Reading Diary A: Eskimo Folk Tales

My favorite story in this unit was The Woman Who had a Bear as a Foster Son. I've always enjoyed stories about animals that get integrated into human life, which is essentially what this story is. A woman adopts a small bear, who grows older and stronger until he is a hunter for the woman and her community. It eventually gets to the point where he is too strong, and ultimately ends up killing a human. It's then that the bear is sent off in to the world, but not before the woman marks him with black soot so that he can be recognized. It was a bit of a sad ending in that sense, but at the end they reference that a bear with a black mark can be periodically seen hunting in the area.

Polar Bear

Eskimo Folktales