Translations 33 A 



3. The Man and the Raven 

 (Translation of Text III. Told by Pautcana) 



A man once said to a raven, "Raven, what are you doing?" "I am taking 

 a piece of a neck to my grandfather," replied the bird. "Where is he?" asked 

 the man. "Over on the windward side of Patitaq." "What is his name?" 

 "The Thinker." "What's your mother's name?" "The Dog Trace." "And 

 your grandmother's?" "Old Ice." "And what is your name?" "I am called 

 Poor Little Thing." There is a song extant which the man sang: 



The big raven's skin is the colour of feces. 



Go over to the other side of the hill. 



Where are your fillets of mountain sheep teeth? Let me buy them 



with a flint knife and its case. 

 My feces is over there, there between the small hills. 

 Go and devour it. 



Cf. Meddelelser om Gr*niand, Vol. XXXI, p. 312; Kroeber, p. 173. 



4. The Singing Sculpin 

 (Translation of Text IV. Told by Alfred Hobson, a half-caste Eskimo of Barrow) 



A man was walking along one day when he heard something singing, "When 

 this ice came in along the shore I looked at his big drum (?)." It was chanted 

 in very low tones, but he heard it repeated again and again until at last he 

 stopped to listen. Lo, whatever it was that made the noise, was down at his 

 feet. He diig the thing out and found a sculpin, but he had already killed it. 



5. The Mad Hunter 

 (Translation of Text V. Told by Otoiyuk, a Colville river Eskimo woman) 



Once there lived a man and his wife. The woman had always to be making 

 new boots for her husband, while he was always equally busy making fresh 

 arrows. At last the woman began to wonder why he was always needing new 

 boots, and resolved to follow him without his knowledge. This she did one day, 

 keeping to one side of his trail. As she drew near she saw him shooting his arrows 

 at a cliff, and rubbing his clothes and mittens and boots against the ground. 

 Then he would shoot another arrow and sing, "On the branch of the small 

 willow, on the branch of the small willow, anga ingi yanga ingi yanga a." She 

 listened for a while, then returned home ahead of him. Later on he appeared, 

 and they were spending a quiet evening together when she began to hum the 

 words of his song. He recognized it and began to scold her, asking where she 

 had learned it. "Oh", she rephed, "I learned it as it came up here out of the 

 ground." 



6. The Impbisoned Childeen 

 (Translation of Text VI. Told by Qapqana, a Colville river Eskimo woman) 



Two people, a man and his wife, were once living on a river where caribou 

 were plentiful. At last, however, they were in want of food. They said to each 

 other, "Our children- have no food," for they had three children. Whenever 

 any caribou could be found they went out to set their snares again, while the 

 children stayed at home; but they failed to secure any more caribou, though it 

 was late each night when they returned. The children at home could always 

 go outside when they wanted to, but one day when their parents went away to 

 their snares they closed the door fast and never returned. Thus the children 

 were left without any food. The oldest boy fed himself and his two brothers 

 with bed skins, but at last all of these were used up, and there they were still 



