Bear Mother

Context

The story of The Bear Mother is a well-known legend shared by many people on the Northwest Coast, most notably the Haida, Nisga’a, Gitxsan, and Coast Tsimshian. Numerous versions of the story exist, but it generally tells of a woman berry picker who disrespected the bears and was kidnapped and forced to marry the son of a grizzly bear chief. She subsequently gave birth to twin bear cubs who inherited a mix of human and bear features. This story emphasizes the importance of honouring and respecting animals, particularly bears, and deals with the subjects of transformation and travel between the human and non-human worlds.

Depictions of the Bear Mother story on totem poles and other forms of Northwest Coast art have been occurring for hundreds, if not thousands of years. In these representations, the mother is usually shown with either a human or bear face, and is holding or suckling her two cubs. The cubs also appear in human or animal form, but most often one cub is human and the other a bear.

Bill Reid told the story of the Bear Mother numerous times in his works. Arguably, his most famous depiction was of the bear father, the mother, and their cubs in the Spirit of Haida Gwaii, the internationally renowned sculpture from which this piece originates.

Additional information

Dog Fish Woman and Bear Mother are elements taken from the monumental sculpture The Sprit of Gaida Gwaii, and were created as stand alone sculptures.

The heads were selected by the artist to be cast in bronze as sculpture editions of 9 and exhibited for sale at the Bushlen Mowat Galllery in Vancouver in 1993/96. Reid selected the images as being forms that were both aesthetically pleasing and spiritually meaningful to him. The artist’s proofs seen here, were generously donated by Allan and Faigie Waisman in 2002.