020 Katishan - Salmon Boy - Translation.txt

{Number = 020}
{Type = Translation}
{Title = Aakʼwtaatseen / Salmon Boy}
{Author = Ḵaadishaan / Katishan}
{Clan = Kaasx̱ʼagweidí; ? yádi}
{Source = Swanton 1909:311–320}
{Translator = Dzéiwsh / James A. Crippen}
{Note = Line numbers are approximately Swanton’s sentences.}
{Note = Page numbers match Swanton’s original publication.}
{Note = Paragraph numbers are from Swanton’s original.}
{Paragraph = 1}
{Page = 311}
1	Those Sitka Kiks.ádi, a place where they summer over is called Daxéit.
2	Aakʼwtaatseen’s father summered over there.
3	That little boy is playing on the beach.
4	After that, Aakʼwtaatseen is catching seagulls.
5	Then he got hungry.
6	He went home.
7	There he cried out with hunger.
8	He asked for dryfish.
9	He was given some dryfish to eat;
10	its end had gotten mouldy.
11	He said “It’s just the one whose end is mouldy, isn’t it?”.
12	He flung it up off there, into the food scraps.
13	Again he went seagull catching.
14	Then the seagulls are swimming away from him;
15	so then he’s also wading back out.
16	Then he swam wrongly and finally he was sucked down.
17	He wasn’t seen again on the water.
{Paragraph = 2}
18	Later his father missed him and said
19	“Where is my dear son?”.
20	He tells his wife so.
21	After that they stopped working.
22	They’re looking outside.
23	Then they’re calling out to him
24	“Aakʼwtaatseen, where are you?”.
25	They’re searching for him.
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26	They’re just calling out to him in the air.
27	Then, the place where he was catching them, they went there;
28	they saw his footprints.
29	Then they followed them into the water.
30	While they’re crying they’re saying
31	“What happened to you, my son!?”.
32	Well apparently he’s wading out, and while crying he’s looking for his son, that man.
33	Then, unsleeping, they search for their son.
34	They searched everywhere from then through the morning, the bottom of the water and the camp.
35	They didn’t eat anything after their son disappeared.
36	From then, all of that summer they searched for him, for their son.
37	Then months passed while they were searching for him, and then they gave up on him.
{Paragraph = 3}
38	After that, Aakʼwtaatseen however, it was the salmon people who apparently saved him.
39	The ones swimming along with him were like ordinary people in his eyes.
40	Then they went with him to the salmon people’s town.
41	Then he was unhappy, he was always hungry.
42	Then those salmon people said:
43	“Let us head with him toward Ḵaa Tú Kax̱saké River”.
44	Then they headed with him toward that river.
45	Then they put his hands around the neck of it, that river mouth crane.
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{Paragraph = 4}
46	After that he was always hungry.
47	Then on the beach below town there are lots of fish eggs and he grabbed them behind his back.
48	People finally shouted out about him:
49	“Shanyaakʼwtlaax̱ is eating fish eggs on the beach below town”.
50	After that he felt bad.
{Paragraph = 5}
51	Behind it next door to him they were always showing their faces dancing.
52	So then he looked inside, that place where people are dancing.
53	After a while he looked into the house where they were dancing, and his face was all over fish eggs.
54	Actually it was herring people who were telling stories and dancing; they were happy.
55	Well then one woman called out to him;
56	she said to him
57	“Do you know the salmon people you offended, it’s them who rescued you?”
58	Then she said to him
59	“Do you know the river that flows here?
60	Roast salmon from within it on a skewer wherever hunger has come to you.
61	After that, when you finish eating, put all of your scraps into the water;
62	and what is around your roasting stick, that too you must wash off of it.”
63	So then when he got hungry, just how she had instructed him, that was how he acted.
64	After that he felt very hungry again so again he went to spear one.
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65	After that he ate his food scraps.
66	The way that she instructs him, just like that he put his food scraps in the water;
67	he also washed off his roasting stick.
68	After that, in the evening, a salmon people’s aristocrat, his eye hurt.
69	He is talking to himself about its burden.
70	He can’t get to sleep.
71	Then that woman said to him
72	“Do you know that place where you cooked things for yourself?
73	Perhaps it fell there, that man’s eye”.
74	Then however, after his having done it, that aristocrat, his eye was safe.
{Paragraph = 6}
75	Then that woman said to him
76	“Now they will prepare to go to your land with you”.
77	After that all of the salmon people prepared to go with him to his land.
78	Well after that they are swimming along and those salmon people say that they are afraid of a sʼéetʼ.
79	At some point they saw it, that sʼéetʼ.
80	Its mouth is opening and closing.
81	It’s through it that they eventually have extended out, those salmon.
82	Then some among those salmon are cut into chunks.
83	After that they disappeared from there.
84	They saw that between them had finally come some boats.
85	“We have done all of our work before you.
86	Your cheek flesh can save people; now it’s just eating them.
87	Our herring eggs are our cheek flesh.”
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{Paragraph = 7}
88	After that they came to each other, those salmon.
89	They say
90	“Where are you going to appear at?”.
91	Some among them said “Us however, we are for the Stikine”,
92	some however said “to the Chilkat”,
93	some said “to the Taku”,
94	some said “to the Nass”,
95	some said “to the Alsek”.
96	They named every single one of the rivers.
97	Then they spread out around the river mouths.
98	Someone said
99	“He will stand up there alongside the boat”.
100	Then apparently it’s a jumper who stood up alongside the boat.
101	After that those salmon are saying
102	“Isn’t that fort ready?”.
103	Just then they told one to go into the sight of it.
104	Actually it’s apparently a fish trap that they’re calling a fort.
105	Then as he returned, he said
106	“It’s starting to happen”.
107	At some point he said they were ready.
108	Now the salmon people are ready.
109	Then they swam to the river.
110	They were very happy.
111	Well, then that evening they went around it, that fort.
112	Then all of those salmon, they ran to the river like two tribes.
113	Then after that he saw her, his mother cutting fish on the beach, Aakʼwtaatseen did.
114	Then he wanted to go near to his mother.
115	Just then his mother called back for his father to spear him;
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116	and apparently he just swam up to her.
117	And then she also said to him there
118	“A good salmon is swimming over here”.
119	Then his father speared him.
120	He just didn’t feel it when he was speared.
121	Then he told his wife
122	“Cut it for fresh fish”.
123	Then however, as she cuts his neck off, it’s hard, and her knife is crumbling on something there.
124	She saw the copper necklace around her son’s neck.
125	Just then she called out to her self
126	“Maybe this is my son;
127	perhaps it’s the salmon people who rescued him.
128	This is a copper necklace that is tied around his neck.”
129	Then she took a mat down to the beach, and eagle down too.
130	She’s using that mat.
131	Then she put down around that salmon.
132	After that she laid the mat down on top of the house.
133	Inside however they keep singing shaman songs about him.
{Paragraph = 8}
134	Then it was trembling there during the night on the top of the house.
135	After that the man looked at his son;
136	he saw from his head however that he was human.
137	Then again at him, he looked at him;
138	what is it that has become a human from his waist to his top?
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139	Then at him again, he looked at him;
140	he is just completely human.
141	Then the spirit inside him keeps speaking to him.
142	Then it says
143	“It’s me, I’m Shanyaakʼwtlaax̱”;
144	thus it speaks, that spirit inside him.
145	“It’s me” says that spirit inside him,
146	“I am Crane at the Mouth of Ḵaa Tu Kax̱saké River”.
147	Also it said, that spirit inside him,
148	“It’s me, I’m Sʼéetʼ Spirit”.
149	Then that woman who had advised him also became one of his spirits,
150	“It’s me, I’m Woman Spirit”.
151	Then also someone said inside him
152	“It’s me, I’m Herring Spirit”.
153	Then again to him also it was speaking inside him
154	“It’s me, I’m Seagull Spirit”.
155	Then again to him it said inside him
156	“It’s me, I’m the Salmon People’s Canoe Spirit”.
{Paragraph = 9}
157	Then his father went up to him.
158	That shaman says
159	“From inside the house, wash all of the dirt outside”.
160	Then he also says
161	“Young women must not be inside the house;
162	they should be in a different house”.
163	Then he also said
164	“Sand well that area around the fire”.
165	Then he also said
166	“Women must not look at me”.
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167	Those spirits are singing inside him.
168	Then he went stiff inside that mat.
169	Then they took him inside.
170	Inside, they put eagle down by his mouth.
171	Then they’re singing, inside.
172	Then he’s going around the fire.
173	Then they made a rattle for him as his spirit instructed.
174	Also he told them to work on his future shaman’s apron.
175	Then they made his rattle like a harlequin duck;
176	his apron however they painted like a sʼéetʼ.
177	They painted his drum like a crane.
178	Then they made his bone necklace;
179	they made it up like salmon and like herring.
180	Then the spirits inside him are dancing.
181	After that, he can see those salmon so very well;
182	it’s as though they are just like him, like humans.
183	Then he would converse with the salmon people.
184	How amazing it was to people that he is a shaman.
185	His family lives however he said.
186	Whatever he foretells, that’s the way it is.
187	When someone is going to die, he tells people about it.
188	And he tells about when someone is going to be safe, and so it is like that.
189	He tells people “Go to camp” and whatever they will kill he tells them about it.
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190	And so he says
191	“Don’t move to town immediately; do it right in the middle of winter.”
192	So it was.
193	They weren’t moving with him.
194	Then in the middle of winter they moved to town with him.
195	But then they were very curious about him, the townspeople were.
196	Then he says that one good man is going to become sick.
197	They believe what he says.
198	So it was: a good man became sick.
199	They paid him to cure him.
200	He was an aristocrat.
201	He said to his townspeople
202	“Let fast whoever is going to watch.”
203	All of those townspeople were fasting;
204	how curious they were.
205	Well then that salmon and that herring and that crane and that sʼéetʼ, just however they behaved, that’s all how he was.
206	It was so amazing to them;
207	they are all telling each other.
208	Those young women however weren’t watching him.
209	And what he would eat is not much;
210	only what his spirits had made good, just that was what he ate.
211	And water he would drink too, when those spirits make it good.
212	His spirits told him thus:
213	“You will eat that thing, my master.”
214	Then he eats it.
215	Only all the things that his spirits tell him, only what they say does he do.
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216	And he does not eat anything fresh.
217	And he didn’t marry anyone.
218	Whatever all the spirits tell him about, he is like that.
219	Because of that he lived a long time.
220	And his hair didn’t get white;
221	he just became old after that.
222	That’s it.