Living by Stories. Harry Robinson

      but it’s not heavy.

      They light but it looks like a heavy pack.

      And they walks around in the ring,

      on the outside the ring,

      the way to go into a grandstand.

      And they go around, the two of them.

      That shows, they do that when they imbellable* stories.

      The white man did that, not the Indians.

      The white man can do.

      Not the Indian.

      But that was the stories

      they know that from the Indian.

      And they figure they do the same, but not exactly.

      And a lot of people, white and Indian,

      they don’t know what that is

      when they see these mans around.

      They only say,

      “My, they’re a big mans too.

      And they got a big pack.”

      That’s all they knew because they couldn’t see.

      And I did see.

      But I knew that’s spatla.

      That’s like the way they look like when he was there

      between Konkonala and Loomis

      in that little valley.

      And I seen the place,

      that little lake where they got killed.

      That spatla with the pack on.

      Well, whoever killed ’em,

      they were just an awful little little person.

      Rabbit and Chipmunk, they small.

      They couldn’t kill the big animal like that.

      But they did—they killed ’em.

      That’s way, way back.

      So that’s the stories.

      I was wondering if anybody could remember

      that time, that rodeo in 1980 or ’81,

      when these two man,

      they had a great big pack

      and they goes around on the road, like,

      when you go into a grandstand.

      Go playing around, two, three times walk that way.

      And everybody seen ’em.

      And everybody thinks they big, tall man.

      And they got the big pack too.

      Why?

      They don’t know why.

      They don’t know anything about it,

      white people and Indian.

      I’m one of the Indian but I know what’s about.

      That’s spatla.

      That’s the way it looked like when he was ’round,

      way, way back.

      The white people, they heard that from the Indian somehow—

      the part of the stories, a little,

      And they make show for that.

      See?

      That’ll be all for the first few story.

      One of these spatla, they called ’em,

      that’s supposed to be a woman.

      There’re four of them.

      The other three was killed by the Indian somehow,

      but I cannot remember how it came by this moment.

      But later on, if I had a lot of time,

      I could think a little

      and I will know who killed ’em and how it’s killed.

      But I can’t say that right now.

      But one of them was killed by Rabbit and Chipmunk.

      He was killed between Loomis and Konkonala.

      In that, that little valley.

      I go by on the horseback.

      And I see that little lake, the small little lake.

      That’s where they kill ’em.

      A long, long time.

      That’s one of ’em.

      And the other two was killed by the Indian somehow

      but I cannot say because I don’t remember.

      But the other one, like the second one,

      Coyote—he killed that.

      Coyote, he met that woman, big woman—spatla.

      And as soon as he met ’em,

      Coyote, he knows this was a bad woman.

      She’s a person-eater.

      Person-killer, eater.

      And they’re afraid

      he might kill him and eat ’em.

      So, the first thing they do, they make a friend with them.

      They try to make a good friend with that woman.

      So finally the woman they think that all right.

      This is a good man, they can be my friend.

      So they tell her that he do too.

      He kill the person and eat ’em, just like she do.

      Just tell that lie to her

      just so they think they can be friend with ’em.

      So, anyway, that way.

      And Coyote, they got a

      And Coyote, they got a chance to kill her.