T H E E N D C O M M U N E

Arctolatry ― Cult of the  

Impaled Bear King

Holy Lyomante Dirge, the Great One perished!

Around the Holy Idol grey mists spook. There is a pungent aura around it, and it whirls and unfurls with the percussion of our hearts, the congregated.

Flesh & blood fought and consumed

on the Spiritual Battlefield.

Impaled Bear-King! Another Martyr of the Caves.

The Idol of the Bear King Skull.

* * *

The Ainu people are indigenous to the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaido (and also to some parts of far-eastern Russian islands close to it). They are animistic in their religious practice. Their religious customs involve nature-worship and they consider the bear a holy creature amongst other lesser. They practice a cult of arctolatry and they have a certain ritual which is in their native Ainu tongue called Lyomante, wherein they slaughter hibernating mother-bears in their caves. The bears’ cubs are then raised in captivity for approximately two years, ending with ritual slaughter by the means of suffocation or impalement by spear. The tribe then consume the animals’ blood and flesh and the skull is impaled on a spear wrapped in the skin of a bear, making a religious idol, which is then worshipped.