La caduta dell’angelo-orso nell’immaginario del Settentrione

The fall of the angel-bear in the imagination of the North The fall of the angel is equivalent, in the North Euro-Asiatic shamanic area, to the fall of the totemic bear from the constellation Ursa Major. His descent to Earth, due to disobedience or transgression, according to the mythical variants, was for him not the reason for the final break with his father, the “God of Heaven”, but for the loss of the heavenly divine condition, which condemned him to a painful initiatory existence. The bear “rebel”, assuming the role of ancestor, became a sharer in the creation of humanity and of the human destiny of renewal through death.