Page 9, Paragraphs 6 and 7; Page 10, Paragraph 1

I read ahead a little bit again last night, this time to about page 19. It's actually getting easier to understand all the time.

Page 9, Paragraph 6:

All alone I sit by my mother's foot. My people aren't around - they've gone far away, beneath the trees and across the hill; they're gone, and they're not coming back here anymore. The grey dirt on my hands and feet is dry and hard; because of this, I can scratch it off in little bits. The dirt that I pushed around my mother's foot is likewise hard now, and bits of it are coming off. I see her toes, and now in the dirt that falls from them I see an imprint of her toes. Mother.

Paragraph 7 (ends on the top of page 10):

Now I have another thought, in which night comes and I sit by Mother's foot with nowhere to go. I've been with my mother the whole time and I don't want to go away from her now, and yet the hurt in my belly is telling me differently. [?] I sit there a while and don't know if I should stay or go.

Page 10, Paragraph 1 (first full paragraph):

I stand up, then walk away and come back, then sit, then stand up and walk some more. I jump on the ground, and hit a tree and tear up grass, and say many things to Mother's foot. I sit and don't move, and off in the dark is the noise of a fox in the grass and of the sheperd dogs* across the hills. I'm afraid and even hungier than I was before. I take a shit by a tree, between the roots - it's watery.

*which for some reason I picture as English Shepherds

Page 9, Paragraphs 3 - 5

Page 9, Paragraph 3:

I cast her in. The hole isn't big enough for her. One leg sticks up above the edge and I can't push it down. I cover her and my hands are grey with dirt, the dirt that falls in her eyes, in her mouth, in her belly button; and now her face is gone, and now her arms and breasts go; and now she is only one white foot sticking out, which I put dirt around and push it, soft and grey, to her toes. I tramp the dirt down, and Feather-Ass sets my mother's axe head beside the hole, at the edge opposite from where the dirt rises around her foot like a piss-ant's hill.

Paragraph 4:

I say, "Now she's buried, and we may journey on to find porcupines and pigs and edible roots." And now my people look away and are quiet. And now now old Feather-Ass looks at me. And shakes his head.

Paragraph 5:

And makes the sign for "no".

***

There's a break here, so I'll stop for now.

Page 8, Paragraph 8; Page 9, Paragraphs 1 and 2; Notes

Page 8, Paragraph 8 (ends at the top of page 9):

The sun travels high above us, with the sky-beasts* running in front of it, in fear that it may burn them all away to nothing and that there wil be only sky left. I dig, and the wise man becomes agitated at my slowness, and says, "Stop now - the hole's deep enough," and so forth, even though I'm only belly-deep in the hole. He says, "Jump out and cast her down."

Page 9, Paragraph 1 (first full paragraph):

Out I come, grey to the knees with dirt, and look at her. Nothing but white. Nothing but bare, and the life is all gone out of her. I take one step, and then another. Her hair is grey like the dirt. "Be quick about it," says Feather-Ass, and, "Come now. Pick her up," and so forth. I take another step and I'm right next to her. [?]

Page 9, Paragraph 2:

I bend over to grab her foot. She's colder now, and there's no light on her. I lift mother's legs, which are all white on top, and see that the back side of her is dark, as though filled with blood.** I pull, which makes her move a little ways from the puddle, and drags her hair like seaweed behind her, and makes her fart. This is the way we come to the hole, my mother and I. "Cast her in," says Feather-Ass, "and cover her up."

Notes:

*I'm no longer going to translate "sky-beast" as "cloud", because it doesn't capture the sense that the narrator appears to truly think of clouds as living things, not just things that resemble living things.

** A condition known as livor mortis, or postmortem lividity.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livor_mortis)