Our Voices: Native Stories of Alaska and the Yukon

Stsǫǫ Shyaan Ǫ ǫnign’: Ch’aldzeek Shyii Dineh Gaay Na’ithädn: My Old Grandmother: The Little Man Standing in the Moon

mary tyone Stso ˛o ˛ Shyaan O ˛ o ˛nign’ Ch’aldzeek Shyii Dineh Gaay Na’ithädn My Old Grandmother The Little Man Standing in the Moon When we look at the moon, we see on it, on the right side, that he is holding a caribou’s ovaries, and on the left side he is holding caribou stomach sausage. An object fell out from the top of a spruce [carrying the Man in the Moon’s spirit], and then popped up among the spruce roots.1 And a baby was crying in the timber, and there was an old lady with her grandchildren.2 The woman was raising two girls. As those girls went for it [that baby], it quieted down. He was not crying. Then they went inside again, but the baby was still crying out in the timber. They heard him and went for him again, but there was nothing. And then the old lady told them, ‘‘I will go for him, you stay inside here.’’ The old lady went after him, and just as it cried, she stopped by him, and the baby was sticking up between the roots. She took him back and brought him in, and she raised him up. Those women went away. They were staying with their uncle. After that time she named him ‘‘My Old Grandmother.’’ So that was his name, ‘‘My Old Grandmother.’’ He is growing, and he grew up and the little man looked bigger and, ‘‘You drag3 [take] the dog up the mountainside in order to look for a porcupine,’’ they told him. He took that dog out with him, and as he went around on the mountainside for porcupine he was dragging that dog around. He thought, ‘‘Grandmother told me, ‘you drag around the dog.’’’ mary tyone: my old grandmother  He dragged the dog around all day long. As the sun was setting, he stopped by the doorway. ‘‘My grandmother! My grandmother, I dragged the dog all day.’’ The old lady ran out proudly, thinking, ‘‘He has dragged in a porcupine for me.’’ But the dog had snow frozen in its mouth. ‘‘Hey! How come you strangled the dog?’’ she said to him. And he said to her, ‘‘My Grandmother, why did you tell me to drag the dog around?’’ After the dog incident, he grew some more and they [she] told him, ‘‘Set a snare for rabbits out there under the branches.’’ He started to set snares for rabbits but instead he set the snares on the side of a spruce tree [among the branches], and a camprobber and a great gray owl got snared. And his grandmother said to him, ‘‘Hey, you are supposed to chop some material for a snare fence; then we set the snares,’’ she told him. ‘‘But, Grandmother, why did you tell me to set snares under the branches?’’ he said. So he set some snares for rabbits and he brought back rabbits. There was a rack up there. He froze lots of rabbits up on the rack. Rabbits were all piled up. Later he tells her, ‘‘My grandmother, let’s move to the end of the snare line.’’ They moved out to the end of the line of snares. Under the rack the old lady [the grandmother] was thawing out rabbits, and after she weaved a rabbit skin blanket from them, she weaved some pants for him, rabbit-skin pants. She weaved a coat for him, rabbit pants and a rabbit coat. Later he grew up, and he lived next door to the old lady’s younger brother [his uncle]. He made a request to him.4 ‘‘You see that I am about to starve of an empty stomach! [his uncle says]. You make a dream-wish5 for me.’’ ‘‘Your uncle says you should make a dream-wish for him,’’ his grandmother says. ‘‘Yes, my uncle told me to make a dream-wish for him.’’ Then he laughed and told her, ‘‘Grandma, tell my uncle to give me one of his arrows.’’ She brought a large game arrow to him.  Upper Tanana He turned it around, and after he turned it around, he threw it in the fire. ‘‘Oh, my grandmother, out there my uncle’s arrow is about to burn up! Oh, my grandmother, my uncle’s arrow just burned up!’’ All the arrows got burned up. Afterward he went to sleep, and in the morning he woke...