in mid-spring, we shall see that the bear does actually seem to be climbing clown out of her den (which appears higher up) to the northern horizon. The hunters, circling over her, prepare to start the pursuit.
Next, in midsummer the chart shows us the bear running along the northern horizon with the hunters following, as described. Then in mid-autumn we see her standing erect, prepared to defend herself from the hunters. All but three of these hunters, however, have disappeared below the northern horizon, together with the den, which, the Micmacs say, has been left behind in the pursuit. Now we see why only the first three hunters are called "the hunters who are always hunting." It is because only three hunters remain always visible in our latitude. The other four disappear below the northern horizon just before the bear assumes an erect position. This explains why these other four hunters are said to lose the trail just before the bear is overtaken; also why the moose bird is said to have been "last in at the death," having nearly met with a like misfortune. For at this latitude and season the moose bird star nearly touches the northern horizon; and that brings out the interesting point that this form of the legend could only have originated in the latitudes where we now find it, for north of 50° N. there would be four "hunters who are always hunting," while south of 40° N. there would be only two. Yet it is a noticeable fact that south of 40° N. we find three hunters connected with this group. Returning to our chart, soon after the bear assumes the erect position last referred to, she will be seen to topple over on her back " slain by the arrows of the hunters" who have overtaken her, just at the season when the earthly bears, now fattened in preparation for the winter sleep, become logy and are most easily killed by the hunter. Then it is also that the autumn foliage is painted with her blood. Finally, when midwinter comes we see her lying dead on her back in mid-sky, but the den has reappeared with the bear of the new year, lying therein, invisible. Thus this group of stars served to mark the divisions of the night and of the seasons for the Micmacs much as the position of the Pleiades marked them for tribes farther south, and as the stars of the beautiful Southern Cross marked them in Central and South America.[1]
In a Blackfoot myth we read, "The Seven Persons (the Dipper) slowly swung around and pointed downward. It was the middle of the night,"[2] showing that they too marked time at night by the position of these stars. So the Zuñis tell, when winter comes, how "the bear lazily sleeps, no longer guarding the Westland from the cold of
- ↑ Almost everywhere the Pleiades seem to have been the preëminent time-markers.
- ↑ George B. Grinnell, Blackfoot Lodge Tales, p. 66.
