The Grizzly Bear & Old Woman Story

The old woman had some dried salmon backbones which had to be soaked along time before they could be eaten.  So she soaked these in the creek which flowed past their little hut.  While they were soaking these in the creek covered with stones, a huge grizzly bear came along and ate the salmon.  Tsak came along and saw the bear eating the last of their food and he was angered and began calling the bear many abusive names, saying the grizzly was a thief.  The huge bear was very angry at the abusive names he was being called and in anger said to Tsak,”if you don’t stop calling me abusive names I’ll swallow you in one gulp.”  “Go ahead swallow me,” said Tsak.  So the huge grizzly came upon Tsak and swallowed him whole without any effort. 

Tsak, now in the beast’s stomach, began to worry how he would escape.  He had with him the little basket in which was the fire ball, which the people used to start their fires.  They would pulverize rotten wood into a fine powder and take a live coal from the fire and make a ball with the pulverized wood around it.  Then when they started a fire they would break the ball and then bring the live coal to a flame.  Tsak took the fire ball, broke it and began to make a fire in the grizzly bear’s stomach.  The bear, suffering great agony, ran about, then burst open and was dead.  Tsak, having killed the bear, went to his grandmother who was bemoaning the fact that they now had no more food, and was lying in her sleeping place, very weak and ready to die.  Tsak said to her, “come grandmother, I have got a huge grizzly bear; we now have plenty of food.  Bring your knife so we may cut it up and bring it back here to smoke.”  “Tsak you are lying, how can you kill a grizzly bear?  You are always lying to me.  Go away,” the old woman said.  “Come bring you knife and boxes that we can carve its meat,” Tsak insisted.  Still not believing, she followed Tsak and soon they came to where the carcass of the big grizzly was and they both began to cut it up.  The bear meat was brought into the little hut that Tsak and his grandmother lived in, and they were now comfortable with plenty of food.
.