The Finno-Karelian bear skull rituals: Bringing the bruin home to ensure its regeneration

2023

The article assembles the narratives of Russian villagers in Zapinejie (Arkhangelskaya oblast, northern part of the Russian Federation) who encounter bears during their forest trips. The stories showcase that the bear, as opposed to other animals, is perceived not just as a beast but as a kind of forest owner who acts as humans do. In gatherers' stories, bears act as animals who are unwilling to harm people. In hunters' stories, bears are presented almost as human beings living in the woods, doing very similar things. Using the idea of "equality without equivalence", I will broaden the notion of "tendency to equality" proposed by H. Walker for interhuman relations and expand it to include human-animal relations. Such aspects as "singularity", "concreteness" or "love-pity-compassion" can be found in narratives about bears and in human-bear relations.

Archaeology, Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia, 2009

Estonian Journal of Archaeology, 2017

This paper deals with the use of brown bear (Ursus arctos) skins in the Iron Age and Early Medieval death rituals in southeastern Fennoscandia. In this area, the practice of wrapping bodies in bear skins endured for over 1,000 years, starting in the Roman Iron Age in southwestern Finland and ending with the Medieval Age inhumation burials in the Karelian Isthmus. The wrapping of bodies in predator skins is hypothesized by the numbers of 3rd phalanges (i.e. claws) which have been found in burials, especially in cremation cemeteries under level ground (400/600-1000 AD). Firstly, the role of the bear was studied by analysing bear skin remains, specifically the 3rd phalanges and bear hairs, which have been found in burials, and secondly finds and their find contexts were analysed in terms of references made to them in Finno-Karelian Kalevala-metric poetry. The results stress the role of bear skins in constructing the identity of the deceased as a warrior and as an ancestor. The concept of a warrior as a predator is widely known among Eurasian populations. In southeastern Fennoscandia the distribution and find contexts indicate that this ritual was adopted mainly from the Germanic cultural sphere.

2022

This paper deals with the use of brown bear (Ursus arctos) skins in the Iron Age and Early Medieval death rituals in south-eastern Fennoscandia. In this area, the practice of wrapping bodies in bear skins endured for over 1,000 years, starting in the Roman Iron Age in southwestern Finland and ending with the Medieval Age inhumation burials in the Karelian Isthmus. The wrapping of bodies in predator skins is hypothesized by the numbers of 3rd phalanges (i.e. claws) which have been found in burials, especially in cremation cemeteries under level ground (400/600–1000 AD). Firstly, the role of the bear was studied by analysing bear skin remains, specifically the 3rd phalanges and bear hairs, which have been found in burials, and secondly finds and their find contexts were analysed in terms of references made to them in Finno-Karelian Kalevala-metric poetry. The results stress the role of bear skins in constructing the identity of the deceased as a warrior and as an ancestor. The concept of a warrior as a predator is widely known among Eurasian populations. In south-eastern Fennoscandia the distribution and find contexts indicate that this ritual was adopted mainly from the Germanic cultural sphere.

Temenos - Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion

In the article I discuss the different functions and meanings of bronze bear-tooth pendants in the Finnish Late Iron Age (800-1150/1300 CE). I first focus on an analysis of the pendants in terms of archaeological methodology: chronology, typology and find context. The second focus on attention, and in this article the most important one, is on the interpretation on these pendants. They are usually interpreted as magical items, amulets. In my opinion this is not the only possible interpretation. I suggest that the pendants can be interpreted as magical or religious, but that their possible protective use as amulets does not exclude other functions, such as a decorative and/or social one. I emphasise the possibility that bear-tooth pendants may be linked to a symbolic form of expression involving the idea of control of the forest and wilderness. Finnish folk tradition and mythology point to a metaphoric and metonymic relationshiop on the one hand between the bear and the wilderness, o...

Journal of northern studies/Journal of Northern studies, 2018

All nations have their own view of the world in which they live, of nature, of society, and of the human self. The Hokkaido Ainu's world view, for example, is deeply connected with their way of life, backed by man-nature relationships, and what this relationship symbolizes is always part of their rituals. The Ainu are known as one of the peoples, like the Sami, the Khanty, and the Nivkh, who perform a bear festival, although they deify the bear and refer to it using the term kamui ['deity' or 'spirit']. Moreover, the Ainu and the Nivkh perform the bear ceremony for a bear cub reared by them, although the meaning of the ceremonies differ between them. This paper aims to reveal the Ainu conception of the bear and bear ceremony, which enables them to hunt the deified bear, in terms of the Ainu bear ceremonial, their conception of kamui, and human-kamui relationships. The study reveals that the Ainu logic for hunting the bear, or kamui, is encapsulated in an idea about the necessity of maintaining the complementary and reciprocal relationship between humans and the kamui and, as such, the bear ceremony is a symbolic representation of this relationship.

Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2012

An examination of meanings associated with bears among early hunter-gatherer-fisher populations in northern Fennoscandia, based on beliefs and ritual practices in the ethnohistoric record, indicates that they were an animal attributed multiple meanings in prehistoric as well as historic times. They were clan ancestors, spirit masters and symbols of power and reincarnation such as rebirth and the change of seasons. The evidence indicates a pattern of local variation and identities rather than a uniform regional pattern, and some large-scale differences from the coastal area of Norway in the west to Karelia in the east.

The power of the paw. Multi-species perspectives on the bear claw burial tradition in a long-time perspective in South Norway, 2023

Abstract: This chapter explores the issue of object and animal agency through a contextual analysis of bear claws in Iron Age cremations in South Norway (Sør-Norge). Bear claws were identified in 130 cremations, mainly dated within the Roman and Migration periods (1–550 CE). The presence of bear claws is independent of economic status, age, or gender. They occur in male, female, and mixed cremations, occasionally also with children. Most burials contain only one claw. Rather than representing chiefs, shamans, or warriors as previously assumed, the archaeological evidence suggests that individuals cremated with bear claws were also farmers, herders, and hunters. Drawing on Norwegian folklore and a multi-species perspective, I employ a retrospective approach and investigate relations between humans, livestock and bears in the context of hunting and transhumance, arguing that bear claws were powerful agents, utilised for ritual and safeguarding purposes.

Bear and Human Facets of a Multi-Layered Relationship from Past to Recent Times, with Emphasis on Northern Europe, 2023

The bear was the constant neighbour of prehistoric hunter-gatherer-fishers of the East European Plain forest zone (10th-3rd millennium BC) and also a part of their hunting prey. Nevertheless, scholars usually emphasise its special spiritual role, as it was quite different from the roles of other species of the boreal forest animal realm for both ethnographically-known Siberian indigenes and Holocene hunters. Here, we have made an attempt to put together and analyse all groups of the material culture sources which can give us some hints about the status, significance and symbolic meaning of the brown bear in the Holocene East European Plain forest zone - portable art, rock art, and osseous bear remains in settlement and burial contexts. These data show the significant presence of bear bones in kitchen waste and among bone tools, the sporadic presence of bear images in petroglyphs and cemetery materials, and the complete absence of them in Mesolithic/Neolithic portable art up until the start of the Final Stone/Bronze Age, around 3000 cal BC, when its presence increases.

Some typical recurrent plots such as a plot of human – bear interaction are characteristic to the literature of the Native liberians. A plot of a combat between a man and a bear is present at the works of almost all Siberian writers. This is due both to the circumstances of life in the taiga where it is difficult to avoid a meeting with that animal and to the folklore traditions. Many Siberian peoples worshipped the bear; the bear was considered to be the human’s ancestor. The Mansi, Khanty, Nanai, Nivkh, Tofalar, Even, and Evenki peoples celebrated the special bear festival. The bear cult is supposed to be very ancient. The fact that it is common for the people belonging to different language groups proves the similarity in their way of living determined by the similar geographic factors. The article discusses two versions of the “man – bear combat” plot. The first version is typical of V. Sangi’s writings. It considers a combat as an ordeal which is successfully overcome by a character. G. Keptuke’s book gives another version of the plot. A character is maimed in a combat because of his conceit and violation of an ancient custom. The plot describing an encounter of a man with a bear is one of the most common in the works of Siberian writers.

Numen, 1999

A few years ago, Benjamin Ray criticized Jonathan Z. Smith's study of the bear hunting ritual. In this article, I further examine and develop a criticism of Smith's theory of ritual. Since he presents the Ainu bear ceremony as the exemplar case and bases his theory of ritual on his interpretation of it, I review and examine the available ethnographies of the Ainu bear ceremony Iyomante . My reading of them calls into question both Smith's presentation of the ethnography of the bear ceremony and his interpretation of its meaning. Smith's focus on the ritual killing as the core of the Ainu bear ceremony as the perfect hunt to resolve incongruity between the mythical ideology and the hunting practice is based upon his not taking into consideration the Ainu religious world of meanings. From my study of the Ainu bear ceremony, I maintain that the ritual dismemberment of the bear and the ritual decoration of the bear's skull constitute the core of the meaning of the ri...

Norwegian …, 2009

In this paper, animal offerings at Sámi sacrificial sites, sieidi (SaaN), will be discussed from an archaeological and a zooarchaeological point of view. Offerings are seen as a part of daily subsistence activities where the border between sacred and profane was fuzzy and transient. We take the position that animal offerings cannot be interpreted as ritual actions clearly separated from everyday life, but, rather, we have to take into account that the relationship between offerings and livelihood was seen as a dynamic one in a holistic worldview. We discuss archaeological finds from three sieidi sites as examples and claim that the offerings taken to sieidi sites tell us about daily subsistence strategies but at the same time also about the relationship between people and animals in the worldview of the Sámi.

'Bear and Human - Facets of a Multi-Layered Relationship from Past to Recent Times, with an Emphasis on Northern Europe', 2023

The present paper serves as introduction, discussion and synthesis for proceedings on 'Bear and Human - Facets of a Multi-Layered Relationship from Past to Recent Times, with an Emphasis on Northern Europe' (Turnhout 2023)

This article describes in detail a mortuary ritual among the Chukchi of Northern Kamchatka and points to its remarkable affinity with an ideal-typical reindeer sacrifice. We argue that this connection between human cremation and sacrifice plays a key role in the people's attempt to maintain and ensure continuation of their particular kind of life in a cosmos that is replete with numerous other, mostly hostile, life forms. The article describes all stages of the ritual and contextualizes the ritual in the literature on sacrifice. We argue that seeing Chukchi mortuary rituals as a way of transforming any death into a blood sacrifice calls into question well-established understandings of sacrifice as a means of diverting human violence. We suggest that ritual blood sacrifice may instead be seen as a way of protecting the sacrificial victim against violent forces and in doing so, securing the well-being of the community as a whole.