POLYDACTYLISM IN ROCK ART - BEAR PAW PRINTS, PART 2:

8-toed bear paw print, probable Fremont petroglyph, Nine-Mile Canyon, UT. Photograph Paul and Joy Foster.

Back to the subject of polydactyly in bears and bear paw prints; I have written previously about Marie Wormington's comments to me about a Fremont burial of a man with six toes that she had excavated. She related him to Native American beliefs that personal differences, mental or physical, can point to spiritual significance. That a person with six digits might have been thought special, and so, celebrated in rock art. I have long assumed the same thing for bears. Since one of the most significant things about a bear are his claws, the way to portray a significant bear, a legendary, mythical, or spiritual bear, might be to enhance the claws.

6-toed bear paw print, probable Fremont petroglyph, Nine-Mile Canyon, UT. Photograph Paul and Joy Foster.

7-toed bear paw print (top), probable Fremont petroglyph, along Green River, UT. Photograph Paul and Joy Foster.

There are many Fremont representations of polydactyl bear tracks. The Fremont culture is defined by an interesting group of traits found throughout northwestern and western central Colorado and much of Utah. “Think about a people who made clay figurines with shuttered eyes, staring at us from a distant past and then think about the Fremont. They inhabited the eastern Great Basin and western Colorado Plateau from approximately 650 to 1250 A.D., roughly a thousand years ago. They planted corn, irrigated their fields, and utilized wild foods with ingenuity. In many way, the Fremont correspond with the Anasazi. But in many ways they do not.” (Madsen 1998:IX)

Polydactyl Ute bear tracks representations may be found in western Colorado and eastern Utah in the area dominated by the historic Ute people. The bear is of great significance to Ute peoples. The Bear Dance is the preeminent Spring social event for the various bands of the Ute. Given that significance, the bear track would be expected to be a common component of their rock art.

7-toed bear paw print, Ancestral Puebloan, El Morro National Monument, New Mexico. Internet photo, Public Domain.

For the Ancestral Pueblo people the bear is the animal deity of the West. “From the Pueblo standpoint there is a polarity in the nature of Bear that accounts for much of his role. Physically he is much like a man, but symbolically he relates to the supernatural and is often a god.” (Tyler 1975:184)

“To these physical resemblances are added similarities of disposition, in that the bear is subject to sudden moods, to joyousness and clowning, or to melancholy and surliness. While a lion always behaves like a lion, a bear is entirely unpredictable. In food habits a black bear would prefer to be a man if he were given a choice. He will strip corn from a field, or eat cooked foods with relish, or he will gather roots and berries and vary these with all variety of game. - - - Probably no other animal is attended by such widespread ritual attention; bear ceremonialism accompanies the animal wherever he is found.” (Tyler 1978:184-5)

6-toed bear paw print, Ancestral Puebloan, Upper Sand Island, Bear's Ears National Monument, UT. Internet photo, Public Domain.

Bear is also given considerable significance as an animal that can bestow knowledge on healing. The bear’s feeding on plants and digging up roots reminded observers of gathering “medicine” plants.

6-toed bear paw print, Ancestral Puebloan, Petroglyph National Monument, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Photograph Paul and Joy Foster.

“For many North American tribes, bears were also important as shamans’ spirit helpers. As part of the circumpolar emphasis on bear ceremonialism (cf. Hallowell 1926), bears were accorded significant shamanic power becaust they are the most ‘human of known animals’. They often stand and walk upright - especially when surveying an unknown situation and beginning an offensive charge - and they use their paws like human hands to manipulate objects. Their tracks look much like human hand and foot prints, and their skeletons are remarkably human like.” (Keyser and Poetschat 2015:156-7)

So yes, bear polydactylism is very much a theme in rock art from all over the American west. The bear as an animal was of tremendous import to the indigenous peoples of these areas, both practically and spiritually, throughout prehistory and down to the present. I see  a number of motives in this for the portrayal of extra claws on bears. Remember that in the tribes of North American First Peoples physical and mental differences were not usually seen as making the possessor less, but often more in the case of spiritual significance. In the spiritual world the bear with extra claws would be a bear of greater spiritual power. If my spirit animal were a bear I would want to picture him as important and dominant as possible, thus the extra claws. In the practical world a bear hunter who survived conquered a polydactyl bear could feel he had mastered something more important than a normal five-toed bear. That enhanced his reputation. Of bear as a healer, a polydactyl bear would be a greater healer, etc.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Cole, Sally J., 1987, An Analysis of the Prehistoric and Historic Rock Art of West-Central Colorado, Cultural Resources Series Number 21,  Bureau of Land Management, Colorado.

Keyser, James D, and George Poetschat, 2015, Seeking Bear, The Petroglyphs of Lucerne Valley, Wyoming, Oregon Archaeological Society Press, Portland

Madsen, David B., 1989, Exploring the Fremont, Utah Museum of Natural History, University of Utah Occasional Publication No. 8

Tyler, Hamilton A., 1975, Pueblo Animals and Myths, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.

SECONDARY REFERENCES:

Hallowell, Irving A., 1926, Bear Ceremonialism in the Northern Hemisphere, American Anthropologist, 28:1-175