English Translation


28. The Foolish People Acquire Coffee
Sam Kenoi

(28.1)
They had a camp.
From somewhere they had brought back some coffee.
They didn't [know] what to do with it.
They did not know how it was eaten.
They had put it in a pot still green.
It had boiled all day.
The coffee was still hard.
It had not been cooked.
They didn't know what it was.

(28.2)
Then this Mescalero who lived among them came there.
He saw the still green coffee that they had boiled.

(28.3)
Then he spoke thus:
"Give me some of that coffee. That is not the way they eat it."


(28.4)
Then he roasted the coffee that they had given him.
As they watched, he pounded it.
He put it on the fire.
He boiled coffee.
He took it off the fire.
Still boiling, he poured it for the them.

(28.5)
"This is the way they eat it."
he said to them.
Then they had learned about it.