Left Image Deer Dances (watercolour by LM Johnson)
Right image Gitksan spindle with spun mountain goat wool purchased by Harlan Smith in Gitwingak in the mid 1920's artifact VII-C-1302, Canadian Museum of Civilization (photo by LM Johnson 2010)
A news clip my sister sent me started me thinking. She forwarded me a link to a video clip from Public Television in Wisconsin about white deer. (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/video/flv/generic.html?s=inwi10s22a3q81f
March 26, 2009 #722 White Deer “ghosts of the forest”)
...for many years I have rendered images of a white doe as a personal spiritual symbol, and I have read in neo-pagan literature that the white stag is symbolic of spiritual transition or connection between worlds....but I had never heard of actual material white deer. Now I learn that there is a herd of white deer living in northern Wisconsin, and that they apparently figure in both Native American legend and the accounts of explorers, suggesting persistence of a relatiely large number of free living albino deer in a particular region over a substantial period of time. The author of the text of a recent book on these remarkable deer “White Deer” commented in the interview that though visible to natural predators over the 7 months of the summer season [and in the lower 48, these may not be as abundant as they once were], the deer are well camophlaged in the winter and are protected from human hunters by state law. The deer are described as looking like ghosts or spirits.
That started me thinking about a somewhat parallel case in Coastal British Columbia of the Kermode or “spirit” bear, a population of white bears [biogically, black bears, Ursus americanus] which exist in relatively large numbers on Princess Royal Island in Coast Tsimshian country, and extend on to the surrounding mainland. Ths Tsimshian name for them is simply moskgm'ol "white bear."
The late photographer Myron Kozak of Hazelton published a post card in the 1980’s of a kermode [also spelled Kermodei] bear in the woods near Hazelton. Western Canada Wilderness featured a campaign to save the home of the spirit bear about 10 years ago. The bears are legally protected in British Columbia. Like the Wisconsin deer, a single family may have naturally pigmented and white members, so as a biological population really includes normally pigmented members and a relatively high percentage of white animals.
Why such “spirit animal” populations should persist in specific areas over long periiods of time is intriguing. Kermode bears figure in Tsimshian narratives just as the white deer figure in the stories of the Native Americans who share their homeland....I began to think that the unusual appearance of these white animals impresses people and makes us think of spiritual connections.....perceiving the animals as extraordinary, then, perhaps causes them to have a special status for all, causing indigenous hunters to refrain from hunting them in the same way that contemporary state and provincial laws also prohibit hunting. And we are all enriched by the existence of these elusive spirit animals.
I started this blog a month ago now. Since then I’ve had occasion to think about whiteness and spiritual power in animals which are normally white as well. I was just at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Quebec, looking at Northwest Coast weaving and spinning from 100 years ago. The animal that was used as a source of wool before the advent of European and American traders was the mountain goat, and I was priviledged to see beautiful and skillfully spun mountain goat wool yarn, still on the spindle as it was made in the mid 1920’s, and a lovely ball of two ply yarn ready to weave with. A number of burden straps were woven with mountain goat wool, combined in these straps with dyes sheep’s wool and commercial string obtained from the traders. Mountain goats were formerly an important source of food, and part of the annual cycles of Gitksan and other people dwelling on the coast. It was the mountain goat who taught the Haisla and Henaksiala to hunt according to Chief Kenneth Hall....and their wool was valued for weaving chief’s blankets, and the useful and versatile burden straps. The mountain goat also taught the Gitksan about respect for animals when they were abused in the days of Temlaham as Haxbagwootxw, Ken Harris narrated in translation of traditional narratives from his House. The survivor of the goats’ revenge was lent the skin and hooves of the goat kid he had saved, and the power chant “let it be scree” to help him return safely from the crag and bring the goats’ message to the remaining people of Temlaham. This summer I hope to replicate a traditional spindle and try my hand at creating beautiful fine yarn from their fur. With due reverence and respect to the goats.
Sources:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/video/flv/generic.html?s=inwi10s22a3q81f
March 26, 2009 #722 White Deer Boulder Junction Wisc. “ghosts of the forest”
In the Manituwish/ Waters area and Boulder junction- north central Wisconsin
people feed white deer and protect them, and there are also laws that protect them.
there are also white deer in New York
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_deer#White_Deer
which are protected on a former military reservation.
A 2 min 15 sec video of a Kermode bear posted - 12 Feb 2007 - entitled
The rare White Kermode Bear aka Spirit Bear.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vspuhFs5lZE
In the video they claim that the Tsimsian say the Kermode bear have been left by the Creator as a reminder of the times when the world was white and cold; the video interprets this as a a 10,000 year old memory [since deglaciation]
http://www.savespiritbear.org/project/spiritbear/about_bear/index.html
Valhalla Wilderness Society website
from Steve’s Menagerie
http://users.aristotle.net/~swarmack/kermode.html
Harris, Ken. 1974. Visitors Who Never Left, the Origin of the People of Damelahamid. Vancouver: UBC Press.
For more information about Gitksan artifacts in the Canadian Museum of Civilization, please see their on-line catalog in their website at http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/explore/collections/collections
For images from my recent research, please contact Curator Leslie Tepper at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Gatineau, Quebec, Canada.
