Manataka American Indian Council
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A Lover's Quarrel
From The Yana Text
"S*uwa! May I dream of him! Would that you might come. You thought that you
would not love any one."
(Her lover has come and says to her,) "I love you very much, that is why I have come."
"Perhaps you do not love me."
"I have loved you for a long time, and I shall always do so. I shall always come to see you. Pray come to our house, and I shall do likewise. After a while we shall be married."
"Pray let me grow. I am not yet grown up." "My mother already knows about it, and I shall stay with you, and you shall do likewise to me." (She said,)
"I am afraid that you might abandon me. They say that you are a bad fellow, and I did not know about it. You shall go off to hunt."
"You
talk too much to me, and it is I that speak rightly. I do not know what I shall
do. You are not, it seems, a sensible person. I shall be good to you, I shall
give you good clothes. Do not be afraid of me! Why, pray, do you speak thus? You
should have told it to me long ago. Perchance you think that you are the only
one. There are many women, and I shall take any one. Do you think about me, 'He
will cry'? Perchance you say, 'I am very pretty.' Indeed, I have abandoned a
pretty one. What, pray, should I do if you do not love me? I shall try another
woman. Perchance you think about me, 'He will not find any women.' You do not
know what I have in mind. I have many brothers and sisters who would help me
[With the payment for a bride.] if I go anywhere's to woo. Many are the nephews
and nieces, my sister's children."
Yana Texts by Edward Sapir University of
California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology Vol. 9, No. 1, pp.
1-235 [1910]
[Obtained in July and August, 1907, a few miles to the north of the hamlet of
Round Mountain (or Buzzard's Roost), Shasta county. The informant was Betty
Brown (Indian name Ts!i'daimiya), since dead. There are now not more than seven
or eight Indians that are able to speak the dialect. In some respects
Betty was an inferior source of text material to Sam Bat'wi, as evidenced by the
very small number of myths it was found possible to procure from her. Her method
of narrative was peculiar in that she had a very marked tendency to omit
anything, even the names of the characters involved, that
was not conversation; this has necessitated the liberal use in the English
translation of parentheses in which the attempt is made to arrive at a somewhat
smoother narrative.]
From Blue Panther Keeper of Stories.