From karttu at nantucket.net Fri Sep 1 14:32:48 2000 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2000 10:32:48 -0400 Subject: The use of XIHUIT Message-ID: Some thoughts on Howard's information about Nahuat (or would one say Pipil?) usage in El Salvador: > I will wait for you = ni-yauj ni-mits-cheya kiuni In niyauj we see translation of the Spanish periphrastic use of ir (voy) for the future followed by the verb phrase, here in the Nahuat present tense form rather than the future form (which would end in -z, I suppose). > Wait for me = ti-yauj ti-nech-cheya kiuni. And here we see real innovation for the obtative/imperative: the translation of ir again to -yauj with the second-person indicative ti- prefix rather than second-person obtative xi- with both verbs. > Regarding "chi" and "chiua" (CHIHUA); the latter is used here but only in > infinite and future constructs In all other cases the UA suffix is dropped Since chi:hua belongs to the class that drops its final vowel to form one of its stems in Nahuatl, it's not surprising to learn that in El Salvador Nahuat the final vowel is gone a lot of the time. In Nahuatl the preterite stem is chi:uh, where the final [w] is often pronounced as [h] or is hardly audible at all. > although there is a rare use of a preterit "Chiuak" This is either an example of the retention of a very conservative preterite form, or it is a generalization of chihua to the class of invariant verb stems that always add final [-k]. > past participle: chijtuk > ye uipta naja ni-chijtuk se nuhuitsut (The day before yesterday I was > making a hoe) This looks like the Nahuatl -toc construction made of the ligature -ti- plus the preterite-as-present verb oc, giving -toc (phonetically [-tok]). In Nahuatl it has been reanalyzed as a past participle/adjective on the model of Spanish. > passive: chi-at > niyauj ni-uika ne kuauit pal nik-chiat se nuhuitsut ( I go to carry the > wood for to make a hoe) I would call this purposive rather than passive. In Nahuatl, the full ending is -ti:hui, but in the present singular it is -ti:uh, so 'I go to (Verb)' would be ni-c-chi:hua-ti:uh (Verb phrase), which seems to correspond closely with nik-chia-t. > "chi" or " chij" also seems to appear in such words as chijcultic (chij (to > make) + cultic (something twisted) In Zacapoaxtla Nahuat there is a verb chihco:loa: that means 'to twist or to move in a serpentine manner' if used reflexively or 'to twist something.' The verb is also found in Molina's dictionary. I think it may be related to chico 'to the side' rather than to the verb chi:hua. > e.g. yeka-chiua naui tunal pal tikualat ka-nikan. (must make four days to > come to be here) Looks like a translation of Spanish hace to chi:hua to me. > Regarding "xiuit", I have spoken to my tutors, ( the campesinos of Tacuba) > and they are adamant in maintaining their strange use of the word. I have often wondered about the two meanings of Nahuatl xihuitl, meaning 'grass, green stone, etc.' on the one hand, and 'year' on the other (not to be confused with xi:huitl 'comet' which is distinguished from the other word(s) by vowel length). Someone has suggested that the 'year' sense is because in the calendar there was the binding of the years, and it was like tying up a bundle of grass. This strikes me as rather thin reasoning. Maybe there just happen to be two homophonous words. It happens in English, so why shouldn't it happen in other languages? I am pretty confident that the extension of the use of xiuh- as an intensifier meaning 'hot' has to do with the Mesoamerican way of dealing with the color spectrum. If something is quite hot, in English we say it is red hot. If it is even hotter, we say it is white hot. But astronomers talk about blue stars (which are hotter than red stars). In the Mesoamerican version of the color spectrum, there is a part of the continuum that is deemed blue-green: the color of grass, turquoise, quetzal plumage, etc. One can see how very hot things would be blue-green hot. > "chiyakiya yek" (making good or the right time is coming) Looks like using chi:hua to translate Spanish hace once again. Doing calques on Spanish constructions like the periphrastic future and idiomatic constructions with tener, hacer, etc., has a long documented history for Central Mexican Nahuatl, so it's not surprising to see similar innovations in El Salvador. Fran From mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk Mon Sep 4 10:05:08 2000 From: mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk (Anthony Appleyard) Date: Mon, 4 Sep 2000 10:05:08 GMT Subject: The use of XIHUIT Message-ID: Frances Karttunen wrote:- > I am pretty confident that the extension of the use of xiuh- as an > intensifier meaning 'hot' has to do with the Mesoamerican way of dealing > with the color spectrum. If something is quite hot, in English we say it is > red hot. If it is even hotter, we say it is white hot. But astronomers talk > about blue stars (which are hotter than red stars). ... Erh??? Blue may mean hot to an astronomer, or to nuclear men handling very high-temperature plasma, or to people who use blowtorches, but not to the general population of an area where Nahuatl is likely to be spoken. {chi} is so simple and short a morpheme that most likely we have a stray coincidence. From karttu at nantucket.net Mon Sep 4 11:07:07 2000 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Mon, 4 Sep 2000 07:07:07 -0400 Subject: The use of XIHUIT Message-ID: Oh heavens! I didn't mean that Nahuatl speakers had borrowed this usage from English. I mean that if some people who speak Indo-European languages describe things hotter than red-hot as blue-hot, it's likely that Mesoamericans would describe really hot things as blue-green hot. We divide up the spectrum as going through the steps yellow-green-blue-violet, but Mesoamericans have a single word (xiuh- for Nahuatl speakers) for the green-blue continuum of the spectrum. Chi- may seem like a very short, simple morphological element, but if it's cognate with xiuh-, it's a CVC morpheme, and such structures are the building blocks of the morphology and lexicon of Nahuatl. If you want a REALLY short lexical item, consider i:-, which is the stem of the transitive verb 'to drink something.' Fran ---------- >From: "Anthony Appleyard" >To: nahuat-l at server2.umt.edu >Subject: Re: The use of XIHUIT >Date: Mon, Sep 4, 2000, 6:05 AM > > Frances Karttunen wrote:- >> I am pretty confident that the extension of the use of xiuh- as an >> intensifier meaning 'hot' has to do with the Mesoamerican way of dealing >> with the color spectrum. If something is quite hot, in English we say it is >> red hot. If it is even hotter, we say it is white hot. But astronomers talk >> about blue stars (which are hotter than red stars). ... > > Erh??? Blue may mean hot to an astronomer, or to nuclear men handling very > high-temperature plasma, or to people who use blowtorches, but not to the > general population of an area where Nahuatl is likely to be spoken. {chi} is > so simple and short a morpheme that most likely we have a stray coincidence. > From jsullivan at prodigy.net.mx Tue Sep 5 14:14:50 2000 From: jsullivan at prodigy.net.mx (John Sullivan) Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2000 09:14:50 -0500 Subject: The use of XIHUIT In-Reply-To: <200009041051.GAA01877@nantucket.net> Message-ID: Just for the heck of it, here are colores used by my informants in the Huasteca: chipawak, white yayawik, black chichiltik, red chokoxtik, brown tenextik, grey kostik, yellow chilkostik, orange azultik, blue xoxowik, green as in a mature green leaf axoxowik, green as in a deep body of water selxiwitl, green as in a new/young green leaf John Sullivan Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas on 9/4/00 6:07 AM, Frances Karttunen at karttu at nantucket.net wrote: > Oh heavens! I didn't mean that Nahuatl speakers had borrowed this usage > from English. I mean that if some people who speak Indo-European languages > describe things hotter than red-hot as blue-hot, it's likely that > Mesoamericans would describe really hot things as blue-green hot. We divide > up the spectrum as going through the steps yellow-green-blue-violet, but > Mesoamericans have a single word (xiuh- for Nahuatl speakers) for the > green-blue continuum of the spectrum. > > Chi- may seem like a very short, simple morphological element, but if it's > cognate with xiuh-, it's a CVC morpheme, and such structures are the > building blocks of the morphology and lexicon of Nahuatl. > > If you want a REALLY short lexical item, consider i:-, which is the stem of > the transitive verb 'to drink something.' > > Fran > > ---------- >> From: "Anthony Appleyard" >> To: nahuat-l at server2.umt.edu >> Subject: Re: The use of XIHUIT >> Date: Mon, Sep 4, 2000, 6:05 AM >> > >> Frances Karttunen wrote:- >>> I am pretty confident that the extension of the use of xiuh- as an >>> intensifier meaning 'hot' has to do with the Mesoamerican way of dealing >>> with the color spectrum. If something is quite hot, in English we say it is >>> red hot. If it is even hotter, we say it is white hot. But astronomers talk >>> about blue stars (which are hotter than red stars). ... >> >> Erh??? Blue may mean hot to an astronomer, or to nuclear men handling very >> high-temperature plasma, or to people who use blowtorches, but not to the >> general population of an area where Nahuatl is likely to be spoken. {chi} is >> so simple and short a morpheme that most likely we have a stray coincidence. >> From karttu at nantucket.net Tue Sep 5 17:14:08 2000 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2000 13:14:08 -0400 Subject: The use of XIHUIT Message-ID: >From: John Sullivan >To: nahuat-l at server2.umt.edu >Subject: Re: The use of XIHUIT >Date: Tue, Sep 5, 2000, 10:14 AM > > Just for the heck of it, here are colores used by my informants in the > Huasteca: > > chipawak, white > yayawik, black > chichiltik, red > chokoxtik, brown > tenextik, grey > kostik, yellow > chilkostik, orange > azultik, blue > xoxowik, green as in a mature green leaf > axoxowik, green as in a deep body of water > selxiwitl, green as in a new/young green leaf > > John Sullivan > Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas > > The words that end in -tik have by now been reanalyzed as adjectives on the model of Spanish (witness the loan construction azultik), but their origin is otherwise. The verb-forming suffix -ti can be added to a noun to make a verb meaning 'to become (the noun)' or "to become like (the noun).' Verbs formed with -ti belong to the verb class that forms the preterite with -k (orthographic -c in traditional spelling). So tenextik is from tenextli 'lime' (literally stone-ash) and basically means 'it has become like lime' (i.e., ashen gray). chi:ltik and its reduplicated form chi:chi:ltik basically means 'it has become like a chi:lli' (i.e., red). chipa:huak isn't made with -ti. It is directly from the verb chipa:hua and literally means 'it has become pure.' Look at all those lovely words for green. Zacapoaxtla Nahuat shares with Classical Nahuatl the word ma:tla:l-in meaning dark green, perceived as an entirely different color from xiuh- 'blue-green.' Fran From jsullivan at prodigy.net.mx Fri Sep 8 02:21:52 2000 From: jsullivan at prodigy.net.mx (John Sullivan) Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2000 21:21:52 -0500 Subject: nauh coincidence? Message-ID: Fran and Joe especially, Is the following (suggested by a colleague in Cuernavaca) a coincidence or is there a linguistic foundation? 1. (tla)canaua: adelgazar tablas o piedras anchas o la loça cuando la hace (Molina). 2. Nahualpilli: dios de los lapidarios (Simeon). 3. nahui: adj.n. para contar los seres animados, los objetos finos y planos (Simeon). John Sullivan Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas From HJVsqzIMIS at aol.com Sun Sep 10 18:51:44 2000 From: HJVsqzIMIS at aol.com (HJVsqzIMIS at aol.com) Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2000 14:51:44 EDT Subject: Apology from BIA Chief Message-ID: Queridos Amigos, In case you missed it, I'm sending you the text of Mr. Gover's speech from Friday. I think it is of interest to all connected with the study of Native American Languages. Many blessings, Henry Vasquez Remarks of Kevin Gover, Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Department of the Interior at the Ceremony Acknowledging the 175th Anniversary of the Establishment of the Bureau of Indian Affairs September 8, 2000 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In March of 1824, President James Monroe established the Office of Indian Affairs in the Department of War. Its mission was to conduct the nation's business with regard to Indian affairs. We have come together today to mark the first 175 years of the institution now known as the Bureau of Indian Affairs.  It is appropriate that we do so in the first year of a new century and a new millennium, a time when our leaders are reflecting on what lies ahead and preparing for those challenges.  Before looking ahead, though, this institution must first look back and reflect on what it has wrought and, by doing so, come to know that this is no occasion for celebration; rather it is time for reflection and contemplation, a time for sorrowful truths to be spoken, a time for contrition.  We must first reconcile ourselves to the fact that the works of this agency have at various times profoundly harmed the communities it was meant to serve. From the very beginning, the Office of Indian Affairs was an instrument by which the United States enforced its ambition against the Indian nations and Indian people who stood in its path. And so, the first mission of this institution was to execute the removal of the southeastern tribal nations. By threat, deceit, and force, these great tribal nations were made to march 1,000 miles to the west, leaving thousands of their old, their young and their infirm in hasty graves along the Trail of Tears. As the nation looked to the West for more land, this agency participated in the ethnic cleansing that befell the western tribes. War necessarily begets tragedy; the war for the West was no exception. Yet in these more enlightened times, it must be acknowledged that the deliberate spread of disease, the decimation of the mighty bison herds, the use of the poison alcohol to destroy mind and body, and the cowardly killing of women and children made for tragedy on a scale so ghastly that it cannot be dismissed as merely the inevitable consequence of the clash of competing ways of life. This agency and the good people in it failed in the mission to prevent the devastation. And so great nations of patriot warriors fell. We will never push aside the memory of unnecessary and violent death at places such as Sand Creek, the banks of the Washita River, and Wounded Knee.   Nor did the consequences of war have to include the futile and destructive efforts to annihilate Indian cultures. After the devastation of tribal economies and the deliberate creation of tribal dependence on the services provided by this agency, this agency set out to destroy all things Indian.  This agency forbade the speaking of Indian languages, prohibited the conduct of traditional religious activities, outlawed traditional government, and made Indian people ashamed of who they were. Worst of all, the Bureau of Indian Affairs committed these acts against the children entrusted to its boarding schools, brutalizing them emotionally, psychologically, physically, and spiritually. Even in this era of self -determination, when the Bureau of Indian Affairs is at long last serving as an advocate for Indian people in an atmosphere of mutual respect, the legacy of these misdeeds haunts us. The trauma of shame, fear and anger has passed from one generation to the next, and manifests itself in the rampant alcoholism, drug abuse, and domestic violence that plague Indian country .Many of our people live lives of unrelenting tragedy as Indian families suffer the ruin of lives by alcoholism, suicides made of shame and despair, and violent death at the hands of one another. So many of the maladies suffered today in Indian country result from the failures of this agency. Poverty, ignorance, and disease have been the product of this agency's work. And so today I stand before you as the leader of an institution that in the past has committed acts so terrible that they infect, diminish, and destroy the lives of Indian people decades later, generations later. These things occurred despite the efforts of many good people with good hearts who sought to prevent them. These wrongs must be acknowledged if the healing is to begin. I do not speak today for the United States. That is the province of the nation's elected leaders, and I would not presume to speak on their behalf. I am empowered, however, to speak on behalf of this agency, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and I am quite certain that the words that follow reflect the hearts of its 10,000 employees.  Let us begin by expressing our profound sorrow for what this agency has done in the past. Just like you, when we think of these misdeeds and their tragic consequences, our hearts break and our grief is as pure and complete as yours. We desperately wish that we could change this history, but of course we cannot. On behalf of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, I extend this formal apology to Indian people for the historical conduct of this agency. And while the BIA employees of today did not commit these wrongs, we acknowledge that the institution we serve did. We accept this inheritance, this legacy of racism and inhumanity. And by accepting this legacy, we accept also the moral responsibility of putting things right.  We therefore begin this important work anew, and make a new commitment to the people and communities that we serve, a commitment born of the dedication we share with you to the cause of renewed hope and prosperity for Indian country. Never again will this agency stand silent when hate and violence are committed against Indians. Never again will we allow policy to proceed from the assumption that Indians possess less human genius than the other races. Never again will we be complicit in the theft of Indian property. Never again will we appoint false leaders who serve purposes other than those of the tribes. Never again will we allow unflattering and stereotypical images of Indian people to deface the halls of government or lead the American people to shallow and ignorant beliefs about Indians. Never again will we attack your religions, your languages, your rituals, or any of your tribal ways. Never again will we seize your children, nor teach them to be ashamed of who they are. Never again. We cannot yet ask your forgiveness, not while the burdens of this agency's history weigh so heavily on tribal communities. What we do ask is that, together, we allow the healing to begin: As you return to your homes, and as you talk with your people, please tell them that time of dying is at its end. Tell your children that the time of shame and fear is over. Tell your young men and women to replace their anger with hope and love for their people. Together, we must wipe the tears of seven generations. Together, we must allow our broken hearts to mend. Together, we will face a challenging world with confidence and trust. Together, let us resolve that when our future leaders gather to discuss the history of this institution, it will be time to celebrate the rebirth of joy, freedom, and progress for the Indian Nations. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was born in 1824 in a time of war on Indian people. May it live in the year 2000 and beyond as an instrument of their prosperity. --END--                                                                  From dfrye at umich.edu Mon Sep 11 00:24:46 2000 From: dfrye at umich.edu (David L. Frye) Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2000 20:24:46 -0400 Subject: REVIEW: Brokaw on Gray and Fiering, eds.,_The Language Encounter in the Americas, 1492-1800_ (fwd) Message-ID: This review, and the book under review, seem relevant: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2000 07:58:06 -0400 From: H-LatAm.FGCU Reply-To: H-Net Latin-American History List To: H-LATAM at H-NET.MSU.EDU Subject: REVIEW: Brokaw on Gray and Fiering, eds., _The Language Encounte r in the Americas, 1492-1800_ H-NET BOOK REVIEW Published by H-Latam at h-net.msu.edu (September 2000) Gray, Edward C. and Norman Fiering, eds. _The Language Encounter in the Americas, 1492-1800_. European and Global Interaction, Vol. 1. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2000. x + 342 pp. Preface, introduction, illustrations, bibliographical references, and index. $49.95 (cloth), ISBN 1-57181-210-5; forthcoming (alk. paper), ISBN 1- 57181-160-5. Reviewed for H-LatAm by Galen Brokaw, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Lafayette College. < brokawg at lafayette.edu> The Communicative Dimension of Colonial Contact in the Americas One of the most neglected phenomena in accounts of the New World colonial period has been the processes of communicative interaction between indigenous and European individuals and institutions. _The Language Encounter in the Americas, 1492-1800_ joins other recent works to help fill that void by examining the complex interaction between indigenous and Amerindian languages in the colonial Americas. Many of the scholars represented here have been influential in demonstrating the importance and productivity of this line of inquiry. The nature of this subject is inherently interdisciplinary and the contributors to this volume come from the fields of anthropology, art history, history, linguistics, and literature. Although the various essays focus on different sets of issues and perspectives, the unifying theme of linguistic or communicative interaction ties them together in complementary ways. The essays that comprise the book were originally presented at a conference organized by Norman Fiering and Edward Gray at the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. As Director and Librarian of the John Carter Brown Library, which houses one of the most extensive collections of early indigenous-language printed material, Fiering wished to promote a dialogue that would help break down disciplinary barriers and allow a cross-fertilization of insights and perspectives from different fields. To this end, Fiering and Gray brought together a group of scholars who were working on similar issues from different disciplinary perspectives. The strength of this book is precisely its diverse and multi-disciplinary nature. The essays provide an introduction to many of the issues raised in all the disciplines represented. In this way, they further pave the way for even more integrated approaches and foster a more complete understanding of the cultural and linguistic encounter that took place in the Americas. The book is divided into five sections: Terms of Contact; Signs and Symbols; The Literate and the Nonliterate; Intermediaries; and Theory. I. The Terms of Contact The first essay by James Axtell, "The Babel of Tongues: Communicating with the Indians in Eastern North America," provides an historical overview of the problems and solutions related to the language encounter along the coast and the inland of Eastern North America. He begins by discussing how language problems reveal themselves in early colonial texts. He then surveys the various solutions to these problems, and their advantages and disadvantages. The article discusses the use of gestures and the development of jargons and pidgins. Of particular interest are the issues and processes involved in the acquisition of European languages by Indians and of Indian languages by Europeans who then served as interpreters. Axtell demonstrates how these linguistic phenomena fit into the European project of colonization and how native people reacted, accommodated, and/or resisted these processes. In so doing, he documents an often neglected component of the colonial encounter. In "The Use of Pidgins and Jargons on the East of Coast of North America," Ives Goddard discusses the "little known fact that a number of local pidgins and jargons were spoken on the East Coast, in the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic region" (p. 61). The article focuses primarily on the best documented of the East Coast pidgins, Pidgin Delaware, but also briefly deals with other East Coast Algonquin-based pidgins and pidgin English. Goddard argues that the grammatical features of Algonquin-based pidgins demonstrate that the Indians played the major formative role in developing these media. Thus, "the use of Algonquin pidgins furnishes important insights into the attitudes of the East Coast Indians toward the Europeans as they tried to control the impact of the European encounter" (p. 75). II. Signs and Symbols In "Pictures, Gestures, Hieroglyphs: 'Mute Eloquence' in Sixteenth-Century Mexico," Pauline Moffit Watts analyzes the various forms of non-verbal communication -- what she labels "mute eloquence" -- utilized by missionaries in sixteenth-century Mexico. She discusses rhetorical gestures, visual images, the influence of monastic sign language, dramatic representations, and the pictographic testerian catechisms. Although Moffit provides little direct evidence for the influence of some of these forms of representation -- rhetorical gestures and monastic sign language, for example -- they certainly formed a part of the cultural resources available to European priests. Some may disagree with Mofffit's extremely expanded notion of literacy, but her analysis raises provocative questions about communicative interaction between Spanish and indigenous cultures in the early colonial period. In "Iconic Discourse: The Language of Images in Seventeenth-Century New France," Margaret J. Leahey discusses the response of Hurons to the images introduced by the Jesuits as aides in catechization. Leahey explains that the disparity between the cultural background of the Hurons and that of the Europeans necessarily produced a very different interpretation of religious imagery. In support of this argument, she analyzes the Huron reaction to disease and the stylistic changes in ceremonial masks. The final essay in this section, "Mapping after the Letter: Graphology and Indigenous Cartography in New Spain" by Dana Leibsohn, analyzes the convergence of indigenous pictographic cartography and alphabetic script in sixteenth and seventeenth-century land _merced_ documents. Leibsohn emphasizes the materiality of painting and alphabetic writing -- something that historians and literary critics often ignore -- and analyzes the relationship between these two media in such documents. Leibsohn's own critical performance is a creative combination of art criticism and textual analysis that deserves attention in its own right. III. The Literate and the Nonliterate The sixth essay in the collection, "Continuity vs. Acculturation: Aztec and Inca Cases of Alphabetic Literacy," by Antonio Mazzotti is a brief overview of colonial texts that represent the appropriation of alphabetic literacy by indigenous writers. Mazzotti argues that texts written or compiled by writers such as Sahagun and Ixtlilxochitl from Mexico and Titu Cusi Yupanqui, the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, and Guaman Poma from Peru exhibit, to varying degrees, attributes derived from indigenous perspectives and modes of representation, with a particular emphasis on orality and structures of ritual. Although Mazzotti himself recognizes that his treatment is very general, his discussion has important theoretical implications that are sure to produce more in-depth analyses of specific traditions and individual works. In "Native Languages as Spoken and Written: view from Southern New England," Kathleen J. Bragdon discusses the relationship between language and colonization through an examination of seventeenth-century linguistic descriptions from Southern New England. She explains that contact situations demand the establishment of a shared communicative practice. Although ostensibly the English controlled the formation of that practice in both English and native languages, texts produced by native speakers of Massachusett preserve many of the attributes of native discourse. Bragdon argues that the alphabetic communicative practices of New England natives both complement indigenous oral traditions and contest the imposition of colonial authority. In "The M'ikmaq Hieroglyphic Prayer Book: Writing and Christianity in Maritime Canada, 1675-1921," Bruce Greenfield traces the use of literacy in the history of European evangelization among the M'ikmaq Indians. The French catholic missionaries originally emphasized the rote memorization of prayers, hoping for an understanding over time. As an aide in this memorization, they introduced a hieroglyphic prayer book that the M'ikmaq adopted and preserved for 250 years even during extended periods with no European presence or supervision. Greenfield points out that the French use of this hieroglyphic script represents an attempt to control the dissemination of knowledge that is analogous to the situation in France as well. The ease with which the Indians adopted and preserved this script, along with other evidence, attests to the pre-existence of a hieroglyphic system of representation that the M'ikmaq were able to adapt conceptually to the new context of European religion. Greenfield argues that the preservation of this tradition along side alphabetic literacy introduced later by English Baptist missionaries reveals the ideological nature of literacy practice and demands an approach that considers the hieroglyphic prayer book as an artifact with symbolic properties used in specific social contexts. IV. Intermediaries The next essay, "Interpreters Snatched from the Shore: The Successful and the Others" by Frances Karttunen, examines the qualities necessary for the survival of interpreters who were forced to gain their linguistics skills in a foreign and often hostile environment. Karttunen surveys the lives of several colonial interpreters and the diverse paths that led them to this career: victims of kidnapping, castaways, missionaries, ritual kin, etc. She concludes that among the most important attributes for success were flexibility, youth, sharp intellect, and good luck. In the second essay of this section, "Mohawk Schoolmasters and Catechists in Mid-Eighteenth-Century Iroquoia: An Experiment in Fostering Literacy and Religious Change," William B. Hart analyzes the use of native leaders as schoolmasters and catechists in eighteenth-century evangelization efforts and the introduction of literacy and the translation of texts into alphabetic Mohawk. He explains that although this made Christianity a viable, indeed essential, part of indigenous religion, it supplemented rather than supplanted native beliefs and practices. Furthermore, literacy and the use of native leaders fostered a sense of local ambition and autonomy that led the Iroquois to adapt and adopt Christianity in unique ways. In "The Making of Logan, the Mingo Narrator," Edward C. Gray uses the case of the Revolutionary-era Indian orator Soyechtowa, also known as Logan, in order to examine the eighteenth-century notion that the speech of indigenous Americans had a unique and natural eloquence. Gray explains that Logan's reputation was based on an address allegedly given in 1774 after being defeated by the Virginia militia. First, Gray argues that both biographical details and what little we know of northeastern Indian speechways, which valued silence over verbosity, seem to contradict the popular image of Logan as a respected indigenous leader. Gray also places the "myth of native eloquence" in the context of eighteenth-century theories of language, translation, and society as well as the ideology of the Revolutionary-era North American colonies. V. Theory In, "Spanish Colonization and the Indigenous Languages of America," Isaias Lerner provides a brief overview of Spanish colonial policies and practices concerning the study and use of indigenous languages. This history is inherently related to the linguistic interaction between Spanish and indigenous tongues, and Lerner discusses how this interaction reveals itself in literary texts from the period, from Ercilla to Cervantes. Lieve Jooken's essay, "Descriptions of American Indian Word Forms in Colonial Missionary Grammars," examines eighteenth-century grammatical descriptions of Amerindian languages and their relationship to pre-Enlightenment European language theory. Jooken demonstrates how the "European criteria of universality and appropriateness, relying on a model of classical languages, impeded in many cases a truthful description of Indian speech" (p. 299). He goes on to show that although a few writers were able to produce empirical linguistic descriptions free of the preconceptions based on classical grammars, they did not "yield a theoretical separation between the structure of a language and its connection with evaluative cultural categories" (p. 307). While Jooken's essay focuses on instances of linguistic description and their relationship to the theory of language, the final chapter of the collection, "'Savage' Languages in Eighteenth-Century Theoretical History of the Language" by Rudiger Schreyer, examines the debate that was taking place between competing theories of language origin and evolution. America became the battleground where these theories vied for position by attempting to use evidence from indigenous languages to support their claims. On the one hand, "Christian doctrine viewed linguistic change as a deterioration from the God-given and perfect language of Paradise" (p. 318); on the other, the new science of the eighteenth century posited that language evolved in conjunction with civilization from primitive chaos to sophisticated structure. The history of this debate sheds light on European attitudes toward indigenous languages and societies. In reviewing a collection of essays, it is difficult to be specific about the merits of the entire work. The diversity of disciplinary approaches represented in this book makes the task doubly difficult. The editors and authors, however, have done an excellent job of avoiding esoteric methodologies that would have limited the audience. This is a very accessible interdisciplinary book that will be essential for anyone interested in European and indigenous contact in the colonial period. Copyright (c) 2000, by H-Net, all rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit, educational use if proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other permission, please contact hbooks at h-net.msu.edu. From jshlasko at san.rr.com Mon Sep 11 04:08:12 2000 From: jshlasko at san.rr.com (Judy Shlasko) Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2000 21:08:12 -0700 Subject: Apology from BIA Chief Message-ID: Very interesting. Thanks for sending it. Remember when I used to read books on "Red power" and wrote papers on the wrongs committed against the Native Americans? ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Sunday, September 10, 2000 11:51 AM Subject: Apology from BIA Chief > Queridos Amigos, > > In case you missed it, I'm sending you the text of Mr. Gover's speech > from Friday. I think it is of interest to all connected with the study of > Native American Languages. > > Many blessings, > Henry Vasquez > Remarks of > Kevin Gover, Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs > Department of the Interior > at the > Ceremony Acknowledging the 175th Anniversary > of the Establishment of the > Bureau of Indian Affairs > September 8, 2000 > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > In March of 1824, President James Monroe established the Office of Indian > Affairs in the Department of War. Its mission was to conduct the nation's > business with regard to Indian affairs. We have come together today to mark > the first 175 years of the institution now known as the Bureau of Indian > Affairs. > It is appropriate that we do so in the first year of a new century and a new > millennium, a time when our leaders are reflecting on what lies ahead and > preparing for those challenges. Before looking ahead, though, this > institution must first look back and reflect on what it has wrought and, by > doing so, come to know that this is no occasion for celebration; rather it is > time for reflection and contemplation, a time for sorrowful truths to be > spoken, a time for contrition. > We must first reconcile ourselves to the fact that the works of this agency > have at various times profoundly harmed the communities it was meant to > serve. From the very beginning, the Office of Indian Affairs was an > instrument by which the United States enforced its ambition against the > Indian nations and Indian people who stood in its path. And so, the first > mission of this institution was to execute the removal of the southeastern > tribal nations. By threat, deceit, and force, these great tribal nations were > made to march 1,000 miles to the west, leaving thousands of their old, their > young and their infirm in hasty graves along the Trail of Tears. > As the nation looked to the West for more land, this agency participated in > the ethnic cleansing that befell the western tribes. War necessarily begets > tragedy; the war for the West was no exception. Yet in these more enlightened > times, it must be acknowledged that the deliberate spread of disease, the > decimation of the mighty bison herds, the use of the poison alcohol to > destroy mind and body, and the cowardly killing of women and children made > for tragedy on a scale so ghastly that it cannot be dismissed as merely the > inevitable consequence of the clash of competing ways of life. This agency > and the good people in it failed in the mission to prevent the devastation. > And so great nations of patriot warriors fell. We will never push aside the > memory of unnecessary and violent death at places such as Sand Creek, the > banks of the Washita River, and Wounded Knee. > Nor did the consequences of war have to include the futile and destructive > efforts to annihilate Indian cultures. After the devastation of tribal > economies and the deliberate creation of tribal dependence on the services > provided by this agency, this agency set out to destroy all things Indian. > This agency forbade the speaking of Indian languages, prohibited the conduct > of traditional religious activities, outlawed traditional government, and > made Indian people ashamed of who they were. Worst of all, the Bureau of > Indian Affairs committed these acts against the children entrusted to its > boarding schools, brutalizing them emotionally, psychologically, physically, > and spiritually. Even in this era of self -determination, when the Bureau of > Indian Affairs is at long last serving as an advocate for Indian people in an > atmosphere of mutual respect, the legacy of these misdeeds haunts us. The > trauma of shame, fear and anger has passed from one generation to the next, > and manifests itself in the rampant alcoholism, drug abuse, and domestic > violence that plague Indian country .Many of our people live lives of > unrelenting tragedy as Indian families suffer the ruin of lives by > alcoholism, suicides made of shame and despair, and violent death at the > hands of one another. So many of the maladies suffered today in Indian > country result from the failures of this agency. Poverty, ignorance, and > disease have been the product of this agency's work. > And so today I stand before you as the leader of an institution that in the > past has committed acts so terrible that they infect, diminish, and destroy > the lives of Indian people decades later, generations later. These things > occurred despite the efforts of many good people with good hearts who sought > to prevent them. These wrongs must be acknowledged if the healing is to begin. > I do not speak today for the United States. That is the province of the > nation's elected leaders, and I would not presume to speak on their behalf. I > am empowered, however, to speak on behalf of this agency, the Bureau of > Indian Affairs, and I am quite certain that the words that follow reflect the > hearts of its 10,000 employees. > Let us begin by expressing our profound sorrow for what this agency has done > in the past. Just like you, when we think of these misdeeds and their tragic > consequences, our hearts break and our grief is as pure and complete as > yours. We desperately wish that we could change this history, but of course > we cannot. On behalf of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, I extend this formal > apology to Indian people for the historical conduct of this agency. > And while the BIA employees of today did not commit these wrongs, we > acknowledge that the institution we serve did. We accept this inheritance, > this legacy of racism and inhumanity. And by accepting this legacy, we accept > also the moral responsibility of putting things right. > We therefore begin this important work anew, and make a new commitment to the > people and communities that we serve, a commitment born of the dedication we > share with you to the cause of renewed hope and prosperity for Indian > country. Never again will this agency stand silent when hate and violence are > committed against Indians. Never again will we allow policy to proceed from > the assumption that Indians possess less human genius than the other races. > Never again will we be complicit in the theft of Indian property. Never again > will we appoint false leaders who serve purposes other than those of the > tribes. Never again will we allow unflattering and stereotypical images of > Indian people to deface the halls of government or lead the American people > to shallow and ignorant beliefs about Indians. Never again will we attack > your religions, your languages, your rituals, or any of your tribal ways. > Never again will we seize your children, nor teach them to be ashamed of who > they are. Never again. > We cannot yet ask your forgiveness, not while the burdens of this agency's > history weigh so heavily on tribal communities. What we do ask is that, > together, we allow the healing to begin: As you return to your homes, and as > you talk with your people, please tell them that time of dying is at its end. > Tell your children that the time of shame and fear is over. Tell your young > men and women to replace their anger with hope and love for their people. > Together, we must wipe the tears of seven generations. Together, we must > allow our broken hearts to mend. Together, we will face a challenging world > with confidence and trust. Together, let us resolve that when our future > leaders gather to discuss the history of this institution, it will be time to > celebrate the rebirth of joy, freedom, and progress for the Indian Nations. > The Bureau of Indian Affairs was born in 1824 in a time of war on Indian > people. May it live in the year 2000 and beyond as an instrument of their > prosperity. > --END-- > > From campbel at indiana.edu Mon Sep 11 04:31:51 2000 From: campbel at indiana.edu (r. joe campbell) Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2000 23:31:51 -0500 Subject: nauh coincidence? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: John, My comments are interspersed: On Thu, 7 Sep 2000, John Sullivan wrote: > Is the following (suggested by a colleague in Cuernavaca) a coincidence > or is there a linguistic foundation? > 1. (tla)canaua: adelgazar tablas o piedras anchas o la lo�a cuando la hace > (Molina). I don't think so. I know there are some things that we still don't know about stem variation, but I *do* think that when there is variation, it is at the end of the apparent stem (in this case, 'canahua'). The safest part of the stem for identification is the beginning. For example, in the examples of 'canahua' that I include below, you find the "basic" shape, but 'canac-tic' as well. 'patlahua', "widen", has the same variation (nic-patlahua = I widen it; patlahua-c = wide; and patlac-tic = wide), but it has a *third* stem variation: patlach-tic = wide. > 2. Nahualpilli: dios de los lapidarios (Simeon). I don't know enough about the culture and the pantheon to have an opinion, but I think the absence of 'ca-' is fatal. > 3. nahui: adj.n. para contar los seres animados, los objetos finos y planos > (Simeon). I wonder why Simeon narrowed his definition down so much more than Molina did. In his 1571 Spanish-Nahuatl dictionary, Molina (f118v) said: Para contar cosas animadas, maderos, mantas, chili, papel, esteras, tablas, tortilas [sic], sogas o cordeles, hilo, pieles, canoas, barcas o nauios, cielos, cuchillos, ca~delas o cosas semejantes, dizen enesta manera. Then he gives the *generic* list of numbers. I don't think that he meant to limit their use to flat things -- even though I'm puzzled about why he limited them at all. Here is the list of some occurrences of from the FC. Best regards, Joe cana:hua*** cacanactic. thin overall. . canahua. it becomes thin. . canahua. it lessens; it thins. . canahuac. fine, thin. . canahuacantli. temple. . canahualoni. something which can be thinned. . canahuaz. it will shrink. . ehuayocanahuac. thin-skinned. . icanahuacan. his temples; on his temples; on the side of it head; on the sides of its head; sides of its head. . icanahuaya. its thin place. . incanahuacan. on their temples; their temples. . iztacanactli. thin bar of salt. . mocanahua. it is flattened, it is thinned. . motecanahua. it is thinned, it is made slender. . nacacanahuac. thin-fleshed. . nacayocanahuac. thin-fleshed. . niccanahua. I thin it. . quicanahua. they thin it; they thin it out. . quicanahuaya. they flattened it. . tlacanahuacazotl. thinly stitched. . tlacanahualli. something which is thinned; something that is thinned; thin [plate]. . tlacanahuani. one who thins something. . tocanahuacan. our temple. . xincayocanahuac. having thin scales. . From mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk Mon Sep 11 16:52:35 2000 From: mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk (Anthony Appleyard) Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2000 16:52:35 GMT Subject: The use of XIHUIT Message-ID: Anthony Appleyard wrote:- > Erh??? Blue may mean hot to an astronomer, or to nuclear men handling very > high-temperature plasma, or to people who use blowtorches, but not to the > general population of an area where Nahuatl is likely to be spoken. {chi} is > so simple and short a morpheme that most likely we have a stray coincidence. I later realized that to a general population not familiar with modern tools etc, one possible connection between heat and blueness might be that when the sky is blue the uninterrupted sunlight will make the weather hot. From mdmorris at indiana.edu Wed Sep 13 01:48:10 2000 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark David Morris) Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2000 20:48:10 -0500 Subject: nauh coincidence? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I would ask the favor of other opinions of a translation of tenancocotoc and help putting one of Luis Reyes students in contact with Louise Burkhart. tlazocamati, Mark Morris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief. Eccl 1:18 To realize that our knowledge is ignorance, this is a noble insight. To regard our ignorance as knowledge, this is mental sickness. Only when we are sick of our sickness, shall we cease to be sick. The Sage is not sick, being sick of sickness; This is the secret of health. TTC 71 MDM, PhD Candidate Dept. of History, Indiana Univ. From apaneco at saltel.net Sun Sep 17 09:08:00 2000 From: apaneco at saltel.net (Howard Quilliam Dickens) Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2000 10:08:00 +0100 Subject: negation in Pipil Nahuat Message-ID: Here in El Salvador we currently use the word "Inte" to imply negation e.g. Inte ni-ueli (I cannot) I am almost certain the the word, "inte", is a contraction and would welcome any ideas as to it's original form. Occasionaly the word inteajka are used to imply "it cannot be". As this contains the negating participle aj (AH), it may provide a clue. Any ideas are more than welcome! Tasukamati uan tiyauj yamanik Howard Dickens Ahuachapan, El Salvador From karttu at nantucket.net Fri Sep 1 14:32:48 2000 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2000 10:32:48 -0400 Subject: The use of XIHUIT Message-ID: Some thoughts on Howard's information about Nahuat (or would one say Pipil?) usage in El Salvador: > I will wait for you = ni-yauj ni-mits-cheya kiuni In niyauj we see translation of the Spanish periphrastic use of ir (voy) for the future followed by the verb phrase, here in the Nahuat present tense form rather than the future form (which would end in -z, I suppose). > Wait for me = ti-yauj ti-nech-cheya kiuni. And here we see real innovation for the obtative/imperative: the translation of ir again to -yauj with the second-person indicative ti- prefix rather than second-person obtative xi- with both verbs. > Regarding "chi" and "chiua" (CHIHUA); the latter is used here but only in > infinite and future constructs In all other cases the UA suffix is dropped Since chi:hua belongs to the class that drops its final vowel to form one of its stems in Nahuatl, it's not surprising to learn that in El Salvador Nahuat the final vowel is gone a lot of the time. In Nahuatl the preterite stem is chi:uh, where the final [w] is often pronounced as [h] or is hardly audible at all. > although there is a rare use of a preterit "Chiuak" This is either an example of the retention of a very conservative preterite form, or it is a generalization of chihua to the class of invariant verb stems that always add final [-k]. > past participle: chijtuk > ye uipta naja ni-chijtuk se nuhuitsut (The day before yesterday I was > making a hoe) This looks like the Nahuatl -toc construction made of the ligature -ti- plus the preterite-as-present verb oc, giving -toc (phonetically [-tok]). In Nahuatl it has been reanalyzed as a past participle/adjective on the model of Spanish. > passive: chi-at > niyauj ni-uika ne kuauit pal nik-chiat se nuhuitsut ( I go to carry the > wood for to make a hoe) I would call this purposive rather than passive. In Nahuatl, the full ending is -ti:hui, but in the present singular it is -ti:uh, so 'I go to (Verb)' would be ni-c-chi:hua-ti:uh (Verb phrase), which seems to correspond closely with nik-chia-t. > "chi" or " chij" also seems to appear in such words as chijcultic (chij (to > make) + cultic (something twisted) In Zacapoaxtla Nahuat there is a verb chihco:loa: that means 'to twist or to move in a serpentine manner' if used reflexively or 'to twist something.' The verb is also found in Molina's dictionary. I think it may be related to chico 'to the side' rather than to the verb chi:hua. > e.g. yeka-chiua naui tunal pal tikualat ka-nikan. (must make four days to > come to be here) Looks like a translation of Spanish hace to chi:hua to me. > Regarding "xiuit", I have spoken to my tutors, ( the campesinos of Tacuba) > and they are adamant in maintaining their strange use of the word. I have often wondered about the two meanings of Nahuatl xihuitl, meaning 'grass, green stone, etc.' on the one hand, and 'year' on the other (not to be confused with xi:huitl 'comet' which is distinguished from the other word(s) by vowel length). Someone has suggested that the 'year' sense is because in the calendar there was the binding of the years, and it was like tying up a bundle of grass. This strikes me as rather thin reasoning. Maybe there just happen to be two homophonous words. It happens in English, so why shouldn't it happen in other languages? I am pretty confident that the extension of the use of xiuh- as an intensifier meaning 'hot' has to do with the Mesoamerican way of dealing with the color spectrum. If something is quite hot, in English we say it is red hot. If it is even hotter, we say it is white hot. But astronomers talk about blue stars (which are hotter than red stars). In the Mesoamerican version of the color spectrum, there is a part of the continuum that is deemed blue-green: the color of grass, turquoise, quetzal plumage, etc. One can see how very hot things would be blue-green hot. > "chiyakiya yek" (making good or the right time is coming) Looks like using chi:hua to translate Spanish hace once again. Doing calques on Spanish constructions like the periphrastic future and idiomatic constructions with tener, hacer, etc., has a long documented history for Central Mexican Nahuatl, so it's not surprising to see similar innovations in El Salvador. Fran From mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk Mon Sep 4 10:05:08 2000 From: mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk (Anthony Appleyard) Date: Mon, 4 Sep 2000 10:05:08 GMT Subject: The use of XIHUIT Message-ID: Frances Karttunen wrote:- > I am pretty confident that the extension of the use of xiuh- as an > intensifier meaning 'hot' has to do with the Mesoamerican way of dealing > with the color spectrum. If something is quite hot, in English we say it is > red hot. If it is even hotter, we say it is white hot. But astronomers talk > about blue stars (which are hotter than red stars). ... Erh??? Blue may mean hot to an astronomer, or to nuclear men handling very high-temperature plasma, or to people who use blowtorches, but not to the general population of an area where Nahuatl is likely to be spoken. {chi} is so simple and short a morpheme that most likely we have a stray coincidence. From karttu at nantucket.net Mon Sep 4 11:07:07 2000 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Mon, 4 Sep 2000 07:07:07 -0400 Subject: The use of XIHUIT Message-ID: Oh heavens! I didn't mean that Nahuatl speakers had borrowed this usage from English. I mean that if some people who speak Indo-European languages describe things hotter than red-hot as blue-hot, it's likely that Mesoamericans would describe really hot things as blue-green hot. We divide up the spectrum as going through the steps yellow-green-blue-violet, but Mesoamericans have a single word (xiuh- for Nahuatl speakers) for the green-blue continuum of the spectrum. Chi- may seem like a very short, simple morphological element, but if it's cognate with xiuh-, it's a CVC morpheme, and such structures are the building blocks of the morphology and lexicon of Nahuatl. If you want a REALLY short lexical item, consider i:-, which is the stem of the transitive verb 'to drink something.' Fran ---------- >From: "Anthony Appleyard" >To: nahuat-l at server2.umt.edu >Subject: Re: The use of XIHUIT >Date: Mon, Sep 4, 2000, 6:05 AM > > Frances Karttunen wrote:- >> I am pretty confident that the extension of the use of xiuh- as an >> intensifier meaning 'hot' has to do with the Mesoamerican way of dealing >> with the color spectrum. If something is quite hot, in English we say it is >> red hot. If it is even hotter, we say it is white hot. But astronomers talk >> about blue stars (which are hotter than red stars). ... > > Erh??? Blue may mean hot to an astronomer, or to nuclear men handling very > high-temperature plasma, or to people who use blowtorches, but not to the > general population of an area where Nahuatl is likely to be spoken. {chi} is > so simple and short a morpheme that most likely we have a stray coincidence. > From jsullivan at prodigy.net.mx Tue Sep 5 14:14:50 2000 From: jsullivan at prodigy.net.mx (John Sullivan) Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2000 09:14:50 -0500 Subject: The use of XIHUIT In-Reply-To: <200009041051.GAA01877@nantucket.net> Message-ID: Just for the heck of it, here are colores used by my informants in the Huasteca: chipawak, white yayawik, black chichiltik, red chokoxtik, brown tenextik, grey kostik, yellow chilkostik, orange azultik, blue xoxowik, green as in a mature green leaf axoxowik, green as in a deep body of water selxiwitl, green as in a new/young green leaf John Sullivan Universidad Aut?noma de Zacatecas on 9/4/00 6:07 AM, Frances Karttunen at karttu at nantucket.net wrote: > Oh heavens! I didn't mean that Nahuatl speakers had borrowed this usage > from English. I mean that if some people who speak Indo-European languages > describe things hotter than red-hot as blue-hot, it's likely that > Mesoamericans would describe really hot things as blue-green hot. We divide > up the spectrum as going through the steps yellow-green-blue-violet, but > Mesoamericans have a single word (xiuh- for Nahuatl speakers) for the > green-blue continuum of the spectrum. > > Chi- may seem like a very short, simple morphological element, but if it's > cognate with xiuh-, it's a CVC morpheme, and such structures are the > building blocks of the morphology and lexicon of Nahuatl. > > If you want a REALLY short lexical item, consider i:-, which is the stem of > the transitive verb 'to drink something.' > > Fran > > ---------- >> From: "Anthony Appleyard" >> To: nahuat-l at server2.umt.edu >> Subject: Re: The use of XIHUIT >> Date: Mon, Sep 4, 2000, 6:05 AM >> > >> Frances Karttunen wrote:- >>> I am pretty confident that the extension of the use of xiuh- as an >>> intensifier meaning 'hot' has to do with the Mesoamerican way of dealing >>> with the color spectrum. If something is quite hot, in English we say it is >>> red hot. If it is even hotter, we say it is white hot. But astronomers talk >>> about blue stars (which are hotter than red stars). ... >> >> Erh??? Blue may mean hot to an astronomer, or to nuclear men handling very >> high-temperature plasma, or to people who use blowtorches, but not to the >> general population of an area where Nahuatl is likely to be spoken. {chi} is >> so simple and short a morpheme that most likely we have a stray coincidence. >> From karttu at nantucket.net Tue Sep 5 17:14:08 2000 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2000 13:14:08 -0400 Subject: The use of XIHUIT Message-ID: >From: John Sullivan >To: nahuat-l at server2.umt.edu >Subject: Re: The use of XIHUIT >Date: Tue, Sep 5, 2000, 10:14 AM > > Just for the heck of it, here are colores used by my informants in the > Huasteca: > > chipawak, white > yayawik, black > chichiltik, red > chokoxtik, brown > tenextik, grey > kostik, yellow > chilkostik, orange > azultik, blue > xoxowik, green as in a mature green leaf > axoxowik, green as in a deep body of water > selxiwitl, green as in a new/young green leaf > > John Sullivan > Universidad Aut?noma de Zacatecas > > The words that end in -tik have by now been reanalyzed as adjectives on the model of Spanish (witness the loan construction azultik), but their origin is otherwise. The verb-forming suffix -ti can be added to a noun to make a verb meaning 'to become (the noun)' or "to become like (the noun).' Verbs formed with -ti belong to the verb class that forms the preterite with -k (orthographic -c in traditional spelling). So tenextik is from tenextli 'lime' (literally stone-ash) and basically means 'it has become like lime' (i.e., ashen gray). chi:ltik and its reduplicated form chi:chi:ltik basically means 'it has become like a chi:lli' (i.e., red). chipa:huak isn't made with -ti. It is directly from the verb chipa:hua and literally means 'it has become pure.' Look at all those lovely words for green. Zacapoaxtla Nahuat shares with Classical Nahuatl the word ma:tla:l-in meaning dark green, perceived as an entirely different color from xiuh- 'blue-green.' Fran From jsullivan at prodigy.net.mx Fri Sep 8 02:21:52 2000 From: jsullivan at prodigy.net.mx (John Sullivan) Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2000 21:21:52 -0500 Subject: nauh coincidence? Message-ID: Fran and Joe especially, Is the following (suggested by a colleague in Cuernavaca) a coincidence or is there a linguistic foundation? 1. (tla)canaua: adelgazar tablas o piedras anchas o la lo?a cuando la hace (Molina). 2. Nahualpilli: dios de los lapidarios (Simeon). 3. nahui: adj.n. para contar los seres animados, los objetos finos y planos (Simeon). John Sullivan Universidad Aut?noma de Zacatecas From HJVsqzIMIS at aol.com Sun Sep 10 18:51:44 2000 From: HJVsqzIMIS at aol.com (HJVsqzIMIS at aol.com) Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2000 14:51:44 EDT Subject: Apology from BIA Chief Message-ID: Queridos Amigos, In case you missed it, I'm sending you the text of Mr. Gover's speech from Friday. I think it is of interest to all connected with the study of Native American Languages. Many blessings, Henry Vasquez Remarks of Kevin Gover, Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Department of the Interior at the Ceremony Acknowledging the 175th Anniversary of the Establishment of the Bureau of Indian Affairs September 8, 2000 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In March of 1824, President James Monroe established the Office of Indian Affairs in the Department of War. Its mission was to conduct the nation's business with regard to Indian affairs. We have come together today to mark the first 175 years of the institution now known as the Bureau of Indian Affairs.? It is appropriate that we do so in the first year of a new century and a new millennium, a time when our leaders are reflecting on what lies ahead and preparing for those challenges.? Before looking ahead, though, this institution must first look back and reflect on what it has wrought and, by doing so, come to know that this is no occasion for celebration; rather it is time for reflection and contemplation, a time for sorrowful truths to be spoken, a time for contrition.? We must first reconcile ourselves to the fact that the works of this agency have at various times profoundly harmed the communities it was meant to serve. From the very beginning, the Office of Indian Affairs was an instrument by which the United States enforced its ambition against the Indian nations and Indian people who stood in its path. And so, the first mission of this institution was to execute the removal of the southeastern tribal nations. By threat, deceit, and force, these great tribal nations were made to march 1,000 miles to the west, leaving thousands of their old, their young and their infirm in hasty graves along the Trail of Tears. As the nation looked to the West for more land, this agency participated in the ethnic cleansing that befell the western tribes. War necessarily begets tragedy; the war for the West was no exception. Yet in these more enlightened times, it must be acknowledged that the deliberate spread of disease, the decimation of the mighty bison herds, the use of the poison alcohol to destroy mind and body, and the cowardly killing of women and children made for tragedy on a scale so ghastly that it cannot be dismissed as merely the inevitable consequence of the clash of competing ways of life. This agency and the good people in it failed in the mission to prevent the devastation. And so great nations of patriot warriors fell. We will never push aside the memory of unnecessary and violent death at places such as Sand Creek, the banks of the Washita River, and Wounded Knee.?? Nor did the consequences of war have to include the futile and destructive efforts to annihilate Indian cultures. After the devastation of tribal economies and the deliberate creation of tribal dependence on the services provided by this agency, this agency set out to destroy all things Indian.? This agency forbade the speaking of Indian languages, prohibited the conduct of traditional religious activities, outlawed traditional government, and made Indian people ashamed of who they were. Worst of all, the Bureau of Indian Affairs committed these acts against the children entrusted to its boarding schools, brutalizing them emotionally, psychologically, physically, and spiritually. Even in this era of self -determination, when the Bureau of Indian Affairs is at long last serving as an advocate for Indian people in an atmosphere of mutual respect, the legacy of these misdeeds haunts us. The trauma of shame, fear and anger has passed from one generation to the next, and manifests itself in the rampant alcoholism, drug abuse, and domestic violence that plague Indian country .Many of our people live lives of unrelenting tragedy as Indian families suffer the ruin of lives by alcoholism, suicides made of shame and despair, and violent death at the hands of one another. So many of the maladies suffered today in Indian country result from the failures of this agency. Poverty, ignorance, and disease have been the product of this agency's work. And so today I stand before you as the leader of an institution that in the past has committed acts so terrible that they infect, diminish, and destroy the lives of Indian people decades later, generations later. These things occurred despite the efforts of many good people with good hearts who sought to prevent them. These wrongs must be acknowledged if the healing is to begin. I do not speak today for the United States. That is the province of the nation's elected leaders, and I would not presume to speak on their behalf. I am empowered, however, to speak on behalf of this agency, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and I am quite certain that the words that follow reflect the hearts of its 10,000 employees.? Let us begin by expressing our profound sorrow for what this agency has done in the past. Just like you, when we think of these misdeeds and their tragic consequences, our hearts break and our grief is as pure and complete as yours. We desperately wish that we could change this history, but of course we cannot. On behalf of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, I extend this formal apology to Indian people for the historical conduct of this agency. And while the BIA employees of today did not commit these wrongs, we acknowledge that the institution we serve did. We accept this inheritance, this legacy of racism and inhumanity. And by accepting this legacy, we accept also the moral responsibility of putting things right.? We therefore begin this important work anew, and make a new commitment to the people and communities that we serve, a commitment born of the dedication we share with you to the cause of renewed hope and prosperity for Indian country. Never again will this agency stand silent when hate and violence are committed against Indians. Never again will we allow policy to proceed from the assumption that Indians possess less human genius than the other races. Never again will we be complicit in the theft of Indian property. Never again will we appoint false leaders who serve purposes other than those of the tribes. Never again will we allow unflattering and stereotypical images of Indian people to deface the halls of government or lead the American people to shallow and ignorant beliefs about Indians. Never again will we attack your religions, your languages, your rituals, or any of your tribal ways. Never again will we seize your children, nor teach them to be ashamed of who they are. Never again. We cannot yet ask your forgiveness, not while the burdens of this agency's history weigh so heavily on tribal communities. What we do ask is that, together, we allow the healing to begin: As you return to your homes, and as you talk with your people, please tell them that time of dying is at its end. Tell your children that the time of shame and fear is over. Tell your young men and women to replace their anger with hope and love for their people. Together, we must wipe the tears of seven generations. Together, we must allow our broken hearts to mend. Together, we will face a challenging world with confidence and trust. Together, let us resolve that when our future leaders gather to discuss the history of this institution, it will be time to celebrate the rebirth of joy, freedom, and progress for the Indian Nations. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was born in 1824 in a time of war on Indian people. May it live in the year 2000 and beyond as an instrument of their prosperity. --END-- ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? From dfrye at umich.edu Mon Sep 11 00:24:46 2000 From: dfrye at umich.edu (David L. Frye) Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2000 20:24:46 -0400 Subject: REVIEW: Brokaw on Gray and Fiering, eds.,_The Language Encounter in the Americas, 1492-1800_ (fwd) Message-ID: This review, and the book under review, seem relevant: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2000 07:58:06 -0400 From: H-LatAm.FGCU Reply-To: H-Net Latin-American History List To: H-LATAM at H-NET.MSU.EDU Subject: REVIEW: Brokaw on Gray and Fiering, eds., _The Language Encounte r in the Americas, 1492-1800_ H-NET BOOK REVIEW Published by H-Latam at h-net.msu.edu (September 2000) Gray, Edward C. and Norman Fiering, eds. _The Language Encounter in the Americas, 1492-1800_. European and Global Interaction, Vol. 1. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2000. x + 342 pp. Preface, introduction, illustrations, bibliographical references, and index. $49.95 (cloth), ISBN 1-57181-210-5; forthcoming (alk. paper), ISBN 1- 57181-160-5. Reviewed for H-LatAm by Galen Brokaw, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Lafayette College. < brokawg at lafayette.edu> The Communicative Dimension of Colonial Contact in the Americas One of the most neglected phenomena in accounts of the New World colonial period has been the processes of communicative interaction between indigenous and European individuals and institutions. _The Language Encounter in the Americas, 1492-1800_ joins other recent works to help fill that void by examining the complex interaction between indigenous and Amerindian languages in the colonial Americas. Many of the scholars represented here have been influential in demonstrating the importance and productivity of this line of inquiry. The nature of this subject is inherently interdisciplinary and the contributors to this volume come from the fields of anthropology, art history, history, linguistics, and literature. Although the various essays focus on different sets of issues and perspectives, the unifying theme of linguistic or communicative interaction ties them together in complementary ways. The essays that comprise the book were originally presented at a conference organized by Norman Fiering and Edward Gray at the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. As Director and Librarian of the John Carter Brown Library, which houses one of the most extensive collections of early indigenous-language printed material, Fiering wished to promote a dialogue that would help break down disciplinary barriers and allow a cross-fertilization of insights and perspectives from different fields. To this end, Fiering and Gray brought together a group of scholars who were working on similar issues from different disciplinary perspectives. The strength of this book is precisely its diverse and multi-disciplinary nature. The essays provide an introduction to many of the issues raised in all the disciplines represented. In this way, they further pave the way for even more integrated approaches and foster a more complete understanding of the cultural and linguistic encounter that took place in the Americas. The book is divided into five sections: Terms of Contact; Signs and Symbols; The Literate and the Nonliterate; Intermediaries; and Theory. I. The Terms of Contact The first essay by James Axtell, "The Babel of Tongues: Communicating with the Indians in Eastern North America," provides an historical overview of the problems and solutions related to the language encounter along the coast and the inland of Eastern North America. He begins by discussing how language problems reveal themselves in early colonial texts. He then surveys the various solutions to these problems, and their advantages and disadvantages. The article discusses the use of gestures and the development of jargons and pidgins. Of particular interest are the issues and processes involved in the acquisition of European languages by Indians and of Indian languages by Europeans who then served as interpreters. Axtell demonstrates how these linguistic phenomena fit into the European project of colonization and how native people reacted, accommodated, and/or resisted these processes. In so doing, he documents an often neglected component of the colonial encounter. In "The Use of Pidgins and Jargons on the East of Coast of North America," Ives Goddard discusses the "little known fact that a number of local pidgins and jargons were spoken on the East Coast, in the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic region" (p. 61). The article focuses primarily on the best documented of the East Coast pidgins, Pidgin Delaware, but also briefly deals with other East Coast Algonquin-based pidgins and pidgin English. Goddard argues that the grammatical features of Algonquin-based pidgins demonstrate that the Indians played the major formative role in developing these media. Thus, "the use of Algonquin pidgins furnishes important insights into the attitudes of the East Coast Indians toward the Europeans as they tried to control the impact of the European encounter" (p. 75). II. Signs and Symbols In "Pictures, Gestures, Hieroglyphs: 'Mute Eloquence' in Sixteenth-Century Mexico," Pauline Moffit Watts analyzes the various forms of non-verbal communication -- what she labels "mute eloquence" -- utilized by missionaries in sixteenth-century Mexico. She discusses rhetorical gestures, visual images, the influence of monastic sign language, dramatic representations, and the pictographic testerian catechisms. Although Moffit provides little direct evidence for the influence of some of these forms of representation -- rhetorical gestures and monastic sign language, for example -- they certainly formed a part of the cultural resources available to European priests. Some may disagree with Mofffit's extremely expanded notion of literacy, but her analysis raises provocative questions about communicative interaction between Spanish and indigenous cultures in the early colonial period. In "Iconic Discourse: The Language of Images in Seventeenth-Century New France," Margaret J. Leahey discusses the response of Hurons to the images introduced by the Jesuits as aides in catechization. Leahey explains that the disparity between the cultural background of the Hurons and that of the Europeans necessarily produced a very different interpretation of religious imagery. In support of this argument, she analyzes the Huron reaction to disease and the stylistic changes in ceremonial masks. The final essay in this section, "Mapping after the Letter: Graphology and Indigenous Cartography in New Spain" by Dana Leibsohn, analyzes the convergence of indigenous pictographic cartography and alphabetic script in sixteenth and seventeenth-century land _merced_ documents. Leibsohn emphasizes the materiality of painting and alphabetic writing -- something that historians and literary critics often ignore -- and analyzes the relationship between these two media in such documents. Leibsohn's own critical performance is a creative combination of art criticism and textual analysis that deserves attention in its own right. III. The Literate and the Nonliterate The sixth essay in the collection, "Continuity vs. Acculturation: Aztec and Inca Cases of Alphabetic Literacy," by Antonio Mazzotti is a brief overview of colonial texts that represent the appropriation of alphabetic literacy by indigenous writers. Mazzotti argues that texts written or compiled by writers such as Sahagun and Ixtlilxochitl from Mexico and Titu Cusi Yupanqui, the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, and Guaman Poma from Peru exhibit, to varying degrees, attributes derived from indigenous perspectives and modes of representation, with a particular emphasis on orality and structures of ritual. Although Mazzotti himself recognizes that his treatment is very general, his discussion has important theoretical implications that are sure to produce more in-depth analyses of specific traditions and individual works. In "Native Languages as Spoken and Written: view from Southern New England," Kathleen J. Bragdon discusses the relationship between language and colonization through an examination of seventeenth-century linguistic descriptions from Southern New England. She explains that contact situations demand the establishment of a shared communicative practice. Although ostensibly the English controlled the formation of that practice in both English and native languages, texts produced by native speakers of Massachusett preserve many of the attributes of native discourse. Bragdon argues that the alphabetic communicative practices of New England natives both complement indigenous oral traditions and contest the imposition of colonial authority. In "The M'ikmaq Hieroglyphic Prayer Book: Writing and Christianity in Maritime Canada, 1675-1921," Bruce Greenfield traces the use of literacy in the history of European evangelization among the M'ikmaq Indians. The French catholic missionaries originally emphasized the rote memorization of prayers, hoping for an understanding over time. As an aide in this memorization, they introduced a hieroglyphic prayer book that the M'ikmaq adopted and preserved for 250 years even during extended periods with no European presence or supervision. Greenfield points out that the French use of this hieroglyphic script represents an attempt to control the dissemination of knowledge that is analogous to the situation in France as well. The ease with which the Indians adopted and preserved this script, along with other evidence, attests to the pre-existence of a hieroglyphic system of representation that the M'ikmaq were able to adapt conceptually to the new context of European religion. Greenfield argues that the preservation of this tradition along side alphabetic literacy introduced later by English Baptist missionaries reveals the ideological nature of literacy practice and demands an approach that considers the hieroglyphic prayer book as an artifact with symbolic properties used in specific social contexts. IV. Intermediaries The next essay, "Interpreters Snatched from the Shore: The Successful and the Others" by Frances Karttunen, examines the qualities necessary for the survival of interpreters who were forced to gain their linguistics skills in a foreign and often hostile environment. Karttunen surveys the lives of several colonial interpreters and the diverse paths that led them to this career: victims of kidnapping, castaways, missionaries, ritual kin, etc. She concludes that among the most important attributes for success were flexibility, youth, sharp intellect, and good luck. In the second essay of this section, "Mohawk Schoolmasters and Catechists in Mid-Eighteenth-Century Iroquoia: An Experiment in Fostering Literacy and Religious Change," William B. Hart analyzes the use of native leaders as schoolmasters and catechists in eighteenth-century evangelization efforts and the introduction of literacy and the translation of texts into alphabetic Mohawk. He explains that although this made Christianity a viable, indeed essential, part of indigenous religion, it supplemented rather than supplanted native beliefs and practices. Furthermore, literacy and the use of native leaders fostered a sense of local ambition and autonomy that led the Iroquois to adapt and adopt Christianity in unique ways. In "The Making of Logan, the Mingo Narrator," Edward C. Gray uses the case of the Revolutionary-era Indian orator Soyechtowa, also known as Logan, in order to examine the eighteenth-century notion that the speech of indigenous Americans had a unique and natural eloquence. Gray explains that Logan's reputation was based on an address allegedly given in 1774 after being defeated by the Virginia militia. First, Gray argues that both biographical details and what little we know of northeastern Indian speechways, which valued silence over verbosity, seem to contradict the popular image of Logan as a respected indigenous leader. Gray also places the "myth of native eloquence" in the context of eighteenth-century theories of language, translation, and society as well as the ideology of the Revolutionary-era North American colonies. V. Theory In, "Spanish Colonization and the Indigenous Languages of America," Isaias Lerner provides a brief overview of Spanish colonial policies and practices concerning the study and use of indigenous languages. This history is inherently related to the linguistic interaction between Spanish and indigenous tongues, and Lerner discusses how this interaction reveals itself in literary texts from the period, from Ercilla to Cervantes. Lieve Jooken's essay, "Descriptions of American Indian Word Forms in Colonial Missionary Grammars," examines eighteenth-century grammatical descriptions of Amerindian languages and their relationship to pre-Enlightenment European language theory. Jooken demonstrates how the "European criteria of universality and appropriateness, relying on a model of classical languages, impeded in many cases a truthful description of Indian speech" (p. 299). He goes on to show that although a few writers were able to produce empirical linguistic descriptions free of the preconceptions based on classical grammars, they did not "yield a theoretical separation between the structure of a language and its connection with evaluative cultural categories" (p. 307). While Jooken's essay focuses on instances of linguistic description and their relationship to the theory of language, the final chapter of the collection, "'Savage' Languages in Eighteenth-Century Theoretical History of the Language" by Rudiger Schreyer, examines the debate that was taking place between competing theories of language origin and evolution. America became the battleground where these theories vied for position by attempting to use evidence from indigenous languages to support their claims. On the one hand, "Christian doctrine viewed linguistic change as a deterioration from the God-given and perfect language of Paradise" (p. 318); on the other, the new science of the eighteenth century posited that language evolved in conjunction with civilization from primitive chaos to sophisticated structure. The history of this debate sheds light on European attitudes toward indigenous languages and societies. In reviewing a collection of essays, it is difficult to be specific about the merits of the entire work. The diversity of disciplinary approaches represented in this book makes the task doubly difficult. The editors and authors, however, have done an excellent job of avoiding esoteric methodologies that would have limited the audience. This is a very accessible interdisciplinary book that will be essential for anyone interested in European and indigenous contact in the colonial period. Copyright (c) 2000, by H-Net, all rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit, educational use if proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other permission, please contact hbooks at h-net.msu.edu. From jshlasko at san.rr.com Mon Sep 11 04:08:12 2000 From: jshlasko at san.rr.com (Judy Shlasko) Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2000 21:08:12 -0700 Subject: Apology from BIA Chief Message-ID: Very interesting. Thanks for sending it. Remember when I used to read books on "Red power" and wrote papers on the wrongs committed against the Native Americans? ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Sunday, September 10, 2000 11:51 AM Subject: Apology from BIA Chief > Queridos Amigos, > > In case you missed it, I'm sending you the text of Mr. Gover's speech > from Friday. I think it is of interest to all connected with the study of > Native American Languages. > > Many blessings, > Henry Vasquez > Remarks of > Kevin Gover, Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs > Department of the Interior > at the > Ceremony Acknowledging the 175th Anniversary > of the Establishment of the > Bureau of Indian Affairs > September 8, 2000 > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > In March of 1824, President James Monroe established the Office of Indian > Affairs in the Department of War. Its mission was to conduct the nation's > business with regard to Indian affairs. We have come together today to mark > the first 175 years of the institution now known as the Bureau of Indian > Affairs. > It is appropriate that we do so in the first year of a new century and a new > millennium, a time when our leaders are reflecting on what lies ahead and > preparing for those challenges. Before looking ahead, though, this > institution must first look back and reflect on what it has wrought and, by > doing so, come to know that this is no occasion for celebration; rather it is > time for reflection and contemplation, a time for sorrowful truths to be > spoken, a time for contrition. > We must first reconcile ourselves to the fact that the works of this agency > have at various times profoundly harmed the communities it was meant to > serve. From the very beginning, the Office of Indian Affairs was an > instrument by which the United States enforced its ambition against the > Indian nations and Indian people who stood in its path. And so, the first > mission of this institution was to execute the removal of the southeastern > tribal nations. By threat, deceit, and force, these great tribal nations were > made to march 1,000 miles to the west, leaving thousands of their old, their > young and their infirm in hasty graves along the Trail of Tears. > As the nation looked to the West for more land, this agency participated in > the ethnic cleansing that befell the western tribes. War necessarily begets > tragedy; the war for the West was no exception. Yet in these more enlightened > times, it must be acknowledged that the deliberate spread of disease, the > decimation of the mighty bison herds, the use of the poison alcohol to > destroy mind and body, and the cowardly killing of women and children made > for tragedy on a scale so ghastly that it cannot be dismissed as merely the > inevitable consequence of the clash of competing ways of life. This agency > and the good people in it failed in the mission to prevent the devastation. > And so great nations of patriot warriors fell. We will never push aside the > memory of unnecessary and violent death at places such as Sand Creek, the > banks of the Washita River, and Wounded Knee. > Nor did the consequences of war have to include the futile and destructive > efforts to annihilate Indian cultures. After the devastation of tribal > economies and the deliberate creation of tribal dependence on the services > provided by this agency, this agency set out to destroy all things Indian. > This agency forbade the speaking of Indian languages, prohibited the conduct > of traditional religious activities, outlawed traditional government, and > made Indian people ashamed of who they were. Worst of all, the Bureau of > Indian Affairs committed these acts against the children entrusted to its > boarding schools, brutalizing them emotionally, psychologically, physically, > and spiritually. Even in this era of self -determination, when the Bureau of > Indian Affairs is at long last serving as an advocate for Indian people in an > atmosphere of mutual respect, the legacy of these misdeeds haunts us. The > trauma of shame, fear and anger has passed from one generation to the next, > and manifests itself in the rampant alcoholism, drug abuse, and domestic > violence that plague Indian country .Many of our people live lives of > unrelenting tragedy as Indian families suffer the ruin of lives by > alcoholism, suicides made of shame and despair, and violent death at the > hands of one another. So many of the maladies suffered today in Indian > country result from the failures of this agency. Poverty, ignorance, and > disease have been the product of this agency's work. > And so today I stand before you as the leader of an institution that in the > past has committed acts so terrible that they infect, diminish, and destroy > the lives of Indian people decades later, generations later. These things > occurred despite the efforts of many good people with good hearts who sought > to prevent them. These wrongs must be acknowledged if the healing is to begin. > I do not speak today for the United States. That is the province of the > nation's elected leaders, and I would not presume to speak on their behalf. I > am empowered, however, to speak on behalf of this agency, the Bureau of > Indian Affairs, and I am quite certain that the words that follow reflect the > hearts of its 10,000 employees. > Let us begin by expressing our profound sorrow for what this agency has done > in the past. Just like you, when we think of these misdeeds and their tragic > consequences, our hearts break and our grief is as pure and complete as > yours. We desperately wish that we could change this history, but of course > we cannot. On behalf of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, I extend this formal > apology to Indian people for the historical conduct of this agency. > And while the BIA employees of today did not commit these wrongs, we > acknowledge that the institution we serve did. We accept this inheritance, > this legacy of racism and inhumanity. And by accepting this legacy, we accept > also the moral responsibility of putting things right. > We therefore begin this important work anew, and make a new commitment to the > people and communities that we serve, a commitment born of the dedication we > share with you to the cause of renewed hope and prosperity for Indian > country. Never again will this agency stand silent when hate and violence are > committed against Indians. Never again will we allow policy to proceed from > the assumption that Indians possess less human genius than the other races. > Never again will we be complicit in the theft of Indian property. Never again > will we appoint false leaders who serve purposes other than those of the > tribes. Never again will we allow unflattering and stereotypical images of > Indian people to deface the halls of government or lead the American people > to shallow and ignorant beliefs about Indians. Never again will we attack > your religions, your languages, your rituals, or any of your tribal ways. > Never again will we seize your children, nor teach them to be ashamed of who > they are. Never again. > We cannot yet ask your forgiveness, not while the burdens of this agency's > history weigh so heavily on tribal communities. What we do ask is that, > together, we allow the healing to begin: As you return to your homes, and as > you talk with your people, please tell them that time of dying is at its end. > Tell your children that the time of shame and fear is over. Tell your young > men and women to replace their anger with hope and love for their people. > Together, we must wipe the tears of seven generations. Together, we must > allow our broken hearts to mend. Together, we will face a challenging world > with confidence and trust. Together, let us resolve that when our future > leaders gather to discuss the history of this institution, it will be time to > celebrate the rebirth of joy, freedom, and progress for the Indian Nations. > The Bureau of Indian Affairs was born in 1824 in a time of war on Indian > people. May it live in the year 2000 and beyond as an instrument of their > prosperity. > --END-- > > From campbel at indiana.edu Mon Sep 11 04:31:51 2000 From: campbel at indiana.edu (r. joe campbell) Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2000 23:31:51 -0500 Subject: nauh coincidence? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: John, My comments are interspersed: On Thu, 7 Sep 2000, John Sullivan wrote: > Is the following (suggested by a colleague in Cuernavaca) a coincidence > or is there a linguistic foundation? > 1. (tla)canaua: adelgazar tablas o piedras anchas o la lo?a cuando la hace > (Molina). I don't think so. I know there are some things that we still don't know about stem variation, but I *do* think that when there is variation, it is at the end of the apparent stem (in this case, 'canahua'). The safest part of the stem for identification is the beginning. For example, in the examples of 'canahua' that I include below, you find the "basic" shape, but 'canac-tic' as well. 'patlahua', "widen", has the same variation (nic-patlahua = I widen it; patlahua-c = wide; and patlac-tic = wide), but it has a *third* stem variation: patlach-tic = wide. > 2. Nahualpilli: dios de los lapidarios (Simeon). I don't know enough about the culture and the pantheon to have an opinion, but I think the absence of 'ca-' is fatal. > 3. nahui: adj.n. para contar los seres animados, los objetos finos y planos > (Simeon). I wonder why Simeon narrowed his definition down so much more than Molina did. In his 1571 Spanish-Nahuatl dictionary, Molina (f118v) said: Para contar cosas animadas, maderos, mantas, chili, papel, esteras, tablas, tortilas [sic], sogas o cordeles, hilo, pieles, canoas, barcas o nauios, cielos, cuchillos, ca~delas o cosas semejantes, dizen enesta manera. Then he gives the *generic* list of numbers. I don't think that he meant to limit their use to flat things -- even though I'm puzzled about why he limited them at all. Here is the list of some occurrences of from the FC. Best regards, Joe cana:hua*** cacanactic. thin overall. . canahua. it becomes thin. . canahua. it lessens; it thins. . canahuac. fine, thin. . canahuacantli. temple. . canahualoni. something which can be thinned. . canahuaz. it will shrink. . ehuayocanahuac. thin-skinned. . icanahuacan. his temples; on his temples; on the side of it head; on the sides of its head; sides of its head. . icanahuaya. its thin place. . incanahuacan. on their temples; their temples. . iztacanactli. thin bar of salt. . mocanahua. it is flattened, it is thinned. . motecanahua. it is thinned, it is made slender. . nacacanahuac. thin-fleshed. . nacayocanahuac. thin-fleshed. . niccanahua. I thin it. . quicanahua. they thin it; they thin it out. . quicanahuaya. they flattened it. . tlacanahuacazotl. thinly stitched. . tlacanahualli. something which is thinned; something that is thinned; thin [plate]. . tlacanahuani. one who thins something. . tocanahuacan. our temple. . xincayocanahuac. having thin scales. . From mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk Mon Sep 11 16:52:35 2000 From: mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk (Anthony Appleyard) Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2000 16:52:35 GMT Subject: The use of XIHUIT Message-ID: Anthony Appleyard wrote:- > Erh??? Blue may mean hot to an astronomer, or to nuclear men handling very > high-temperature plasma, or to people who use blowtorches, but not to the > general population of an area where Nahuatl is likely to be spoken. {chi} is > so simple and short a morpheme that most likely we have a stray coincidence. I later realized that to a general population not familiar with modern tools etc, one possible connection between heat and blueness might be that when the sky is blue the uninterrupted sunlight will make the weather hot. From mdmorris at indiana.edu Wed Sep 13 01:48:10 2000 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark David Morris) Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2000 20:48:10 -0500 Subject: nauh coincidence? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I would ask the favor of other opinions of a translation of tenancocotoc and help putting one of Luis Reyes students in contact with Louise Burkhart. tlazocamati, Mark Morris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief. Eccl 1:18 To realize that our knowledge is ignorance, this is a noble insight. To regard our ignorance as knowledge, this is mental sickness. Only when we are sick of our sickness, shall we cease to be sick. The Sage is not sick, being sick of sickness; This is the secret of health. TTC 71 MDM, PhD Candidate Dept. of History, Indiana Univ. From apaneco at saltel.net Sun Sep 17 09:08:00 2000 From: apaneco at saltel.net (Howard Quilliam Dickens) Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2000 10:08:00 +0100 Subject: negation in Pipil Nahuat Message-ID: Here in El Salvador we currently use the word "Inte" to imply negation e.g. Inte ni-ueli (I cannot) I am almost certain the the word, "inte", is a contraction and would welcome any ideas as to it's original form. Occasionaly the word inteajka are used to imply "it cannot be". As this contains the negating participle aj (AH), it may provide a clue. Any ideas are more than welcome! Tasukamati uan tiyauj yamanik Howard Dickens Ahuachapan, El Salvador