Grizzly-Bear Woman

Grizzly-Bear Woman is the antagonist of one of the most widely told Nlaka'pamux narratives, the tale of the Grizzly and the Black Bear. Jealous and ferocious, she murders her gentle co-wife Black-Bear Woman and seeks to destroy her children as well. Her cruelty is ultimately requited when the surviving daughters of Black-Bear turn her own violence against her and kill her, a reversal that supplies the story's moral weight and accounts for the temper attributed to the grizzly.

Domains

• violence and wilderness

Powers

• kills and devours her rival

Relations

• enemy: Black-Bear Woman

Sources

• Teit, James A. 'Mythology of the Thompson Indians,' Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History 12, 1912, 'Grizzly-Bear and Black-Bear.'