On reading Returning the Feathers

Returning the Feathers: Five Gitxsan Stories

By M. Jane Smith, Illustrator Ken N. Mowatt

I printed off some of the pages that Rebecca referred me to in M. Jane Smith’s dissertation, Placing Gitxsan Stories in Text: Returning the Feathers: Guusx Mak' Am Mik' Aax.

I took a lot of care to put them into a binder that will work for me, one with purple shining see-through pages, and I made a table of contents so that I can find the stories quickly. As soon as I start making an investment of time into photocopying something, the product reaches a new level of interest for me. I don’t want to have wasted all of that time by not doing something with it.

For myself, one evening, I read the "Story of the Blue Jay: and the "Story of Mosquito", getting ready to read them to Michael, Betty and Alice.

The childen occasionally drop in, the last one reporting that the first two are over here without permission.

I wanted to read to them. I knew they would want to play with toys.

First I cleared off the table. Then I spread out their Christmas Lego, and made a sidebar of the food they like (olives for Alice and cheese for Michael). Then I would just read, read, read, I had decided.

Betty was the first one in the house. She asked me if I had any Dilly Bars. I was laughing inside. I never have Dilly Bars – only when Wyona drops by the Dairy Queen with half price coupons and I am in the car with her. Still, just the thought I might have a Dilly Bar entices Betty to come over to my house.

I have the Gitxsan stories printed now: 52 to page 77, and that is 12 point, single space and no pictures. A long read out of that shiny purple binder. At one point, Michael did ask me how long the story would be. I told him that it was a long, long story, so he just continued to listen.

The narrative is about three supernatural children: a lot of stories cobbled together.

I could have stopped reading at any time.

I had to do all of the imaging with my voice since there were no pictures. – keep the tones low when Nuhlx was whispering to his sister, I thought to myself. “The man has lice on his head, the man has lice on his head””, and gradually getting my voice louder and louder, trying to catch the horror of what the little snot boy was telling his sister.

And now I have given it away. He wasn’t a normal child, but made from the mucous what came from her mother’s nose as she was crying and crying during puberty and at the same time finding out that her village had been mysteriously deserted.

Well, now you have too much information. But it didn’t seem like too much information to them. They would lean forward over their Lego pieces on the table, eyes wide, bodies still and the they would relax and lean back when the story got less frightening.

Sumin came downstairs during the story, stayed for a while and then went back upstairs. Later Mati told me that Sumin likes to peek in when the children are over. She had come back up to report that Arta was reading and that the children were in all sorts of positions, but still listening. The girls were on the treadmill, Betty making the belt move by the sheer force of her might, feet pushing back on while Alice swings back and forth on one of its handles.

Michael was in his chair but in a questionable position: his back on the seat, one leg pointing toward the ceiling, the other toward a wall, one of them going north and one going east. Mati told me that in Nepal those children would have been swatted and made to sit in their chairs circumspectly in a chair.

I don’t think that method of reading to kids would have worked for me or for them.

Richard did tell me that he was up all night, a few nights ago, every few hours, with Betty’s night terror dreams. He needed to be beside her, rubbing her little back and telling her that it was OK and she could go back to sleep. But that can only be blame on Christmas fun, for I hadn’t been telling Gitxsan stories to her yet.

Arta