When the old grandmother saw them coming, she too said:
“Ayaa mash toki!
Ayaa mash toki!
Hai! i i i i!”
And as one after another in that village saw the little child, so beloved, brought home thus mutilated and dead, each cried out as the others had cried:
“Ayaa mash toki!
Ayaa mash toki!
Hai! i i i i!”
and all swooned away; and the children also who were bringing the little one joined in the cry of woe, and swooned away. And when they all returned to life, behold, they could not arise, but went wriggling along the ground, faintly crying, as Rattlesnakes wriggle and cry to this day.
So you see that once—as was the case with many, if not all, of the animals—the Rattlesnakes were a people, and a splendid people too. Therefore we kill them not needlessly, nor waste the lives even of other animals without cause.