Curse On People That Wish One Ill - Yana S*uwa'! S*ê'galt!imaya! [1] May ye speak to make me happy! May you suddenly experience that wherewith you curse me! May you suddenly drop dead without being sick! May you drop dead, you who drink my blood! May you suddenly all perish! Drink my blood! [2] Would that I might be happy! May I not be sick in any way! Footnotes: [1] It has not been found possible to get at the significance of this apparently formulaic word. It would seem to be a term of address to the supernatural powers concerned in man's happiness or woe. For s*uwa', see note 310. [2] Either to be interpreted as s*i'? dji watdu'w "drink (imper.) my blood!" or contracted from s*i'dj dji watdu'w "drink-me my blood!" As Betty Brown expressed it, "You folks are always mixing up my blood with your coffee," i.e., "curse me and wish my death." [Obtained in July and August, 1907, a few miles to the north of the hamlet of Round Mountain (or Buzzard's Roost), Shasta county. The informant was Betty Brown (Indian name Ts!i'daimiya), since dead. There are now not more than seven or eight Indians that are able to speak the dialect. In some respects Betty was an inferior source of text material to Sam Bat'wi, as evidenced by the very small number of myths it was found possible to procure from her. Her method of narrative was peculiar in that she had a very marked tendency to omit anything, even the names of the characters involved, that was not conversation; this has necessitated the liberal use in the English translation of parentheses in which the attempt is made to arrive at a somewhat smoother narrative.] Yana Texts, by Edward Sapir. University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 1-235 [1910] and is now in the public domain Come visit us at. "Keeper of Stories". http://www.newkeeperofstories.com/ or Come visit us. "Native Village" [email protected]