Among these hairy people the bear is an animal held in great regard. It is impossible to discover whether this arises from the bear having been an object of worship in other days, but the bear festival is the chief event in their year. In every Aino village the hunters go up to the mountains in spring and bring back a live young bear cub. They hand this over to a woman who nurses and feeds it. When it gets too old to be left loose, it is shut up in a strong cage, and there kept until the autumn of the year after its capture.