguise themselves in this way to accomplish their
ends is doubtful. It is certain that all the members of some tribes
believed it to be in their power.
Pomo beliefs differ rather fundamentally from those here summarized.
In the first place, the Pomo appear to know nothing of the magician
acquiring his power from the bears themselves. Since they ascribe no
guardian spirit to him, he is scarcely a shaman in the strict sense
of the word. The current term “doctor,” misleading as it may seem at
first sight, may therefore be conveniently retained as free from the
erroneous connotation that “shaman” would involve.
In the second place, the power of the doctor was thought to reside
wholly in his bearskin suit, or parts thereof, and apparently was
considered the result of an elaborate ceremony performed in its
manufacture and subsequent donning. This distinctly ritualistic side
of the bear doctor’s practices removes him still more clearly from the
class of the true shaman.
Thirdly, there is a detailed Pomo tradition of the origin of bear
doctors. This story is cast in the mold of a myth; in fact, its initial
portions may be taken from the current mythology of the tribe. Other
parts are, however, remarkably unmythical and matter of fact. The
resultant whole is therefore rather incongruous, and, in the form
recorded, may have been somewhat influenced by the speculations of an
individual. But the events which it describes agree so closely with the
beliefs which the Pomo at large entertain concerning the practices of
recent bear doctors that the question of the extent of the prevalence
of the myth among the group is of less importance than the insight
which the tale affords into the Pomo mind. Its many specific references
make it a suitable introduction to the presentation of the other data
secured.
These peculiarities render a comparison of Pomo bear-doctor beliefs
with those of other Californian groups desirable, but the published
data from elsewhere are unfortunately too fragmentary to make such a
study profitable at present. It has only seemed feasible to append some
comparisons with Yuki and Miwok beliefs.
It may be added that the statements which constitute the body of this
paper are the statements of native informants cited as representative
of their convictions, and not as the opinions of the author. The degree
to which the reputed practices of bear doctors were actually practiced
is far from clear, as Dr. Kroeber has stated. Whether, however, they
rest mainly, partly, or not at all on reality, they furnish interesting
psychological material.