Polar Bear God

Polar Bear had been worshiped ever since the "Snow People" had walked across the Ice Bridge over the Aleutian Islands to what is now Alaska and Canada. But "NOW" Alaska and Canada did not have those names for this was 2000 years ago and Jesus had been born in Bethlehem. So, Alaska and Canada did not exist. And writing did not exist in Alaska and Canada, and all there was was what people saw and felt and drew on the skins of animals hides that they killed and ate for food. All there was what people saw and felt and did and the stories they told that were passed on down from generation to generation that were a part of their cultural identity.

Sometimes "Polar Bear" in all his whiteness was hard to see before he came upon one of them or their village. The People often kept dogs so the "Giant White Dog" that the Polar Bear was often called would be noticed so the people would have time to survive. Polar Bear wasn't worshiped because he killed them and their children sometimes, he was worshiped because he was powerful and tended to survive almost anything. Since death wasn't desired by the Snow People anymore than it is desired by most today, this capacity for both strength and survival made the Polar Bear a God. Of all the living beings that were physical on land, Polar Bear was the strongest of all. So, the big whales of the sea and the Polar Bear of the land were the most powerful medicine of all, because these Gods lived among the people. So, to kill and eat a Polar Bear or a Whale gave the power and seeming potential immortality of the Whale and the Bear to the snow people. So, the Snow people carved images of whales and bears out of the bones of the whales and polar bears. So when they were scared in a storm or very cold weather when many died or when there were diseases that were killing the Snow People they held the images of the Polar Bear God and the Whale God to give them strength so they and their children might survive. And often as they prayed to the Polar Bear Gods and the Whale Gods they were spared and they survived and then their children told the stories and handed them down from generation to generation.

So, sometimes a child was born who saw visions that came true. The child might say, "The ice will start to crack up here tomorrow. We must move closer to where the land is. If we don't move our encampment we will be set adrift as a tribe out to sea." Since other times this child had been right the medicine man or woman might say, "This is a message from Polar Bear God and we are being protected. Move the encampment." So, the tribe would move believing the medicine man or woman and the tribe would be saved. Often, the child would be trained by the Medicine man or woman because this is the type of child that the medicine man or woman had been also growing up. So, the child would be trained to replace the medicine man or woman when he or she grew up. And so the tribe survived by always having someone who saw the future. This was the way things were done all over earth until religions became more formalized and became less shamanic and tribal in nature. Without this system that existed for thousands and thousands of years all over earth, civilization and possibly mankind might have gone extinct and not have become what it is today. So, all of us owe a debt of gratitude to all those who bore incredible hardship and who lived the old ways so we could all be alive today and to do and believe anything we want to and to live in houses and eat food and not be cold and hungry most of the time. Polar Bear God empowered thousands to millions of Snow People so they could still be a people and still be alive today here in the 21st Century.