Black-Bear Woman is the sympathetic figure of the Thompson bear tale, the co-wife whom the jealous Grizzly-Bear Woman murders. Foreseeing her own death, she prepares her daughters, instructing them how to flee and how to bring about their aunt's destruction. Her killing and the daughters' revenge form the pivot of the narrative, which sets the contrasting natures of the black bear and the grizzly and warns against jealousy within a household.