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地球上还没有出现人类的时候，天神之首厌倦了他在上界的家，因为那儿总是很冷。因此他拿着一块石头钻啊钻，在天上钻出了一个洞。他把雪和冰从洞里推下去，直到堆成了一个大山，这就是沙斯塔山。 天神从天上走到山上，又从山上下来。走到半山腰时，他心里暗想：“这座山上应该有树。”于是他伸开手指，手指碰到的地方都长出树来；他走过的每处地方，冰消雪融，变成河流。 天神折断他从天上带来的手杖头，把碎片扔进水里，长的变成了海狸和水獭，短的变成了鱼。他把手杖的另一端变成了其他动物。 最大的动物是大灰熊，他们就像今天的灰熊一样浑身覆盖着皮毛，长着锋利的爪子，但是他们可以用后腿走路，而且会说话。他们看起来凶猛异常，因此天神让他们住在大山脚下。 叶子从树上飘下，天神朝它们吹口气，就把它们变成了小鸟。 天神决定留在地球上，并接来了他的家人，沙斯塔山变成了他们的家。他在山中间生起一大堆火，在山顶上凿了个洞往外冒烟和火星。他每次往火里填大块的木柴时，大地都会颤抖，火星就会从山顶冒出。 晚春的时候，风神拼命地吹，把烟都吹回了洞里，烫伤了天神家人的眼睛。天神让他的小女儿去告诉风神不要吹得这么猛。 天神警告他的女儿说：“你到达山顶时，不要把头伸出去；不然，风会抓住你的头发把你拽出去的。只要把胳膊伸出去做一个手势，和风神讲话就行了。” 小女孩儿匆忙来到山顶，把话带给了风神。她正要下山回去，记起了父亲告诉过她从山顶上能看到大海。天神把家人搬来大山以后造了大海，但他的女儿从来没有见过。于是天神的女儿把头从洞口伸出去，向西望去。风神便抓住了她的头发，把她拽出了大山。她从冰雪上飞过，落在林木线处矮小的杉树丛中，红色的长发在雪地里飞舞。 大灰熊发现了小女孩，就把她带回了家，一路上不停地揣测她会是谁呢。灰熊妈妈照顾小女孩，并把她和小熊们一起抚养长大，就这样小女孩儿和小熊们一起长大了。 女孩长大成人后，和灰熊最大的儿子结了婚。婚后的几年他们有了许多孩子，孩子们看起来既不像他们的父亲，也不像他们的母亲。 森林里所有的灰熊都为他们创造出来的新后代感到骄傲。他们非常高兴，为这位红头发的母亲和她这些长相奇特的孩子们建了一座新房子，他们把新房子叫做小沙斯塔山。 许多年过去了，灰熊妈妈知道自己快要死了。她担心自己收留小女孩是个错误，觉得应该给天神之首捎个信并请求他的宽恕。因此，她把小沙斯塔山所有的灰熊都召集起来，并打发她最大的孙子到云雾缭绕的沙斯塔山山顶，去告诉天神之首在哪儿能找到女儿。 天神非常高兴，他大步流星地走下山去。他走得太快了，雪都融化了。直到今天依然能看到他的足迹。 他走进房子，开始喊女儿的名字。 天神期待看到一个小女孩儿，就像他最后看到她时一模一样。他看到女儿正在照料的奇怪动物，惊讶地得知他们竟是他的外孙，天神十分生气。他严厉地看着灰熊年迈的祖母，把她当场吓死了，接着他诅咒了所有的灰熊。 '‘放下你们的手和膝盖，从此以后所有的灰熊都得用四肢走路，并且你们永远不准再说话，这是对你们不忠于我的惩罚。” 天神把灰熊的外孙们赶出房子，把女儿扛到肩上，回到了沙斯塔山，再也没回过森林。有人说他在自己的房子中放了把火，然后和女儿回天上去了。 天神那些相貌奇特的外孙们散居在地球各地，他们就是最早的印第安人，是所有印第安部族的祖先。 这就是居住在沙斯塔山附近的印第安人从不捕杀灰熊的原因。每当有印第安人被灰熊杀死的时候，他的遗体会被就地火化。接下来的许多年里，无论谁从那儿经过都要扔一块石头，慢慢地石头成了堆，表明那个人死于此处。 Before people were on the Earth, the Chief of the Great Sky Spirits grew tired of his home in the Above World because it was always cold. So he made a hole in the sky by turning a stone around and around. Through the hole he pushed snow and ice until he made a big mound1. This mound was Mount Shasta. Then Sky Spirit stepped from the sky to the mountain and walked down. When he got about halfway down, he thought: “On this mountain there should be trees.44 So he put his finger down and eveywhere he touched，up sprang trees. Everywhere he stepped, the snow melted and became rivers. The Sky Spirit broke off the end of his big walking stick he had carried from the sky and threw the pieces in the water. The long pieces became Beaver and Otter. The smaller pieces became fish. From the other end of his stick he made the animals. Biggest of all was Grizzly Bear. They were covered with fur and had sharp claws just like today, but they could walk on their hind feet and talk. They were so fierce looking that the Sky Spirit sent them to live at the bottom of the mountain. When the leaves fell from the trees, Sky Spirit blew on them and made the birds. Then Sky Spirit decided to stay on the Earth and sent for his family. Mount Shasta became their lodge. He made a BIG fire in the middle of the mountain and a hole in the top for the smoke and sparks. Every time he threw a really big log on the fire, the Earth would tremble and sparks would fly from the top of the mountain. Late one spring, Wind Spirit was blowing so hard that it blew the smoke back down the hole and burned the eyes of Sky Spirit’s family. Sky Spirit told his youngest daughter to go tell Wind Spirit not to blow so hard. Sky Spirit warned his daughter: “When you get to the top, don’t poke2 your head out. The wind might catch your hair and pull you out. Just put your arm through and make a sign and then speak to Wind Spirit.” The little girl hurried to the top of the mountain and spoke to Wind Spirit. As she started back down, she remembered that her father had told her that the ocean could be seen from the top of the mountain. He had made the ocean since moving his family to the mountain and his daughter had never seen it. She put her head out of the hole and looked to the west. The Wind Spirit caught her hair and pulled her out of the mountain. She flew over the ice and snow and landed in the scrubby fir trees at the timberline4，her long red hair flowing over the snow. There Grizzly Bear found her. He carried the little girl home with him wondering who she was. Mother Grizzly Bear took care of her and brought her up with her cubs. The little girl and the cubs grew up together. When she bacame a young woman, she and the eldest son of Gizzly Bear were married. In the years that followed they had many children. The children didn’t look like their father or their mother. All the grizzly bears throughout the forest were proud of these new creatures. They were so pleased, they made a new lodge for the red-haired mother and her strange looking children. They called the Lodge^Little Mount Shasta. Ater many years had passed, Mother Grizzly Bear knew that she would soon die. Fearing that she had done wrong in keeping the little girl, she felt she should send word to the Chief of the Sky Spirits and ask his forgiveness. So she gathered all the grizzlies at Little Mount Shasta and sent her oldest grandson to the top of Mount Shasta, in a cloud, to tell the Spirit Chief where he could find his daughter. The father was very glad. He came down the mountain in great strides5. He hurried so fast the snow melted. His tracks can be seen to this day. As he neared the lodge, he called out for his daughter. He expected to see a little girl exactly as he saw her last. When he saw the strange creatures his daughter was taking care of, he was surprised to learn that they were his grandchildren and he was very angry. He looked so sternly6 at the old grandmother that she died at once. Then he cursed all the grizzlies. “Get down on your hands and knees. From this moment on all grizzlies shall walk on four feet. And you shall never talk again. You have wronged me.” He drove his grandchildren out of the lodge, threw his daughter over his shoulder and climbed back up the mountain. Never again did he come to the forest. Some say he put out the fire in the center of his lodge and returned to the sky with his daughter. Those strange grandchildren scattered7 and wandered over the earth. They were the first Indians, the ancestors of all the Indian Tribes. That is why the Indians living around Mount Shasta never kill Grizzly Bear. Whenever one of them was killed by a grizzly bear, his body was burned on the spot. And for many years all who passed that way cast a stone there until a great pile of stones marked the place of his death. |
