Eagle's Brother - Seattle Chief (Meeting the Master) (Chinese-English Bilingual Version)

Author: Liu Siyuan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-09-01
Features: My father was the chief of our tribe, and my mother was the chief of another tribe. I grew up in the tribe since childhood. My father taught me how to fish and hunt, and he told me, "We can only take what we need." So we cannot use too dense fishing nets, nor can we hunt animals to extinction. In the year I turned six, a ship as big as a whale sailed into the bay. Many strange people came down from the ship and entered our tribe. They had skin as white as snow, eyes of brown, blue, or green, and hair that was either golden like the sun or reddish like horsehair. They carried many strange things and ran around the coast, comparing them, not knowing what they were doing. The elders of the tribe called them "whites." We had never seen whites before, but we had heard from people of other tribes that they were as cunning as foxes and as fierce as vultures that ate people when they were angry. Some whites even carried long tubes called "guns" that could make a sound louder than thunder, capable of blowing even the greatest warriors to pieces. At first, we dared not get close to them, but they were very friendly and often traded things with us for fish, shells, and other food. Gradually, we stopped being afraid, especially the children, who loved to follow them around. Sometimes we would communicate by gestures. When they spread both their hands above their heads, hey! We knew then that they wanted to buy deer meat.