An Indian Teacher Among Indians (III)

An Indian Teacher Among Indians (III)
by Zitkala-Sa [aka Gertrude Simmons Bonnin] (1876-1938)

III.

MY MOTHER'S CURSE UPON WHITE SETTLERS.
백인 이주자를 향한 엄마의 저주

One black night mother and I sat alone in the dim starlight, in front of our wigwam. We were facing the river, as we talked about the shrinking limits of the village. She told me about the poverty-stricken white settlers, who lived in caves dug in the long ravines of the high hills across the river.

* shrinking limits of the village: 인디언 마을의 줄어드는 경계
* poverty-stricken white settlers: 가난에 찌든 백인 이주자들

A whole tribe of broad-footed white beggars had rushed hither to make claims on those wild lands. Even as she was telling this I spied a small glimmering light in the bluffs.

* broad-footed = barefoot
* bluff: 1.허세 2.절벽

가난한 일단의 백인들이 야생의 땅으로 몰려와서는 자기들 것이라고 우겼다(claim). 엄마가 이 말을 하는 중에도 절벽(bluff)에서 흔들리는 작은 불빛을 쫒았다(spy: 감시/염탐하다).

"That is a white man's lodge where you see the burning fire," she said.

"백인들 야영지(lodge)에서 피운 불빛이란다".

Then, a short distance from it, only a little lower than the first, was another light. As I became accustomed to the night, I saw more and more twinkling lights, here and there, scattered all along the wide black margin of the river.

거기서 멀지 않은 곳에 다른 불빛이 보였다. 어둠에 익숙해 지자 여기저기 더 많은 반짝이는 불빛이 보였다. 넓고 어두운 강가(margin of river)를 따라 그 불빛들이 널렸다(scattered).

Still looking toward the distant firelight, my mother continued: "My daughter, beware of the paleface. It was the cruel paleface who caused the death of your sister and your uncle, my brave brother.

내 딸아 백인들(palefaces)을 조심하거라. 네 언니와 용감한 삼촌을 죽인 난폭한 백인들이야.

* 가난한 백인들이라고 동정하지 말라고 이르고 있다.

It is this same paleface who offers in one palm the holy papers, and with the other gives a holy baptism of firewater.

한손엔 성스런 문서들(등기문서, 증명서 등 백인들이 발행한)을 내밀고 다른 손에는 성스런 불의 물(독주)로 세례를 하는 잔인한 백인들이랑 같단다.

* 가난한 백인이나 잔인한 백인이다 다 같다.

He is the hypocrite who reads with one eye, 'Thou shalt not kill,' and with the other gloats upon the sufferings of the Indian race."

* goat: 비웃다. 고소해하다

한 눈으로 "살인하지 말라(성경구절)"을 읽고 다른 눈으로는 인디언들의 고통을 즐기는(goat) 그들은 위선자(hypocrite)들이지.

* 착한 백인은 없다.

Then suddenly discovering a new fire in the bluffs, she exclaimed, "Well, well, my daughter, there is the light of another white rascal!"
---

She sprang to her feet, and, standing firm beside her wigwam, she sent a curse upon those who sat around the hated white man's light. Raising her right arm forcibly into line with her eye, she threw her whole might into her doubled fist as she shot it vehemently at the strangers. Long she held her outstretched fingers toward the settler's lodge, as if an invisible power passed from them to the evil at which she aimed.

* 엄마는 백인들을 향해 저주의 의식을 치루다.

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