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]
[_]
(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.
[_]
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.