014 Johnson F - Strong Man - Translation.txt

{Number = 014}
{Type = Translation}
{Title = Duktʼootlʼ / Strong Man}
{Author = Taakw Kʼwátʼi / Frank G. Johnson}
{Clan = Suḵtineidí; Shangukeidí yádi}
{Source = D&D 1987:138–151}
{Translator = Ḵeixwnéi / Nora Marks Dauenhauer}
{Page = 139}
1	It is
2	called
3	Henyaa; people used to live there.
4	It was a winter village.
5	But I didn’t
6	understand altogether why
7	people trained for strength.
8	Maybe this is an ancient story which is why
9	there are no guns or no metal.
10	I sometimes think it was the sea lions they wanted to kill for food.
11	There was one man.
12	His name was G̱alwéitʼ.
13	He was the leader of his nation.
14	But his sister’s son was what
15	some people would call being like a misfit. He was awkward.
16	But he was born from good people.
17	Then
18	before daybreak they would go to the sea water.
19	That mother’s brother of his would lead them on.
{Comment = Line 20 has ‘happy sound’ which should probably be ‘sound happy’.}
20	Their voices would sound happy when they went to the sea.
21	But because the men didn’t respect him,
22	he went to the sea alone.
23	When people went to sleep he would go to the sea.
{Page = 141}
24	( F.J.: Shall I tell it just the way they tell it?)
25	( N.D.: Uh huh.)
26	He would sit in the water until it overpowered him.
27	When he came up
28	the fire would be out.
29	But where the fire had been would be warm.
30	Because he wanted to warm up
31	he would urinate right on where the fire had been.
32	The steam from this would warm him,
33	from where the fire had been.
34	Grime would collect on his body because he slept by the fire.
35	No one paid attention to him.
36	But one of his mother’s brother’s wives would feel sorry for him.
37	She would give him
38	food.
39	But she didn’t want her husband to see her do it.
40	Then after a period of time
41	he would cry out in pain
42	when he sat alone in the water
43	from the cold.
44	It would come out of his mouth.
45	At one point
46	while he was sitting in the water again
47	someone spoke to him from the beach.
48	“Wade over here,” the man said to him.
49	He looked over there.
50	The man wore a black bear skin cape.
51	He wasn’t too tall.
52	Then he said to him,
53	“I’m your good luck.
54	I’m Strength.
55	I’m called Strength.”
56	Then Strength said to him, “Now
57	defeat me.”
58	Then he did as he told him.
59	He didn’t even scratch him.
60	And then
61	Strength said to him,
62	“Stand right there.”
63	Then Strength
64	began to scrub him with yellow seaweed {Page = 143}
65	on his joints,
66	on all his joints. People count them as eight bones.
67	Perhaps they are all the long limbs.
68	On all his joints. So he scrubbed him with yellow seaweed.
69	Then Strength said to him, “Now
70	go into the water again.”
71	He went into the water again. He told him to defeat him again.
72	Without trying, Strength would throw him down.
73	And here again,
74	soon he scrubbed him again the same way.
75	He sent him to the water again.
76	When he did this the fourth time
77	Strength didn’t throw him down.
78	Strength said to him, “You have thrown me down now.
79	That’s enough,”
80	he said to him.
81	As soon as he said that, Strength disappeared.
82	Only patches of frost floated where Strength had stood in the water.
83	He gained strength all alone.
84	They say
85	there was a thing by which they tested each other.
86	It was a young tree.
87	It stood in the middle of the village, it
88	was called “Village Tree” by those people.
89	And
90	this thing that was like a large branch
91	stuck out at the base of the tree.
92	It was called the Village Nose.
93	It is also called by another name.
94	I’ll tell what it is after this.
95	Strength told him to go to it.
96	“Pull the Village Nose out.
97	Immerse it in water then push it back again.
98	The young tree too–
99	split it from the tip down to the base.
100	He did just as he told him; he began
101	splitting from the top down.
102	He split it down to the roots.
103	Only after this he returned home again.
104	When people awoke, his maternal uncle
{Page = 145}
105	was leading the men again.
106	His maternal uncle was very strong.
107	He was a Master of Strength.
108	As he walked up to it he tried pulling the village nose.
109	He pulled it right out.
110	You could hear the people cheer.
111	Here then when he began splitting the young tree too he split it down to the roots.
112	But Strength had told the nephew,
113	“Put the tree back the way it was again.”
114	It was during a north wind.
115	Because he had put it back the way it was,
116	his maternal uncle thought, because it was still dark,
117	that he had split it.
118	People believed he was strong enough.
119	They began to get ready.
120	The place is called sea lion land.
121	It’s on the mainland.
122	Now it’s steep.
123	But at that time they say there weren’t any trees there.
124	That’s where the sea lions usually sat.
125	At the very top
126	the very large one would sit.
127	The large sea lion was called by the Tlingits
128	“Man on the Fort”
129	a very large one.
130	When people were preparing to go with his maternal uncle
131	they say it was winter.
132	But he
133	carried a ragged rug on his shoulder,
134	maybe a ragged cloth.
135	Those were all he slept on.
136	They didn’t want him to go.
137	When they were pushing away from him
138	he reached for the stern of the boat.
139	They say he twisted it off.
140	Then he pulled it up on the beach with the men in it. That’s when he stepped in.
{Comment = Line 141 continues on the next page with the quotation.}
141	Even till now there is a proverb from this, “He just went as a bailer.”
{Page = 147}
142	Then, when they were paddling along,
143	he was a bailer.
144	It was kind of far where they were paddling to.
145	When they got there
146	his maternal uncle stepped off the boat.
147	He was so strong when he punched the cub sea lions
148	he killed them with his bare hands.
149	How many sea lions he killed
150	as he was going up!
151	But he wanted to get at the one
152	sitting at the top of the island.
153	He tried the flippers. He tried to rip it apart by the flippers.
154	But as he was sitting down on its neck the sea lion
155	raised its flipper
156	and tossed him up in the air.
157	He fell head first on a rock. Then he was gone.
158	His head was fractured.
159	People felt grief
160	about what happened to their leader.
161	But that’s why that man,
162	he was named Atkaháasʼi
163	because he didn't keep himself clean,
164	stood up.
165	They imitate him saying,
166	“Who do you think pulled out the Village Nose?
167	It was I who pulled it out.
168	Who do you think split this tree,
169	the Village Tree?
170	It was I.”
171	Then as he went, he went up walking through the boat.
172	The thwarts broke
173	as his shins hit them.
174	As
175	he jumped up out of the boat
176	there was what we call winter seaweed.
177	When it’s on the rocks
178	they’re slippery.
179	But when he jumped on them he didn’t even slip.
180	He kept on going up.
{Comment = Line 181 continues onto the next page.}
181	The place where young sea lions sit is closer to the sea.
{Page = 149}
182	However lightly he was punching
183	he was killing them there.
184	Then he went up to jump on the flippers
185	of the huge sea lion
186	that had killed his uncle.
187	It tried to lift him upward. No!
188	Then he took it by the flippers
189	and ripped it in half.
190	Then killed it.
{Comment = Line 191 is very long only in English.}
191	That’s when he finally began killing his way through the sea lions sitting there. Then there were no more.
192	He kept on slaughtering them.
193	That’s how they tell of him.
194	The one
195	that cared for him,
196	his maternal uncle’s wife,
197	was the one who had given him that thing,
198	the ermine.
199	When he was going into the water toward the sea lion
200	he tied it to his hair
201	as what we call “chʼéen.”
202	The charcoal from the fire was what he blackened his face with.
203	(You know that soot.)
204	With this he finally went ashore.
205	That was why, when his maternal uncle died
206	it is said, the nephew asked for the hand
207	of the one who cared for him,
208	the one who was older.
209	It was really that way long ago.
210	When a maternal uncle died
211	the wife
212	was claimed by the nephew.
213	But he didn’t even notice the young one.
214	People didn’t know what his name was,
215	his name became G̱alwéitʼ, his maternal uncle’s name.
216	His wife’s name too
217	was not known either by some.
218	But
219	my father who is dead
{Page = 151}
220	knew.
221	He said the woman
222	was their relative. Shangukeidí. A Shangukeidí woman.
223	Her name was Seitéew.
224	People in many places don't know her name.
225	But because of them
{Comment = Line 226 had “he knew” on another line not matching the text.}
226	and because this came from their ancestors, he knew.
227	This is where this story ends.