The way to rainy mountain
——N· Scott Momaday
A single knoll ris out of the plain in Oklahoma, north and west of the Wichita Range. For my people, the Kiowas, it is an old landmark, and they gave it the name Rainy Mountain. The hardest weather in the world is there. Winter brings blizzards, hot tornadic winds ari in the spring, and in summer the prairie is an anvil's edge. The grass turns brittle and brown, and it cracks beneath your feet. There are green belts along the rivers and creeks, linear groves of hickory and pecan, willow and witch hazel. At a distance in July or August the steaming foliage ems almost to writhe in fire. Great green-and-yellow grasshoppers are everywhere in the tall grass, popping up like corn to sting the flesh, and tortois crawl about on the red earth, going nowhere in the plenty of time. Loneliness is an aspect of the land. All things in the plain are isolate; there is no confusion of objects in the eye, but one hill or one tree or one man. To look upon that landscape in the early morning, with the sun at your back, is to lo the n of proportion. Your imagination comes to life, and this, you think, is where Creation was begun.
一座孤零零的小山丘在俄克拉荷马的平原上拔地而起，西面和北面蜿蜒绵亘着维奇塔山脉，在我们克尔
瓦人看来，这是个古老的地标，被命名为雨山，那里有世界上最恶劣的天气。冬季有暴风雪狂哮，春季又会刮起热的旋风，夏季的草原如同铁砧一块，草变得脆弱枯黄，在人的脚下劈啪作响，河流和小溪的沿岸有几条绿带，那是由山核桃树、柳树和金缕梅组成的狭长的树丛，七八月份从远处看着冒着蒸汽的树叶就像在火中痛苦地扭动。大个儿的黄绿色的蚱艋蔓延在高高的草丛中的各个地方，像爆米花一样冷不防地蹦起叮人，乌龟在红土地上爬行，大部分时间哪儿都不去，孤独是这片土地的一部分。平原上的一切都是疏离开来的，所见之物不会混杂在一起，而是清晰可辨，一目了然。淸晨你再观看这片大地的景致，此时太阳在你的背后冉冉升起，你会失去事物的比例感。想象力开始活跃起来，你会认为这就是上帝开始创世纪的地方。
I returned to Rainy Mountain in July. My grandmother had died in the spring, and I wanted to be at her grave. She had lived to be very old and at last infirm. Her only living daughter was with her when she died, and I was told that in death her face was that of a child.
我在七月里回到了雨山。我祖母在春季去世，我想去她的墓地看看。她很长寿，最后因年迈体弱而去世。她去世的时候她唯一健在的女儿陪伴在她的身边。我听说在去世的时候她的脸就如同一张孩子的脸。
语言转换器
I like to think of her as a child. When she was born, the Kiowas were living the last great moment of t
heir history. For more than a hundred years they had controlled the open range from the Smoky Hill River to the Red, from the headwaters of the Canadian to the fork of the Arkansas and Cimarron. In alliance with the Comanches, they had ruled the whole of the southern Plains. War was their sacred business, and they were among the finest hormen the world has ever known. But warfare for the Kiowas was preeminently a matter of disposition rather than of survival, and they never understood the grim, unrelenting advance of the U.S. Cavalry. When at last, divided and ill-provisioned, they were driven onto the Staked Plains in the cold rains of autumn, they fell into panic. In Palo Duro Canyon they abandoned their crucial stores to pillage and had nothing then but their
lives. In order to save themlves, they surrendered to the soldiers at Fort Sill and were imprisoned in the old stone corral that now stands as a military muum. My grandmother was spared the humiliation of tho high gray walls by eight or ten years, but she must have known from birth the affliction of defeat, the dark brooding of old warriors.
高考专业介绍我喜欢把她想象成一个孩子。她出生时，克尔瓦人正处于他们历史上鼎盛时代的末期。他们控制着从斯莫克山河到红河，从加拿大河上游到阿肯色河和西马隆河支流之间的那片开阔的山脉长达一百多年。通过与科曼斯人的联盟，他们统治了整个南部平原。发动战争是他们神圣的事业，他们位居世人皆知的最优秀的骑手之列。但是对于克尔瓦人来说斗争主要是由他们的习惯决定的，而并非是为了生
存。他们永远都无法理解美国骑兵那种残酷无情的进攻。当他们最终四分五裂、弹尽粮绝，在秋季的凄风冷雨中被驱赶到斯代克特平原的时候，他们陷入了恐慌。在帕罗多罗大峡谷，他们在遭遇的洗劫中丢弃了赖以生存的补给，除了自己的生命一无所有。为了自救，他们向驻扎在福特西尔的士兵投降，被关押在一个废旧的石头牲畜棚里。如今这里已经是一个军事博物馆了。我的祖母由于是在那儿以后八到十年才出生的，因此免遭那高高的灰墙里的羞辱。但自出生起，她一定就已经懂得那种失败所带来的磨难，这是那些老战士们的噩梦。
Her name was Aho, and she belonged to the last culture to evolve in North America. Her forebears came down from the high country in western Montana nearly three centuries ago. They were a mountain people, a mysterious tribe of hunters who language has never been positively classified in any major group. In the late 17th century they began a long migration to the south and east. It was a long journey toward the dawn, and it led to a golden age. Along the way the Kiowas were befriended by the Crows, who gave them the culture and religion of the Plains. They acquired hors, and their ancient nomadic spirit was suddenly free of the ground. They acquired Tai-me, the sacred Sun Dance doll, from that moment the object and symbol of their worship, and so shared in the divinity of the sun. Not least, they acquired the n of destiny, therefore courage and pride. When they entered upon the southern Plains, they had been transformed. No longer were they slave
cpdes to the simple necessity of survival; they were a lordly and dangerous society of fighters and thieves, hunters and priests of the sun. According to their origin myth, they entered the world through a hollow log. From one point of view, their migration was the fruit of an old prophecy, for indeed they emerged from a sunless world.
她的名字叫阿荷，是北美大地上繁衍的最后的文明。大约三个世纪前，她的祖先从蒙大拿西部海拔很髙的家乡来到这里。他们是一支山地民族，一个神秘的连语言也从未被明确地划归任何一个语系的猎人部落。17世纪末期，他们开始了向南和向东方向的漫长迁移。这是个通向黎明的漫长旅程，给他们带来了全盛时期。在途中克罗人把克尔瓦人待之如友，并教给他们平原上的文化和宗教。他们得到了马，使得他们那古老的游牧民族的精神突然悬空而起。他们得到了太米，即神圣的太阳舞木偶。自那时起太米就成了他们的崇拜物和象征物，并且在太阳的神力下共有。同样重要的是，他们也拥有了天命感，由此产生了勇气和自豪。当他们进人南部平原时，他们实际上已经被改变了。他们不再是为了简单的生活必需品而奋斗的奴隶，而是一个由专横危险的斗士和小偷、猎人和太阳的牧师所组成的团体。根据有关他们祖先来源的神话，他们是通过一根空心木头来到这世界的。从某种程度上说，他们的迁移是一个古老预言的结果，因为他们确实是从一个没有太阳的世界出现的。chobits
Although my grandmother lived out her long life in the shadow of Rainy Mountain, the immen landscape of the continental interior lay like memory in her blood. She could tell of the Crows,加油 英文
whom she had never en, and of the Black Hills, where she had never been. I wanted to e in reality what she had en more perfectly in the mind's eye, and traveled fifteen hundred miles to begin my pilgrimage.
虽然我的祖母是在雨山的阴影下度过了漫长的余生，但那大陆内部的广袤景色却驻扎在她的记忆中。她能谈论关于克罗人的事情，尽管她从未见过；她还可以谈论黑山，尽管她从未去过。实际上我很想见见她想象中的完美的世界，于是我步行了一千五百英里，开始了我的参拜之行。
Yellowstone, it emed to me, was the top of the world, a region of deep lakes and dark timber, canyon sand waterfalls. But, beautiful as it is, one might have the n of confinement there. The skyline in all directions is clo at hand, the high wall of the woods and deep cleavages of shade. There is a perfect freedom in the mountains, but it belongs to the eagle and the elk, the badger and the bear. The Kiowas reckoned their stature by the distance they could e, and they were bent and blind in the wilderness.
在我看来，黄石可算是世界上最好的地方，一个遍布着深水湖、深色树木、峡谷和瀑布的地区。虽然那里十分美丽，但人们可能有受束缚、被禁锢的感觉。放眼望去，四周天际线近在咫尺，触手可及。这天际线是一道道树的高墙和一条条树荫形成的幽深裂缝。而在山里却是完全自由的，可是这自由只
属于老鹰、美洲赤鹿、獾和熊。克尔瓦人根据他们所能看到的距离来推断他们的领地；但是在荒野中的密林中他们只能弯着腰，看不到很远。Descending eastward, the highland meadows are a stairway to the plain. In July the inland slope of the Rockies is luxuriant with flax and buckwheat, stonecrop and larkspur. The earth unfolds and the limit of the land recedes. Clusters of trees and animals grazing far in the distance cau the vision to reach away and wonder to build upon the mind. The sun follows a longer cour in the day, and the sky is immen beyond all comparison. The great billowing clouds that sail upon it are shadows that move upon the grain like water, dividing light. Farther down, in the land of the Crows and Blackfeet, the plain is yellow. Sweet clover takes hold of the hills and bends upon itlf to cover and al the soil. There the Kiowas paud on their way; they had come to the place where they must change their lives. The sun is at home on the plains. Precily there does it have the certain character of a god. When the Kiowas came to the land of the Crows, they could e the dark lees of the hills at dawn across the Bighorn River, the profusion of light on the grain shelves, the oldest deity ranging after the solstices. Not yet would they veer southward to the caldron of the land that lay below；they must wean their blood from the northern winter and hold the mountains a while longer in their view. They bore Tai-me in procession to the east.
高原的草地向东面铺下，如同通向平原的阶梯。七月，落基山脉面向平原的内坡上长满了亚麻、荞麦、景天和翠雀等各种植物。此时，大地在我们的面前无限伸展，土地的界限渐渐隐去。远处的树丛和吃着草的动物开阔了我们的视野，使人萌发了畅想的渴望。白天日照时间很长，天空无可比拟的广袤无垠。在天空中飘浮着的如波涛般翻滚的大片云彩，在谷地里投下的影子如同水波一样流动，将光线分割开来。再往下，在克罗人和黑足印第安人的土地上，平原是黄色的。草木樨长满了山丘，它低垂的枝叶盖到地上，密密地封住土壤。克尔瓦人在这里暂时停下了旅程，他们到了必须改变生活的地方，在平原上，太阳如同回到了家里。的确是在那里太阳蕴涵了某种上帝的灵性。当克尔瓦人来到克罗人的土地时，他们可以隔着比格霍恩河看到黎明中的山脉的背风处，照在层层谷地上的充足的光线和在夏至后出现的最古老的神像。但是他们并不愿意改变方向，向南到下面这块大锅似的土地；他们必须放弃已经
适应了北方冬季的血液，他们也想使雨山在他们的视野中留存得更长久。他们把太米也带到了东方。
A dark mist lay over the Black Hills, and the land was like iron. At the top of a ridge I caught sight of Devil’s Tower upthrust against the gray sky as if in the birth of time the core of the earth had broken through its crust and the motion of the world was begun.
一层阴暗的薄雾笼罩了黑山，土地看起来就像钢铁一般。在一座山脊顶上，我看到魔鬼塔高高插入灰
表语蒙蒙的天空，似乎在时间诞生之时，地核打开，地壳破裂，宇宙的运动从此开始。There are things in nature that engender an awful quiet in the heart of man; Devirs Tower is one of them. Two centuries ago, becau they could not do otherwi, the Kiowas made a legend at the ba of the rock. My grandmother said:armchair
自然界中有许多让人们叹为观止的事情。魔鬼塔就是其中之一。两个世纪以前，由于克尔瓦人无法用其他方式来解释，他们只能在岩石底编造了一个传说故事。我祖母说：
Eight children were there at play, ven sisters and their brother. Suddenly the boy was struck dumb; he trembled and began to run upon his hands and feet. His fingers became claws, and his body was covered with fur. Directly there was a bear where the boy had been. The sisters were terrified; they ran, and the bear after them. They came to the stump of a great tree, and the tree spoke to them. It bade them climb upon it, and as they did so, it began to ri into the air. The bear came to kill them, but they were just beyond its reach. It reared against the tree and scored the bark all around with its claws. The ven sisters were borne into the sky, and they became the stars of the Big Dipper.
“有七个姐姐和一个弟弟，一共八个孩子在玩耍。男孩突然变成了哑巴。他颤抖着，手脚并用地跑动。他的手指变成了爪子，身体也被毛覆盖。在男孩子那个地方立刻出现了一只熊。姐姐们吓坏了，她们
跑，熊也追着她们跑。她们来到了一棵大树桩下，树开口跟她们说话，它允许她们爬到树上。她们就爬上去了，这时树开始上升直入云霄。熊过来要杀掉她们，但是它够不到。于是熊就靠着树直立起来，用它的爪子四处胡乱抓挠着树皮。七个姐姐被送上了天，变成了大熊座内的北斗七星。”
From that moment, and so long as the legend lives, the Kiowas have kinsmen in the night sky. Whatever they were in the mountains, they could be no more. However tenuous their well-being, however much they had suffered and would suffer again, they had found a way out of the wilderness.
从那时起，只要这一传说还存在，克尔瓦人在夜空中就有了亲属。在山里他们只是山民而已。无论他们多么福薄，无论他们已经受了多少苦，将来还要受多少苦，他们已经找到了走出荒原的生存之路。
沙基裤
My grandmother had a reverence for the sun, a holy regard that now is all but gone out of mankind. There was a wariness in her, and an ancient awe. She was a Christian in her later years, but she had come a long way about, and she never forgot her birthright. As a child she had been to the Sun Dances; she had taken part in tho annual rites, and by them she had learned the restoration of her people in the prence of Tai-me. She was about ven when the last Kiowa Sun Dance was held in 1887 on the Washita River above Rainy Mountain Creek. The buffalo were gone. In order to consum
mate the ancient sacrifice—to impale the head of a buffalo bull upon the medicine tree—a delegation of old men journeyed into Texas, there to beg and barter for an animal from the Goodnight herd. She was ten when the Kiowas came together for the last time as a living Sun Dance
culture. They could find no buffalo; they had to hang an old hide from the sacred tree. Before the dance could begin, a company of soldiers rode out from Fort Sill under orders to disper the tribe. Forbidden without cau the esntial act of their faith, having en the wild herds slaughtered and left to rot upon the ground, the Kiowas backed away forever from the medicine tree. That was July 20, 1890, at the great bend of the Washita. My grandmother was there. Without bitterness, and for as long as she lived, she bore a vision of deicide.
我的祖母对太阳怀着敬畏的心情，那是一种几乎已经从现代人类身上流失的神圣崇拜。在她身上有一神谨慎和古老的敬畏。她晚年成为一个基督徒，但她为此经历了很多，她从未忘记自己生来就有的权利。童年时她跳过太阳舞，也参加过那些一年一度的祭典，从中她体会到了她的民族在太米出现后的复苏。克尔瓦人18S7年在雨山溪流上的维吉塔河边最后一次跳太阳舞时她大约七岁。水牛已经没有了。为了圆满完成这次古老的祭祀——需要把公水牛的头刺穿在驱魔架上———一队老人代表长途跋涉去德克萨斯，到那里去乞讨，然后用乞讨的东西从古德奈特牧民那里换取水牛。当克尔瓦人最后一次保留着太阳舞的文化聚在一起那年她十岁。他们找不到水牛；于是不得不在驱魔架上挂上一张旧兽
皮。在舞会开始以前，一队战士从福特希尔突袭而来奉命驱散这个部落。毫无理由地被禁止了信仰的基本活动，亲眼看到野生畜群被屠杀，然后放任尸体在土地上腐烂，克尔瓦人永远地从驱魔架前退去了。那发生在1890年7月20日，在维吉塔河拐弯处。当时我祖母就在那里。没有太多痛苦，因为只要她活着，她就能忍受亲眼看见神灵被杀害。
Now that I can have her only in memory; I e my grandmother in the veral postures that were peculiar to her: standing at the wood stove on a winter morning and turning meat in a great iron skillet; sitting at the south window, bent above her beadwork, and afterwards, when her vision had failed, looking down for a long time into the fold of her hands; going out upon a cane, very slowly as she did when the weight of age came upon her; praying. I remember her most often at prayer. She made long, rambling prayers out of suffering and hope, having en many things. I was never sure that I had the right to hear, so exclusive were they of all mere custom and company. The last time I saw her she prayed standing by the side of her bed at night, naked to the waist, the light of a kerone lamp moving upon her dark skin. Her long, black hair, always drawn and braided in the day, lay upon her shoulders and against her breasts like a shawl. I do not speak Kiowa, and I never understood her prayers, but there was something inherently sad in the sound, some merest hesitation upon the syllables of sorrow. She began in a high and descending pitch, exhausting her br
山西培训学校eath to silence; then again and again—and always the same intensity of effort, of something that is, and is not, like urgency in the human voice. Transported so in the dancing light among the shadows of her room, she emed beyond the reach of time. But that was illusion; I think I knew then that I should not e her again.
科室牌翻译虽然祖母只存在于我的记忆中，我却似乎能够清晰地看到她个人所特有的几种姿势：在冬季的清晨站在木制的火炉边翻着一个大铁煎锅里面的烤肉，坐在南面窗前，手里捻着念珠；后来，当她失去了视力的时候，她就低头久久凝望着自己合十的双手；拄着拐杖出门，当年事已高的时候就走得尽可能地慢；我记忆最多的就是祈祷中的她。由于一生中见过太多事情而产生了痛苦和希望的情绪，于是她总是做长时间的、不连贯的祷吿。我从不确定我有权利听她祷告，这些祷告从不按照那些纯粹的习俗进行。我最后一次见到她是在一个晚上，她正站在床边祷告，上身赤裸，煤油灯光在她黝黑的皮肤上晃动。她那白天里总是拢起或编成辫子的长长的黑发如今像披肩一样散落在肩膀上，垂在胸前。我不会说克尔瓦语，因此从来也听不懂她的祷告，但是我能听出她的声音里固有的悲伤和悲伤的音节中流露的某种迟疑。她以
