Transcription
Humans have long held the superstition that if we were to say the name of something sacred, you could be cursed. But also, if you were to say the name of something considered evil or dangerous, it may just actually turn up and do something evil or bad to you.
There are many folk tales, such as Bloody Mary, where saying this word three times into a mirror in a bathroom with a candle and a light candle would summon a demon that would scratch your eyes out. But there are similar tales that exist with names such as the Candyman or Beetlejuice. And I've also mentioned in a previous video that the name for the Hound, the dog that guards the underworld in Proto-Indo-European, would be "G," the sound of a growl, and you would not say that either, for fearing it would attract the hounds of the other world to visit you.
Well, today I'm going to tell you about another animal where this folklore applies. It's a real creature that could actually eat you alive. And this is folklore that has actually persisted for so long that now many people do not actually know the original name of this creature because it was never said. But luckily for us, this creature isn't called a cup of tea, and so I suggest you grab one if you're interested in hearing a story of being eaten alive and cultish rituals. And so, welcome to Greenford.
I first made a video on this subject when I started this YouTube channel almost four years ago now, but I felt it was worth a remake as the day I recall this is considered the day of this creature in some countries. And also because I have a bit more information about the tradition and some stories of the ritual. And so, let me explain, explain the situation we're in.
There is a word in the English language which we think means something, but actually, it is just a description of the word we want to say. And the reason it's a description of the word we want to say is because, well, we're not allowed to say the actual word for fear of summoning this beast. And this isn't just a piece of folklore in the English language; we see this tradition repeated in the Slavic, the Baltic, and other Germanic languages as well.
So, you may be asking yourself, what is this word? And I will tell you this before the end of the video. But the other question we should really ask is, why are there words we cannot say? Now, the origins of this will date back to at least 8,000 years ago when we know the Proto-Indo-European language, a language that I'm going to abbreviate to PIE, was probably being spoken. And this language, and as people speaking it, migrated across Persia, India, as well as into Europe through Slavic, Baltic, and Germanic regions. And with this language, they took their culture, and so they took their folklore. And so we can feel confident that this shared folklore stems from the early parts of this migration.
Now, words persist in our language as it evolves because they're important words. And we see PIE as a good example of this, as words spoken by PIE speakers 8,000 years ago still persist and are used in languages that have evolved from it today. And these words have been maintained, or or roots of these words have been maintained, in many languages. And the consequence of this for us is that we can find words, the most important words, that are common in the Indo-European languages, such as father or God. But also horse, wheel, axle, wag, all sing back to the same root because we know then that the Indo-European speaking people, the PIE speaking people, who first popularized horse riding and built the kettle wagon, must have used these words, and they must have been important.
But equally, words that were unimportant have been lost. And this is how we can understand what the most important things were in Proto-Indo-European culture, and things that weren't so important that don't exist with a Proto-Indo-European root. But what we have here is something a little different. We have a word that was refused to be said in some of the Indo-European languages, and so that word disappeared from many of those languages, but not because it wasn't important, but because of the folklore around it. And in its place, we see something consistent across the Indo-European languages that were affected by this, and that is the words and phrases have replaced this lost word, and these lost words and phrases describe the lost word.
And so, what is the word we cannot say? Well, I can't tell you the English version because it no longer exists. But what I can tell you is the words we use instead of it. And our ancestors felt safe using these words because it wasn't the actual name of the beast. And so, well, wouldn't call it into existence, it wouldn't appear in front of you, and so it wouldn't eat you alive. And that word in the English language is "bear."
And so, when you say the word "bear," or perhaps you're shouting it as a 700-kilogram, 1500-pound of furry beast is running towards you, growling and barking like a bear, you're not actually saying "bear." Well, you are saying "bear," but "bear" isn't what your words mean. You see, let me explain by looking at the root of the word "bear." "Bear" is actually a word for brown. And that root sits firmly within the Germanic languages. And so, if we gave a literal translation, when we say, "Look, there's a bear," we are actually saying, "Look, there's a brown."
And this is consistent across all Germanic languages. And so, in Norwegian, you would say "Bjorn," as in, well, "Bjorn" means brown, but it is used also to mean bear. And the same is true of other related languages. And so, the Baltic people use the word "nosy" or a word based around that root word, and this means "ice fisher." And in the Slavic languages, the word "medved" means "the knower of honey," although it's probably better translated in context as "honey eater." But we also see in the Finnish language, a language which doesn't actually have a direct relationship with Indo-European, a very similar tradition here. A bear is called "karhu," meaning "rough one."
Now, you may also ask, what about the Indo part of Indo-European languages? As I'm talking about Europe here, and particularly more the northern and eastern European languages. Well, it seems those languages that developed in these areas alongside Proto-Italic, as we call it, which covers the southern part of Europe, they didn't have much bear activity. And so they kept a word linked to the PIE root word meaning bear. And we see this in Latin as "ursa," or "ours" in French, or "orso" in Italian.
But it isn't just a bear that suffered this fate. We see wolves, which I've mentioned at the start of this video with the Hound, is probably suffering a similar fate for a similar reason. But we also see animals that are considered dirty or dangerous, sometimes like cats or snakes or spiders, also suffer this fate in other cultures across the world.
But for the bear, things seem slightly different. And this is because we have significant evidence that bear cults existed, which meant that they considered the bear to be sacred in some way. And one of the pieces of evidence is that we still see traces of rituals about in some cultures. And one particular example of this is in the Evenki culture, who definitely have ancestry in the hunter-gatherer culture due to the complex nature of their origins, but whom now are found in the northern part of Russia. Here, when a bear is killed, they perform a ritual called "sending the bear off."
And there are a number of flavors of this ritual. And one specific example is they go up to the dead body of the bear and they call it by a family name, such as "amy" or "amikan" or "amaki," which means father or grandfather or great-grandfather, respectively. And when talking to the dead bear, they tell the bear why it had to be killed, as bears are sacred, but also a source of valuable resources for the tribe, and so are unfortunately necessary to be killed for that tribe to continue. The bear is then given a funeral ritual, and there its bones, including its skull, placed in a special log cabin, which is built into the direction where the bear was walking when it was killed. And the Evenki believe this will capture the spirit of the animal, and so it won't haunt them from the other world.
And after this, there is then a ritual called "takamine," where all the hunters eat some of the bear meat, and they then wish the hunter who struck the killing blow to the bear good luck and prosperity. And as part of this ritual feast, the hunter is the last to start eating the meat. And as part of the ritual, they also hang the eyes of the bear at the front of his tent.
Now, we also hear of a story told around these regions in various forms. This story flows with animistic properties, and it tells of a young girl who, when wandering through a forest, fell into a bear den, and she spent the winter there. And in the spring, she returned home and gave birth to a baby bear who she raised it as a son. And over the next year or two, she married and gave birth to a boy, and the boy grew up along with the bear. And these brothers turned into adults, and one day fought, and it was a violent fight, and the man struck a mortal blow to the bear. And as the bear laid dying, it told his brother of how to hunt and bury bears properly. And this is the story of how the ritual of the hunt, the sending off of the bear, came to be.
Now, there is no doubt that hunting bears is a dangerous thing. And there have even been reports where bears have attacked back, eating people, including starting to eat their legs whilst the person is still alive and conscious. But even if you do manage to hunt and kill a bear, then eating a bear is also dangerous. As any animal that eats meat puts you in the danger of ingesting parasitic diseases caught by the bear when eating other infected animals. And these parasites can cause blindness or potentially destroy your internal organs. In effect, in some instances, you can almost be eaten inside out.
And this is probably one of the reasons why we see in some religious texts, and we see in the Bible, that humans should only eat cloven-hoofed animals, animals with hooves, as they are normally herbivores, and so much less likely to have eaten infected meats and have these parasites. Although, I guess you could still get worms from them. But I digress. In short, being in a bear cult was a risky business, whatever part of the ritual you would be taking part in. And all this probably helped reinforce the tradition of not saying the bear's actual name.
And so, do we know how long these cults have existed for? Well, if we ignore the obvious use of language, which I've already spoken about, there are paintings of bears in caves, there are figurines of bears made jewelry found using bear claws, and even in one cave in France, dated to around between 15 and 20,000 years old, we see a representation of a bear with many spear points in it. And whilst we don't necessarily exactly know what this means, we don't understand it, and as such, archaeologists would say, "Oh, that's probably ritual behavior in nature." It does seem like there is little else that this could represent in this instance. And this is in a cave where we see other forms of art, and which could probably represent ritual behavior in that cave. And I've made a video on that if you want to watch that.
And so, we see from many thousands of years ago, bears being symbolic. And back then, bears also a lot bigger, and so a lot more scarier, with the now extinct cave bear probably being in the top tier of animals humans would have been really afraid of. But for us, however, the bear was seen, much evidence points to this belief eventually being entwined in folklore and superstition, such that if you said the word "bear," a bear would turn up and eat you. But there is a part of me that thinks that there would be more stories about bears if it was a religious ritual. But just because there is a lack of evidence doesn't mean this wasn't the case, but it leaves a reasoning behind some of this a little bit of a mystery, especially as we see in other cultures, in other areas of the world, even as far away as, let's say, Polynesia, words being taboo when related to a totem or clan's totem name, for example, which was often an animal.
And so, perhaps the superstition of words that represent an animal should not be spoken is a more archetypal belief than perhaps many realize, and inherent thought amongst humans. And we are very superstitious creatures, especially when we don't understand things, like why are bears turning up when we say the word "bear"? And so, with that, I'm left to say the original Proto-European word for bear. And if I'm not back soon with another video, then you know I've probably summoned such a beast and have been eaten by the animal which 8,000 years ago our ancestors called "luos."
So, with that, I want to thank all my patrons for their support and their questions and their ideas. Thank you all for watching this video to this point and clicking the like and subscribe button as you scroll down and look at the comments and leave some great feedback. I also want to point out that Croag, who has made a short video about bears, and I'll link that in the description below, and she has loads of other interesting stories. And I'll leave you with this interesting story about sacrifice in the cave where we found this bear figure, in case you want to watch that, because it is incredibly interesting and points to a dragon ritual that is very, very old indeed. And so, with that, please stay safe and well. And this was Craenfold.