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The Girl Who Married the Bear - A Masterpiece of Indian Oral Tradition

:

McClellan, Catharine


1970

Useful
Article
Indian
Referenced by: ANKN Clearinghouse

Grade Level(s): 9, 10, 11, 12

Theme(s): Exploring Horizons

Excerpt:
"One of the most popular stories of the southern Yukon Indians - the Inland Tlingit, Tagish, and Southern Tutchone - is about a girl who was taken away by a bear after she had insulted it. He first appears in human form, and she marries him and has children by him. Later her brothers kill the bear, who is their brother-in-law, and the girl returns home. However, when her brothers urge her to don a bearskin against her wishes, she turns into a bear forever and kills her brothers. The two chief themes that the story develops are conflict between consanguine and affinal loyalties and the uneasy balance of harmony between animals and humans. The Yukon Indians also link this tale to their ritual observances for the corpses of bears, since the bear taught his wife what should be done and she instructed her brothers."

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