Request #195

I read as a kid I think in the late 90’s. I could have sworn it was called on bear mountain or black bear mountain but everything I searched for didn’t match what I remember of it. I recall it being a village where a coming of age ceremony involved sacrificing your childhood to a bear the village would catch. I’m not sure if it was girl restricted or just all children of a certain age would have to do this.

 It this was about a girl who tried, failed and was scarred by it and I think she ran away from her village to a mountain where she met a blind man I believe who either painted or weaved. While on the mountain at some point she encounters a bear, all I remember is the bear was not normal but she was able to ‘sacrifice’ her childhood and embrace being a woman with this bear. And because it was a strange bear in the wild she wasn’t accepted by her village because in return for giving up your childhood to the bear you accepted the adult spirit of it? And I think she went back and lived with the man on the mountain.