017 Fawcett JB - Kaats' - Translation.txt

{Number = 017}
{Type = Translation}
{Title = Kaatsʼ}
{Author = Tseexwáa / J.B. Fawcett}
{Clan = Wooshkeetaan; Tʼaḵdeintaan yádi}
{Source = D&D 1987:218-243}
{Translator = Ḵeixwnéi / Nora Marks Dauenhauer}
{Page = 219}
1	This is a magnificent story.
2	Many kinds of things happened.
3	Even from long ago
4	Tlingits
5	used to go hunting
6	in the forest
7	and harvesting on the sea.
8	“What did they hunt with?”
9	is what
10	some people ask.
11	How many years have passed.
12	Surely there used to be weapons to hunt with.
13	Tlingits
14	knew
15	how to hunt things,
16	those sea mammals too,
17	and how to catch
18	those animals that walked,
19	how to harvest
20	those on the sea
21	and those that walked inland.
22	There was a man
23	who went out hunting
24	with a dog.
25	Those great inland animals,
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26	large animals,
27	were taken from their den.
28	They were taken with the use of dogs,
29	with the use of dogs.
30	That’s when
31	they came to its entrance.
32	The man
33	had a wife,
34	he had a wife.
35	Why was it?
36	After trying for a while
37	he stepped into a dangerous place.
38	It was the animal called brown bear.
39	Over here is where it happened,
40	it happened on the near side of Ketchikan.
41	It was inland.
42	Yees G̱eey is what Tlingits call the place,
43	but the White People call it Yes Bay.
44	That’s where this happened.
45	There is a river there too, a large river.
46	Now,
47	at what point was it?
48	While he was trying,
49	while he was still trying,
50	it grabbed him.
51	It was while he was aiming at it.
52	He got right up to the entrance
53	of its den.
54	The animal
55	jumped out.
56	It tossed him inside.
57	Its mate was probably in there all along,
58	that female brown bear.
59	She was inside.
60	He grabbed her private parts.
61	She looked like a woman to him.
62	As he grabbed her
63	Kaatsʼ
64	said
65	“Hey, why don't you help me?”
66	While her mate was still confused outside
67	he was searching all over.
68	While he was searching
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69	for those dogs of his,
70	his dogs,
71	she buried him.
72	That’s why there’s a saying
73	“underneath
74	the thing they sit on.”
75	Spruce boughs are their beds, the beds of those animals.
76	She lay face down.
77	After a while
78	the male bear came in.
79	It was a house,
80	it was a house
81	in Kaatsʼ eyes
82	although it was the den, wasn’t it?
83	“Where is the human I threw in here?”
84	the animal said.
85	“It was a mitten, here it is.
86	It was a mitten, here it is.
87	That’s what you threw in here.
88	Here it is.”
89	She put her paws over her husband’s eyes.
90	She felt something for Kaatsʼ
91	when he touched her,
92	the female bear,
93	she felt something for him.
94	She didn’t want to tell on him.
95	She put her paws over her husband’s eyes.
96	Kaatsʼ didn’t know what he was going to do.
97	The male bear
98	would go out.
99	That’s when she would instruct him.
100	“Nothing will happen to you.
101	Nothing will happen to you.”
102	At one point, the moment came.
103	In Kaatsʼ eyes though,
104	for him,
105	one month was a night,
106	here it was a month all the while.
107	But Kaatsʼ
108	was gone.
109	He was no more.
110	He had an accident.
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111	He was no more.
112	They didn’t know where he was.
113	They would search.
114	Of his younger brothers
115	the very youngest one
116	had a wife.
117	The youngest
118	had a wife as young as he.
119	His older brother
120	was a master hunter.
121	They would say, “Why doesn’t this one
122	find his older brother?”
123	People were suspicious,
124	his footprints were seen
125	yes,
126	alongside the bear footprints
127	they went up alongside the river.
128	Why
129	were this man’s footprints
130	going up alongside the brown bear’s?
131	That’s when people became suspicious,
132	“Perhaps he was taken by something,”
133	is what people said.
134	Noble people said this.
135	Please excuse this.
136	This is a true story,
137	this is a true story.
138	This is how it’s known,
139	this is
140	from his lips.
141	The bear would feel the approach
142	of the dogs.
143	In the den they seem like sunbeams.
144	They would shine in,
145	into the den.
146	The dogs’ thoughts
147	seem like sunbeams;
148	the woman
149	would jump up to reach for them.
150	They couldn’t find him.
151	Where was he?
152	People searched everywhere
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153	But the younger brother
154	wasn’t saying anything.
155	“Why not him?” they were saying.
156	His footprints were seen.
157	“Why can’t he
158	find his older brother?”
159	is what the older brothers said
160	about their younger brother.
161	His wife
162	was an old woman.
163	At one point the moment came.
164	His dogs,
165	“At X̱’éeshi Gwálaa”
166	is the name of one of his dogs.
167	The other was “Shaayeesxwáa.”
168	But I forget
169	the other one.
170	Three dogs,
171	first class,
172	Shaayeesxwáa.
173	Then
174	at one point the younger brother asked his wife,
175	“Can you get my shoes ready,
176	my shoes,
177	I’ll go
178	to search.”
179	But he was the one who would find his older brother, wasn’t he?
180	But the angry men were becoming quarrelsome.
181	At one point the female bear said,
182	“I see.
183	Do you see?
184	Do you see?”
185	She told him to look there.
186	She would jump up to grab them,
187	she would jump up to grab them again.
188	No,
189	it wasn’t slowing down,
190	while she was still doing this they tracked to the entrance.
191	That’s why bears today,
192	in bear dens, you know,
193	these noble children make four barriers
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194	one after the other
195	on the inside.
196	Because of what happened
197	they make barriers,
198	because of what happened
199	it’s this way today.
200	But at that time
201	he reached there,
202	those dogs tracked right to the entrance while she was still doing this.
203	They pointed their noses to the mouth of the den.
204	He recognized his dogs.
205	“My dogs!”
206	he said,
207	“Be brave,”
208	he said to them.
209	“Be brave.”
210	He didn’t know what he was going to do.
211	There were no guns.
212	Those things
213	were bow and arrow.
214	They were more powerful than guns.
215	I saw some.
216	See, they were this long.
217	Strange looking.
218	The bow was curved right here, and strung with hide,
219	it was strong.
220	But the points were this long.
221	Bones.
222	They were round like eggs; they were inserted into the end of the point.
223	It detaches itself.
224	It attaches itself inside the target.
225	It was just like a bullet.
226	That’s how Tlingits killed things.
227	While he was still
228	trying to get ready (Slap!)
229	Kaatsʼ didn’t know what he was going to do.
230	I knew the brother’s name.
231	When I get mixed up,
232	it’s difficult.
233	It’s really difficult, my good woman.
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234	Sometime
235	when I think of it, we’ll put it down on paper.
236	You have a good mind.
237	Good.
238	Now.
{Comment = Line 240 follows a blank line that is apparently numbered 239, omitted here.}
240	Then
241	Kaatsʼ said
242	to Shaayeesxwáa,
243	“If only you’d stop barking.”
244	He stared at his older brother.
245	Kaatsʼ recognized the other dog too.
246	“Stop barking now!”
247	He looked out of the mouth of the den,
248	why, that was his younger brother,
249	he stared at him.
250	“I’m all right,
251	it’s me,
252	tell him to stop barking.”
253	He stared at his older brother.
254	“Here I am!
255	Here I am!”
256	He had been gone for one year, you see.
257	It was he who found his older brother.
258	“Please don’t tell this,
259	don’t tell,
260	come back again.
261	Come back.”
262	He asked him to get what he needed,
263	whatever he needed
264	from the coast.
265	“Don’t tell.”
266	The dogs ran on home.
267	Why?
268	The dogs had gone with them many times before.
269	They were so happy
270	yo-ho-ho-ho
271	they’d jump up on their hind legs.
272	People could see them.
273	The dogs were so happy
274	people got suspicious
275	and said, “Why are these dogs so happy?”
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276	He had nothing to say.
277	He told his wife, you see,
278	“I saw my older brother.
279	He instructed me.
280	Be brave,”
281	he said to his wife
282	“He will come.
283	The time will come.”
284	They had a messenger.
285	They have been around for a long time.
286	You know what a messenger is.
287	Kaatsʼ was yearning
288	to go hunting
289	for seals,
290	he wanted to get his hands on seals.
291	This is what he instructed his younger brother.
292	The boat too,
293	his boat.
294	“We will go by boat.
295	There it is.”
296	Kaatsʼ showed him to where he was coming down; it’s still there today.
297	The Teiḵweidí people down south,
298	see, they told us about it.
299	“There’s where the brown bear saved a person; there it is; here it is,”
300	Ketchikan is there.
301	Also this place
302	called Yes Bay.
303	It’s called Yees G̱eey; there’s a large river,
304	the tributary that joins it this way
305	is here.
306	X̱ʼaxʼáan and his group were the ones who told us.
307	They are the Teiḵweidí whom this happened to.
308	That’s where their ancestor became a thing of value.
309	We seined there.
310	Now,
311	this is where they hunted,
312	they hunted,
313	where they paddled,
314	his children were one winter old.
315	There were three of them,
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316	male
317	brown bears.
318	They are the ones that are called solid rib cage today,
319	that’s them.
320	They are his children,
321	they are human
322	because of him.
323	But to people’s eyes, though, they are bears.
324	He would go there.
325	His younger brother
326	hunted.
327	Kaatsʼ instructed
328	his brown bear wife,
329	“There it is,
330	the place where we will live.”
331	The salmon,
332	the salmon river,
333	is where her footprints were seen.
334	The brown bear footprints lead upward,
335	her footprints lead along here.
336	Only one person saw them
337	clearly,
338	he was walking with her.
339	That was how they knew.
340	That’s why it seemed proper, you see.
341	It was the woman who made a mistake,
342	his former wife.
343	This wouldn’t have happened to him, don’t you agree?
344	It was because of what the woman said, his former wife
345	on the coast.
346	The brown bear,
347	the one who was his wife,
348	was good to him.
349	She was kind to him,
350	she already had his children, you see,
351	she was kind to him.
352	“Please don’t speak to your wife,”
353	she said to him.
354	“Yes,”
355	he said.
356	He wouldn’t speak to her.
357	Those
358	seals, lots!
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359	he would bring in by boat. (Slap)
360	The brown bears
361	were happy!
362	Their father.
363	There was joy
364	when he wanted to bring the seals
365	to the beach
366	for them to eat.
367	These were for them to eat.
368	He didn’t want to
369	part from them
370	to live
371	apart from them.
372	There was a stream,
373	a stream where Kaatsʼ went for water.
374	The brown bear wasn’t jealous over him,
375	she was kind to him.
376	If only things hadn’t happened this way, how would it have been?
377	It would have really been something, they say. That’s how it’s told, you see.
378	This is why the brown bears understand humans.
379	Humans,
380	the human way of life.
381	Kaatsʼ would go out.
382	His younger brothers
383	had gone out again
384	to hunt.
385	Lots!
386	whatever
387	was for food.
388	It was water,
389	it was for water
390	that he, Kaatsʼ, came to the mouth of the stream,
391	but his human wife
392	was standing there waiting for him, wasn’t she?
393	The one from before he got lost, you see.
394	He had two wives,
395	two.
396	It was the older one
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397	who made the mistake.
398	Please excuse
399	this,
400	my daughter.
401	This is a true story.
402	How good it is that you’re asking about it.
403	Your birth is from Teiḵweidí,
404	I knew it well,
405	your father,
406	your grandmother too.
407	He left,
408	carrying water.
409	His life was the same as before.
410	But she’d come to him,
411	but she’d come to him,
412	that brown bear,
413	his wife.
414	How would it have been
415	if the woman hadn’t made the mistake, you see.
416	He was carrying water.
417	“Hey there, my dear,”
418	she said to him,
419	“Isn’t it magnificent to see a tiny face with hair on it?”
420	(Please excuse my language.)
421	This is what she said to him,
422	“To see a thing with hair on it,”
423	is what she said to him, you see.
424	He wouldn’t speak to her.
425	It was because she said this to him that he spoke to her.
426	“You!!
427	If only I could have coached you on your words, you!”
428	he said to her.
429	Now.
430	That was it.
431	He wasn’t with her,
432	he didn’t go there.
433	From then on, he would go by boat with his younger brothers to hunt,
434	to hunt.
435	But on the beach
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436	his bear children
437	were fully grown.
438	“Kill your father.
439	Kill him.”
440	Pleased with the seals,
441	the children would come running down to the beach.
442	It’s said he stepped out of the canoe,
443	but I have forgotten the song.
444	But our “outer containers” usually sang it.
445	It was sung in two ways,
446	it is a fine song,
447	the Brown Bear Song.
448	They killed that father of theirs.
449	That’s when the coward watched
450	and the slave—
451	he was a messenger—
452	and the coward
453	watched.
454	That’s how it’s told from his words.
455	It’s said there were earrings on the ears
456	of the woman,
457	she had a cane; she was a young person,
458	she wore an animal skin on her back tied around her waist.
459	She had painted her face,
460	this is why the Teiḵweidí paint their faces like her.
461	It’s the animal’s face paint.
462	She was human, they say.
463	No more!
464	that husband of hers was mutilated.
465	They killed their father.
466	They went back into the forest.
467	But the animal wife
468	stood by her husband’s body,
469	she was a human
470	in their eyes.
471	She sang the cry
472	sung by the Teiḵweidí.
473	The one from Ketchikan,
474	she sang to them.
475	The Brown Bear Song.
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476	She cried to it!
477	She cried to it.
478	They had torn his arms off.
479	She joined them back to his body while singing this cry
480	for her husband,
481	while singing this cry.