The bear is much respected by the Eskimo for his intelligence and cunning, and his strength. Indeed, they consider him second only, among the creatures of the wild, to man himself. It is for this reason that they so often choose for their “tongak,” or guardian familiar, the spirit of a bear. One very curious belief about the animal is that the bear himself has a tongak (quite distinct from his Tarngnil or soul), and that when this spirit requires any new commodity, such as a new seal warp or line, which is represented by the black skin round the mouth of its protégé, this tongak causes the bear to fall in the hunter’s way and be killed. The hunter spares the black skin, and refrains from cutting it when flaying the carcase, as an offering to the spirit. A further offering of the sort is made by transfixing various portions of the beast’s body and entrails on a stake or spear, together with a man’s implement—such as a knife, if the bear were a male, or a woman’s implement, such as a needle or skin scraper, if it were a female—and exposing the gift for three days. At the end of that time it is thrown into the sea. In bear hunting, the rule is for the skin to go to the first hunter who sights the prey (not necessarily the first to kill it.) The best part of the body goes to him who deals the fatal blow. The arctic bear is not an hibernating animal, for it is only the female who sleeps through the winter. The pair hunt together until the approach of winter, when the female, fat, and in the pink of condition after the summer months of good feeding, searches for a suitable place in which to retire and bear her cubs. She generally chooses a sheltered spot on land, where the snow lies deeply drifted. The two partners scratch out a comfortable cave in this, and the female then enters and rolls herself up to sleep. The male bear blocks up the entrance, and the next fall or drift of snow effectively completes his task, and obliterates all traces of the animal’s activities. He takes himself off, to roam about at his own sweet will, and attend to nobody’s appetite but his own for the next few months, returning to the female only in the spring, when she emerges from her hiding place, gaunt and hungry, and accompanied by the cubs. The male is always the safer creature to hunt at such a season, since the female is then thoroughly out of condition and very savage.