Long ago there was a Cherokee clan called the Ani'-Tsâ'gûhi, and
in one family of this clan was a boy who used to leave home and be
gone all day in the mountains. After a while he went oftener and
stayed longer, until at last he would not eat in the house at all,
but started off at daybreak and did not come back until night. His
parents scolded, but that did no good, and the boy still went every
day until they noticed that long brown hair was beginning to grow
out all over his body. Then they wondered and asked him why it was
that he wanted to be so much in the woods that he would not even eat
at home. Said the boy, "I find plenty to eat there, and it is better
than the corn and beans we have in the settlements, and pretty soon
I am going into the woods to stay all the time." His parents were
worried and begged him not to leave them, but he said, "It is better
there than here, and you see I am beginning to be different already,
so that I can not live here any longer. If you will come with me,
there is plenty for all of us and you will never have to work for it;
but if you want to come you must first fast seven days."
The father and mother talked it over and then told the headmen of the
clan. They held a council about the matter and after everything had
been said they decided: "Here we must work hard and have not always
enough. There he says there is always plenty without work. We will go
with him." So they fasted seven days, and on the seventh morning all
the Ani'-Tsâ'gûhi left the settlement and started for the mountains
as the boy led the way.
When the people of the other towns heard of it they were very sorry
and sent their headmen to persuade the Ani'-Tsâ'gûhi to stay at
home and not go into the woods to live. The messengers found them
already on the way, and were surprised to notice that their bodies
were beginning to be covered with hair like that of animals, because
for seven days they had not taken human food and their nature was
changing. The Ani'-Tsâ'gûhi would not come back, but said, "We are
going where there is always plenty to eat. Hereafter we shall be
called yânû (bears), and when you yourselves are hungry come into the
woods and call us and we shall come to give you our own flesh. You
need not be afraid to kill us, for we shall live always." Then they
taught the messengers the songs with which to call them, and the bear
hunters have these songs still. When they had finished the songs the
Ani'-Tsâ'gûhi started on again and the messengers turned back to the
settlements, but after going a little way they looked back and saw
a drove of bears going into the woods.