BOY RESCUED BY A BEAR.
From their close relations with wild animals Indians' stories of transformations of men into beasts and beasts into men are numerous and interesting. In nearly all of these, wherever the bear is introduced he figures as a pattern of benevolence, while many other animals, such as the porcupine, are always presented as noxious. One of these bear stories, as told me on the Cattaraugus Reservation by a grandson of Cornplanter, was as follows: A party of hunters, who were encamped a long distance from home, discovered, as they were preparing to return, that a young boy of their company was missing. After searching vainly for several days they concluded that he had been killed, and sadly departed without him. They were no sooner gone, however, than the lost child, in an almost famishing condition, was discovered by a very kind-hearted bear, who reasoned thus: "If I attempt to relieve the child in my present form, he will surely be frightened to death. I will therefore transform myself into a woman and take the boy home with me to become a playmate for my little cubs." The boy was accordingly rescued from starvation, and, living in the same hollow tree with the bear family, fed with them upon nuts, corn, and berries. But when fall came, and with it the return of the hunters, the good bear explained her device to the boy, saying: "My cubs must now take care of themselves, and you can rejoin your friends; but always feel kindly toward the bear tribe"; upon which she resumed her proper shape and disappeared into the woods. The boy never, even when grown, was known to kill a bear.