The Northern Sierra and Plains Miwok called bear doctors _sulik müko_.
These shamans donned bearskins, but, like their Yuki colleagues, had
bears as spirits and exhibited their powers publicly. Like the Yokuts
bear doctors, they were thought able to transform themselves bodily
into bears.
The Miwok relate how a man was hunting in the chaparral south of the
Stanislaus when a bear appeared and asked what he was doing. The Indian
replied that he was seeking an arrow lost in a shot at a red-headed
woodpecker. The bear led him into its cave, kept and taught him for
four days, and sent him home with several bears as guides. A white man,
married to an Indian woman, instigated the building of a dance-house
to give the bear doctor an opportunity to show his alleged powers.
The latter accepted, came, walked into the fire, pushed aside the
flaming brands and made himself a bed in the coals, arose after a time
unharmed, swam, and resumed his human form.
The Miwok panther doctor was similarly met and instructed by a
panther. He wore no skin and possessed no power of transformation. He
did, however, acquire the panther’s ability to hunt, it was thought. In
extreme old age he revealed his experiences and then died at once.
It is clear that the Miwok panther doctor is merely a shaman who has
that animal as his personal guardian spirit, and that except for his
power of transformation and the character of his guardian, the Miwok
bear doctor does not essentially differ from an ordinary shaman.
It seems therefore that the institution of the bear doctor has attained
its most extreme form among the Pomo.