"Hunters"

These "hunters" are created by the narrator at the start of "The Bear," when he defines "hunters" as a exalted category of its own, a quasi-spiritual group, men who are "not white nor black nor red but men, hunters" (181). Distinguished also from "women," "boys," and "children," hunters tell stories about hunting while drinking liquor "in salute to" their prey (181-82). Even the camp cooks, however, are "hunters first and cooks afterward" (185), meaning they are better at the former.