At each
hut the bear and bear-leaders are treated to something good to eat
and drink. This goes on for several days until all the huts, not
only in that village but also in the next, have been visited. The
days are given up to sport and noisy jollity. Then the bear is tied
to a tree or wooden pillar and shot to death by the arrows of the
crowd, after which its flesh is roasted and eaten. Among the
Orotchis of the Tundja River women take part in the bear-feasts,
while among the Orotchis of the River Vi the women will not even
touch bear's flesh.
In the treatment of the captive bear by these tribes there are
features which can hardly be distinguished from worship. Such, for
example, are the prayers offered to it both alive and dead; the
offerings of food, including portions of its own flesh, laid before
the animal's skull; and the Gilyak custom of leading the living
beast to the river in order to ensure a supply of fish, and of
conducting him from house to house in order that every family may
receive his blessing, just as in Europe a May-tree or a personal
representative of the tree-spirit used to be taken from door to door
in spring for the sake of diffusing among all and sundry the fresh
energies of reviving nature.
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