The Itamu tradition: first encounter with slavers

[akam chinjir]

The first encounter with the slavers

It's about time there were texts in Akiatu, here's one. It narrates an encounter between the culture hero Itamu and a group of supposed traders from the society that introduced agriculture to the regions neigbouring the Akiatu River basin.

Here I'll give the text, in both Akiatu and English. I'll follow up with a post giving some background and context, and another post repeating the story but with line-by-line glosses and commentary.

Edit. It's occurred to me it might be worth alerting potential readers that the story leads to some fairly intense violence.

ai!

Attend!

jakwi jaikati=su mikwa tija inakasu, sati jani na ki hjasitami wamau hja a kawi=wati wa. itamu na apatu, na itai=su mikwa tija inakasu, sati sau na k=jaikati=wati jai jaku.

You have heard of the slavers, and the time they first came to the Kawi. You have heard of Itamu the Spear, Itamu the Rope, and what she did to those slavers.

wahi kja hau jakwi hwati hakwai na miwa k='iraci inakasu kja hau wai, kakaiwatawapi wai, ihjatikai=wati naki ikau siwi wai, hu tajapawi=su maiku tau. sati sau na jakwi ki inakasu ma kwasu, k='iraci=su awi saici kici.

But I am letting you know that you have not heard the account that I, long ago, very young in Ihjatikai, gained from Tajapawi. Maybe this will differ from what you have heard.

suwi hau k='iraci, na ki maiku tau hu tajapawi.

Here is my account, which I gained from Tajapawi.

jajacu.

Very well.

k=jaikati na hjasi=wati hwika cita haku, miwa papai. kati ukja siwi, k=witawi sakija, akjamawi uɲu mwi kijaa tikwa, miwa sati kiwapi saici wiwita ahiwa.

Those first slavers were just four or five, not many. They were small and quick, with bright hair and skin light like mud, no different from today.

kaiwaka.

Pfui.

kati waɲi aja mwi ucisu mwi tijauka jai. wahi kja itamu inakasu sau kja aisiwi=wati anatu jaku wai, ikau miwa sati kati ijau jaku.

They said they wanted to trade. But Itamu knew what had happened with the Aisiwi, and did not believe them.

itamu kwasu, cau sai kimija taki ma wamau hja i tijauka wa.

Itamu said, "What have you brought with you to trade?"

taɲuci kwasu, inika sati ati ati wai, wama taki ma wamau hja wa.

The other said, "We have brought with us the shells of the inika and the ati ati.

kwasu, wahi kja inika sati ati ati wai, hwi=wati hu jisakiwi ma ahjaicu wama.

"But we have the shells of the inika and the ati ati from the Jisakiwi."

taɲuci kwasu, takajau sati palati mati wai, piɲiku taki ma wamau hja wa.

The other said, "We have brought with us the feathers of the takajau and the palati bird."

kwasu, wahi kja takajau sati palati mati wai, hwi=wati hu matiwi ma ahjaicu piɲiku.

"But we have the feathers of the takajau and the palati bird from the Matiwi."

taɲuci kwasu, anicuta hatau wai, kaima ausu sati ikitai ma wamau hja wa.

The other said, "We have brought with us the meat, blood, and bones of the great boar."

kwasu, wahi kja anicuta hatau wai, hwi=wati hu kwamuriwi ma ahjaicu kaima ausa sati ikitai.

"But we have the meat, blood, and bones of the great boar from the Kwamuriwi."

taɲuci kwasu, jakwanaiwi sati aikanawi i=kaɲi wai, ukiwaɲa taki ma wamau hja wa

The other said, "We have brought with us knowledge of the ancestors and of the power of the land."

itamu kwasu, hwi jakwanaiwi sati k=aikanawi=su sati k=ikjamii=su ki kaɲi wai jakwi=wati miwa ukiwaɲa.

Itamu said, "You have no knowledge of our ancestors or of the power of this land and this river."

itamu hjaci waɲi kwasu, ai! hau jai wamau hja k=jaikati=su wa, sama.

Itamu said to Hjaci, "Bring me this slaver."

hjaci jaikati jai wamau hja wa.

Hjaci brought the slaver.

itamu kipaja waɲi kwasu, ai! hau taki wamau itai wa, sama.

Itamu said to Kipaja, "Bring me some rope."

kipaja itai taki wamau wa. k=itai=su wai, kipaja mikwa tikwatami hwisaja tima.

Kipaja brought rope. It was rope that Kipaja had made himself.

itamu jaikati jai wamakasu itai ma paja jaku i tamwi.

Itamu wound the rope around the slaver and bound him to a tree.

tati.tati.tatu sai! jaikati ikau kahawa sii aja.

The slaver wiggled and writhed, but could not move.

itamu hjaci waɲi kwasu, ai! hau taki wamau hakja wa, sama.

Itamu said to Hjaci, "Bring me some fire."

hjaci hu hakjawi taki wamau kawi wa. hakjawi wai, hjaci mikwa tikwatami acatau tima.

Hjaci brought a branch from the bonfire. It was a bonfire that Hjaci had blessed herself.

itamu jaikati hakjasu iti. k=witawi sakija sati akjamawi na kijaa tikwa=su hakjasu aja. parai parau sai! atawi=su cai hakjaru aja.

Itamu burned the slaver. She burned away his bright hair and his mud-like skin, and, wide open with terror, his eyes also burned away.

tati.tati.tatu sai! akija wakija sai! jaikati ikau waɲi sii aja.

The slaver wiggled and writhed, shrieked and howled, but could not speak.

itamu kipaja waɲi kwasu, ai! hau taki wamau apatu wa, sama.

Itamu said to Kipaja, "Bring me a spear."

kipaja miwa ucisu ma apatu taki wamau wa. k=apatu=su wai, kipaja mikwa tikwatami waisa tima.

Kipaja did not want to, but he brought a spear. It was a spear that Kipaja had made himself.

kaiwaka.

Pfui.

kipaja wai k=itai sati k=apatu=su cai hwati wamau k=ami=wai a itamu wa. sai sisijaiwaka.

Kipaja gave both his rope and his spear, those two, to Itamu. Dumb fuck.

hwika jajacu.

But anyway.

jaikati=wai itamu atausa=su jai ikijiku jima apatu, hawa jaikati jakwaru utami.

Itamu put the spear through the slaver's belly several times, and the slaver died.

watiwi mikwa miwa parai parau tikwa, mikwa miwa akija wakija tikwa, mikwa miwa tati.tati.tatu tikwa.

There was no more eyes-open terror, no more shrieking and howling, no more wiggling and writhing.

itamu kwasu, k=aikanawi=su sati k=ikjamii=su wai, jakwi miwa i=kaɲi aɲiki.

Itamu said, "You do not know the power of this land and this river."

ai, k=ani=wati jani na hjasi kja jaikati wamau hja a kawi=wati wa, jakwi.

And that was the first time the slavers came to the Kawi.

[akam chinjir]

Background and context

The story is set a few hundred years before the time I'm currently thinking of as the present (which is the time at which the variant of Akiatu I've been describing is spoken). That's plenty enough distance that a certain amount of anachrony and mythologisation are certainly at play. It also comes from within the Itamu tradition (or cult). There are other traditions with their own stories, notably a rival Kipaja tradition, and they disagree about many things.

The Kawi were Itamu's people, among the descendents of the present-dayn Akiatiwi. They were fishers and foragers, with small-scale subsistence horticulture and some degree of craft specialisation (modulo anachronism). The story presents the first encounter of the Kawi with people referred to as the Jaikati.

That's a bit of a tricky word---originally an ethnonym ("Dog People"), it came to be associated with the practices, and especially the inequalities, of an agricultural society, and ended up used as a common noun. I translated it as "slavers," hoping to convey this extended sense.

It was the Jaikati people who introduced agriculture to the regions neighbouring the Akiatu River basin. They faced resistance, and at least in the Akiatu heartland that resistance was successful, at least to the present day. This was presumably due to a range of factors, including local and ancestral powers with no analogue in our world.

According to the stories told within the Itamu tradition, a central factor was Itamu herself, and her ability to unite the various Akiatu peoples. These include the Jisakiwi ("Fish People"), the Matiwi ("Bird People"), and the Kwamuriwi ("Hunters"). (You might noticed that the promiscuous suffix -wi tends to show up in ethnonyms; it's actually also there in Jaikati, though obscured by allomorphy and sound change.)

No doubt it's to foreshadow these eventual alliances that the story recounts the existing trade relations that link the Kawi to these other societies, and also to insist that the Kawi had no need for the extravagances offered by the alleged Jaikati traders (all of which were of genuine value to the Kawi). There is also maybe the hint of a threat that the Jaikati would soon be supplanting these societies, and taking over the trade in shells, feathers, and meat.

Itamu is associated especially with fishing and thus directly with the Akiatu River---an associaion the story calls on when it has her substitute for the slaver's aikanawi i=kaɲi the powers of the land her own k=aikanawi=su sati k=ikjamii=su ki kaɲi the powers of this land and this river. Her connection to the ancestors is mediated by the shaman Hjaci, portrayed in the Itamu tradition as a sort of sidekick.

Kipaja, Itamu's main rival within the Akiatiwi, is an interesting case. The Itamu tradition portrays him as a craft specialist who manages to specialise in all the crafts: he makes rope and spears and also (not mentioned here) medicine. No doubt this would be too much for one person, and no doubt Kipaja is actually standing in for some group or region. (Within the Kipaja tradition, he is portrayed as a shaman, not a craftsperson at all.)

The story opens with a characteristic sort of preamble. Akiatu sentences don't like to start with indefinite nominals, and Akiatu stories don't like to start with "once upon a time." Instead what you most often get is a reference to the event of storytelling itself, often including an acknowledgment that there are multiple competing versions of the story about to be told. When as here the story is culturally significant, the narrator might include an appeal to pedigree. Why should you care about her version? Because she got it from Tajawapi, a long-dead elder from the village now most associated with Itamu. (But you might notice that though the narrator claims authority for her version of the story by saying where she got it, she still presents it unambiguously as her version.)

One more thing. Oratory is extremely important in Akiatu culture, and thus so is oratorial skill---in fact many of the texts in the Itamu tradition purport to recount speeches she gave by the bonfire as she sought to unite the Akiatiwi. I'm not really in a position to do that justice, and maybe never will be. Which is to say that the story I've provided isn't really what it should be, literarily speaking.

[akam chinjir]

Interlinear commentary

Here I'll give a full gloss of the story, with some linguistic and other commentary. The result is stupidly long, though, so I'm hiding it between [more] tags.

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ai
VOC
Attend!

ai is used to attract someone's attention, a bit like "hey" (but in a less-marked register).

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jakwi jaikati=su  mikwa   tija inakasu
2p    Jaikati=FOC already now  hear.of
  sati jani na  ki  hjasi-tami wamau hja         a   kawi=wati wa
  COM  then REL DET nose -→ADV come  arrive(PFV) LOC Kawi=LOC  CIS
You have heard of the slavers, and the time they first came to the Kawi.

You can see the previous post for an explanation why I translate jaikati (originally an ethnonym) as "slavers."

mikwa tija already now produces a perfect of resulting state.

inakasu hear of, know of is almost always used for knowledge rather than perception, though it's etymological connection to inakwi ears is obvious.

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itamu na  apatu, na  itai=su  mikwa   tija inakasu
Itamu REL spear  REL rope=FOC already now  hear.of
  sati sau   na  ki  k  =jaikati=wati   jai jaku
  COM  event REL DET DET=Jaikati=DEIC.3 do  stay(PFV)
You have heard of Itamu the Spear, Itamu the Rope, and what she did to those slavers

Epithets use regular relative clauses with nominal predicates.

Itamu is called the Spear. No doubt this is in part because of her association with fishing, though her spear takes on a metophorical and mythic value as well (we can see this beginning later on in the story). One thing: the spears she used for fishing would not have been considered apt for proper fighting, and I do not think she was especially associated with fighting.

I'm also not yet sure about the epithet the Rope. I have an image of her tying a simple harness for herself and swinging/dancing from a tree branch, but I haven't really explored her fun side yet, and I'm not sure why that would have taken on mythic significance (though again we see something maybe getting stared later in the story).

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wahi kja  hau jakwi hwati      hakwai
but  COMP 1s  2p    give(CAUS) know
  na miwa k  ='iraci inakasu kja
  DS NEG  DET=words  hear.of REL
     hau wai, ka   -kaiwatawapi wai, ihjatikai=wati naki    ikau  siwi  wai,
     1s  TOP  REDUP-yesterday   TOP  Ihjatikai=LOC  someone right small TOP
       hu  tajapawi=su  maiku tau
       ABL Tajapawi=FOC get   together(PFV)
But I am letting you know that you have not heard the account that I, long ago, very young in Ihjatikai, gained from Tajapawi.

wahi but is an adverb rather than a conjunction, but like many adverbs can get hosted by a sentence-initial complementiser like kja, even in main clauses.

siwi small is one of Akiatu's few genuine adjectives, and it has a semantic range encompassing small, young, subtle, unnoticed, nimble, sharp. Here the focus is presumably on young.

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sati sau    na  jakwi ki  inakasu ma  kwasu
COM  matter REL 2p    DET hear.of SUB QUOT
  k  ='iraci=su     awi   saici  kici
  DET=words =DEIC.1 maybe differ REDUP
Maybe this will differ from what you have heard.

The sati... ma kwasu construction topicalises a point of reference or comparison or a perspective from which the ensuing judgment will be made. (As far as what you've heard is concerned, maybe this will be different.)

jiraci words has a range of meanings including also language and story, account.

Akiatu has rather a large of maybe adverbs. Among them, awi indicates that the speaker believes what they are saying, but concedes the possibility of error or disagreement. (It wouldn't be far off, and might be more illuminating, to translate it as "I think.")

Incidentally, the narrator is including explicit personal pronouns more than might seem pragmatically necessary, given that they can be freely dropped. This is in large part because in this preamble she's aiming to establish her authority over the listeners. I am going to tell you.

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suwi hau k  ='iraci, na  ki  maiku tau           hu  tajapawi
here 1s  DET=words   REL DET get   together(PFV) ABL Tajapawi
Here is my account, which I gained from Tajapawi.

The use of tau together as a resultative/perfective complement to maiku get, receive, gain is highly lexicalised. It's usually used to indicate that as a result of the reported action, the subject and object (or the plural subject, if the verb is intransitive) were brought together. (You'd use it, for example, with anatu meet.) With maiku, there's an implication of something like intimacy.

Incidentally, I don't know anything about Tajapawi so far, except that she's a respected elder from a previous generation who lived in the village now most associated with Itamu.

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jajacu
JAJACU
Very well

jajacu is used to invite the listener to proceed to the next stage of an interaction. In particular contexts it might get translated as let's see, let's go, here you go, come in, goodbye, and any number of other things. (It's a bit modeled after Turkish "buyurun," if you know that.)

Here, the sense is something like: but let's get on with the story.

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k  =jaikati na  hjasi=wati   hwika cita haku, miwa papai
DET=Jaikati REL nose =DEIC.3 only  four five  NEG  many
Those first slavers were just four or five, not many.

Numerical x-or-y expressions are formed just by juxtaposing the numbers: cita haku four or five.

pipai many is another example of a true adjective, this one transparently derived by reduplication from pai three. It's used on its own as a predicate. I still go back and forth on how common that is, the alternative would be something like naki papai many people.

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kati ukja  siwi, k  =witawi sakija, akjamawi uɲu   mwi kijaa tikwa,
3p   short small DET=hair   red     skin     white SS  mud   face
  miwa sati kiwapi saici  wi   -wita ahiwa
  NEG  COM  today  differ REDUP-hair single
They were small and quick, with bright hair and skin light like mud, no different from today

An abundance of true adjectives!

siwi small again, compounded with ukja short, low, lowly, demeaning---the connotations of ukja are regularly negative, those of siwi mostly positive.

sakija is red but also bright, shining. It suggests something in their hair, maybe grease.

uɲu is white but also light-coloured; in this context, skin counts as light if it's the colour of mud (and it's most likely light mostly because of a life lived out of the sun).

We also see two uses of the -wi suffix. wita, on its own, is a single hair, whereas witawi is a mass of hair, as on a person's head (but there's no lexical distinction between the hair on different body parts or between human and anmial hair/fur). The -wi implies not just a collection, but a collection sort of naturally belonging together---and with body parts that implies actually attached to a person. So with akjamawi skin, it's not clear there's a singular/plural distinction worth drawing, the -wi just tells you that you're talking about the undetached skin of a person or animal (or tree, for bark). (Whereas an animal's hide, once removed, would be just akjama, for example.)

There's a difference, though: witawi is marked for possession (the k= ← ki), whereas akjamawi gets no marking because skin unlike hair is considered inalienably possessed.

"No different from today": or present stereotypes are getting projected into the past, of course.

And one more thing: wiwita ahiwa as the object of saici differ is an example of a minimal object. wita is hair---individual hairs, not like collected on a person's head---and both the reduplication and the adjective ahiwa single, solitary both intensify the smallness of hair. The effect is to say that there's no difference at all, they don't differ by even a speck.

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kaiwaka
INTER
Pfui

kaiwaka is a dismissive interjection; I translate it as "pfui" because that's from Nero Wolfe, and no one can be as dismissive as Nero Wolfe.

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kati waɲi aja      mwi ucisu mwi tijauka jai
3p   say  out(PFV) SS  want  SS  trade   do
They said they wanted to trade

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wahi kja
but  COMP
  itamu inakasu sau   kja  aisiwi=wati anatu jaku wai
  Itamu hear.of event COMP Aisiwi=LOC  meet  stay TOP
    ikau miwa sati kati ijau jaku
    then NEG  COM  3p   sit  REDUP
But Itamu knew what had happened with the Aisiwi, and did not believe them

Here we see an example of a locative subject, aisiwi=wati at the Aisiwi, something new that I haven't posted about yet. It can mark non-agent subjects, and sometimes triggers valency shifts. In this sentence, the result is a sort of passive (and that's fairly common).

ijau jaku sati sit down with has here an idiomatic sense, to believe, to trust.

Incidentally, I don't yet know exactly what happened with the Aisiwi, but it presumably wasn't pleasant.

And also: it's actually supposed to be plausible that they really were traders---what else is a group of four or five doing here? (Which is not to say that Itamu was wrong not to trust them.)

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itamu kwasu, cau  sai kimija taki ma  wamau hja         i   tijauka wa
Itamu QUOT   what Q   RESUM  hold SUB come  arrive(PFV) DAT trade   CIS
Itamu said, "What have you brought with you to trade?"

Wh-movement isn't obligatory in Akiatu, but it's very common. Here, though, the cau what corresponds to a constituent in the adverbial ma clause; regular wh-movement isn't possible out of such a clause, so you need a resumptive pronoun (here kimija).

When I introduced the quotation particle kwasu in the post on saying and thinking, I said that the ensuing quoted statement usually got its pronouns shifted. I've changed my mind about that.

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taɲuci kwasu, inika sati ati.ati wai
other  QUOT   inika COM  ati.ati TOP
  wama  taki ma  wamau hja         wa
  shell hold SUB come  arrive(PFV) CIS
The other said, "We have brought with us the shells of the [i]inika[/i] and the [i]ati ati[/i].

These shells would be fancy, even ostentatious, but of genuine value to the Kawi.

I'm afraid I can't tell you anything about the inika or the ati-ati (or about the takajau and the palati birds about to be mentioned).

Note that in this back-and-forth, the interlocutor is identified only as taɲuci other. (This is another true adjective, this time getting used as a noun.)

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kwasu, wahi kja  inika sati ati.ati wai,
QUOT   but  COMP inika COM  ati.ati TOP
  hwi=wati hu  jisakiwi    ma  ahjaicu  wama
  1p =LOC  ABL Fish.People SUB lie.down shell
"But we have the shells of the [i]inika[/i] and the [i]ati ati[/i] from the Jisakiwi."

The main clause here is a slightly complex example of an existential construction used to indicate possession.

The next few exchanges are formulaic, and I won't comment further.

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taɲuci kwasu, takajau sati palati mati wai
other  QUOT   takajau COM  palati bird TOP
  piɲiku  taki ma  wamau hja         wa
  feather hold SUB come  arrive(PFV) CIS
The other said, "We have brought with us the feathers of the [i]takajau[/i] and the [i]palati[/i] bird."

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kwasu, wahi kja  takajau sati palati mati wai
QUOT   but  COMP takajau COM  palati bird TOP
  hwi=wati hu  matiwi      ma  ahjaicu  piɲiku.
  1p =LOC  ABL Bird.People SUB lie.down feather
"But we have the feathers of the [i]takajau[/i] and the [i]palati[/i] bird from the Matiwi."

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taɲuci kwasu, anicuta hatau wai
other  QUOT   boar    great TOP
  kaima ausu  sati ikitai ma  wamau hja         wa
  meat  blood COM  bone   SUB come  arrive(PFV) CIS
The other said, "We have brought with us the meat, blood, and bones of the great boar."

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kwasu, wahi kja  anicuta hatau wai
QUOT   but  COMP boar    great TOP
  hwi=wati hu  kwamuriwi     ma  ahjaicu  kaima ausa  sati ikitai
  1p =LOC  ABL Hunter.People SUB lie.down meat  blood COM  bone
"But we have the meat, blood, and bones of the great boar from the Kwamuriwi."

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taɲuci kwasu, jakwanaiwi sati aikanawi i  =kaɲi  wai
other  QUOT   ancestors  COM  land     DET=pride TOP
  ukiwaɲa   taki ma  wamau hja         wa
  tradition hold SUB come  arrive(PFV) CIS
The other said, "We have brought with us knowledge of the ancestors and of the power of the land."

So first of all it's obviously crazy for the trader to be offering these things. They're real and valuable, but you can only have them if you actually live in a place (as Itamu will shortly point out). The connection is simply that when someone dies, they live on as an ancestor, and then suitably attuned shamans (or whatever) are able to call on their pride/power for various magicky ends (centrally including health, childbirth, and horticulture); and this attunement generally requires living in a place for a significant amount of time, and also that the local ancestors not think of you as an enemy.

There are similar powers that are not ancestral in nature, or at least that do not seem to be human. Volcanoes especially seem to be locations of great power (power that is often attributed to the spirits of ancient giants).

kaɲi pride, power is a very important concept in Akiatu culture.

When I referred in the last post to the Itamu tradition or the Itamu cult, it was ukiwaɲa that I was translating as "tradition" or "cult"; here it's "knowledge." Knowledge in this sense isn't a cognitive state, it's more like a valuable possession that you can share or transmit to a chosen few.

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itamu kwasu, hwi jakwanaiwi sati k  =aikanawi=su     sati k  =ikjamii=su     ki  kaɲi  wai
Itamu QUOT   1p  ancestors  COM  DET=land    =DEIC.1 COM  DET=river  =DEIC.1 DET pride TOP
  jakwi=wati miwa ukiwaɲa
  2p   =LOC  NEG  tradition
Itamu said, "You have no knowledge of our ancestors or of the power of this land and this river."

jakwanaiwi ancestors is inalienably possessed, so it doesn't require the ki determiner here.

The second sati is embedded within the complement of the first. As in many languages, you'd omit all but the last conjunction in a single coordinate structure (we saw this above in kaima ausa sati ikitai meat, blood, and bones, with only one sati).

We see here an example of something I don't think I've mentioned before, the use of a nominal predicate (here ukiwaɲa knowledge, tradition) with an existential sense. (Above we saw the posture verb ahjaicu lie down in another, I think less marked, existential construction.)

As noted in the last post, it's significant that Itamu emphasises that the ancestors and lands in question are those of the Akiatu peoples, not the Jaikati slavers, and that she adds a reference to the river (with which she as a fisher is especially associated).

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itamu hjaci waɲi kwasu
Itamu Hjaci say  QUOT
  ai! hau jai      wamau hja         k  =jaikati=su     wa, sama
  VOC 1s  do(CAUS) come  arrive(PFV) DET=Jaikati=DEIC.1 CIS 2s
Itamu said to Hjaci, "Bring me this slaver."

A narrative hiccup: from this point on we only hear about one of the slavers. What became of the other three or four I don't know.

An imperative: as is common, you get the listen-to-me particle ai at the start and and afterthought 2p pronoun at the end. (But neither of these things is required in an imperative, and both show up in other contexts.)

A subtlety: the 1p pronoun hau, representing the recipient or beneficiary, has moved into the preverbal spot, leaving the reference to the slaver, the actual direct object, after the verb. This would be the usual structure with an inanimate direct object, and maybe implicitly ranks Itamu above the slaver on something like an animacy hierarchy.

Though: all the other bringing in the story uses the phrase taki wamau hold come, appropriate with inanimate themes, but here we get instead a causative construction, jai wamau make come. (There's a further difference: taki wamau is perfective on its own, but jai wamau needs a further complement---here hja arrive---to make it perfective.)

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hjaci jaikati jai      wamau hja     wa
Hjaci Jaikati do(CAUS) come  arrive(PFV) 
Hjaci brought the slaver.

The reference to Itamu has been dropped as contextually obvious, allowing the Jaikati mention to go before the verb.

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itamu kipaja waɲi kwasu
Itamu Kipaja say  QUOT
  ai! hau taki wamau itai wa, sama
  VOC 1s  hold come  rope CIS 2s
Itamu said to Kiyaja, "Bring me some rope."

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kipaja itai taki wamau wa
Kipaja rope hold come  CIS
Kipaja brought rope.

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k  =itai=su     wai, kipaja mikwa   tikwa-tami hwisaja tima
DET=rope=DEIC.1 TOP  Kipaja already face -→ADV make    ready(PFV)
It was rope that Kipaja had made himself.

mikwa already here marks relative tense. tikwatami is the emphatic pronoun. I decided to mark it explicitly as an adverb (and not use the plain reflexive pronoun tikwa face) because I definitely didn't want it occupying an argument slot.

It's a major difference between the Itamu and Kipaja traditions that in the former but not the later Kipaja is associated with rope-making.

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itamu jaikati jai      wama  -kasu   itai ma  paja jaku i   tamwi
Itamu Jaikati do(CAUS) spiral-follow rope SUB tie  stay DAT tree
Itamu wound the rope around the slaver and bound him to a tree.

The adverbial ma clause has a causative of a path verb with the path verb's locative complement moved before the verb, where it occurs without the locative preposition a---that's quite a lot going on.

At one point I thought it might be fun to do a whole post about how to describe doing things with rope to make sure I really had a handle on causatives, path verbs, and such. Maybe someday.

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tati.tati.tatu sai! jaikati ikau  kahawa sii       aja
IDEO           EXC  Jaikati right move   fail(PFV) away
The slaver wiggled and writhed, but could not move.

I guess if you suddenly find yourself getting tied to a tree, you'll probably do something worthy of an ideophone.

The complementiser sai most often marks irrealis clauses, but here it's exclamatory.

Translations of ideophones are always a bit pulled-out-of-your-ass, of course.

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itamu hjaci waɲi kwasu
Itamu Hjaci say  QUOT
  ai! hau taki wamau hakja wa, sama
  VOC 1s  hold come  fire  CIS 2s
Itamu said to Hjaci, "Bring me some fire."

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hjaci hu  hakjawi taki wamau kawi  wa
Hjaci ABL bonfire hold come  stick CIS
Hjaci brought a branch from the bonfire

Yeah, the ethnonym is homophonous with a word meaning stick, branch. Really it's a total coincidence. kawi stick most likely goes back to something like kaui, the ethnonym reflects earlier gagul + -ui (→ -wi), with the final l dropping and the two us coalescing and then gagui → gagwi → gawi → kawi.

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hakjawi wai, hjaci mikwa   tikwa-tami acatau tima
bonfire TOP  Hjaci already face -→ADV bless  ready(PFV)
It was a bonfire that Hjaci had blessed herself.

I haven't gone into Akiatu fire worship at all, except to have lots of example sentences about Hjaci blessing bonfires. And this post will not be any different. (Hjaci, remember, is a sort of shaman.)

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itamu jaikati hakjasu iti
Itamu Jaikati burn    PFV
Itamu burned the Jaikati.

In previous posts I've only mentioned iti as a positive polarity item that goes in the same position in the sentence as a negator. It's also got a use as a verb meaning to be so, be like that, do that, and by extension it can be used just to mean yes, I agree. Here it's used as a perfective complement, without really adding any further meaning.

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k  =witawi sakija sati akjamawi na  kijaa tikwa=su  hakjasu aja
DET=hair   red    COM  skin     REL mud   face =FOC burn    away(PFV)
She burned away his shiny hair and his mudlike skin.

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parai.parau sai! atawi=su  cai  hakjaru aja
IDEO        EXCL eyes =FOC also burn    away
Wide open with terror, his eyes also burned away.

This sequence displays an unusual amount of morphology. We see:

• hakja fire, the root
• hakjawi bonfire, with -wi suggesting a united collection of fires
• hakjasu burn (transitive), with -su having a meaning like use in a characteristic way
• hakjaru burn (intransitive), with -ru also showing up in sensation verbs such as kamaru to hurt, ache, from kama pain (but you won't regularly find a transitive/intransitive pair marked this way by -su and -ru)

(-wi is still somewhat productive, -su and -ru are not.)

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tati.tati.tatu sai! akija wakija sai! jaikati ikau waɲi sii  aja
IDEO           EXCL IDEO         EXCL Jaikati then say  fail out(PFV)
The slaver wiggled and writhed, shrieked and howled, but could not speak.

waɲi sii aja could not speak here echoes kahawa sii aja could not move above, a minor literary flourish. aja has a different significance in the two phrases (though it also renders both perfective): kahawa aja is move away, and waɲi aja is say out loud.

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itamu kipaja waɲi kwasu
Itamu Kipaja say  QUOT
  ai! hau taki wamau apatu wa, sama
  VOC 1s  hold come  spear CIS 2s
Itamu said to Kipaja, "Bring me a spear."

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kipaja miwa ucisu ma  apatu taki wamau wa
Kipaja NEG  want  SUB spear hold come  CIS
Kipaja did not want to, but he brought a spear.

Within the Itamu tradition, Kipaja's reluctance here signals that he is not completely to be trusted.

Since miwa ucisu is in an adverbial ma clause, it would also be reasonable to translate it as "reluctantly."

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k  =apatu=su     wai, kipaja mikwa   tikwa-tami waisa tima
DET=spear=DEIC.1 TOP  Kipaja already face -→ADV make  ready(PFV)
It was a spear that Kipaja had made himself.

The verb used for spear-making (waisa) is different from the one used earlier for rope-making (hwisaja). Well, they're very different processes. (But I can't tell you anything further about the differences between them---much research still to do on rope-making.)

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kaiwaka
INTER
Pfui.

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kipaja wai k  =itai sati k  =apatu=su cai  hwati wamau k  =ami=wati   a   itamu wa
Kipaja TOP DET=rope COM  DET=spear=su also give  come  DET=two=DEIC.3 DAT Itamu CIS
Kipaja gave both his rope and his spear, those two, to Itamu.

k=ami=wati those two looks like the remnant of a DP left when the head noun got moved before the verb for focus, but I don't think that analysis will work here (I don't think you can add a number to a conjunction).

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sai  si   -sijai-waka
EXCL REDUP-piss -puddle
Dumb fuck.

The translation is inexact.

This aside about Kipaja is maybe hard to appreciate without more context. Itamu comes to be known as Itamu the Spear and Itamu the Rope, and the idea here is more or less that Kipaja inadvertently contributed to his rival's power by giving her these things.

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hwika jajacu
only  JAJACU
But anyway.

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jaikati=wai itamu atausa=su  jai      ikijiku jima       apatu
Jaikati=TOP Itamu belly =FOC do(CAUS) often   go.through spear
  hawa     jaikati jakwaru utami
  and.then jaikati die     cease(PFV)
Itamu put the spear through the slaver's belly several times, and the slaver died.

Another causative with a path verb. I actually feel like this would be better with a verb meaning something like to thrust, but for some reason I'm having trouble making that work.

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watiwi mikwa   miwa parai.parau tikwa,
there  already NEG  IDEO        face
  mikwa   miwa akija.wakija tikwa,
  already NEG  IDEO         face
    mikwa   miwa tati.tati.tatu tikwa
    already NEG  IDEO           face
There was no more eyes-open terror, no more shrieking and howling, no more wiggling and writhing.

Here we see the use of tikwa face to make a predicate from an ideophone. We also see a somewhat sneaky use of the stative negator miwa, which I've tried to capture by using an existential construction in the translation.

One thing I realised while working on this story is that I'd left myself in a bit of a bind as far as the scope of negation was concerned, because I'd established (at least for myself, not sure I posted it) that the negators could only go in a single spot very high in the clause, and that made it unclear how I was going to distinguish between, say, "already not" and "not already." My tentative decision is to allow adverbs to move to Spec-PolarityP and thereby get out of the scope of negation. (So when you get mikwa miwa already not, it's because the mikwa already has moved, not the miwa not.)

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itamu kwasu, k  =aikanawi=su     sati k  =ikjamii=su     wai
Itamu QUOT   DET=land    =DEIC.1 COM  DET=river  =DEIC.1 TOP
  jakwi miwa i  =kaɲi  aɲiki
  2p    NEG  DET=pride know
Itamu said, "You do not know the power of this land and this river."

Bam!

aɲiki know is used here in place of inakasu hear of, know of. It's denying knowledge that you would have not by hearing the power or about it, but by living there and actually experiencing it (or something). (aɲiki is know-of rather than know-that, for which there is hakwai.)

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ai, k  =ani =wati   jani na  hjasi kja jaikati wamau hja         a   kawi=wati wa, jakwi.
VOC DET=time=DEIC.3 then REL nose  REL Jaikati come  arrive(PFV) DAT Kawi=LOC  CIS 2p
And that was the first time the slavers came to the Kawi.

Maybe it's interesting that this concluding statment has the initial ai (also the first word in the narration as a whole) and the final afterthought pronoun characteristic of imperatives.

[Raholeun]

That was great. It was nice to read a full narrative. In a narrative of this size you can showcase or illustrate the syntax and discourse peculiarities of your language a bit. The only thing I missed is some extra funky reduplication patterns, as it would have also fit well with the language.

pipai many is another example of a true adjective, this one transparently derived by reduplication from pai three.

That derivation is clever, yet still quite plausible.

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parai.parau sai! atawi=su  cai  hakjaru aja
IDEO        EXCL eyes =FOC also burn    away
Wide open with terror, his eyes also burned away.

That's a nice vivid translation of the ideophone. It would make for good death metal, like the whole narrative in general really. You may say translations of ideophones are "pulled-out-of-your-ass", but they do invite one to be imaginative with them.

A subtlety: the 1p pronoun hau, representing the recipient or beneficiary, has moved into the preverbal spot, leaving the reference to the slaver, the actual direct object, after the verb. This would be the usual structure with an inanimate direct object, and maybe implicitly ranks Itamu above the slaver on something like an animacy hierarchy.

There surely are systems in which pronouns automatically outrank nominals on the animacy hierarchy, regardless of the whole animate/inanimate distinction.

[akam chinjir]

Thanks for the feedback!

In a narrative of this size you can showcase or illustrate the syntax and discourse peculiarities of your language a bit.

And test!

(And force yourself to do some worldbuilding.)

The only thing I missed is some extra funky reduplication patterns, as it would have also fit well with the language.

I think there's only one pattern that didn't make it in, full reduplication of verbs to form manner adverbs. The intensifying build-a-syllable-on-the-front partial reduplication could've gotten more use, though.

You may say translations of ideophones are "pulled-out-of-your-ass", but they do invite one to be imaginative with them.

Here of course I can cheat a bit, since I'm the one deciding what they mean; the translation trouble mostly comes from having to fit them into English syntax. (Most of my practical experience with ideophones involves translating them, in contexts calling more for precision than for literary flourish, and it really can end up feeling fairly arbitrary.)

A subtlety: the 1p pronoun hau, representing the recipient or beneficiary, has moved into the preverbal spot, leaving the reference to the slaver, the actual direct object, after the verb. This would be the usual structure with an inanimate direct object, and maybe implicitly ranks Itamu above the slaver on something like an animacy hierarchy.

There surely are systems in which pronouns automatically outrank nominals on the animacy hierarchy, regardless of the whole animate/inanimate distinction.

Certainly you get this sort of thing with first- and second-person pronouns, I should've thought of that.