Coyote ate up all the animals
Crow ate up all the birds
Pike ate up all the fish
Grasshopper ate up all the crops
So when Yaitse
That pasty-faced monster
Ate up the rainclouds
And the sun went crazy everywhere?
Nothing to eat but bones, we had
Nothing to drink but tears.
Amid the high stratus clouds
In the house made of dawn
In the house that was raised at dawn,
Upon the road lit by the dawn,
Talking God needs a singer, and I am he!
He walks, and it is my feet that walk;
My limbs are become his limbs,
My body, his body,
My mind, his mind,
And he speaks, and it is my voice that speaks;
And the fierce plumes of his plumed helmet,
They nod above my head, above his head.
Beautiful what lies before him, which lies also before me;
Beautiful what comes behind him, and also behind me;
Beautiful, all that lies below, all that rises above,
Beautiful, everything on every side, beautiful!
As his voice is sacred, and of the most sacred, as pollen, and is beautiful,
So does my voice become most sacred, and beautiful,
And thus in beauty it is done;
In beauty it is done.
She called out that one’s name,
Four times she called Nayenezgani, Kill-Ogre,
And the canyon walls answered back,
And the rocks heard it.
She called out that one’s name,
Four times she called Tobadischini, Water-Child,
And the canyon walls answered back,
And the water heard it.
“Now you are part of this place.
“The rocks have heard your name,
“The water has heard it.
“Here you will always have a place.”
Yaitse said:
I see the footprints
Running here and there.
Give them to me,
Those two skinny boys!
White Shell Woman said:
The prints like little feet,
I make them with my fist’s edge,
Scatter them all around the place.
It’s better than living alone.
Changing Woman said:
Go back to the mountains, Yaitse,
Break your teeth on stones.
There’s nothing for you here,
Nothing you have not ruined.
Bag of Anything 