Geese Talk the Santa Ana Language

GEESE TALK THE SANTA ANA LANGUAGE ¹

Two Santa Ana girls went to Haniashte (other side of river) to pick beans. They saw geese coming flying. The girls got to the

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bean fields. They were gray with geese picking beans. The girls stood watching them. They said, "They are picking all the beans." One of the geese saw the two girls. She sang,

Come over here,
There are white beans here.

One of the girls said, "Just hear them! They talk the Santa Ana language." Again the goose sang--

Come over here,
Some white beans here,
Come over here, Maria.

The geese were jumping around picking beans as fast as they could. One of the girls said, "Call loud, and see if they will fly away and not pick all our beans." So the other called to the geese: "That's enough. Leave some for us. We have come to pick, too." The geese all flew away. The girls said, "They got frightened. They understood. They are people like us and talk our language. We better go, maybe they are something dangerous." They went home to Santa Ana. They told their mother, "We went to Haniashte to pick beans and the geese were picking them. They were people and they talked Santa Ana. They sang--

Come over here, Maria,
There are white beans here.

"When we heard them talking our language we ran away and we came home." "That's right, my dears. Don't go there, any more. They might be dangerous people and take you away. Once they took a girl away!" So the girls never went there any more.

Footnotes

158:1 Informant 1. Notes, p. 242.