92 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



drapes in its black shadows, Gwi-yee folded herself in the glooi 

 that threatened her, baneful its power, malign its darkness ! He 

 wooers had abandoned her, the maidens shunned her, the old peop 

 who knew all the signs of the witches feared her as a thing of dreac 

 and even the kind O-gas-hah hushed her crooning child song as 

 in fear. 



The curse of the Witch Hawk had fallen upon her! Why ha 

 he taken her from her forest friends who had nurtured and reare 

 her? What had she known but the simple forests where the bea: 

 had taught her their liberty life? On their wide walks she ha 

 roamed far and free. The cheats and sorrows of the human kin 

 were unknown to her friends, who had taught her to hide froi 

 their killing. The forests and rivers and skies were all hers whei 

 unrestrained she had wandered in her wild wood life. Why ha 

 the Witch Hawk enticed her to the restless uncertain wal 

 of the human? She had learned to love with the human love bi 

 to be hated; she had been kind but to be scorned, and as a humai 

 lived but to destroy! 



Back again to her old life she would flee, never to return from i 

 peace. And the voice of O-gas-hah was crooning like a refrain 

 the dying as Gwi-yee fled to the forest. 



Foredoomed was Gwi-yee. The hunters who had preceded hi 

 had surrounded the forests where they watched many nights. 



The moon peered through the snow laden trees as a bear w 

 tracking its way in the drifts. Slow and more slow it tracked i 

 way when a swift flying arrow pierced its heart, and it fell to i 

 death in the snows. In triumph the hunters drew near, wh< 

 from its body arose a young maiden wrapped in a great light, 

 young maiden dressed in doeskin, her feet sheathed in pore 

 pined moccasins, her long black hair braided with the wild grass 

 of the summer, and a hawk screamed through the forest as s' 

 vanished! 



"It was Gwi-yee!" exclaimed the hunter, "the Bear Woma 

 the witch who has destroyed us! " 



