A family with 7 boys and 2 daughters live with only their father because their mother died many years ago. One of the young daughters had many suitors. She had a secret. She had a bear for a lover. When she had to go retrieve wood for the house, she would meet her bear lover. When her father and brother would go out to hunt, she would leave her little sister alone to run to the bears house.
One day, out of curiosity, the younger sister wanted to know why her older sister was gone so long all the time. On her trip, she discovered her sister's secret. The father never knew why his oldest daughter never wanted to marry until his youngest daughter told him about the bear lover. The father didn't accept that he had a bear for a son-in-law. He told the village of this news and the village set out to kill the bear.
When the older sister had found out that her little sister told on her, the older sister scolded her younger sister. In anger, she told her younger sister to go out and retrieve fresh meat from the dead bears paws. The younger sister was afraid to go outside though because a dog and her puppies tried to bite her. To help her to scare the dogs away, the older sister, who is a medicine woman, painted the younger sister's face to look like a bear.
The medicine woman sister, tanned a hide for the younger sister to take the baby brother and carry him on her back. The sisters went outside to play in the brush, but the older sister warned her sister to not touch her over her kidneys. Forgetting what the older sister had said, she touched her sister's kidneys and she became a bear. The older sister went into the village and killed many people but returned to her true self shortly after.
The sister ran into her brothers when walking through the woods. She explained to them what had happened that day. The brothers told their sister to go inside and they would scatter prickly pear all over the ground but in one spot and she was to go there to pass.
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| A bear and a woman dancing. Source. |
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