A Sioux's Story

retold by George Ricehill

Interlinear Hočąk-English Text

by Oliver LaMère

English Translation

George Ricehill, A Sioux Tale, with an interlinear translation by Oliver LaMère, in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks, Freeman #3892 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1909?) Winnebago III, #11a, 1-11.

A Sioux Story

Yes, again I will tell a worak It will be a Sioux worak. And this they say, two men, friends, made one another wákąčąk (full of holy power). They could turn themselves into grizzly bears. An orphan boy was also about that town. They called him by the name, "Little Iron." The little boys when they played called him by that name alone, and they thought it a big name. Those who had made themselves friends did not like this person. They said, "I think, Friend, let's kill this one whom they call 'Little Iron,' I think, and we will make for ourselves a tobacco pouch from his skin. I think tomorrow at noon." The men there did not like what this kind were doing to him, so they told that boy, "Run away," and in the evening he ran away. And in the morning these men hunted for him. They did not find him. "Friend, let it go. When he gets back, we will kill him. He will come back."

And that boy ran away. As he was going, he slept four times. There a buffalo, a really white one, talked to him then: "My nephew," the buffalo called him, and said, "through my efforts you came here. Here, right here, is a house into which you will go. There when you come to a grizzly bear lodge, I mean. When you come there, they will tell you what to do here. I know what they said to you. They tried to make a tobacco pouch of you, so I made you come here." And that boy went there to the grizzly lodge that he had talked about. When he got to the door of the grizzly bear lodge, it was full. At the rear end of the lodge a red grizzly bear was sitting and then he said, "I did it. You came here," he said to him. "You are my son," he told him, "and they tried to kill you. I blessed you, so I made you come here. I did not tell the friends to do that sort of thing. Who told them to do that kind of thing? I'm going to ask this full house, 'Which one of you told him to do it?' I will try to find out. The ones who make themselves into grizzly bears, I mean them." And he asked all of the grizzly bears, but not one knew anything about it. But there was one by the door who never said a word. "Koté! this one must have said it. Let's throw him outside. He will never visit underground again. They threw him out. And the chief said to him, "You're going home," and just then in the town where Little Iron was, there the chief's son was his friend. He was to him his little friend. He came up: "My friend, here where you came from, I knew, so I came. I too am of these grizzlies. My father also. When we get home, my friend, we will kill those two."

They went home. In the evening they got home in town and Little Iron, they say, came home. "Whenever he gets home, friend, let's kill him, we said. Tomorrow we will kill him." And Little Iron had one grandmother. She said, "My nephew, they're going to kill you. Let those who are your friends do it." The next morning Little Iron and his friend with him were on top of a little hill at the end of the town. So the friends who were already in town shouted, "They're going to kill them, so watch out." The people wondered as they came out. Now they made themselves into grizzly bears. There they went towards the others. They came really close to Little Iron when he was there. The boys too shouted like bears, and made themselves into grizzlies. They fought with them. They killed the large man. They did not do right, so they killed them, it is said. That's all.