Living Our Language_ Ojibwe Tales & Oral Histories - Anton Treuer [18]
[4] As they went inland over there, the ducks went over and danced, entering the arbor there. In the midst of it he talks to them, “My little brothers! I am going to sing. My little brothers, dance with your eyes closed! Don’t peek,” he tells those ducks. “Here at this time now I am starting the slaughter.”
My little brothers, don’t peek
Your eyes will turn red
Yo weh heh heh
Yo weh heh heh
[5] From time to time he decapitated those ducks by wringing their necks, and, as the story goes, they called out, “kwenk.” “Ha my little brothers, that’s how you want to sound.” He sings, wringing their heads off, “Wenk.”
[6] Then that helldiver opened his eyes to see what he [Wenabozho] was doing. Who had twisted the heads off the ducks? Then he called out to the ducks, “Hey my fellow ducks! Wenabozho is piling up our corpses. He’s going to roast us over a fire.” Those ducks are halfway out the door. Then, as the story goes, that helldiver is running away from him to the shore as [Wenabozho] kicked him, hunching up his back. Then he told him this, “Oh they’ll work on you like this. That one over there, that Indian, he isn’t going to eat you,” he told that helldiver. “And your eyes will turn red,” he told him. That’s why that helldiver’s eyes turned red.
[7] That’s how Wenabozho was.
[8] As he left, [Wenabozho] came to the shore of the rivers, carrying the decapitated ducks, maybe seeing where he would roast those ducks over there. First of all he slept there extensively when he was ready, as he finished cooking those ducks. Then he slept.
[9] Then those people over there, these ones who must have been waiting in ambush, “Wait in watch,” they said of him, “peek down there.” These were Sioux that floated there. “Tell me if anybody floats up here.” I don’t know when he must have been sleeping. The Sioux could see him here as the steam rose [from his breath]. “That’s Wenabozho,” they said, “He’s got something here.” Then they shook [their] roaches in agreement, as the leader didn’t have to say anything to those waiting in ambush, they took all those things [Wenabozho] had roasted and left.
[10] And at this time as he wakes up, that [duck] having been done a long time, Wenabozho gets up glancing a little bit towards his roast that they had stolen, those Sioux having taken it from him. Then he got mad. He burned himself, leaving here at this time. Then he burned up this here, so the story goes, getting itchy skin as he scabbed up. Then these sticks came to be like this.
[11] Then he said this: “My little brothers,” he told them, “That Indian shall come to live here. And he’ll call you apaakozigan, that’s how you’ll all be called.” That’s where the Indian gets the kinnikinnick he smokes. That’s how Wenabozho made that.
[12] That’s how these old men told legends long ago.
The First Time I Saw an Automobile
[1] The first time, there was a white man riding in that aadamoobii as they called it. A certain young man and I were following the road. We already heard him speeding up there, with some approaching sound. But no, we were boys. And we were scared when we heard the noise coming here on the road.
[2] No, the way the roads look now, they didn’t look like that. These were the only kind; they were made of corduroy. That’s how those roads looked long ago.
[3] Only horses and carriages, that’s how the white men drove. And then when we heard that thing, some sound approaching, we went off to the side, hiding from it. We could be found by the side trail for a long time while this thing was hanging around near here, this automobile that carries us today.
[4] For a long time when he was going to catch up to us, seeing us there as he sped along, we were frightened as he was heard coming. That was the first time I saw that aadamoobii as the Indian named it long ago. And that’s why we hid from him when he scared us.
[5] And that’s all I want to say for now.
The First