Bears and Humans

This paper concerns the relationship between bears and humans among the Khanty people: in particular, what is meant by their claim that the bear is ‘half man, half animal, half god’. Within this focus, it introduces the Khanty concept of a "more-than-human" society and examines the interconnections between its constituent parties. It explores the worldview in which the dividing lines between human and natural, and human and divine, are not as sharp as Cartesian logic would have them.