As in most Native American folklore and mythology, animals are often found at the center of Cherokee stories. However, for the Cherokee, animals are more than metaphor. Even after humans provoked the hostility of animals as a result of their selfish aggression, the differences between the two remained a matter of degree. Animals, for example, had their own townhouses, councils, and chiefs. Furthermore, according to one Cherokee story, bears were, at one time, Cherokees. Indeed, the Cherokee justification for hunting bears emerges from their story about the origin of bears. So, it should come as no surprise that the boundary between bear and human is a blurry one—not only for Cherokees but also for Native Americans throughout North America.
In the Cherokee story “Bear Man,” the tenuous nature of that boundary is on full display. A man hunting in the mountains spotted a black bear in the distance and shot it with an arrow. The bear immediately turned and ran away from the hunter. The persistent hunter chased after the bear and continued to shoot the bear with arrows. The bear, however, would not go down. Instead, the bear stopped, pulled the arrows out of its side, and gave them back to the hunter, saying, “It is of no use for you to shoot at me, for you cannot kill me. Come to my house and let us live together.” The hunter thought to himself that the bear would probably kill him, but the bear seemed to know the man’s fears, assuring him, “No, I won’t hurt you.” The bear also promised the hungry hunter that he could provide the man plenty to eat. So, the man agreed to accompany the bear back to his house.
After stopping briefly at a council of bears, the two continued to the bear’s home—a cave in the side of a mountain—where the man soon realized his hunger. Fulfilling his promise, the bear rubbed his stomach and soon had two paws full of chestnuts that he gave to the hunter. The bear performed this feat several more times, producing huckleberries, blackberries, and acorns until the hunter could eat no more. Satisfied, the hunter remained with the bear through the winter and began to grow long hair like that of a bear all over his body. Though he still walked like a man, he began to act like a bear.
On an early spring day, the bear informed the man that hunters from the nearby settlement would soon kill the bear, take his clothes (his skin), and bring the man home with them. Soon, the day approached and the bear gave his companion further instructions. After the hunters had killed the bear, removed his “clothes,” and cut him into pieces, the man was to cover the blood with leaves. “When they are taking you away,” said the bear, “look back after you have gone a piece and you will see something.”
As the bear predicted, hunters and their dogs came up the mountain and killed the bear with their arrows. They also realized that the other hairy creature that remained in the cave was not a bear, but the hunter who had disappeared the year prior. Before the hunters left to bring the bear meat and their friend with them, the man piled leaves over the spot where the hunters had killed the bear. After he had gone a little way, the man looked back and saw the bear emerge from the leaves, shake himself, and amble back into the woods.
As the party approached the settlement, the man informed the hunters that he must be housed where no one could see him, without any food or drink for seven days and nights, for the bear nature to leave him. The hunters complied, but soon the man’s wife found out and demanded to see her husband. Though she was initially prevented from getting near him, she finally gained access to the man after days of begging and took him home with her. But soon after returning home the man died, “because he still had a bear’s nature and could not live like a man.” If they had kept him shut up and fasting until the end of the seven days, he would have become a man again and would have lived.
Bear Walker
According to Ojibwe tradition, a Bear Walker is an evil spirit or sorcerer that appears at night in the form of a bear. Although in the Ojibwe tradition bears often represent powerful spiritual forces for good, the Bear Walker is a terrifying shape-shifter, the very sight of which betokens ill fortune. A recent popular reference to the Bear Walker was in Escanaba in Da Moonlight, a 2001 comedy. The dark underside of this tradition resurfaced in 1997, however, when an Ojibwe man successfully used his belief in the Bear Walker to defend himself against manslaughter charges.
C. Fee
In addition to demonstrating the similarities between Cherokees and bears—both experience famine and have their own councils—this story illuminates the significance of several Cherokee cultural practices. The story reveals the importance of undergoing a purifying ritual before rejoining the larger group—a ritual often undertaken after going out with a war or hunting party that included ingesting a purgative (black drink) and going to water. It is also important to note that Cherokees continue to tell this story, even using it to help revitalize the Cherokee language.
Nathaniel F. Holly
See also Animal Tales; Deer Woman; Milky Way, a Cherokee Legend
Further Reading
Duncan, Barbara R., ed. 1998. Living Stories of the Cherokee. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Gray, Sam. 1979. Mythic Maps: An Exhibition of Cherokee Legends in the Appalachian Landscape. Franklin, NC: Macon Graphics.
Mooney, James. 1900. “Myths of the Cherokee.” In Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1897–98, 1–576. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
Rossman, Douglas A. 1988. Where Legends Live: A Pictorial Guide to Cherokee Mythic Places. Cherokee, NC: Cherokee.