The story of the Evenk people of the deer ------ the legend of the bear

Legend has it that a long time ago, bears, like humans, had hands that could be used to grab things. One day, the god of heaven told the bears to compare their strength with the people and told them to move stones. Because the stone was too big, people could not move it, but the bear easily threw the stone far away. One day, the bear beat a man to death with a stick, and the god in heaven was so angry that in a fit of rage he broke the thumb of his front paw and punished it for not being allowed to stand, but only crawling on all fours, and its hands were no longer as flexible as human hands.

The bear was very sad, and it cried to the gods and said, "How shall I live in the future?" ”

The god said, "Just eat persimmons and pine tree towers to live."

The bear begged the gods to say, "If humans eat my flesh, let them not throw my bones."

The god agreed to the bear's request and warned the humans, "The bear, like you, will eat its flesh in the future, and you are not allowed to throw his bones casually!" ”

After the god finished speaking, he twisted the man's kneecap from the back to the front, and the man walked upright. Since then, the Evenk people have had various taboos on bears, such as: male bears cannot be called male bears, and should be honored as "grandpa (forehead card)"; the mother bear should be called "grandma (ewo)". The death of the bear is called the bear sleeping; the gun of the bear hunting is called "blowing drum"; the fast knife that cuts the bear is called "blunt iron"; when eating bear meat, learn the crow to "quack" a few times, which means: "It is not we who eat your flesh, it is the crow that eats your meat." After the bear dies, it is also buried by the wind, and people have to make whining and weeping during the wind burial.

The Evenk believed that if there was a bear in the wolf, they would not come, so they made the bear a god (totem) in order to pray for the peace of man and animal.

Source: Gu Xianglian Srenbatu, editor-in-chief of Aoluguya Evenk Reader, Inner Mongolia Culture Publishing House, December 2011, first edition, page 70.