Coyote and Owl, Mescalero Apache Text :: :: University of Virginia Library

Coyote and Owl, Mescalero Apache Text

excerpted from Chiricahua Apache Texts, with Ethnological Notes

2. Coyote and Owl as told by Charles Smith

Ethnological Notes Morris Opler

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He looked down to the ground.

(2.3)[3]
nDiijiͅ gok'énádigaałná'a.

"'Iyáa?"

goołndiná'a, Niishjaaí bizaaí ntsaago.

He looked down to the ground.

"What is it?"

Owl said to him in a gruff voice[1]

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(2.3) Linguistic Notes

1. gok'énádigaałná'a 'he looked down at him'. go- 'him'; k'é- 'at'; ná- 'back' plus the 3rd person imp. of di-...[si- perf.]-ghaał 'to look' [act. intr.]. ná- 'back' causes the text form to have the -d- classifier [see Grammatical Sketch, §7].

2. bizaaí ntsaago 'in a gruff voice'. Literally, 'his voice being big'. When this text was told, the informant pronounced all the -a- vowels of this sentence with an -w- timbre to imitate the quality of Owl's voice. See Ethnological Note to the English Translation of this line.

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Ethnological Note 1
In telling the stories different tones of voice are used in keeping with the characters of the birds or animals who are speaking. Owl, who is a fearsome bird to the Mescalero, and who was a man-eating monster in the mythological days, is always represented as having a deep, gruff voice.