442 SENECA FICTION, LEGENDS, AND MYTHS [bth. ann. 32 



This was a bear's den, and as the bundle fell into the hole the old 

 bear found it. The woman, running for her life, overtook some of 

 her people, who asked her what she had done with the child, but she 

 made them no answer. After many had been killed, the enemy (who 

 were Indians) disappeared, and the Seneca made, new homes for 

 themselves. 



In the spring, while on a himting expedition, a man came to a 

 chestnut grove, where he camped. The next day while hunting he 

 saw a she-bear with cubs. He killed the old bear. As she fell over, 

 she struck one of the cubs, which cried like a child, while the other 

 cubs ran up a tree. The hunter, hearing the cry, thought it very 

 strange. Wlien he came near the spot, he saw a small boy, who ran 

 away crying. The boy was so wild that the man could hardly catch 

 him. He cried all the time. The hunter said : " Stop crying, 

 nephew; nothing will harm you. Stop, nephew!" The little fellow 

 answered : " You made me cry. You killed my mother ; you have 

 made me very miserable. Over there are my brothers" (pointing to 

 the tree). "I should not have Irilled your mother had I seen you 

 first," said the man; "but how came that bear to be your mother?" 

 The boy, who was covered with hair, replied : " I will tell you. When 

 your people fled from Canandaigua in the evening of the attack on 

 them. I was thrown away. I was then only two days old, but I 

 remember everything. I laiew my mother's mind. I was a burden 

 to her when she was trying to escape, so she dropped me into the 

 hollow trunk of that tree over there, where a bear happened to live. 

 The bear caught me as I fell, and said that I should live with her 

 children, and that she could keep us all. My mother threw me away 

 to die. The bear is the mother who nursed and cared for me." 



" Very well," said the man ; " I laiow this is true. You will be my 

 son now." The boy did not like this, but he agreed to it at last. The 

 man promised that all he had or would get should be his. He stopped 

 crying, and the man, strapping him on his back, carried him to camp. 

 After this, whenever the man went out to hmit, he tied the boy so 

 that he could not get away, until one day the boy said, " Do not tie 

 me. I will never leave you" (his nature had now become human). 

 The hunter had buried the mother bear without taking off her skin. 

 As the boy had promised not to run away, the man let him go with 

 himself to hunt. The boy seemed to have some way of knowing 

 where bears lived, but he never told his father where a female bear 

 was, only where male bears were to be found, and his father shot 

 them. This man had always been a poor hunter until he found the 

 boy; afterward he had wonderful luck. Some time having passed, 

 the man said, " We must go back to our own village." When they 

 reached home the boy said, " That woman (meaning his mother) will 



