015 Dick F - The Woman Who Married the Bear - Translation.txt

{Number = 015}
{Type = Translation}
{Title = Xóotsx̱ X̱ʼayaaḵuwdlig̱adi Shaawát / The Woman Who Married the Bear}
{Author = Naakil.aan / Frank Dick Sr.}
{Clan = Lʼuknax̱.ádi; Kaagwaantaan yádi}
{Source = D&D 1987:194-216}
{Translator = Ḵeixwnéi / Nora Marks Dauenhauer}
{Orthography = RP}
{Dialect = Northern - Coastal - Dry Bay}
{Page = 195}
1	Me.
2	This is the way
3	it was told to me,
4	the way this ancient story
5	was told to me.
6	These people,
7	are Athabaskans,
8	those living
9	in the Interior,
10	Athabaskans.
11	And
12	this story is about them.
13	This is it; I will tell it today,
14	the tenth day
15	of the month,
16	the way it was told to me.
17	This story
18	is how it was first told.
19	These Athabaskans
20	lived really isolated.
21	Next
22	it was summer.
23	The season was changing to summer.
24	Spring
25	is what they called it; the remains of winter.
{Page = 197}
26	And this
27	Indian celery was growing.
28	This young woman
29	was engaged
30	to her father’s nephew
31	her father’s sister’s child.
32	He was going to marry her.
33	And the women went for Indian celery.
34	Wow! they collected Indian celery.
35	They were packing them on their backs.
36	What happened anyway?
37	After they walked for a long way
38	the straps broke
39	on the young woman’s pack.
40	While
41	they were still walking,
42	while they were still walking
43	they came upon
44	bear tracks; it had just gone through there.
45	Ahead of them,
46	it went ahead of them.
47	This
48	young woman
49	stepped in the leavings.
50	And her foot slipped on it.
51	So when she stood up it was all over her.
52	So then she said this to it,
53	“Why is it
54	they always crap in our way
55	the big basket butt?”
56	This was all
57	she said.
58	Everyone was sitting waiting for her again.
59	They started going again after she cleaned herself up.
60	I wonder how many of them and how they got out of there.
61	Here they broke--
62	the things she was packing with,
63	Athabaskan thongs.
64	This is what they called this rawhide:
65	Athabaskan thongs.
66	This is why there is a proverb,
{Page = 199}
67	“Even an Athabaskan thong would break.”
68	This is what we say.
69	Ei.ei.ei.ei, the straps would break.
70	Toward evening
71	she was still tying the straps.
72	Gone!
73	Everyone had left her.
74	Then she got up and started walking again; after she finished tying it
75	she started walking again.
76	When he came toward her he was just like her paternal uncle,
77	her father’s sister’s child,
78	the one she was engaged to.
79	He was just like him coming toward her.
80	So, he spoke to her.
81	After he spoke to her he took the bundle from her.
82	He packed the bundle
83	for her.
84	They went along for so long; they went along for so very long.
85	They walked so long it was now dark.
86	Now they came to a place to overnight. “Let’s just spend the night here.”
87	So they spent the night there.
88	There wasn’t anything different.
89	He was a Tlingit in her eyes,
90	a human being, a real human.
91	There wasn’t even anything different.
92	Now! With this wood
93	they built a fire.
94	They were sitting next to it; they were eating.
95	Maybe she brought
96	food for them.
97	When they were done, when they finished eating,
98	they went to bed.
99	Because there wasn’t anything different.
100	Just a human, a real human.
101	It must have been early dawn.
102	He rolled away from her.
103	He rolled away from the woman.
{Page = 201}
104	When she awoke
105	she was startled.
106	Her fingers feIt through his fur.
107	This is when
108	she felt it was a bear.
109	He rolled over to face her; he looked like a human being again.
110	That is when he told her,
111	“Don’t be afraid.
112	I won’t hurt you.
113	I am going to marry you though.
114	You insulted me
115	in front of those people.
116	You cussed at me.
117	But
118	I won’t kill you; but you will be my wife.”
119	She still didn’t feel any different.
120	He was just like a human being in her eyes.
121	There wasn’t even anything different.
122	Now, at one point, they had come upon the others.
123	Fall.
124	Toward fall when salmon come up the streams.
125	That’s when
126	they started going
127	to the land of the salmon.
128	They were drying salmon
129	just like us,
130	just like us humans.
131	To her eyes
132	they were drying salmon.
133	They were getting salmon for dryfish.
134	The women with her
135	were packing
136	the firewood.
137	They were getting drift logs right out of the water,
138	water logged.
139	But she
140	was looking only for dry wood.
141	Wow! How it would burn
142	but the fires of the others,
143	would look as if they were only steaming.
{Page = 203}
144	Now! at one point they were coming in
145	just like humans.
146	Well.
147	Take me for example.
148	Me,
149	I come inside,
150	when I take my coat off
151	I’ll shake it.
152	This is how,
153	as they were coming in
154	they were taking off
155	their coats.
156	When they shook them they would shake them over the fire.
157	Wow!
158	What did it burn like?
159	Hers though would keep going out,
160	being water logged.
161	Who knows why it was like this!
162	So the other women showed her what to do
163	with the wet ones,
164	when they were coming in.
165	Now,
166	their weapons,
167	their weapons are their teeth,
168	these big ones.
169	They would remove them trom their necks.
170	They would hang them on the wall.
171	Their home was surely made of wood planks
172	just like humans.
173	They would hang them up
174	set them against the wall
175	and
176	their clothes.
177	They did this over and over again.
178	Hey, at what point was it they were coming down again?
179	Boy!
180	they were bringing in fish.
181	Fish were being dried for winter.
182	Dryfish.
183	Fish were being dried.
{Page = 205}
184	To our eyes though this is not what they’re doing.
185	To our eyes they’re just eating it.
186	But they were drying the fish though just like us.
187	They were drying the fish
188	like Athabaskans.
189	After they had dried plenty of fish,
190	after they had dried plenty of fish, then
191	someone said,
192	“Well,
193	we’re packing up now
194	to go to our winter land.”
195	Like us, for example;
196	from our dryfish camp
197	we go back to our village for the winter.
198	This is the way they packed up.
199	Good!
200	They had
201	plenty of dryfish at hand.
202	But we don’t see
203	their dryfish.
204	And now
205	she was already worn out
206	walking
207	up the mountain.
208	So she said to her husband,
209	(they did
210	what this woman said)
211	“This place will do.”
212	She recognized
213	where her brothers went.
214	She recognized it,
215	that was why
216	she wanted to make it her home.
217	This huge animal worked fast
218	digging the den.
219	But to her eyes it was a house,
220	it was a house being built.
221	Wow!
222	The house was finished.
223	They went in.
{Page = 207}
224	When they had gone in,
225	when they had spent how many nights there,
226	this fox
227	ran out in front of the door.
228	When it ran out in front of their door
229	it said te them,
230	“Hey,
231	how is this you’re living, grandchild?
232	This is a path for people.
233	You are living in a path for people,
234	grandchild.
235	Up above there
236	is the slide area.
237	The winter avalanche area.”
238	He pointed it out to them.
239	So they moved up again.
240	There finally
241	he built a den again.
242	This is where they lived.
243	Here finally
244	it was spring.
245	It was toward spring.
246	Her younger brothers were making medicine.
247	They saw them.
248	They saw the bear tracks; her footprints were trailing up beside him.
249	This is what they called,
250	this is what the men of long ago called
251	“carrying a dog.”
252	They’d carry a dog is what they called it.
253	They went with dogs.
254	This is what it was called.
255	They left with dogs.
256	They went.
257	It was when
258	her brothers left the house
259	the eyesight
260	of the dogs
261	was shooting into the den like arrows,
262	like arrows shooting into the den.
263	That’s how it was shooting into the den.
{Page = 209}
264	Take the sun for example.
265	Through wherever there are holes the beams shine in.
266	That’s how it was happening.
267	The bear would jump to it.
268	He would break the arrows back outside.
269	It would stop for a while.
270	Then it would start again
271	the same way.
272	The dogs and
273	their eyesight
274	would come piercing into the den.
275	Their eyesight
276	is what they called this.
277	It only looks like this
278	to the bear.
279	It’s like this in the bear’s eyes.
280	The humans’ eyesight
281	was piercing into the den.
282	He would jump up to it.
283	He would break it outward.
284	At one point it overpowered him.
285	He couldn’t handle it.
286	That’s when the dogs
287	ran up to the entrance,
288	to their entrance.
289	Now!
290	As they were overpowering
291	that big animal,
292	he told
293	his wife,
294	“Be brave, darling.
295	It’s too much for me.
296	It’s too much for me now.
297	I can’t hold them back.”
298	He named
299	the child
300	by what it would be called.
301	He gave a name
302	to each child.
303	According to whether it was a boy or a girl
304	he would name them.
305	Then he stood up for his weapons.
{Page = 211}
306	Now!
307	He was not going to look where he was going.
308	No, not him.
309	That is why she said this to her husband,
310	“Don’t,
311	don’t, darling,
312	don’t.”
313	That’s what they called each other.
314	That’s how couples talk.
315	“Darling don’t,
316	This is where your brothers-in-law come.
317	Don’t.”
318	Let’s leave it at that.
319	He took his weapons off his neck.
320	He hung them up on the wall again.
321	He hung up his weapons again.
322	That was when
323	these arrows
324	came fast into the den from the entrance.
325	He dragged the one dog into the den.
326	But the woman though
327	threw it under her.
328	She had it lying under her.
329	She recognized it as her brothers’ dog.
330	When the bear was going out he said to her,
331	“Where is the dog I threw in to you?
332	Give it here.”
333	“It wasn’t a dog, it was a glove.”
334	She told him it was a glove.
335	That’s why he dived out.
336	As the bear was sticking his head out they killed it.
337	It tumbled aaaaall
338	the way down the hill.
339	The dogs ran down after it.
340	Way down below they were able to handle it.
341	This was when the youngest,
342	the youngest was told,
343	“Go up there!
344	Go up there!
{Page = 213}
345	Clean it out.
346	Everything in it
347	clean out
348	from inside it.”
349	As he was getting up there he saw
350	the arrows.
351	The dog was also there.
352	They were tied up in a bundle.
353	The broken arrows
354	were lying at the entrance
355	on the entrance mound.
356	“It’s me, brother.
357	It’s me.
358	Don’t ever eat that.
359	He is your brother-in-law.
360	Put a fire at the fur on his head.
361	Put a fire at the fur on his head, little brother.
362	Your mother,
363	tell your mother
364	to come up here with my clothes.”
365	That is why he went down
366	and told this.
367	“It was our brother-in-law,
368	it was our brother-in-law.
369	My sister told me,
370	’Put a fire at the fur on his head,
371	he is your brother-in-law.’”
372	So!
373	“Go back up there!
374	You killed it.
375	Why shouldn’t we, when we’ve been fasting?
376	Why not eat what we kill?”
377	She heard this.
378	From way up there.
379	She recognized it was the leader’s voice.
380	He said they killed the bear for him to eat.
381	That’s why the youngest brother ran to his parents.
382	He went.
383	That’s how her mother and father
384	went up there
385	with the clothes.
{Page = 215}
386	This child of the bear
387	was not very big.
388	So she just left it there.
389	She was talking
390	with the cub.
391	I used to know it.
392	When she started to leave.
393	I have really forgotten
394	the song for when she started down.
395	She was singing
396	the song about her husband,
397	when she was coming down,
398	when her husband
399	died,
400	when they killed him.
401	Slowly
402	she instructed thern
403	while she was walking down with them.
404	The younger brothers did as she told.
405	They built a fire under him.
406	They left.
407	This is when she told them, “Over there,
408	go over there.
409	The smoke rising over there,”
410	she told them, “The smoke rising over there
411	is a black bear.”
412	That is where she sent them.
413	They killed the black bear there.
414	That was
415	the leader,
416	the older brother.
417	He didn’t want anyone to feed her.
418	He kept them from feeding her.
419	“Don’t feed her.
420	You’ll all find out what’ll happen
421	if you feed her against my orders.”
422	That was why they obeyed.
423	They obeyed him.
424	They didn’t feed her anything.
425	She was a goner.
{Page = 217}
426	She was only crawling around.
427	How bad off she was.
428	There was a tree standing over there
429	maybe it was a cottonwood,
430	maybe it was just an ordinary tree,
431	“Walk over to the base of it,” they told her.
432	“Don’t help her.
433	Just her.
434	Let her walk over herself.”
435	So she just crawled over there.
436	She crawled to the base of the tree.
437	Her bow and arrow.
438	It wasn’t very long
439	when this dusky grouse came flying over.
440	It landed right above her.
441	A dusky grouse.
442	She killed it with her arrow.
443	It dropped right in front of her.
444	It was a black bear.
445	It turned into a black bear.
446	So
447	from then on
448	she told only
449	of where
450	the black bears were.
451	According to that they went there to hunt.
452	They would kill them there.
453	“Don’t help her, leave her
454	by herself.”
455	So they didn’t help her.
456	She helped herself.
457	Just as she was
458	it was here
459	she straightened herself up.
460	Well, this is how the story ends.
461	This is as far as I know the story.
462	That’s the end.