Native Language Passage

Here are lines 24–35 in Wintu, with word-by-word glosses and translation. The lines, in which the sister, She-who-becomes-loon, discovers the fateful hair, are taken from the incident that precipitates the main events of the story.^[8]

'uni-r p'o·q-ta k'éte hima me·m-to·n hará·, they-say. sca woman-that one morning stream-that. loc goes After that one morning the woman goes to a certain stream,

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me·m-tó· me-s-to· pi-to·n hara·, stream-that. obj water-gen-that. obj she-that. loc goes she goes to where they get water,

kén·la· pi p'o·q-ta. Pómin-winé, wine tómoi, sits-down she woman-that ground-looks.at sees hair she sits down that woman. She looks at the ground, she sees a hair,

číne·. Wine·, wine· tómoi, k'ete·m tómoi. catches/takes.it looks.at.it looks.at hair one. obj hair she takes it up. She looks, she looks at the hair, one hair.

Tómoi niqa·'a wíne: “Héket-un tómoi?” t'ipna·-s-kuya. hair find-sta look.at who-poss hair know-stat. int-want She looks at the hair she has found: “Whose hair?” she wants to know.