equator, that the Bears slip their feet into the sea and still farther south
Their tardy bodies in the boreal wave."
Allen, in "Star Names and Their Meanings," comments on the singularity that peoples separated by an impassable ocean had like ideas concerning the resemblance of Ursa Major to a bear.
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"Whence came the same idea into the minds of our North American Indians? Was it by accident? The conformation in no way resembles the animal,—indeed the contrary; yet they called them Okuari and Paukunawa, words for bear, long before they were visited by white men. In justice, however, to their familiarity with a bear's anatomy, it should be said that the impossible tail of our Ursa was to them either Three Hunters or a Hunter and two dogs in pursuit of the creature, the star Alcor being the pot in which to cook her. They thus avoided the incongruousness of the present astronomical ideas of Bruin's makeup, although their cooking utensil was inadequate."
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