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Yup'ik Raven This collection of student work is from Frank Keim's classes. He wants to share these works for others to use as an example of culturally-based curriculum and documentation. These documents have been OCR-scanned and are available for educational use only.


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The Bear and the Two Weasles
Many years ago a swell hunter brought up his family in a cabin. His family consisted of a wife and two sons. Each day he would check his traps and snares and hunt animals with his bow and arrow. Whenever he came home, which was once or twice a day, he would come home with a number of catches. Seldom did he come home with a low number of catches, or nothing at all.

One week he came home each day with a low bag limit. He then started returning home a couple days late with only a small amount of game.

His wife got suspicious and decided to follow him to see what he was up to. So before she left she told her two sons that if anything went wrong or they were in danger, to slip into the weasle skins on the wall. She then followed him and learned that he was also supporting another woman.

She then got a bear skin, tied two pieces of wood on each side of her body, and disguised herself as a bear. When she encountered her husband she started mailing him to death. Even though he drew arrows and started sticking them into her, they didn't harm her at all. Finally she got to him and killed him and then returned to her home. She was so excited and shocked by what had happened she did not take the bear skin off before entering her house. So when she went in, her two boys grew scared and did what she told them to do. They got into the weasle skins, jumped to the floor and ran oft. From that time on the boys were weasles, and the mother became a bear.

Note: Not too long ago a black bear was caught near Russian Mission containing two pieces of wood inside its skin.

Story by: Theresa Kameroff

Remembered by: Gary Kameroff

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