An old woman lived along side others, but she lived closer to the shore.They helped take care of her, giving her food and blubber from hunts. They went out and killed a bear, and she took home a piece of meat from the ribs.They wife of the hunter came and asked her if she wanted a bear cub. The went and got it, keeping it in her house. She worked to dethaw the cub, to get it warm again. She nursed it back to health. It grew up and she talked to it, and it became human like in it's mind. It talked to her and took care of her. The bear would play with the children of the community. It grew stronger and stronger, until it kept hurting kids during play. Adults started playing with it out of respect for the old woman. It grew more, and the people took it out hunting. They taught it about human hunting techniques. One day, another group of hunters almost killed the bear, so they made him a collar to mark that he was not to be harmed. It began to stay out longer, until it never came back. The bear was still repeated and known, so the people always let it go if they saw the collar.Other groups started to hear stories and wanted to kill it. It was still helping the old woman, she told it to never harm a human unless it attacked first. The bear cam home one day with a unknown dead man. The old woman decided the bear needed to leave her for its own protection. It didn't want to but respected her wishes. The community grieved as the bear set out.
This story comes from
The Woman Who Had a Bear as a Foster-Son in
Eskimo Folk-Tales by Knud Rasmussen with illustrations by native Eskimo artists (1921).
Comments
Post a Comment