The Alaska daily empire. [volume] (Juneau, Alaska) 1912-1926, 1915-01-01
attended to curing the fish.

ed her husband back the wife went
I'M the stream to catch a salmon to
roast for supper. Wading out in the
stream. spear in hand, she was sur
nrised TO see a big brown man ap-
near ON the bank between here and
their camp. Now there had never
been any bear in the country up to
this time, so she was very much
frightened and when the bear ad-'
yanced toward her she threw her
smear at him. This he deftly threw
aside and, smiling and nodding his
head in a friendly way he quickly
caught the woman and partly pushing
and carrying her he hurried far up
the stream and along the bank far up
into the mountains where the rocks
came together. Here was the brown
hears den. He had apparently made
nreparation for his bride for there
was a bed of deer skins and moss,
and fresh deer for dinner. Endeavor-
ing TO make the woman comfortable,
the brown bear offered her raw meat.
This she could not eat, but being
worn out. and tired from the hard
trim. she made a fire and proceeded
to cook the venison. All this was
new to MIR. Bear. He shifted sus-
piciously at the fire first, but on
smelling the cooking meat, he was
more pleased and became curious,
and when the woman broke the meat
in two and divided it with him he
was delighted and gave her more
more meat to cook.
The cunning and ever watchful eye
of Hootz, the brown bear, prevented
the woman from making her escape,
so she was forced to live with him.
As years went by the bear family in
,reased, and years afterward when
some natives came to Fish Bay they
found tracks of bare-footed men,
with long tces) on the beach. eau
tiOusly following these they came to
where the brown bear lived, and were
frightened to find an old woman sit
ting on rock. trying to straighten
out her long gray hair with cedar
comb Thinking that they had dis
covered witch, they tried to run
away but the woman ran after them
and by the broken use of her mother
tongue she made them understand
that she wanted to get back to her
people. They hurried to the beach
with her, and were just in time to
get away in their canoes when the
great brown bear came after them.
On getting back to her people the
old woman told them how she had
been caught and forced to live with
the big brown bear, and in their joy
at getting her back again they had
the first great potlatch, and eating,
drinking, and dancing, they establish
ed the Clan of the Bear, and they
and their descendants have been
known as the bear clan ever since.
Jim then explained that the old ma
tives thought that the brown bears
were half men, and being supersti-
tious, concerning the wonderful cum
ming OF the bear, more especially his
sense of smell and his terrible claws.
1t was many years before a native
would skin bears nose, or feet,
thinking that if they did, the Evil
Spirit of the bear would come back
to them and they would never be
successful in their hunts.
We found our natives in every way
good fellows in camp, willing workers,
clearly in their cooking and other
work of the camp. They were big
help throughout the trip, relieving
us of the burden of the heavier work
and the onerous duties of camp life,
such as cooking, washing dishes and
hustling wood. They are very re-
sourceful, and much at home in the
water, so that when our motor re-
fused to further perform its duties,
Jake's improvised sail was very help
full and resulted in the conservation
of large amount of "Muscle-ene.
The amount of work involved in
skinning, stretching and fleshing a
bear skin is hardly conceivable to a
person who has not seen it done, and
this work took the greatest part Of
the time of the two natives for two
days, leaving us to hunt by ourselves
during most of the remainder of the
trip. We found further signs in plen-