Week 9 Storytelling: Black Bear in the Sky

Ursa Major (Bear) Constellation map, Source: wikipedia

“Once there was a young woman with many suitors, but she refused to marry. She had seven brothers and one little sister. Their mother had been dead many years and they had no relatives, but lived alone with their father.”

Her name was Seke. Her brothers had tried to get her to fall in love with one of their friends. They had held competitions to see who could bring Seke the biggest deer that they had shot down with their bows. Many men had lined up and proclaimed how mesmerized they were by her beauty; how they could not imagine anyone else being her husband.

And Seke was beautiful. The eldest sister resembled their mother, who had passed in a tragic accident right after the youngest sister was born. She had big brown eyes and thick black hair that hung long to the small of her back. Her skin was made tan and rough from the long days spent in the sun.

One day, the little sister was bored picking berries and decided to follow her oldest sister while she was getting wood from the forest. The little sister followed Seke far into the forest where the thickest trees began to keep the rays of the sun from shining through. She could just make out the form of her older sister in front of her. She began to wonder why Seke would come so far into the forest just for wood when she saw a large black bear emerge from behind one of the trees and walk towards Seke. The little sister was frightened and was about to scream out when she saw her older sister lean in and hug the bear. They caressed while the younger sister stood in shock at what she was seeing. When she collected herself enough to move, she sprinted all the way back to the house.

Upon arriving at home, the little sister told the seven brothers and father of what she had seen. Seke and the bear were lovers. The father and brothers grew angry and now knew why Seke would not take any of the suitors they had arranged as her husband.

When Seke returned from gathering wood in the forest, she could see something was wrong with her brothers and father. They told her of their knowledge of her bear lover. The siblings wanted to meet him. If she did not oblige to this, they would kill him. Seke was distraught that her secret had been revealed, and she knew her family would not approve of her marriage to a bear. She cried herself to sleep that night, but knew the next day she would have to bring her family to the bear.

The next day, Seke, her seven brothers, and her younger sister ventured into the forest to find the bear that she claimed as her lover. Seke was nervous and did not know how the meeting would unfold. They traveled deep into the forest until the sun disappeared and the trees were thick. Seke went ahead of her family and called to her lover to come out of his cage. He approached Seke slowly and a gentle smile spread across his black lips on his bristly face. But then he growled and stood up on his hind legs, towering over Seke. He was a black beast with fury in his eyes. Seke did not expect her lover to be that furious with her for bringing her family to see him. She turned around to apologize to her family, when she saw why he was raging and growling.

There stood her family with loaded arrows pointed at the bear, ready to kill him. As her family began to charge towards her lover with arrows ready and he began to charge towards her family with teeth showing and claws out, Seke began to cry. Her family or her lover would die if she could not do something to stop them. But the fury in their eyes showed there was no peaceful solution.

Seke closed her eyes and said to herself “may they be in the only safe place I know, where no human or animal can harm them” And with that her seven brothers and younger sister disappeared from the forest. She was left alone in the forest with her lover, the bear, and they lived a happy life together.

And as for her siblings, they were cast into the sky in the shape of a bear. The little brother is the North Star. The six brothers and the little sister are seen in the Great Dipper. The little sister and eldest brother are in a line with the North Star, the little sister being nearest it because she used to carry her little brother on her back. The other brothers are arranged in order of their age, beginning with the eldest. This is how the seven stars came to be.

Author’s Note: This retelling comes from The Bear Woman. In the original story there is a quarrel between the eledest sister and her siblings when they find out she is in love with a bear. The eldest sister becomes angry with them and turns into a bear to kill them. She kills four of her brothers and then one of the eldest brothers finlly shoots her in the head with an arrow and kills her. The brother then brings the four dead brothers back to life and with no family left, they decide they have nothing left on earth and decide to live in the sky. I kept the idea of the woman being in love with the bear the same but changed how the siblings came to be the constellation in the sky. I thought it was a happier ending, and made it more interesting that the sister wanted to protect both her family and her lover, so she cast them into the sky. The name Seke means black and I thought it was appropriate as a black bear.

Bibliography: The Bear-Woman. Tales of the North American Indians by Stith Thompson (1929).