Most people have used the phrase "busy as a beaver" to describe a person who is hard at work. An "eager beaver" is a cheerful person who is eager to get down to work and even take on additional responsibilities. Beavers in the wild keep busy year round building, repairing, and adjusting dams and canals. These master builders are examples of industry, cooperation, and community. All this labor is designed to keep the entrances of the beaver lodge under water, making it difficult for predators to invade the home. Since beaver lodges have two entrances, they are reminders that when one door is blocked, another remains open.
In Christian symbolism the beaver represents chastity, asceticism, and the willingness to sacrifice anything that hinders one's walk with Christ. This is because people once thought that the beaver had a precious medicine bag which it would bite off and throw away as excess baggage if pursued. Later it was believed that beavers in flight castrated themselves to avoid capture. Because the beaver gives his position away when he slaps the water with his broad tail, warning his companions of danger, this rodent is a symbol of vigilance, self-sacrifice, and community. To the Lakota Indians, Capa (Beaver Spirit) is the guardian of work, food stores, marital fidelity and domestic tranquility.
The beaver appears in many Native American legends. Many of the Northeast tribes report that a man on a journey lost his wife and children during a river crossing. Some time later, he returned to the river to discover that his lost relatives had been transformed into the world's first beavers. The children called to him and finally pulled their father into the water with them. At this point, he too became a beaver.
In Eskimo and Canadian tradition Beaver Doctor or Beaver-man appears as a trickster who travels the world, killing giant man-eating animals and persuading their young to stay small and enjoy a people-free diet. He is considered a healer and may take sick people into his lodge in order to cure them. People who dreamed of beavers were thought to have healing powers.
According to Pocumtuck legend the Pocumtuck Range is the petrified body of a giant man-eating beaver who terrorized the Connecticut River Valley until Hobomock, using an oak as a club, killed it. The Nez Perce also had stories of a giant beaver called Wishpoosh who enjoyed drowning fishermen. Coyote came to the rescue and formed the Northwest Coast Indians from the body of this monster. Although the idea of a giant man-eating beaver seems laughable, the fossil remains of a species of giant beaver, Castoroides Ohioensis, have been found in North America. This rodent was about the size of a bear and weighed 600-700 pounds.
In another Native American legend, when the animals got together to determine the lengths of the seasons, Beaver urged that there be lots of winter months - as many as there were scratches in his tail!
During the mid-nineteenth century, American and European fashion dictated that gentlemen wear 'stovepipe' hats made of beaver fur. Fortunes were made in the beaver trade as their pelts were in great demand for hats and coats. Consequently the beaver was hunted almost to extinction. Today it has made an amazing comeback in North America and is a symbol of Canada.
Except where otherwise indicated all scripture quotes are from the NKJV.
More information about beavers is available at:
© 1997 by Suzetta Tucker
CommentsTo cite this page:
Tucker, Suzetta. "ChristStory Beaver Page." ChristStory
Christian Bestiary. 1997. http://ww2.netnitco.net/users/legend01/beaver.htm
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