Origin Story Texts
THE BEAR WIFE (Sami)
Originally recorded in the 17th century by Johannes Schefferus, and published by Fjellstrom in Stockholm, 1755. Translated from Swedish into English and published by Edsman, C.M., 1956. The story of the bear wife in nordic tradition. Ethnos, 21(1-2), pp.36-56.
"Three brothers had an only sister who was so hated by her brothers that she had to take refuge in the wilds. When exhausted, she finally comes across a bear's den, she enters it to have some rest; a bear comes to the same lair and, on closer acquaintance, he weds her and begets a son by her. After a while when the bear has become old and his son is grown up, the bear is said to have informed his wife that, on account of his great age, he can no longer live, but wishes to go out on the first snow in the autumn, so as to enable her three brothers to see his tracks and then 'ring him in' and kill him. Although his wife tries in every way to prevent him from doing this, the bear does not let himself be persuaded, but does as he has said, so that the three brothers can 'ring him in' 'when seeing his footprints. Then the bear asks to have a piece of brass attached to his forehead, for this sign would distinguish him from other bears and also prevent his own son who had now left him from killing him. After a deep fall of snow, the three brothers go out together to fell the bear, whom before that they have been 'ringing'. Then the bear asks his wife if all the three brothers had been equally spiteful to her, and she answers that her two eldest brothers had been more spiteful than the younger who had been somewhat more clement. When the brothers come to the lair, the bear runs out and attacks the eldest brother, bites him and injures him rather severely, and he himself returns uninjured to his lair. When the second brother comes, the bear runs against him in the same manner and injures him in the very same way and then he returns to his lair. Then he orders his wife to get hold of him round his waist. When she has done so, he walks out of his lair on his hind-legs carrying her; then she orders her youngest brother to shoot him, which he does. The wife then sits down some distance away, covers her face, as if she has not the heart to see the bear being shot and flayed, but still she watches with one eye. This is the origin of the old custom that no woman may see the bear or the men dealing with the bear, unless she has her face covered and is looking through a brass ring…..
When the three brothers have felled the bear and all the meat has been put in the cauldron to be boiled, the son arrives and the brothers tell him that they have shot a strange animal with a piece of brass attached to his forehead. I{e says that it was his father, who had been marked with such a piece of brass and he says that he has therefore a right to an equal share of the bear with them. When they keep on refusing to give him this, the son threatens to wake up his father, and then he takes a rod and saying the words, 'My father, arise! My father, arise' he beats the skin with it. Then the meat in the cauldron begins to boil so violently that it looks as though it wants to rise up out of the cauldron, and so they are forced to give him an equal share. This is said to be the origin of the following custom (if what Schefferus says really happens): when the bear has been felled, the hunters immediately drag him out of his lair and beat him with twigs or soft rods. From this come the pro-verb: 'beat a bear with twigs'. The fact that the bear hunters as well as all the implements used in the capture of the bear must, be adorned with brass chains and rings has its origin in the piece of brass attached to the bear's forehead.
As for the ceremonial used, the woman is said to have been instructed by the bear, and then she passed on the instructions to her brothers and told them that the ceremonial was necessary if they wished to overpower such a fierce animal as the bear: thus everything has been handed down to the Lapps by tradition, and therefore they have been all the more anxious to preserve and practice such customs as were prescribed by the bear himself, as they believed that far from being able to overpower him, they would be overpowered and injured by him, if they ailed failed to keep the rules of the old custom."
ORIGINS OF THE BEAR (Mansi)
As summarized by Svetlana Popova, Mansi Scholar
From the texts of the cycle of “bear songs” and from legends we learn about the different origins of the bear / she-bear and the corresponding worship. For example, the daughter of the supreme deity, Numi Torum, violated her father's prohibition: do not go beyond the threshold of the house. Once outside the house, she frightened a herd of horses, which ran away; she ran after them and fell into a hole. This hole turned out to be a hole in the Upper World, through which she saw the ground below. Having been attracted to her beautiful view from above, she begged her father to be let down to the ground, but she could not stand the difficulties and hardships that subsequently befell her, as a result she turned into a bear. In another example, the bear is the son of a woman Mosnay, who raised him without a father. The boy, having violated a number of mother's prohibitions, becomes a bear: “The son of this woman ran away from his mother, from people. Walking through the thickets covered with bushes of the bird cherry, through thickets covered with briar, he turned into a bear.
THE BEAR MOTHER (Tsimshian/Gitskan)
Barbeau, M. 1946. Bear Mother The Journal of American Folklore, 59, pp. 1-12 [As summarized by Barbeau]
Peesunt, a member of the family of Arhteeh of Kitwanga, long ago was gathering huckleberries on the mountain with two other young women of her tribe. Instead of singing like the others, to warn the bears of her presence there as she should have done, she kept chatting and laughing while gathering the wild fruit. The bears in the end pricked up their ears and listened. "Why does she always babble as if she were mocking someone?" they asked each other. Perhaps she was mocking them. That is why they spied on her in the bush and followed her down the trail when she packed a large basket of fruit for the camp. One evening all three young women, one after the other, followed the trail, stooping under their loads, which were held on their backs by packstraps from their foreheads. Peesunt, the babbler, was the last of the three, a short distance behind the others. Suddenly she slipped, nearly fell down, and looked at her feet. Then, bursting with angry laughter, she sneered, "Boo to Naek-bear-orphan! Here he has dropped his excrement!" She might just as well have said, "You bastard!" Her packstrap broke and, while she tried to mend it, her sisters went on their way, leaving her far behind. Ill-tempered, she did not sing as she should have, but only scolded and groaned. As it grew dark, she heard voices in the bush behind her, men's voices. Then two young men, looking like brothers, came toward her and said, "Sister, you are in trouble, with nobody to look after you. Come with us, we will carry your berries for you."; Following them she noticed that they were wearing bear robes, and they were taking her up the mountain. After dark they came to a large house near a rock-slide and entered with her. Around a small fire a number of people sat, looking at her, all of them dressed in bear robes. The white mouse Tseets- Grandmother came to her and pulled at her robe, which was now coated with long grey hair like a bear's. And the mouse squeaked, "Granddaughter, the bears have taken you to their den; from now on you shall be one of them, bearing children. "As she heard this she grew frightened, the more so when one of the young grizzlies approached her and said, "You shall live, if you agree to become my wife; if you refuse, you die."
After being taken to wife by the nephew of the Grizzly Bear chief, Peesunt was raised to a higher state among the Spirit Bears on the mountain side. She gave birth to twins, which were half human and half bear. Her brothers meanwhile searched for her. She saw them, as they stood at the bottom of a rock slide, and squeezed a handful of snow in her hand and let the tiny ball roll down the slide. The brothers, thus made aware of her presence, climbed the rock slide and slew the Bear, sparing her semi- human children. Before dying, the Bear husband taught his wife two ritual songs, which the hunters should use over his dead body, to ensure good luck. Peesunt's children behaved like bears part of the time; they guided their uncles to the dens of bears in the mountains, and helped them to set their snares. With their assistance and through the use of the dirge songs, which they always sang over dead bears, the families of Tenemgyet, Hrpeelarhae, and Arhteeh became prosperous bear hunters. And they adopted the Ensnared-Bear as their crest.
THE BEAR WIFE (Menomini)
Skinner, A. and J.V. Satterlee. 1915 FOLKLORE OF THE MENOMINI INDIANS. Anthropological Papers American Museum of
Natural History. Vol. XIII, pp. 381-383
This is the story of a bear and an Indian man of long ago. This man was married to a bear and her name was Awasiûkiu. When he first met her she looked just like a human woman, her beast form was invisible to him. The man met her on one of his walks and she led him to her home, which seemed to the man to be like a wigwam, so he entered with her and lived there all winter. The couple soon had a child, but the mother never cooked, for when they were hungry, little kettles filled with food would appear in their den. The reason for this is that when an Indian family makes a feast or gives a sacrifice on earth to the underneath bears, the food goes to them and they are fed.
The man's brothers and sisters did not know what had become of him and so began to search. One day, early in the spring, the bear wife said, "Your brothers are going to come here and find us. Shove our little ones over to one side and conceal them. You crouch behind and I will stand at the entrance of our lodge and perhaps they won't see you. When they discover me I shall run out to escape them. I shall circle so as to keep them after me all day, and I shall outrun your brothers and their dogs."
Then she prepared herself, fixing her dress so that she could run swiftly. "You know their dogs will find us first, as is natural with dogs", said she. Sure enough, first thing in the morning their dog barked in front of the den giving the alarm to the hunters. The brothers were not far off, on their snowshoes, and from the different sound of the dog's baying soon knew something had happened. They hurried up and came in front of the bear's den. As soon as they came, the bear wife sprang out and ran away. The hunters shot at her with their bows and arrows and one hit her in the shoulder.
Awasiûkiu, the bear woman, outran the hunters, as she had said she would, and returned to her lodge at evening, while all her Wanamonu'k, her brothers-in-law, were a long way behind, played out from the pursuit. So she went back to her den and her family, and when the snow had all melted they crept out and went to her husband's home together. She caused the parents and brothers of her husband to be unable to perceive that she was anything but a normal woman, and as time went on they believed it more strongly. But she really had a dual nature. When she lived at their home it now and then became apparent who she was, for sometimes she could not conceal the fact that she was a bear. So it fell out one day partly as a wonderful joke and partly as a wonderful shame to the hunters that she took off her waist and was partially naked, so that a great scar could be seen on her shoulders. One of her brothers-in-law approached close to her, and said, "Oh what a homely scar you have on your shoulder. Why do you look like that? It goes to show that you have barely escaped from someone!" "Oh, the whole lot of you ought to be ashamed," she replied, "because I left you a long distance behind on your chase after me. Yes, I even left your dog a long distance behind. I outdid you even with my wound."
Then the hunters were surprised and marvelled to hear her say so. Then they knew whom they had for a sister-in-law. Then it became known for the first time that those who suffer and fast for power can acquire the ability to live with beasts as they desire. They are able to see through the nature of the animal which appears to them as a human being. Thereafter this bear woman was known as Mat'citiniu, "Scarred-shouldered-one", a female name, still found among women of the bear totems.