What Makes the Early History of European Shamanism and Ritual Healers So Unique?: Some Thoughts on a Little Studied Question

Roslyn M Frank

doi:10.17077/pp.006731

The current investigation is a foray into totally unexplored terrain, a topic that until now has not elicited any interest on the part of researchers working on questions related to European ethnography and performance traditions. The subject under analysis is a curious one, namely, whether a diachronic oriented investigation into the changing nature of the costumes worn by European “bear impersonators”, understood here as ritual practitioners, can provide clues about the way these actors dressed, but much earlier, that is, at a point in time for which we have no visual or written documentation. To reach back to this earlier period a diachronic approach will be employed. Methodologically, we will start by using examples of what appear to be the most archaic extant features of the costumes. From these we will seek to reconstruct this earlier stage and reveal, albeit tentatively, how these bear impersonators might have looked several millennia ago. As we will soon see, the bear impersonator’s attire, at least in the Pyrenean zone, once had features that have been lost or discarded in most modern-day performances. The reconstruction indicates that in times past the bear impersonator’s costume had some quite surprising characteristics. These, in turn, were linked to what was a larger more encompassing animist relational ontology, one that rested on the belief that humans descended from bears. The investigation begins by examining the nature of this earlier cosmology and associated animist framework of belief. Our initial foray into the past also includes a discussion of the interrelationship between bears, who were viewed as supernatural beings with the power to heal, and bear shamans, humans who dressed as bears. That exploration will reveal how these humans acted as bear impersonators. Next, we will turn to the questions raised by the example of a Late Mesolithic bear cub, raised in captivity by a group of hunter-gatherers in the west of what is today France. At that juncture, we will begin to draw on examples of costumes from the Cantabrian and Pyrenean region that have retained certain archaic features. Of particular importance in this analysis will be examples based on the costumes of the bear performers of Silió in Cantabria, a festival known as la Vijanera, the (‘bears’) of Bielsa in Huesca, and finally four examples from Euskal Herria, the Basque Country, specifically, from the villages of Lantz, Lesaka, Altsasu and Goizueta. In passing the outfits worn by the bear impersonators in three Pyrenean Fêtes de l’ours will be discussed. The final sections of the study summarize the results that can be reached using this diachronic methodological approach and how they might be applied more broadly to the costumes worn earlier by bear impersonators in other parts of Europe.

What Makes the Early History of European Shamanism and Ritual Healers So Unique?: Some Thoughts on a Little Studied Question

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