011 Peters T - The Woman Who Married the Bear - Translation.txt

{Number = 011}
{Type = Translation}
{Title = Xóotsx̱ X̱ʼayaaḵuwdlig̱adi Shaawát / The Woman Who Married the Bear}
{Author = Yeilnaawú / Tom Peters}
{Clan = Tuḵ.weidí; Yanyeidí Yádi}
{Source = D&D 1987: 166-193}
{Translator = Ḵeixwnéi / Nora Marks Dauenhauer}
{Page = 167}
1	There were two women, sisters.
2	They went for meat
3	to the place where animals were killed,
4	the place where moose were killed.
5	When they were returning home
6	the meat was all
7	packed out.
8	That’s when the two sisters
9	came on the berries,
10	they came on the berries.
11	Well, when they came on them, just then
12	the people left them behind.
13	Then the younger sister
14	said, “Hurry now.” to her older sister.
15	She walked behind her.
16	She went quickly and
17	along where people had walked.
18	Then from there
19	the older sister
20	walked right through there
21	right through
22	right where
23	a brown bear
{Page = 169}
24	had defecated; she stepped on it.
25	That was what she slipped on, it’s said.
26	And those berries of hers all spilled from her hands.
27	What was it she said then
28	to the Brown Bear? She insulted it.
29	But her sister had already left her.
30	That’s when
31	that’s when the man appeared in front of her.
32	Nice!
33	Where was this man from?
34	A young man.
35	As soon as he came by her he said to her
36	“Come with me,
37	come with me,” he said to her.
38	“No!
39	My parents
40	will miss me.”
41	“We will go there.
42	Just come, come with me forever,
43	come home with me,
44	come home with me
45	to the place where my home is.”
46	At first she didn’t want to go.
47	Maybe he did something to her mind.
48	Then she went with him.
49	They hadn’t gone very far
50	when a log
51	was lying there.
52	They went over it.
53	They hadn’t been going far
54	when another log was lying there.
55	They walked
56	for three days.
57	Here they were really mountains.
58	That’s what seemed like logs to the woman.
59	Then, while they were walking along then
60	they came on people.
61	They were surely human beings; that’s just how they seemed to her.
62	That’s when
63	the one she had gone with said to her,
64	“Don’t look up.
{Page = 171}
65	At dawn,
66	don’t look among the people.”
67	But then
68	at what point was it?
69	“I wonder why he’s saying this to me,” she thought.
70	Weren’t they the woman’s people?
71	Weren’t they
72	her father
73	her mother?
74	“I wonder why he’s saying this to me,” she thought.
75	Then, when she woke up
76	at dawn
77	that’s when
78	she pushed the blanket-like thing down from her face.
79	So many animals were asleep inside there,
80	brown bears.
81	From here
82	they separated from the people.
83	But from then on, the brown bear would hunt just around there.
84	There were salmon.
85	Things were drying
86	on the mountain–
87	ground squirrel
88	ground hog.
89	It was exactly
90	one year.
91	She had been gone with him
92	more than a year,
93	one spring and one winter.
94	When winter began coming
95	they had settled in.
96	She didn’t know he was something else either, but thought he was a human being.
97	“We will live up there,” he said.
98	How she liked it!
99	It seemed to her
100	like a house made of branches.
101	Nice!
102	It was very nice.
{Page = 173}
103	It was the way a house should be.
104	That’s when
105	he told her
106	“Bring down some
107	branches
108	from up there for our bed.”
109	The woman immediately went up there.
110	Then she knew what he was, that he was a brown bear who had captured her.
111	“Don’t break the branches from up there.
112	pick them from the ground.”
113	Just then,
114	then when she broke the branches, she broke them from above.
115	Then she brought them.
116	“Let me see.
117	Did you break them from up there?
118	Yes.
119	Let me see!”
120	That’s when she gave them to him.
121	“Drat!
122	I told you ‘Pick them from the ground.’
123	Now you’ve marked where we live.”
124	It was known
125	to her father
126	and to her mother
127	and others
128	where the den was.
129	They could see from her footprints that she had gone
130	with him.
131	Then they moved to a different place.
132	Then they stayed there, they stayed there.
133	She was with him long enough to have two children.
134	They were just
135	like people.
136	Then they moved to a different p1ace.
137	They settled there.
138	How the people of our village are
139	that’s how they were.
140	Everything,
141	there was nothing that they needed,
{Page = 175}
142	at home.
143	But that time
144	there were five of them
145	the brothers of hers.
146	That was when they tried.
147	They could see their sister’s footprints; they could see
148	that she had gone
149	with that thing.
150	He knew immediately that his life was in their hands.
151	When spring returned, when spring finally returned,
152	the brothers of hers
153	all five of them,
154	picked medicine leaves.
155	They did it just to get him,
156	just to get the bear.
157	It is truly sensitive
158	people say.
159	Do you know what is called “leaves?”
160	That's the first Tlingit you didn’t know.
161	(N.D.) Is it made to acquire something?
162	Yeah! Yeah!
163	It is known here that they were imported from over there.
164	This was told to us.
165	I never wanted to try those things.
166	It is really strictly handled, they say.
167	They are the ones,
168	they are the ones
169	that were made for things like money.
170	And these too were made correctly.
171	Maybe it was something that made you crazy, they say.
172	They made medicine,
173	from then on, medicine was made.
174	Eight days,
175	for eight days
176	in the morning
177	no
178	food was eaten
179	and no water,
180	water,
{Page = 177}
181	no water was drunk.
182	Then spring really returned,
183	spring time
184	April.
185	Now they tried.
186	Then there used to be
187	dogs
188	trained with medicine.
189	“Chewing Ribs”
190	was the name
191	of the dog.
192	These brothers
193	didn’t go searching just once.
194	Today
195	this morning
196	the eldest
197	would go
198	to the hill.
199	Then the next one
200	then the next one.
201	Ah, ha!
202	At one point it was the turn of the youngest
203	of the woman’s brothers.
204	When spring
205	returned
206	she would go outside, groping her way, like this.
207	Ah, ha!
208	Spring finally returned.
209	That’s when
210	the animal,
211	the brown bear,
212	had a vision
213	of his brothers-in-law.
214	“Your brothers
215	are making medieine against me.
216	Oh, oh.
217	Oh, oh.
218	It seems like it’s the youngest who will get me.
219	Be brave.”
220	That’s what he told her, what the one with her
221	told the woman
222	and her children too,
{Page = 179}
223	both of them.
224	“Be brave.
225	When I fall into their hands, be brave,
226	when I fall into your brothers’ hands.”
227	At that time the woman would beg the animal with all she could.
228	“Have pity on my brothers.
229	Don’t do anything to them,"
230	she would say to it.
231	“The younger one,
232	your younger brother will be the one.”
233	From then
234	he already knew what the woman
235	was going to do.
236	There were two
237	stones this size.
238	Each time they ate
239	she’d roll them secretly
240	in his food.
241	When she finished doing that,
242	“There!”
243	But it seemed to him as if she had done it openly.
244	Surely the bear was an animal of the forest.
245	“There he is!
246	Your brother is coming here.
247	Be brave.”
248	Just as soon,
249	as soon as it became dawn
250	his thoughts shot in,
251	his thoughts.
252	Here,
253	when they shot inside
254	they were just like a beam of light,
255	maybe they were just like a flashlight.
256	That is how they shot
257	through the house.
258	He caught the beams right there.
259	He snapped them back outside.
260	These were people’s thoughts, it’s said.
261	Because of that the black bear
262	and the brown bear
263	can see people.
{Page = 181}
264	They’re pretty hard to find.
265	That’s why he couldn’t find it,
266	why he couldn’t find the den,
267	because of his thoughts.
268	When a man’s thoughts
269	are shot inside its den,
270	he snaps them back toward the entrance.
271	That’s why they can't find it.
272	Heh.
273	Ah, ha.
274	When she heard this from him,
275	when he told her those things,
276	that’s when
277	the woman finally went out to the entrance of the den.
278	Here
279	she put those stones
280	between her legs,
281	these stones
282	she had,
283	then, toward the beach,
284	on the side of the mountain,
285	on the frozen
286	crust
287	she rolled them down,
288	those things rolled down
289	and he found one.
290	He walked along the side of the mountain.
291	That dog of his
292	knew right then,
293	that dog of his that hunted with him.
294	Heh!
295	While it was going along
296	it acted
297	as if it got a scent of something on the snow.
298	It ran around sniffing.
299	Here it was where the stone had rolled down, wasn’t it?
300	Up that way
301	he followed it.
302	The people of today
{Page = 183}
303	are not like the ones of long ago.
304	They were tough.
305	If they went from here no matter how many miles they had to go they’d make it in a day.
306	And now.....
307	What are they?
308	“Ah hah!
309	Ah, ha! your brother's getting close,”
310	he told her, it is said.
311	Then like when
312	spears
313	are hung from rafters
314	is how his teeth looked to the woman.
315	He pulled them out
316	from there.
317	That is when she really
318	begged of him,
319	“Pity my brother,” she said.
320	He was approaching up there.
321	Heh.
322	Then
323	suddenly the bear heard the dog barking
324	from the topside.
325	It wasn’t like a dog of today.
326	They were as smart as humans
327	long ago.
328	Well, probably they were the same on the coast too,
329	those dogs.
330	Over there
331	it is always done like this when the entrance of a den was approached.
332	From the upper side.
333	You can’t go straight up.
334	Only from the upper side.
335	Whatever, even a piece of clothing, was tossed in.
336	That is what he did.
337	He tossed his mitten
338	into the entrance.
339	He could only see the paw
340	inside
{Page = 185}
341	then sweeping behind.
342	“Be brave,
343	I will go out
344	to him.
{Comment = Line 344 is probably missing a comma, with a space before the quote.}
345	I will play with your brother,”
346	he said to her, it’s said.
347	The bear lured him
348	into coming down.
349	That’s when he instructed her.
350	“When your brother finishes with me
351	don’t be careless with my skin.
352	You tell them right away.
353	You tell him.
354	Drape my skin
355	with the head
356	toward the setting sun.”
357	That’s why it’s still done now.
358	From this very story.
359	It is never tossed away carelessly.
360	A pole is placed under it thus.
361	It is hung and pointed
362	towards the sunset,
363	from his words.
364	He came right to the entrance there.
365	He stood facing it.
366	Ah ha!
367	But even at that
368	his dog didn’t tire from barking.
369	He had already killed the bear.
370	He went up to it.
371	What else was there in the den?
372	Someone spoke from inside.
373	“Your mouth will get tired,
374	Chewing Ribs?”
375	He just stood there.
376	What’s more, his sister came out of there,
377	the one who had been gone
378	so long.
{Page = 187}
379	He got her.
380	The children also,
381	the two of them.
382	“From there
383	this skin of mine
384	you will always keep with you,”
385	is what he had said to her.
386	That’s when he taught her
387	this song of his.
388	“You will sing this
389	when you hang my skin,”
390	he said to her.
{Comment = Line 391 begins part two.}
391	It was
392	the brown bear
393	that I was telling about.
394	Then
395	things were settled.
396	She became accustomed to her village people.
397	Then
398	she lived the way
399	she had as long ago.
400	It was then she had her husband’s
401	former skin
402	the way he had told her to do.
403	Yes. “When you go out
404	you will put this skin of mine
405	on your back.”
406	Yes; this is what he once told her.
407	From then her children
408	had reached her size.
409	Then
410	she would leave them
411	when people would hunt ground squirrels.
412	She would only go a short way.
413	How did she get the squirrels?
{Comment = Line 414 extends onto the next page.}
414	Only the mound of her pack would be seen moving along to her house.
{Page = 189}
415	Only when she was ready to go
416	would she pull on
417	the skin that was her husband’s.
418	Yes.
419	At times it would be going after berries,
420	when she was going to get berries.
421	Just as she was leaving home, as she started out, she would pull it on.
422	She would become
423	a real bear.
424	Her children too.
425	Up there where last year’s berries grew
426	in the berry patch.
427	She would come out on the mountain.
428	Her children with her too.
429	After doing this so many times,
430	the brothers of hers
431	asked their mother
432	“Mother!
433	will you tell my sister
434	we want to just play a game with her?”
435	That was when she told her mother
436	“No!
437	No!
438	It is not right
439	for them to do this to me.
440	Yes. I am not the same anymore as I used to be.
441	When
442	I pull on
443	my husband’s
444	skin
445	I don’t think my old thoughts any more.
446	This is why. No!
447	Let me be.
448	Let me live among you for as long as possible.”
449	But still the brothers asked her
450	“Mother! please ask
451	our sister
452	to let us play with her.”
453	How many times
454	they must have asked this.
455	Finally she said to them
{Page = 191}
456	“Well, okay, let’s go!
457	Let’s go!
458	Let them play with me.”
459	After she said this to her mother
460	she left.
461	As soon as she left home she pulled on
462	the skin of her husband.
463	She looked just like a brown bear.
464	Her children too
465	the two of them
466	went alongside of her.
467	It was up there
468	above everyone on the face of the mountain
469	among the berries.
470	This is when she came out there.
471	Maybe they didn’t believe she would.
472	The blades
473	of the arrows
474	were
475	pieces of bark.
476	Pieces of bark were placed on the tip.
477	Except the blade of the one who found her,
478	her brother, the youngest one.
479	it was he,
480	there were two arrows of his.
481	They each had
482	a real arrowhead.
483	There was
484	what is called
485	a quiver.
486	Arrows
487	are kept inside it.
488	It’s worn around the neck.
489	He put the arrows inside it.
490	He didn’t do to his sister what his older brothers did, it’s said.
491	He only watched.
492	From then his older brothers
493	stalked her.
494	The way an animal
495	is struck with arrows
496	is how they did it.
{Page = 193}
497	When the first one’s arrow,
498	when the first one’s arrow
499	struck her
500	was when her cry was heard.
501	“From behind you.”
502	Here’s when she turned on them.
503	How many of them were there? They were helpless against her.
504	And her children too.
505	When they were dead is when the younger brother,
506	the one with the two arrowheads,
{Comment = Line 507 has the two sound effects that are on unnumbered lines.}
507	drew them out. ( Slap! Slap! )
508	He killed her,
509	that sister of his.
510	Now that is the end.