Sacred-Texts Asia
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Then you are this woman! You have so much of my husband's love, that he begins to reject me. But you are not a human being. I make you into carrion lying on the pebbly shore, — old carrion inflated (with rottenness).
I make my husband into a (male) bear. The bear comes from a distant land. He has been starving for a long time, he is very hungry. He sees the carrion. Seeing it, he eats of it. After a while he vomits it up. I make you into the stuff vomited. My husband sees it, and it is of no use to him. He rejects it on the mere seeing (of it).
At the same time I make this body of mine into a young beaver that has just shed his hair. I make smooth every hair of mine. This woman, object of (my husband's) liking, he leaves her, and desires me, because she is repugnant to look upon.
(She spits, and with the saliva smears her whole body from head to foot. Indeed, the husband begins to have liking for her.)
I, who was neglected recently, I turn myself towards him, I make myself into a deadly pain for him. Let him be attracted by the smell from here, and have a desire for me. Though I reject him, let him be still more persistent.
And really the husband leaves off his former love.
Told by Aɛqa´ñña, a Maritime Chukchee woman, in the village of Če´čin, May, 1901.
1 Compare Vol. VII of this series, p. 507, No. 12.