Family Rituals

Over the Labor Day Weekend I had to engage in a family ritual. This ritual occurs every two years. It starts with the gathering of relatives. And like rituals for other families it involves food. Now some families combine their ritual gathering with a specific kind of food, like pig roasts and clam bakes. My family ritual involves bears. Famous bears.


Here we see the object of this year’s ritual, one Winnie the Pooh. Unlike most clan based hunts where the men paint themselves up and drink and stumble through the woods after a helpless animal, it was the woman who captured the Pooh bear. They dragged it back to camp alive.

Once in camp, instead of quick merciful killing, cleaning and eating, Pooh was tied up and suspended from a tree branch.  This poor creature was then made to suffer. One by one beginning with the youngest, members of our clan approached Pooh and swung a stick at him. The First, a young, girl we’ll call her Sally, swings at the hapless bear and misses.

To enhance the sport, the clan members are spun around until they lose their sense of direction.  Here a young girl, we’ll cal her Shaneekwa, swings at the defenseless creature.

If that spectacle wasn’t enough, an adult raises and lowers Pooh at a whim. Here a mighty blow from Deairetoine is narrowly avoided.  

Pooh is not so lucky the next time as the twins, Corvassier and Grand Marnier each strike Pooh until his entrails begin to leak out.

Here the clan children rush to gather up the spilt guts of Winnie the Pooh.  An interesting note; apparently Pooh’s diet of pure honey had so sugar-coated his internal organs, that every piece that spilt out was like candy.

Once Pooh’s life oozed out of him, his carcass was stripped of all meat which was cooked and served to the clan elders. You may be surprised to learn that different parts of the bear taste differently. Some parts taste like hamburger, some like ribs. Oddly though my bear tasted like Churches Chicken.