Where the Bear Sleeps

[Kitt]

Long ago, there was a young man who had wanted to be among
the warriors of his tribe, he was a heavy set fellow who
could out power and swing a lethal tomahawk, however he was
not as fit or as dexterous in the arts of running, riding,
tactics and archery and therefore, had not been chosen to
go with the established warriors into the next stages of
iniciation, where they'd go on a trail and get blessed into
the life of a warrior (and given a new name) but instead, was
given the task of learning to farm. He took his new charge with
disdain, and worked the land more aggresively than the other
somber and meek farmers who worked with him, by digging at the
ground with anger and threshing the grains with the same brawn
he would slay foes... his peers would tease him, but even they
saw that he took his duty too serious.

But deep on the inside, he felt saddned, and had stopped going
to work for a while.... and withdrew himself.

One day one of his kinsman who had been a warrior a long time
visited him, and after smoking a pipe for a while, he began
recalling his grief about, not having been chosen by the war
chiefs year after year, and how he felt out of place being a
simple farmer, and how it hurt and angered him to be sent back
home, the times he wanted to follow the war party by his own
account.......

The warrior sat and listened, then said "I see that you can have
the strength and fury of a bear to bring with you into battle,
but a bear cannot hunt along side of wolves, nor scout with eagles,
nor will it share it's space with a mountian lion... on the evening
before battle, we raise the spirits of the Crow and Owl...
and we give thanks for our people, the gatherers the farmers, the
fisherman and manufacturers, for being the home we protect and
return to..... should we not be carried off on the spirit horse...
and though you hear us joke about you at times, we give thanks
to the Bear spirit that we have you to protect our people, if a war
band should come into our camp, or in the event that the future
warriors are not yet grown, you keep watch over them... and by
being a farmer, so dilligently you make sure they will grow to
be strong and courageous, among my brothers we have many wolves,
a few eagles, and the greatest lions, but for one bear, we leave
him to guard our villiage, come the day he must protect it if
we cannot" .... He then gave him a pipe made from a bear claw and
said that it was only smoked out of once the warriors had returned
safely home... and that when they would come home from that day on
they would be sure to visit the Bear warrior, and pay him tribute
with the finest smoke. THe next day, he returned to his fields with
a softer look in his eyes and a new out look on his future.

[Kitt]

Lowe -  Hoka' he

Elspeth - I was inspired to write of this as I came home from a weekend LARPing event..