Bears
Past
Episodes
|
|
|
|||
|
|||||
|
|
Once there was a little girl, about ten years old. She used to pick berries every summer. Every summer she would go with her family and they would pick berries and dry them. Sometimes they would see bear droppings on the trail. Girls had to be careful about bear droppings, they shouldn't walk over them. Men could walk over them, but young girls had to walk around them. But she loved to jump over the bear droppings, and kick them. She would disobey her mother. All the time she would see them and kick them and step over them. She kept seeing them all around her. She did this from childhood. She grew up. One summer they were all going out to pick berries, dry fish, and camp. She was with her mother and aunts and sisters all day picking berries. It was toward the end of the day, and she saw some bear droppings. She said all kinds of words to them, kicked them, and jumped over them.
When they went to bed he said, "Don't lift your head in the morning and look at me, even if you wake up before I do." Next morning when they woke, the young man said to her "We can go on, we'll eat cold gopher. We won't make a fire. Let's get lots of berries." The young woman talked about going home, about her father and mother, and he said "Don't be afraid. I'll go home with you." Then he slapped his hand down right on top of her head and put a circle around the woman's head with his finger, the way the sun goes. Then she forgot and didn't talk about home any more. Then she forgot all about going home. She just went about with him, picking berries. Every time they camped it seemed like a month to her, but it was really only a day. They kept traveling from mountain to mountain. Finally she recognized a place. It looked like a place that she and her family used to go and dry meat. He stopped there at the timberline and slapped her head, and made a circle sunwise, and then another on the ground where she was sitting. He said, "Wait here. I am going hunting gophers. We have no meat. Wait till I come back." Then he came back with the gophers. In the evening they made camp and cooked. Next morning they got up and traveled on. At last she knew. It was getting near fall, and it was cold. She knew he was a bear. He said, "It's time to make a home" and started digging a den. She really knew he was a bear then. He got quite a ways digging the den and then he said "Go get some fir boughs and some brush." She broke the branches from up high and brought him a bundle. He saw that and said, "Those limbs are no good, you left a mark and the people will see it and know that we were here. We can't stay here." So they left. They went up to the head of a valley.
She recognized this valley, it was where her brothers used to go to hunt and eat bear. They would take the dogs there in April and hunt bear. They would send the dogs into the bear den and then the bear would come out. That's where her brothers used to go. She knew it. Her husband dug a den again and sent her out for brush. He said, "Get some brush that is lying on the ground - not from up high. No one will see where you got it, and it will become covered with snow." She did break it from low to the ground, but she also bent some high up branches, too. She let them hang down so her brothers would know. She rubbed sand on herself too - all over her body and limbs. And then she rubbed the trees around, so that the dogs would find her scent. Then she went to the den with her bundles of brush. When the man was digging he looked like a bear. That was the only time. But the rest of the time he looked like a human being.
He didn't want her to see him digging up gophers like a grizzly bear. Nearly every day he hunted gophers and they picked berries. He was just like a human to her. It was really late in the fall. He said, "Well, I guess we'll go home now. We have enough food and berries. We'll go down." So they went into the den and stayed there and slept. They woke once a month and ate, and then went back to bed. Each month seemed like another morning, just like another day. They never really went outside, it just seemed like it. Soon, the woman found she was carrying a baby. And then in the middle of the winter in the den, she had two little babies - one was a girl, and the other was a boy. She had them when the bears have their cubs. "You're my wife, and I am going to leave soon. It looks like your brothers are going to come up here soon, before the snow is gone. I want you to know that I am going to do something bad. I am going to fight backl" "Don't do it - They are your brothers-in-law! If you really love me you'll love them, too. Don't kill them. Let them kill you! If you really love me don't fightl You have treated me good. Why did you live with me, if you are going to kill them?" "All right," he said. "I won't fight, but I want you to know what would happen!" His big canine teeth looked like swords. "These are what I fight with," he said. She kept pleading. "Don't do anything. I'll still have my children if they kill you!" She really knew he was a bear then. They went back to sleep. When she woke again he was singing his song. "It's true," he said. "They are coming close. If they do kill me I want you to get my skull and my tail from them. Wherever they kill me build a big fire and burn my head and tail and sing this song while the head is burning. Sing it until they are all burnt up!" And he sang the song again. Then they ate some food and went back to bed. Another month went by. They didn't sleep well that month. He kept waking up. "It's coming close," he said. "I can't sleep well. It's getting to be bare ground. Look out and see if the snow is melted in front of the den." She looked out, and there was mud and sand. She grabbed some and made a ball and rubbed it over herself. It was full of her scent. She rolled it down the hill - then the dogs could smell it. She came in and said, "There is bare ground all over in some places." They went back to bed for just a little while. Next morning he said, "Well, it's close! It's close! Wake up!" Just when they were getting up they heard a noise. "The dogs are barking. Well, I'll leave. Where are my knives? I want them!" He took them down. She saw him putting in his teeth. He was a big grizzly bear! "Please don't fight. If you wanted me, why did you go this far? Just think of the kids. Don't hurt my brothersl" He went and he said, "You won't see me again!" At the entrance he growled and slapped something back into the den. It was a pet dog, a little bear dog. When he threw the dog in, she grabbed it and shoved it back in the brush under the nest. She put the dog there to keep it. She sat on it and kept it there so it couldn't get out. She wanted to keep it for a reason. For a long time there was no noise. She went out of the den. She heard her brothers below. They had already killed the bear. She felt bad, and she sat down. She found an arrow, and she picked it up. Then she fitted the little dog with a string around his back. She tied the .arrow on the little dog and he ran to his masters. The boys were down there dressing out the bear. They knew the dog. They noticed the arrow and took it off. "It's funny," they said. "No one in a bear den would tie this on!" They talked about it and decided to send the youngest brother up to the den. A younger brother could talk to his sister, but an older brother couldn't. The older brothers said to the young one, "We lost our sister a year ago. Something could have happened. A bear might have taken her away. You are the youngest, don't be afraid. There is nothing up there but her. You go and see if she is there. Find out!" He went. She was sitting there crying. The boy came up. She cried when she saw him. She said, "You boys killed your brother-in-law! I went with him last summer. You killed him, but tell the others to save me the skull and the tail. Leave it there for me. When you get home, tell mother to sew a dress for me so I can go home. Sew a dress for the girl, and pants and a shirt for the boy, and moccasins. And tell her to come and see me." He went back down and told his brothers, "This is our sister. She wants us to save the bears head and tail." They did this and they went home. They told their mother. She got busy and sewed. She had a dress and moccasins and clothes for the children. The next day she went up there. She came to the place, and put clothing on the little kids. Then they went down to where the bear was killed. The boys had left a big fire. She burned the head and the tail, then she sang the song, until all was ashes.
Toward fall, she finally came and stayed with her mother, all winter the kids grew. Next spring, her brothers wanted her to act like a bear. They had killed a female bear that had cubs, one male and one female. They wanted their sister to put on the hide and to act like a bear. They fixed little arrows. They pestered her to play with them, and they wanted her two little children to play, too. She didn't want it. She told her mother, "I can't do it! Once I do it, I will turn into a bear. I'm half there already. Hair is already showing on my arms and legs, it's quite long."
She walked off on
four legs! She shook herself just like bear, it just happened! She was
a grizzly bear. She couldn't do a thing. She had to fight against the
arrows. She killed them all off, even her mother. She didn't kill her
youngest brother, not him. She couldn't help it. Tears were running down
her face. She had her two little cubs with her. They walked up the slope and back into the mountains. So, a bear is partly human. Now people eat black bear meat, but they still don't eat grizzly meat, because grizzlies are half human. That was very long ago. After that time, human beings had good relations with the bears. Around the top of the world many peoples have hunted and celebrated and feasted with the bears outdoors in the snow every year in mid-winter. Bears and people have shared the berry fields and the salmon streams without much trouble summer after summer. Bears have been careful not to hunt and kill their human friends as prey, although they would fight when attacked. Their story had further consequences: The Bear Wife was remembered by human beings as a Goddess under many names, and there were many stories about her children, and what they did in the world. But that period is over now. The bears are being killed, the humans are everywhere, and the green world is being unravelled and shredded and burned by the spreading of a gray world that seems to have no end. If it weren't for a few old people from the time before, we wouldn't even know this tale. |
|
The
Woman Who Married A Bear
The
ladies were getting ready to go home, lifting up their burden baskets
of blueberries. The young woman saw some extra good berries and was picking
them as the others went ahead. As she started to catch up she slipped,
and spilled some of her berries on the ground. So she was bending over
and picking them off the ground. The others went on down. A man was standing
there, dressed up fine, his face painted red. She saw him in the shadows.
She had never seen him before. He said, "I know where there are lots of
big berries, better than those. Let's go fill your basket. I'll walk you
home." And they picked a while. It was getting dark. But he said "There's
another good place - and soon it was dark. He said, "It's too late to
go home. Let's fix a dinner." And he cooked over a fire, it looked like
a fire. They ate some gopher. And then they made a bed in the leaves.
The
woman didn't know how else to stay alive, so she stayed with him as long
as he was good to her. "This is better," he said, and he carried the brush
inside and fixed the den. After he fixed the den he left. The grizzly
bear is the last to go into the den, they like to go around in the snow.
So then he spent more days hunting gophers for the winter. She never saw
him do it, she sat in the late autumn sun and looked down the valley.