Arctic Art Sales - Inuit Bear Legends

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Dancing Bear
These carefully balanced creatures suggest the angakoq poised between heaven and earth, ready for transformation and flight. A shamanic bear can be recognized by a short thick neck, the one remaining sign of human identity. The Inuit believe that after death they return as an animal … thus continuing the chain of life. The Bear represents the “king” of the Arctic animal kingdom so to return as a polar bear is the most favored choice. Returning as a polar bear the Inuk is happy and dances to show pleasure of joy … this is the legend of the dancing bear

Flying Bear
An angakoq has entered the spirit of the bear to journey to the spirit world. A flying bear helping spirit expressed the angakoq’s mastery of the three elements.

Angakoq Bear
An unusual vision of a sedentary helping bear spirit with the angakoq facing backward away from the spirit domain. The shaman is hunting as a bear. The great white one who is equally powerful on the land and in the sea.

Bear Spirit
The soul of a hunter could be lost, possessed by the animal he was seeking.

Winter Bear vs Summer Bear
Why are some Polar Bears carved looking lean white other are fat? The distinct difference is defined by the time of year the artists wants to depict. Lean Bears are spring / early summer bears. After having hibernated all winter, the spring / early summer bears are lean. The late fall / early winter bear is fat having built up a layer of fat to get them through the winter hibernation.

Old Woman and Bear
A long time ago, the Inuit vowed to leave their relatives behind when they got old. So one day long ago, a man with his wife and children and an old woman left on a trip by dog team. After traveling for a long time, they became extremely hungry and they left the old woman behind. They had no choice; if they had not been threatened by starvation they would never have left her.
The old woman had been alone for almost a day when she was set upon by a bear that had been following the tracks of the dog sled. As she was walking with a cane, she placed one of her mitts on the tip of her cane and she choked the bear with it.
When she had eaten enough, she followed the sled tracks herself. When she finally found her starving kin, she said to them, “Go get the bear. I left it back there, just follow the sled tracks.” And so her son went by the sled to get the bear. And thus were these people saved from starvation by the bear that the old woman killed with her mitt.

Daniel Quma Angiju 1978

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