It is the time when snows are deep and the wind's voice circles the big Bear Clan longhouse. It is Tsiotorkowa, the coldest Moon, when the nights are the longest.
People are gathered round the most central of the five fires. Those fires serve as communal hearths for the twenty families who live here, all members of the Bear Clan, for each longhouse is headed by a clan mother. And just as the father's name is inherited among present-day Americans, the children all inherit the clan of their mother.
But this evening it is not only the Bear Clan women, the husbands have come to live with the families of their wives, the elders, and many children who are here.
This evening people have come crowding in from the the other four longhouses that are also part of this village surrounded by cornfields. Almost all the people of the clans of the Turtle, the Wolf, the Snipe, and the Eel have come as guests, from the oldest to those so small their mothers must carry them. They are here because of the man in his late middle years who sits now by the fire, looking around the circle of expectant faces.
His name is Crosses Many Rivers and is from another village in a six days' walk west from here along the Mohawk River. He was a great hunter and warrior in his youth, and his name went out among his people. Now wherever he travels, his name precedes him and every longhouse opens its door to him, for he is a storyteller.
NOTE: The Iroquois call themselves Haudenosaunee. It means "People of the Longhouse" and is a reminder of the type of dwelling they lived in before the Europeans came. Each longhouse might be as much as thirty feet long and would hold a number of families, all linked together by a common clan decent. There were five original Iroquois nations, and they viewed their alliance, which was called The Great League of Peace, as being the shape of a longhouse. The Mohawk People to the east along the Mohawk and Hudson rivers called the Keepers of the Eastern Door. The present-day city of Albany is on Mohawk land. The Seneca to the far west, near the falls of Niagara, The keepers of the Western Door. The Onondaga are The Keepers of the Central Fire and the symbolic Great Tree of Peace, whose branches are meant to shelter any one who wish to join the alliance. Syracuse is on Onondaga land. To the east of them are the Oneida People, and to the southwest among the Finger Lakes, the Cayuga Nation.
The Iroquois today, number more than 2,000 in the New York State alone.
Crosses Many Rivers clears his throat, and what little noise the people are making suddenly subsides. There are only the sounds of the crackling fire, the wind, and the hushed breathing. He puts down the clay pipe that he has just been given on arrival--the kind of special gift that often given to welcome the storyteller. He reaches into the deerskin bag that hangs at his waist, and from it he pulls a bear claw.
"Now", he says, "hear a story. Hear the story of the boy who became a bear. Hoh!"
And as one, the people answer back, "Henh!"
Long ago, in a small village of the Haudenosaunee people, there lived a little boy whose parents had died. This boy was living with his uncle, as was the custom in those days, for it was said that no child would ever be without parents.
But this boy's uncle did not have a straight mind. Although it was his duty to take care of his nephew, he resented the fact that he had this boy to care for. Instead of taking care of him, he treated him badly. He dressed him in ragged clothes; he gave only scraps of food to eat; he never called the boy by his name. He would just say, "Hey, you, get out of my way!"
Now, this boy had always bee taught by his parents to treat elders with respect. So he tried to do everything he could to please his uncle. His uncle was very respected in the village because he was a great hunter. When he and his dog went out, they always brought back game. One day, the uncle woke up with an idea in his mind. It was a twisted-mind idea, for what the uncle thought was this: "Too long have I bothered with this troublesome boy. Today, I will get rid of him."
And so he called, "You, come here!" The boy quickly came, because he wanted to please his uncle. The uncle said, "You and I we're going to go hunting together."
They left the lodge and started for the woods, and that was when the boy noticed something strange. He said, "Uncle, aren't you going to take your dog?" The uncle looked at the boy and said, "Today, you will be my dog."
Then the boy noticed another thing that was strange--they were going toward the north. In the village, when people went hunting, they would go east, or south, or even west, but never to the north, because there, it is said, strange things happened in the forest. Farther and farther the boy and his uncle went, away from any of the trails that people would follow, farther and farther to the north. The boy stayed close behind his uncle.
Finally, they came to a small clearing in the deep forest. On the other side, in the hillside, there was a small cave. The uncle said, "There are animals in there. You are my dog. Crawl in and chase them out." The boy was so frightened, but then he thought back to what his parents had always told him: "Do what your elders say. Trust your elders."
So he crawled into the cave, but there was nothing there, no animal at all. As he turned around and began to crawl out, the circle of light that was at the mouth of the cave suddenly vanished--the cave mouth was blocked by a big stone. That was when the boy realized that his uncle meant to leave him there, and he began to cry.
But as the tears came, he remembered the song his mother had taught him to sing when he needed a friend. Softly, he began to sing:
"Weyanna, weyanna, weyanna, hey.
Weyanna, weyanna, weyanna, hey.
Weyanna, weyanna, weyanna, hey.
Wey, hey yo-o-o, wey hey yo."
Then he stopped, because it seemed as if he could hear soft singing answering him on the other side of that rock. So he sang a little louder:
"Weyanna, weyanna, weyanna, hey.
Weyanna, weyanna, weyanna, hey.
Weyanna, weyanna, weyanna, hey.
Wey, hey yo-o-o, wey hey yo."
And from the other side of that rock came back:
"Wey, hey yo-o-o, wey hey yo."
The boy knew now that someone was out there, singing back to him, so he sang even louder again. From the other side of the rock the song once again was returned stronger still.
Then, together, the song was sung from both sides of the stone, and it ended together very loudly:
"Wey, hey yo-o-o, wey hey yo."
As the song ended, the rock was rolled away, and the boy crawled out into the bright sunlight, blinking his eyes. All around him in the clearing many people were gathered: big people, small people, tall people, skinny people, fat people, people of all shapes and sizes. He blinked his eyes again, and he saw they were not people at all. They were animals of the forest, all the animals of the forest: bears, deer, foxes, wolves, beavers, muskrats, and even small animals--squirrels, woodchucks, chipmunks, moles. All of them were gathered there looking straight at him. He stood up, and all those animals took one step towards him!
The boy did not know what would happen next. And it was old grandmother woodchuck shuffled up to him, poked him in the leg, and said, "Grandson, we heard your song. Do you need a friend?"
"Yes, oh yes, said the boy, I do need a friend. You've come to help me?"
"Yes, said the old grandmother woodchuck, but where is your family? Why were you trapped in the cave?"
The boy with a single tear rolling down his face said sadly. "My parents died, and only my uncle was left to care for me. But he did not want me. He put me in this cave and left me here to die, so I have no family anywhere in the world."
The old grandmother woodchuck said, "Grandson, we will be your family! Pick any of us, and we will adopt you!" The boy looked around. All the animals were looking at him, but how could he decide?
"My friends," he said, "tell me what your lives are like. Then I can decide which one I will come to live with."
So the animals began to tell him about their lives: The mole told him how he lived in a warm burrow and dug the earth and ate delicious worms; the beaver described how he swam underwater and lived in a warm lodge and ate tree bark. The boy thanked each animal politely, but said that he did not have claws to dig like the mole, and that he could not hold his breath and swim underwater like the beaver.
Then the old mother bear came up. "My boy, you would like to be a bear. We take our time going through the forest. We eat the most delicious honey and berries. We sleep in our warm cave. And my two children here will play with you as much as you want." The boy quickly said, "I will be a bear."
And indeed, it was as the old mother bear had said. Their lives were very good together. They took their time going through the forest. They ate delicious berries and honey, and the boy grew fat and happy. The bear cubs would wrestle and play with him as much as he wanted. In fact, he began to look like a bear himself, because when they wrestled and played, if their claws scratched him, hair would grow there, so after some time had passed, that boy did look like a bear, covered with black hair himself.
For two seasons, they lived this way. But then one day, as they were walking through the forest, the old mother bear stopped suddenly and said, "Listen!...Listen!"
Well, the boy listened. And before long, he heard the sound of feet walking through the forest, stepping on twigs and brushing past the leaves. The old mother began to laugh. "That is the sound of a hunter trying to hunt the bear. But he makes so much noise going through the forest, we call him Heavy Foot. He will never catch a bear!" And so they continued on their way.
Another day came, and again as they walked through the forest, the old mother bear stopped and said, "Listen!" The boy could hear the sound of someone talking to himself, saying, "Ahhh, it is a very good day for hunting. Ah-ha, today I will surely catch a bear! Uh, yes, uh, I will probably catch more than one bear, for I am a great hunter!"
Old Mother began to laugh. "That's the one who talks to himself while he hunts. We call him Flapping Jaws. He will never catch a bear!"
And so it went on. Each day they listened. They heard the hunter called Bumps into Trees, and the one called Falls into the Lake. None of these hunters was good enough to catch a bear.
But then one day, as they walked along, the old mother bear said, "Stop. Listen!" For a long time, the boy could hear nothing. Then very very faintly he could hear the sound of soft feet, moving through the forest. But it did not sound like two feet. It did not sound like four feet. It sounded like two feet and four feet.
The old mother bear quickly nodded. She said, "This one we fear. It is two legs and four legs. We must RUN!" And she began to run. The boy and the two cubs ran behind her through the forest, but Two Legs and Four Legs were behind them. They ran through the swamps, but Two Legs and Four Legs followed, and now the boy could hear behind them growing louder: "Wuf, wuf, wuf, wuf, wuf!" And the boy knew Two Legs and Four Legs were very close behind indeed!
They came to a clearing where an old tree had fallen. It was hollow. The boy and the two cubs and the old mother bear went into that hollow log to hide.
The boy listened. He heard the Two Legs and the Four legs come into the clearing and right up to the log. And everything became deathly quiet.
"Perhaps they've gone away," the boy thought. But then he began to smell smoke. Smoke was coming into the log! Two Legs and Four Legs had made a fire and was blowing the smoke into the log to make them come out.
It was just at that moment that the boy remembered that he, too, was a Two Legs. He was a person, a human being, and that was a hunter and dog out there. The boy shouted, "Stop! Don't hurt my family!" And upon these words, the smoke stopped coming into the log.
The boy crawled out, blinking his eyes against the light. There in front of him stood the hunter, and the hunter was his uncle! The uncle stared at the boy. The boy stood up and came closer. The uncle reached out and touched him, all the hair fell off the boy's body, and he looked like a person again.
"My nephew! said the uncle. "Is it truly you? Are you alive?"
"Yes, I am, Uncle," said the boy.
"How could this be?" said the uncle. "I went back to the cave, because I realized I had done a twisted-mind thing. But when I got there, the stone had been rolled a way. There were tracks of many animals. I thought they had eaten you."
"No" said the boy. "The bears adopted me. They are my family now, Uncle. You must treat them well."
The uncle nodded. He said, "My nephew, your words are true, call your family out. I will greet them and I will be their friend." So the boy called, and the old mother bear and the two cubs came out from the log; they came out and sniffed the hunter. He stood there patiently, letting them approach him.
From that day on, the hunter and nephew were a family, and the bears were part of their family. And ever since then, this story has been told to remind parents and elders to always treat their children well and show as much love in their hearts as a bear holds in its heart for its children.
That is how the story goes. Ho Hey.
