reference to poison] ... get sick for four or five days, maybe a
week. Then the man goes back in. Hardly any Indians could do
this.(10) I've heard that they cook it and eat it ... not only
here but up north. After they get the rifle they get to killing
bears around here but hardly ever hear of dividing up the bear
meat."

This last remark appears to be significant as all informants emphasized
that Indians shared food equally. Thus a statement made voluntarily that
bear meat was not shared suggests different attitudes about bears.

Another informant adds the detail that when the bear left his lair, the
companions of the man who entered the den would block the entrance so the
bear could not return. The first man to place an arrow in the animal could
claim it and get the hide. This informant also added at this point: "It's
funny that the fella who went inside was _just an ordinary fella_
[emphasis mine]." He also insisted that after a bear was killed the
hunting party painted their faces black. Other informants claimed not to
know of this or said such painting was done when a mink was killed but
they did not know why.

One traditional story (Dangberg) sheds a bit more light on the bear. In
this tale a group of Washo were camped near a band of Paiute who
challenged the Washo to fight. Instead of fighting, the Washo drove a bear
from its den and killed it and thus defeated the Paiute.

I had all but given up the pursuit of information on the bear, being
convinced that my informants either honestly did not know any more (the
bear having been relatively rare in this area for a good many years) or
were unwilling to discuss something of an extremely sacred nature, when a
chance remark suggested at least part of the explanation.

A pioneer white resident who had lived in Alpine County, California, for
ninety years casually mentioned that every Indian man who was buried
during his boyhood was wrapped in a bearskin shroud. This, coupled with an
earlier mention of "rough" men having bearskins, suggests that the killing
of a bear represented the ultimate in Washo bravery and the possession of
the skin conferred extra powers on the owner. The rifle made such
acquisitions much less hazardous and in the late nineteenth century it had
become common for Indians to own a bearskin cloak, which became their most
prized possession and was buried with them.

Stewart's element lists show no evidence of any formalized