The Porcupine Year by Louise Erdrich Page A

tell the story of the girl who was a bear?”
    She had no tobacco, as that was stolen away, but she put a pinch of dried leaves in her grandmother’s hands to request the story.
    â€œNimikwenimaa, my girl,” Nokomis said. “I will tell you the story now.”
    THE BEAR GIRL MAKOONS
    M ewinzha, mewinzha, a long time ago, there lived an old man and woman who were very poor. They had three daughters, whom they all loved just the same, even though the youngest was a bear. She had fur and long teeth. She really was a bear. They called her Makoons, Little Bear. She was a very goodsister, but her older sisters were vain and selfish.
    One day, while their parents were out hunting, the two older sisters decided to run off to a faraway village and look for husbands. They tried to sneak away from their little bear sister because they were ashamed of her teeth and fur, but she heard them and followed them. When she caught up with them, they took her back and tied her to a bunch of tough-rooted rushes growing in the slough. But Makoons caught up with them with the pack of rushes, mud, and roots all still roped and piled on her back.
    The sisters brought her home a second time, and this time they tied the little bear sister to a.great rock. Then they ran away, sure she wouldn’t follow them. But Makoons caught up with them again, and the big rock was still tied to her back. The third time the sisters brought her back, they tied her to the biggest pine tree they could find. This time they were sure that they could get away, and they ran and ran until they came to a wide and turbulent river. On the banks of the river, they had to stop. They stood there, defeated by the rapids. Suddenly, they heard their little bear sister crashing through the woods. Soon she appeared. On her back, she had the great pine tree.

    â€œMy sisters,” said Makoons, “I am not following you because I want a husband. I just love you, and you can’t get along without me. I know things and I can do things.”
    Then the bear sister took the pine tree from her back and made a bridge with it across the dangerous river. All three got across.
    â€œNow,” said Makoons, “we must be very careful. A woman and her two daughters live near this place, and they practice bad medicine. They will invite us into their lodge and offer to feed us a stew. My sisters, do not eat until I do, for the stew may be made of snakes and toads.”
    Just as the bear sister said, a powerful-lookingwoman invited them to stay the night and to eat. Her daughters made them welcome, too. But the older sisters would not eat the first dish the bad woman set out, because Makoons said, politely, that this wasn’t the sort of food they ate. Then the bad medicine woman made a new dish of food, and when the sisters saw Makoons eat it, they did too.
    That night, the woman gave Makoons’s two older sisters handsome new silver earrings and told them to put them on. The sisters did, and the earrings were very beautiful, and everyone admired them. The bad medicine woman’s daughters had only crab claws for earrings, so Makoons knew that something was wrong. Then the woman said she would sleep with Makoons, and the other girls could sleep together. Once everyone was asleep, Makoons slipped up to the girls and changed their earrings around so that her own sisters wore the crab claws and the bad medicine woman’s daughters wore the silver ones.

    In the middle of the night, Makoons heard the woman get up. Then she heard her sharpening her knife, but she knew her sisters were safe.
    After the bad woman had come to bed andfallen asleep, Makoons rose and helped her sisters sneak away from that place. When the woman rose, she saw that she had been tricked. She had killed her own daughters that night, because they wore the silver earrings. Now she was so angry that she took the moon out of the sky, and locked it up in her lodge. But the bear girl was good