Page:Kutenai Tales.djvu/140

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Kutenai Tales
125

did the same thing to the child; and the woman did the same again, she struck her child. Then Ya.ukᵘe′ᵢka·m said: "Why do you | do that to the child? You hurt him." The mother of Duck turned round quickly, || and it was true what her son had said. Ya.ukᵘe′ᵢka·m had arrived | and had come back to life. Then the woman said: | "I am glad that you arrived. We are poor. | When your brother kills game, they take it away from him. When I go along | and put up my tent, it is taken away from me; || and when I go to another place and make my tent and finish it, | it is taken away again. Then it is dark and I have no tent. | When the hunters come back and bring much deer meat, | your brother alone has not any, for they take away all | the deer he kills. Then in the evening we are hungry. When the chief defecates, || they call Duck, and he must rub him | with his head." Ya.ukᵘe′ᵢka·m said: "Now | go on! When you get there, make your tent, | and if any one wants to take the place that you have arranged, strike him; | and put flint on the head of Duck." || He said to him: "When the chief calls you, and when he tells you I to rub him with your head, then hit him with your head." | Then Duck and his mother started. Ya.ukᵘe′ᵢka·m started | and went along where the snow was trodden down. He saw his younger brother. | He said to him: "Don't you kill any game?" He said: "I have killed some, || but it was taken away from me; and I went hunting again, but it is like that always. | If I kill game, it is taken away from me. Even if it is much, it is all taken away from me. | Then in the evening, when I get home, I and my wife and child are hungry. | I am poor." Then Ya.ukᵘe′ᵢka·m said to his brother: | "Go on; look for deer! and || if you kill it and some one tries to take it away from you, go after him | and strike him, and say: 'Don't take it. If you try | to take it, I'll shoot you.'" Ya.ukᵘe′ᵢka·m said: | "I shall not shoot deer. Later on in the morning | I'll shoot some." Then the man started and killed || a deer. Somebody went up to him and intended to take it. He went after him | and struck him with a stick. He said to him: "If | you try to take what I kill, I'll kill you. | You have killed my elder brother; now I'll get angry with you." | Then they were afraid of what he had done. When Duck and his mother arrived, || she cleaned a place for their tent; and when she had finished, | she got firewood. Then they wanted to take it away from her, | but she went after them and struck them with her ax. | (In former times the people had for their axes | stone hammers and antler wedges, which they used for splitting trees.) || The people were afraid, for she had not done before as she did now; therefore they were afraid of her. | It was almost evening when her husband arrived. He carried meat. | She had a good place for their tent, and much wood. | Then at night the chief