Storytelling: The Woman Who Fostered the Bear

There once was a childless woman who longed for a baby to care for. The people in the village up above always brought her meat and blubber, but this day was different. The wife of one of the hunters approached the woman and asked her if she would like to foster a bear cub. The woman could not have been more delighted. She went out to get the bear cub and brought him into her home to help him get warm. She fed the bear cub and loved him as her own child, even letting him sleep with her at night. As the bear got older, his body grew bigger, but his mind grew too. Since he had had so much human interaction with the woman, he had developed a human-like mind, being able to communicate with his foster mother.

                                             Polar Bear Cub, online source

                

The village children would play with the bear, and he would be as gentle as he could. Eventually though, he got too big to play with the children, so the adults would play with him. Everyone in the village loved the bear. Unfortunately, the bear soon grew too big for even the grown men to play with him. They did not want the bear to feel left out, so they began inviting the bear on their hunting outings. He helped the men find seal and kept them well-fed. The foster mother even made him a necklace of sinew to distinguish him from the other bears, so he would not be hunted himself.

Polar Bear, online source

The bear’s foster mother had always told him to never harm a human unless that human wished to harm him. So, when the bear returned late one night with the dead body of a man, his mother knew that her bear had only been protecting himself. The body turned out to belong to a man from another village who had heard of the bear that should not be killed, and people had heard him vow to kill him if he saw it. The bear’s foster mother knew that her baby could not stay with her any longer though. He would be killed if he did.

Sad Polar Bear, online source

So one day, early in the morning before the sun came up, the mother prepared to send her baby off into the world. She told him that there were others bears like him who would take him in, but she really had no clue if this was the case. The two held each other and wept; they were both heartbroken. The old woman finally decided that it was time, and she sent the bear off to find a family of his own. The bear searched for what seemed like forever until he finally found them. Other bears. Just like him. He approached them timidly, but they welcomed him as if they had known him his whole life. Mother was right. The bears recognized him, and they had known his bear mother who was killed by hunters. He told them of his life with the woman and the villagers, and they were all in awe. He lived with them and was happy, but he missed his foster mother terribly.

Polar Bears, online source

His foster mother missed him too. So, one day, she asked to join the hunters on their outing with hopes that she could catch a glimpse of her baby. The hunters from her village no longer hunted bears, but they did come across them from time to time. A couple of hours into the outing, the foster mother began to lose hope. But then, she saw him. Her baby! She knew it was him because he was still wearing his sinew necklace. He showed his foster mother his new family. He now had cubs of his own! The visit did not last long, but the woman left satisfied and filled with happiness for her baby, and the bear was so excited to have gotten to see his foster mother again.

Polar Bear and Cubs, online source

Here ends this story.

Bibliography: The Woman Who Had a Bear as a Foster-Son from Eskimo Folk Tales by Knud Rasmussen, link to online source

Author’s Note: I did not change the original story much. I really liked the original and thought it was a sweet story. The original story gave more detail in the beginning of the story, but I wrote my version differently for fear of copying too much of the original story. However, I did make some changes to the end of the story. In the original story, the bear leaves, and the two never see each other again.  This was too sad an ending for me. Also, the original story never tells us if the bear found a bear family after leaving his foster mother. So, I decided to give the characters a happy ending and give the readers some closure. I also chose to include the detail of the hunters in that village no longer hunting for bears because it didn’t make sense to me that they could have such a familial relationship with a bear but still kill others of his kind. I thought it was important to include the reunion because the original story left me with so many questions, and I really wanted to know if the two would ever see each other again and if the bear would be happy out there since he had grown up with humans. My first and last lines were modeled after the Inuit stories as well.