Traditional Stories
Scraping the Sky
Five brothers went hunting in the wintertime, and they got caught by a storm, a terrible storm. They eldest says, "Let's all take hands and just walk along opposite the wind." So they walked and walked and suddenly came up against something.
Yaranga! They went in and it was warm and light inside, so nice! Several lamps were burning.
"Guests have come to me," said a woman, turning to meet them. She dried their clothes and fed them. She hung their boots up and repaired their pants. Then she said, "I'm going out. No matter what happens, don't you go out. Don't even look outdoors."
All right, he brothers lay down to sleep. She took the scraper, the one they use for cleaning skins, taking off the fleshy part, and went out. You know how they do it? They take a stick, a straight stick, lay the skins on a board and clean them.
The woman put on her hooded parka, did it up, and went out into the storm. The brothers lay there. "Look" said the youngest, "the storm has got quieter."
They listened carefully, and in fact it was quieter.
"I'm going out," said one of them.
"Stay where you are," said the oldest brother. The youngest said, "I'll just go out in the corridor."
"All right," said his elder brother, "but make sure you don't look anywhere."
That younger brother deceived his brothers. He looked around until he found a small hole in the Yaranga cover and he looked out. He listened and heard "hrrrrr, hrrrrrr," like the sound of scraping skins. There he saw that woman sitting up in the sky cleaning it. In fact only a little bit of bad weather was left. The rest was all clear and light. The moon was shining and the weather was lovely.
The moment he saw her, she fell over!
He rushed away.
"What happened?" called the others. He ran and hid in a hold. In a moment - wham, she fell.
"Ohhh," groaned the woman. "You didn't obey me! I wanted to help you. I was trying to clear the weather for you. But I didn't have time to finish."
"If I had finished clearing the clouds, in the future you would always have had good weather. But as it is, you sometimes will have bad weather. Get home now while the weather is good. Even if it is the middle of the night."
The older brother scolded the younger, disobedient one.
"Get dressed, go," said the woman. They got ready fast. They went out and there was just a little cloud left in the sky. As they went along their way, everything melted. Then the wind started to blow. When they got close to their home, again such a storm came up!
Vaaii! The end.
