TIIK BKAK MAN. 
^3 
The Bear Man. 
Many of the tribes of North American Indians have 
folklore tales and wonder stories which enforce the truth 
that character is influenced by companionship and associ¬ 
ation. Tims, ill a Navajo le^^end the hero is warned by a 
good .spirit against eating with some newly found friends : 
“Hat not the food of the rats in the home of the rats, if 
you would not become a rat.” 
The Cherokee have a wonder story which has been told 
to many generations of their children, always with the ob¬ 
vious moral that one’s associations have a great deal to do 
with shaping one’s character. Mr. James Mooney, whose 
account of the Cherokee Indians was published in the nine¬ 
teenth annual report of the Bureau of American Ethnolo- 
<>-y, has given us this Indian nature stor}^ in much the wa}^ 
in which the Indians are accustomed to tell it. 
A man went hunting in the mountains and came across a 
black bear, which he wounded with an arrow. The bear 
turned and started to run the other way, and the hunter 
followed, shooting one arrow after another into it without 
bringing it down. Now, this was a medicine bear, and 
could talk or read the thoughts of people without their say¬ 
ing a word. At last he stopped, pulled the arrows out of 
his side and gave them to the man, saying, “It is of no 
use for you to shoot at me, for you can not kill me. Come 
to my house and let us live together.” The hunter 
thought to himself, ” He may kill me;” but the bear read 
his thoughts and .said, ” No, I won’t hurt 3 ^ 011 .” The man 
thought again,” How can I get anything to eat? ” but the 
bear knew his thoughts, and said, ‘ ‘ There .shall be plenty. ’ ’ 
So the hunter went with the bear. 
They went on together until they came to a hole in the 
side of the mountain, and the bear said, “This is not 
