Two Friends and a Buffalo
| One day there were two youths that were friends who went hunting. They went to the forest and there they were attacked by a buffalo. One of them escaped up a tree. The buffalo knocked the other youth down and pummeled him on the ground. The friend who was in the tree did not come down to help. Instead, he was laughing. While the buffalo was pummeling his friend and knocking the wind out of him, he was sitting in the tree saying, “Struggle hard, Manaboŋ. Fight on young man. Struggle hard, Manaboŋ.” He said this and laughed very hard until he forgot where he was. In a little while he missed a hold on a branch and fell out of the tree. The buffalo charged him at once and gored him before he hit the ground. It gored him until he was dead. As for the youth who had been laughed at as he was being pummeled by the buffalo, he escaped from beneath the buffalo unharmed. These then are the words of the two youths who went hunting. It is finished. ~~~~~ Reprinted with permission of the translator, Jonathan E. Arensen from Mice Are Men (International Museum of Cultures, 1992) copyright by The summer Insstitute of Linguistics, Inc., 1992 ~~~~~ |