The Bear Skin:
The Bear Skin
A
long time ago, there lived a man, his wife and two boys. The man
always went out hunting and he always came back with something to
eat. One day though, he didn't come back. The family got worried
and couldn't find him.
When the
wife went to use the bathroom, a bird told her that her husband
went up to the mountains to live with two other women. The wife
got so angry she decided to go and check on him. But first she
made her two boys a big dish of agutaq and told them," If a
bear comes, jump in the weasel skins." They agreed.
The wife got ready and thought of a way to kill
her husband. She decided to wear a fake bear skin to do this with.
She wore it all the way up the mountain and when she finally saw
their cabin she stopped and waited while the two women came
outside. When they came out, she immediately ran over to them and
killed both of them with her bear paws. Then she sat the women on
a log facing the river.![](http://ankn.uaf.edu/NPE/CulturalAtlases/Yupiaq/Marshall/Mustang/images/mustang77.jpg)
Meanwhile, she waited in the grass until she
saw her husband coming up the bank. He was carrying a lot of
ducks, and when he saw the two women he said," Come and help me."
They didn't respond so he kept on walking towards them. When he
got closer to the cabin though, his wife jumped out of the grass
with her bear costume on and killed him too. Since she was
satisfied with her revenge, she headed for home.
She thought of her boys as she was going back
down to her house. But when she reached her house she forgot to
take her bear skin off when she went inside. When her boys saw her
they thought she was a bear and they jumped into the weasel skins
and turned into weasels. The wife then turned into a bear and was
never a person again.
Story by: Teresa
Kameroff
Interviewed by: Darcy Kameroff
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