Mahican love poem
Ahtshek kpahpenawussè k'hackai
Neek nonaaptonawáganàn, kakhne onáyo
Psùck gattatáyi káshksò
Né askuakhuck "Ktakhwáhnan" ksè
Literally :
What is you doubled(mirrored) see reflexive thy body/self
Those my good words, very good
But be quick disappears
That last "thee love I" say I.
An other version
Keyuh nakaishkuh nebiik
Nun ndauptonauwauconnun moci waunehk
Psooq katac eenhuh pootommehteet
Neyuh uthquaukhuk ktuhwhunin honmeweh.
Literally :
Your face in the water
Are my words very good
But hurry or escapes
My last "I love thee" forever.
→ Poem the mirror ←
Mahican squaw & language
For me it's really fantastic to see my short verses translated into mahican. Perhaps, a day, my poem could be useful, when we will able to get back to the past. This indian (never call her squaw) that my ancestors have meet in New England was so fantastic that 600 years later, she is always in our minds.
Mahican is an eastern Algonquian language from northern Hudson River Valley, southern Lake Champlain to Greene County, and Massachusetts (Housatonic Valley). The language is considered to have died out around 1930, date on which data was collected from the last speakers.
The Mahicans
Mahican, is the language of the Mahicans's tribe (called Mahicans in 1500-1600 and living in New England and Long Island). This is an inaccuracy in French ethnological studies of Algonquian ethnonyms, confusing these tribes with the Mohegans of Connecticut, that has transformed their name Mahican in Mohican.
Lenape - Atsina - Siksiká - Ojibwe - Ottawa - Abenaki - Cheyenne - Cree - Arapaho
http://love.poem.free.fr/american-poems/mahican-poem.html