Comment
The content of this text was recorded in Russian by Ljudmila Zhukova from one of the residents of the village Nelemnoe. In 1990 it was translated into Yukaghir by
Vasilij Shalugin.
Translation
(38-1) My grandfather wanted to make me a shaman as well.
(38-2) I was big then.
(38-3) He asked me: "Will you go on the white road or on the black road?"
(38-4) I thought that the white road was the winter road and the black road was the summer road, and that the summer road was better.
(38-5) So I told him: "On the black road."
(38-6) "Eh, you have chosen the bad road, you will be unhappy.
(38-7) Sit down, lie on the sledge," he said to me.
(38-8) He took some knives and stuck them in the door, one inside, one outside.
(38-9) He also put knives in the windows on both sides sticking them inside and outside.
(38-10) Our house was built like a Russian wooden house. On the top it had a roof like a yurt.
(38-11) When I lay down, the boxes and the desks started falling on me.
(38-12) I lifted my head and saw that the knives which were in the windows and in the door were moving by themselves to prevent me from going out.
(38-13) Suddenly when I was lying there, large boxes fell on me.
(38-14) I was put in one and someone started sawing it.
(38-15) When they reached my flesh, I shouted from fear.
(38-16) So I didn't become a shaman.
(38-17) If I hadn't shouted, I would have become one.
Glosses