"The Indians entertain great apprehension of this kind of a bear,
which is called the grisly bear, and they never venture to attack it
except in a party of least three or four."
Henry M. Brackenridge, author of "Views of Louisiana," wrote the
following from hearsay:--
"This animal is the monarch of the country which he inhabitates. The
African lion or the Bengal tiger are not more terrible than he. He
is the enemy of man and literally thirsts for human blood. So far
from shunning, he seldom fails to attack and even to hunt him. The
Indians make war upon these ferocious monsters with ceremonies as
they do upon a tribe of their own species, and, in the recital of
their victories, the death of one of them gives the warrior greater
renown than the scalp of an enemy. He possesses an amazing strength,
and attacks without hesitation and tears to pieces the largest
buffalo."
The first paragraph which Lewis and Clark wrote concerning the grizzly,
April 29, 1805, says:
"We proceeded early, with a moderate wind. Captain Lewis, who was on
shore with one hunter, met about eight o'clock two white bears. Of
the strength and ferocity of this animal the Indians had given us
dreadful accounts; they never attack him but in parties of six or
eight persons, and even then are often defeated with a loss of one
or more of the party. Having no weapons but bows and arrows, and
the bad guns which the traders supply them, they are obliged to
approach very near the bear, and as no wound except through the head
or heart is fatal they frequently fall a sacrifice if they miss
their aim. He rather attacks than avoids man, and such is the terror
which he has inspired that the Indians who go in quest of him paint
themselves and perform all the superstitious rites customary when
they make war on a neighboring nation. Hitherto those we had seen
did not appear desirous of encountering us, but although to a
skillful rifleman the danger is very much diminished, yet the white
bear is still a terrible animal. On the approach of these two, both
Captain Lewis and the hunter fired and each wounded a bear; one of
them made his escape; the other turned upon Captain Lewis and
pursued him seventy or eighty yards, but being badly wounded he
could not run so fast as to prevent him reloading his piece, which
he again aimed at him, and a third shot from the hunter brought him
to the ground."
Below are two additional paragraphs from the Journal of Lewis and Clark.
These show that the grizzly was most wide-awake and curious, and also
that he was not accustomed to being afraid.
"The bear which gave so much trouble on the head of the Missouri are
equally fierce in this quarter. This morning one of them, which was
on a sand-bar as the boat passed, raised himself on his hind feet
and after looking at the party, plunged in and swam towards them. He
was received with three balls in the body; he then turned around and
made for the shore. Towards evening another entered the water to
swim across. Captain Clark ordered the boat towards the shore, and
just as the bear landed shot the animal in the head. It proved to be
the largest female they had ever seen, and so old that its tusks
were worn quite smooth."
"Just as he arrived near Willow Run, he approached a thicket of
brush in which was a white bear, which he did not discover till he
was within ten feet of him; his horse started, and wheeling suddenly
round, threw M'Neal almost immediately under the bear, who started
up instantly, and finding the bear raising himself on his hind feet
to attack him, struck him on the head with the butt end of his
musket; the blow was so violent that it broke the breech of the
musket and knocked the bear to the ground, and before he recovered,
M'Neal, seeing a willow tree close by, sprang up, and there
remained while the bear closely guarded the foot of the tree until
late in the afternoon. He then went off, and M'Neal being released
came down, and having found his horse, which had strayed off to the
distance of two miles, returned to camp. These animals are, indeed,
of a most extraordinary ferocity, and it is matter of wonder that in
all our encounters we have had the good fortune to escape."
The grizzly was introduced to the world by Governor DeWitt Clinton of
New York, who appears to have taken his information from the Journal of
Lewis and Clark. In the course of an address before the Literary and
Philosophical Society of New York City in 1814, he completely
misinterpreted the real character of the grizzly and popularized a
number of errors that not only were believed then but have survived to
this day. The real grizzly is a distinguished character; but the grizzly
as commonly described by tongue and story--well, "there ain't no such
animal."
Governor Clinton in discussing the work in store for the coming
naturalists said, "There is the white, brown, or grizzly bear, the
ferocious tyrant of the American woods--it exists, the terror of the
savages, the tyrant of all other animals, devouring alike man and beast
and defying the attacks of a whole tribe of Indians." Few people realize
to what extent these inaccurate words have discouraged outdoor life and
how enormously they have contributed to the output of fictitious nature
writing.
The Indians had a profound respect for the fighting efficiency of the
grizzly. When one of them killed a grizzly he triumphantly wore the claw
as a medal for rare bravery. The grizzly has a head and a hide that the
Indian could rarely penetrate with either an arrow or a spear. We may
readily believe that the grizzly defied the attacks of "a whole tribe of
Indians," as Governor DeWitt Clinton said. He would defy a whole tribe
of Indians or a score of white men with similar weapons to-day. So, too,
would the elephant, the African lion, or the tiger.
With the rifles used at the time of Lewis and Clark it was necessary for
the hunter to approach close to the bear that the bullet might have
sufficient velocity to penetrate a vital spot. The rifles being only
single-shot, the hunter was exposed to the assault of the bear in case
his aim missed or the shot was ineffective. It is not surprising that
in most cases those attempting to kill the grizzly either were
overpowered by him or succeeded only through force of numbers and with
the loss of some of the assailants. But the ability of the grizzly to
withstand such attacks and to defend himself has been confused with
ferocity.
The grizzly is a fighting-machine of the first order and with the
weapons of two or three generations ago he often sold his life most
dearly. In a short time the grizzly had the reputation of being a
terrible fighter, and along with this he was given the reputation of
being ferocious--of being an awful hunter of man. For the grizzly to
repel effectually those who went out to attack him is a very different
thing from his going out to hunt and to attack people who were not
molesting him. This latter he has never done.
The words of Umfreville, MacKenzie, Brackenridge, Clinton, and Lewis and
Clark bring out strongly that the grizzly is a fighter, formidable,
perhaps unequaled. Their opinion on this point is supported by ample
first-hand testimony down through the years, from all over the grizzly
territory. But it has not been established that the grizzly is
ferocious, is seeking to kill. No, the grizzly does not look for a
fight; he is for peace at almost any price.
The grizzly fights in self-defense; men do the same. A man is not
criminal for fighting in self-defense; neither is a grizzly. For this
self-defense fighting the grizzly should not be put in the criminal
class. "The worm will turn," is an old saying. All animals fight in
self-defense, some more quickly than others. Few ever succeed against
man; the grizzly often does. Apparently the effective self-defense of
the grizzly is responsible for his criminal reputation.
It is common for those who believe that the grizzly is ferocious to
believe also that he eats human flesh. There is no known instance of his
having done so.
We are now hearing that the Alaska bears are especially ferocious. Yet,
in Alaska at the present time, and for many years in the past, the bear
trails are concealed as much as possible by being in the woods. This
would prevent the bear on the trail being readily seen by man. Along the
sea, where much bear food is cast ashore, the trails are not upon the
open beach but some distance away behind the trees. The bears depend on
scent to tell them if there is anything along the shore to eat. Both
their trails and their daily life in Alaska conclusively show that their
chief concern is to keep away from and out of sight of man.
The experience with bears in the Yellowstone Park demonstrates that the
grizzly is not ferocious. The Park had a numerous grizzly population
when it was made a wild-life reservation. The people who in increasing
numbers visited the Park carried no fire-arms and they were not molested
by the grizzlies. Yet grizzlies were all about. After some twenty years
of this friendly association of people and grizzlies, a number of
grizzlies, dyspeptic and demoralized from eating garbage, and annoyed by
the teasing of thoughtless people, became cross and lately even
dangerous. But these bears cannot be called ferocious. Eliminate the
garbage-piles and cease harassing the bears, and they will again be
friendly.
The grizzly bear has been a golden gift of the gods for the countless
writers of highly colored alleged natural history. There is a type, too,
of wild fiction-writers of the Captain Mayne Reid class whose thrilling
stories of the grizzly and other wilderness animals are purely
fictitious, and, though not even pretending to be fact, appear to have
been taken seriously by thousands. So prolific and continuous has been
the output of these writers that facts have been lost, and it is
practically impossible for the average individual to know the real
grizzly bear. This comes near to being the immortality of error. It is a
national misfortune that the overwhelming majority of people should be
imposed upon with erroneous natural history. The destiny of the human
race is intimately tied up with nature, and for any one to misunderstand
the simple facts which unite us with nature is to be out of harmony with
the whole scheme of things. An accurate knowledge of natural history has
an important place in guiding the judgments of our race.
Because of their intimate knowledge of the grizzly bear, James Capen
Adams, William H. Wright, and Philip Ashton Rollins admired this animal.
It would be a glorious thing if every one appreciated the real character
of the grizzly bear. A changed attitude toward him--the great animal of
the outdoors--might cause the wilderness to appeal to all as a friendly
wonderland.