I'm obsessed with this story that Mourning Dove (Humishuma) tells about her great-grandmother Pah-tah-heet-sa, a Nicola medicine woman who lived in the early 19th century. Apparently Pah-tah-heet-sa would often travel across the Nicola Trail to visit her daughters, who had married into a neighboring group, the Okanagan. But the Nicola Trail was frequented by cougars and bears, especially in late summer. Pah-tah-heet-sa would travel with an armed group for safety, but on this particular day, she had gone ahead of them, excited to get to the huckleberry plants along the trail. When she reached the bushes, a grizzly bear was there feasting.
In Mourning Dove's words,
"She took her digging stick of dogwood and prepared to fight if the bear meant to charge at her, which the bear did not hesitate to do. With a howl that would have frozen the blood of any coward, it charged.
"She threw off her pack and held her stick to challenge the brute, saying, 'You are a mean animal and I am a mean woman. Let us fight this out to see who will get the berry patch.'
"The fight went on long enough that the warriors approached, not expecting to see such a sight. When they drew their arrows to shoot, she commanded them, 'Don’t shoot. Wait! We are fighting this to the finish. It is a mean animal and I am a mean woman. We will see who is strongest and conqueror in this battle.' The people watched the fight until the sun lay low in the western sky. Only then did the grizzly walk away, broken and bleeding. The old woman had only a few scratches. She picked up her basket and gathered the berries she had won, while the people stood in wonderment."
Mourning Dove notes that her great-grandmother lived many more years after this, and was buried on the bank of the Similkameen River after her death by drowning.
What a woman.