Vol. 12, No. 11, pp. 443-465, plate 7July 11, 1917
[POMO BEAR DOCTORS]
BY
S. A. BARRETT
[CONTENTS]
[INTRODUCTION]
One of the most concrete and persistent convictions of the Indians of a large part of California is the belief in the existence of persons of magic power able to turn themselves into grizzly bears. Such shamans are called “bear doctors” by the English-speaking Indians and their American neighbors. The belief is obviously a locally colored variant of the widespread were-wolf superstition, which is not yet entirely foreign to the emotional life of civilized peoples. The California Indians had worked out their form of this concept very definitely. Thus Dr. Kroeber says:[1]