We have no hope but in you. The evil spirits laugh at us,
and too often they are unfavourable and malignant to us, but they
will bow before you. We have given you food and joy and health; now
we kill you in order that you may in return send riches to us and to
our children." To this discourse the bear, more and more surly and
agitated, listens without conviction; round and round the tree he
paces and howls lamentably, till, just as the first beams of the
rising sun light up the scene, an archer speeds an arrow to his
heart. No sooner has he done so, than the marksman throws away his
bow and flings himself on the ground, and the old men and women do
the same, weeping and sobbing. Then they offer the dead beast a
repast of rice and wild potatoes, and having spoken to him in terms
of pity and thanked him for what he has done and suffered, they cut
off his head and paws and keep them as sacred things. A banquet on
the flesh and blood of the bear follows. Women were formerly
excluded from it, but now they share with the men. The blood is
drunk warm by all present; the flesh is boiled, custom forbids it to
be roasted.
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