021 Betts G - Bear Encounter - Translation.txt

{Number = 021}
{Type = Translation}
{Title =  Bear Encounter}
{Author = Asx̱ʼaak / George Betts}
{Clan = Kaagwaantaan}
{Source = Naish 1966:138–152}
{Translator = Dzéiwsh / James A. Crippen}
{Orthography = NST}
{Dialect = Northern – Coastal – Angoon}
{Note = Line numbers are from the text collection version.}
{Page = 139}
1	When I was a young man I worked aboard a boat;
2	I did seining.
3	We were towed to Pybus Bay.
4	Seiners used to not go about on their own;
5	they were towed around by tugboats.
{Page = 140}
6	So at some point somebody then said
7	“Let’s go hunting”.
8	So then everyone went hunting.
9	So this place where we went around the face of a mountain, we killed a deer there.
10	Then I started packing it to the beach.
{Page = 141}
11	Just as I’m packing it along I pack out onto muskeg.
12	There are lots of berries there; I’m eating them off the bush.
13	So as I was packing out on this muskeg, Déilkʼi came out across from me.
14	Then he raised his gun to his face in my direction.
{Page = 142}
15	“What is happening!” I’m thinking.
16	”What is he doing like…”
17	Then he said to me
18	“Stand still!”
19	And then “Stand still;
20	Don’t start moving.”
21	Then he started coming near me.
{Page = 143}
22	His gun is just at his face; he was still stalking something.
23	As he came near me he said
24	“Maybe my eyes were deceived.”
25	And then “It’s right behind you that I saw a bear’s ears”.
{Page = 144}
26	Just then when he said that I looked behind my back.
27	“What is it stretched out there – the bear?”
28	Just then as I was looking toward it it sprang up at my face.
29	Then as it was springing up, Shnawtaan, the one who is Déilkʼi, shot.
{Page = 145}
30	It was its neck that he had shot, that brown bear.
31	Then the bear called out;
32	it was scratching around there.
{Page = 146}
33	It was growling so he hadn’t killed it.
34	Just as it fell two more came up here at us.
35	I was packing it with rope.
36	I had knotted it too much.
37	I was untying it but I wasn’t succeeding at it.
{Page = 147}
38	At some point I cut something.
39	He’s shooting, Déilkʼi is shooting.
40	So they’re all scratching around there, the brown bears.
41	At some point he said to me
42	“Now I have one bullet.
{Page = 148}
43	Start running now;
44	you just take care of yourself.
45	If they overtake us again it’s all right;
46	I only have one however.”
47	“Me too, I still have one bullet.”
48	Then we started running.
{Page = 149}
49	Ahead of me Déilkʼi was outrunning me.
50	Then he jumped across a muddy hole.
51	But he fell short of it.
52	Just then the mud pulled up over his knees.
53	My thought was that I should run back to him.
{Page = 150}
54	I just thought “no”.
55	So I ran back to him.
56	When I ran back to him I dragged him up out of there.
57	Then we started running again.
58	The brown bears however, they could be heard over that way.
{Page = 151}
59	When we got to the beach we got more bullets.
60	People went back there with us.
61	When we went back there, those that were three, they all three were dead.
62	They had been coming after us but just on the trail they died.
{Page = 152}
63	That’s about the size of it, this thing about brown bears.