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The main thing was that the formal expiation had been carried out, and the wrath of the spirits averted. It is known that tribes whose chief food-animal was the bear felt it necessary to kill and cat a bear occasionally; but they could not do this without a sense of guilt, and some fear of vengeance from the great Bear-spirit.
But it was not to give him up to the gods that they killed him, not to 'sacrifice' him in our sense, but to have him, keep him, eat him, live BY him and through him, by his grace." Home University Library, p. 87. Among the Ainos in the North of Japan, as also among the Gilyaks in Eastern Siberia, the Bear is the great food-animal, and is worshipped as the supreme giver of health and strength.
He makes a Sacrifice, an offering to his fellows, as a seal of sincerity an offering of his own bodily suffering or precious blood, or the blood of some food-animal, or some valuable gift or other if only he may be allowed to return. The offering is accepted. The ritual is performed; and he is received back.
Some of the latter class, under stress or privation, can accommodate themselves to a new food very different in character and origin from that which is habitual to them; others have no elasticity in this respect, and must have their exact habitual food-plant or food-animal, unless they are to die of starvation.
The prong-horn antelope of the Western plains is another favorite food-animal with hunters, and the various "small game," such as squirrels, rabbits, woodchucks, etc., are by no means to be despised. The author once knew a trapper who was loud in his praises of "skunk meat" for food, and many hunters can testify to its agreeable flavor when properly dressed and cooked.
We have seen the rude Siberyaks in North-Eastern Asia or the 'Grizzly' tribes of North American Indians in the neighborhood of Mount Shasta paying their respects and adoration to a captive bear at once the food-animal, and the divinity of the Tribe.
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