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NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



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

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

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

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

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

 in fear. 



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

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

 her? What had she known but the simple forests where the bears 

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

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

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

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

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

 the Witch Hawk enticed her to the restless uncertain ways 

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

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

 lived but to destroy! 



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

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

 the dying as Gwi-yee fled to the forest. 



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

 had surrounded the forests where they watched many nights. 



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

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

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

 death in the snows. In triumph the hunters drew near, when 

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

 young maiden dressed in doeskin, her feet sheathed in porcu- 

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

 of the summer, and a hawk screamed through the forest as she 

 vanished! 



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

 the witch who has destroyed us! " 



