So, too, dogs are sacrificed, and
the bones of the bear are preserved in the same place and with the
same marks of respect as the bones of a house-bear. Hence the great
winter festival is only an extension of the rite which is observed
at the slaughter of every bear."
Thus the apparent contradiction in the practice of these tribes, who
venerate and almost deify the animals which they habitually hunt,
kill, and eat, is not so flagrant as at first sight it appears to
us: the people have reasons, and some very practical reasons, for
acting as they do. For the savage is by no means so illogical and
unpractical as to superficial observers he is apt to seem; he has
thought deeply on the questions which immediately concern him, he
reasons about them, and though his conclusions often diverge very
widely from ours, we ought not to deny him the credit of patient and
prolonged meditation on some fundamental problems of human
existence. In the present case, if he treats bears in general as
creatures wholly subservient to human needs and yet singles out
certain individuals of the species for homage which almost amounts
to deification, we must not hastily set him down as irrational and
inconsistent, but must endeavour to place ourselves at his point of
view, to see things as he sees them, and to divest ourselves of the
prepossessions which tinge so deeply our own views of the world.
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