Aku Stories (AK4 a&b) Translated by Billy Attachie Original Recording by Robin Ridington, Spring, 1966, Doig River Reserve Transcribed from Final Cut Movie transcription by Robin Ridington Dukesachin is the father of Yeklezi and Dechii, elders of the Tsipidanne at the turn of the 20th century. Dukesachin means "He Slept with Giant Animals." The giant animal told Dukesachin, "If you come here, you're going to die." "You are coming this way," he told him. But Dukesachin went out to meet the giant animal. That animal told him, "Why do you come here? My kids scared of you. I want to come see you. This is where you're moving camp, your trail area. I'm going that way. I'm going where the trail to your camp is, I'm going that way. Follow me. Keep me company." And after that, that giant animal went back down the hill real fast. This big animal was going really fast, just like a small animal. Below the mountain is big timber like a ridge. He went back through the timber. That big animal was going through those big trees. They were moving toward him like when you are walking on muskeg and little trees move towards the horse you are riding. The giant animal went back to where the people had moved from. The people went up where they were moving to. The giant animal followed Dukesachin. It waited for him. He didn't know that was happening. He stayed with that animal for a long time. He just took his time. And then just like that, when he's ready, the people thought about him. "Dukesachin, how come he's gone," they said. The giant animal told him,"OK, you go back to your people." This was in the spring time. Lots of people moved camp to Gata Kwon (Fort St. John) in the spring time. Sise Charlie Kwolan, (Big Charlie) he too moved with the people. There used to be many Tsipidanne. All of them were alive, lots of them. People over here are called Tsipidanne, Muskeg People. People moved up to Hanas sagi, (Raft River Doig River). Not too far from here, along this river, people camped one place. Lots of people. Maybe not too long after that, people got all the bad flu. Nobody knew about it. One night, everybody, just like they fall down, It sure was hard. People coughed, but they didn't cough anything out. It's pretty strong, this sickness. All the people were just lying down. Even if they're sick they still try to move. They moved to the next camp. Everybody there was just lying around. All the people were sick. None of them were not sick. Only my brother, Wolf we call him Kwolan Nachan (Big Old Man), he's the only guy not sick.. Other people are sick but he did not get it. He was like that all the time. It was a hard time. Even people who were sick were still moving up to Raft River. We split camp, me and my parents. My dad went to a different place from the others. Us, we movd separately. Some of the people they split from us, too. Pretty hard sickness. The sickness smells like when you build a fire, like a smoke smell. This sickness smells like that smoke. And the meat, too. When you eat meat it just tastes like dry bark. Everybody tastes it like that dry bark. It's pretty hard. We split the camp and the other people who split from us, three people died. One old lady, Yeklezi's wife, she died too. Damas, (Pouce Coupe) his kids, two of them died too. Only three people died in that camp. Three people died there. That's all I know. Since I remember, people live different, and now people live different again. Story of Seasonal Rounds Early spring, when the leaves start growing and the sap is on the poplar trees, when the leaves are full grown and the sap is full, people all get together and move to Charlie Lake where the creek joins the lake. Where the town is now, just a little ways up the creek, that's where they used to camp. People all get together, all the older people, they all get together. Lots of old ladies, lots of young boys. Lots of Dane-zaa there. Lots of people. Lots of girls. I know about all that. Lots of Dane-zaa. In Charlie Lake, when the leaves are small, people used to camp there for the fish. They kill lots of fish there and then they fixed it up. They make fish drymeat. They cut them from the neck or from the back. They cut them from the side and they don't even have to gut them. They just pull it out like that. When they make lots of drymeat, they sew it together with sinew. They make it long. When women make drymeat, they do the same thing with fish. They keep on making it and making it. When after they make lots of fish drymeat, after the leaves are big, people all move up to wherever they are camping. There were no groceries. That time, no flour. The groceries you buy from the store now, they were nothing that time. With no groceries, what are the people going to eat. They just live on the fish drymeat. Then they moved way back in the bush. After they killed lots of moose and made lots of drymeat when the berries were all ripe. After they killed lots of moose and made lots of drymeat, when the berries were all ripe. When all the berries were ripe, they went back to Dane-zaa nunne, the Montney Reserve area. They picked berries on all those hills (east of the reserve). They crossed towards where there are lots of lakes, towards Cecil Lake. All the women picked berries. All the days they just kept doing that and the men hunted bear. There were no white people that time. Some of the people hunted bears. There were lots of bears on the hills. Some of them were fat already. After the berries were over, then they made bear grease and drymeat. Summertime when they moved camp, they brought all the drymeat and grease to where they would spend the winter. It was already winter. In the wintertime they made log tipis for themselves, where they were going to stay in the winter. They had lots of grease and drymeat. The berries, too, they dried them and made them like flour. Sometimes they laid the berries on a tarp and they dry them like that. They boiled the berries and then dried them flat. Where it was cracked, they patched it with berry juice. They turned it over and where it was cracked they patched it up with the berry juice. They used birch bark to make panniers and they filled these up with berries. They fixed berries two different ways. One was dry and the other flat, like pemmican. Those berries and meat they put it in a cache where they are going to spend the winter. They are always doing these things, and that's why they lived well in the wintertime. And they made pemmican too with the drymeat. Those women made the pemmican. Good pemmican. Drymeat pemmican, they made it with grease and dried berries mixed. That was good; drymeat, pemmican, grease and berries all together. That was good. Even a small piece of pemmican, you carry it when you go hunt. There were no groceries in the wintertime. That is how the people used to live. If a person doesn't do that, then he's hungry, |