<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;"><P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US" lang=EN-US><FONT face=Tunga><FONT size=3>My thanks again to Michael McCafferty, Magnus Hansen et. al. for their help in my pursuit of the tepemaxtla and its murky etymology. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></FONT></FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US" lang=EN-US><o:p><FONT size=3 face=Tunga> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></DIV>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US" lang=EN-US><FONT face=Tunga>I’d like to clarify a couple of points.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>First, the tepemaxtla is quite definitely a cacomistle (Bassariscus </FONT></SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial; COLOR: black; mso-ansi-language: EN" lang=EN>sp</SPAN><FONT face=Tunga><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US" lang=EN-US>.) in Tepoztlán as attested to by the drawings of the animal on the comparsa banners of the Santa Cruz barrio (who call themselves tepemaxtlame) as well as my conversations and observations with the local villagers over the past four decades.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>According to the </SPAN><U><SPAN style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold">Nomenclatura Zoológica</SPAN></U><U><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold"> </SPAN><SPAN style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold">de las
Américas</SPAN></U><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US" lang=EN-US>, the animal goes by a lot of names.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Here’s the entry:<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US" lang=EN-US><o:p><FONT size=3 face=Tunga> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></DIV>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Tunga><FONT size=3>Bassariscus astutus = Bassaris astuta = babisuri, basarisco, basaride mexicano, basáride, cacomiscle, cacomistel, cacomixtle, cacomizcle, cacomiztli, cacomiztle, cuapiote, gato ardilla, gato de cola anillada, mico de noche, tepamaxtlaton, tepechichi, <U>tepemaxtla</U>, uayuc.<SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US" lang=EN-US> (In English it is called the civet cat, miner’s cat, ring-tailed cat, and it is the state animal of <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Arizona</st1:place></st1:State>).<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US" lang=EN-US><o:p><FONT size=3 face=Tunga> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></DIV>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US" lang=EN-US><FONT face=Tunga>The same volume unfortunately has no mention of the tepemaxtla under the Vulpini tribe – the foxes. That entry - “as a species of fox” - originally appears in Francisco Hernandez’s Plantas y animales de la Nueva Espa</FONT></SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US" lang=EN-US>ñ</SPAN><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US" lang=EN-US><FONT face=Tunga>a (1615), and was used later by Clavijero in his Reglas (1780), and by Remi Simeon (1885) who used Hernandez as his source.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US" lang=EN-US><o:p><FONT size=3 face=Tunga> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></DIV>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3><FONT face=Tunga><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US" lang=EN-US>The animal is easily confused with the fox.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The</SPAN> genus was first described by <SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US" lang=EN-US>biologist </SPAN>Elliott Coues in 1887<SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US" lang=EN-US> who</SPAN> proposed the word "bassarisk" as the English term for animals in this genus<SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US" lang=EN-US>.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The etymology of Bassariscus comes from the </SPAN>Greek <I>bassár </I>(<I><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US" lang=EN-US>a</SPAN></I>) <U>fox</U> + Neo-Latin <I>-iscus </I>diminutive suffix < Greek <I>–iskos</I><I><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US" lang=EN-US>.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></SPAN></I><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;
mso-bidi-font-style: italic" lang=EN-US><o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-style: italic" lang=EN-US><o:p><FONT size=3 face=Tunga> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></DIV>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-style: italic" lang=EN-US><FONT size=3><FONT face=Tunga>Please let me clear up a second point mentioned by Michael and attributed to me in his last posting; the Hoopa, Yurok and perhaps other northwest California/southern Oregon peoples use the cacomistle/ring-tailed cat/tepemaxtla pelt with its distinctive raccoon-like tail to make an ritual apron – not a breechclout – and it is used in their White Deer Dance/World Renewal Ceremony.<o:p></o:p></FONT></FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-style: italic" lang=EN-US><o:p><FONT size=3 face=Tunga> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></DIV>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-style: italic" lang=EN-US><FONT size=3><FONT face=Tunga><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Again, thanks to all of the participating listeros,<o:p></o:p></FONT></FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-style: italic" lang=EN-US><o:p><FONT size=3 face=Tunga> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></DIV>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-style: italic" lang=EN-US><FONT size=3 face=Tunga>Tom</FONT></SPAN><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US" lang=EN-US><o:p></o:p></SPAN></DIV><BR><BR>G.S. Rakovski St., No.79 <BR>Boboshevo, 2660 Bulgaria<BR>GSM: 359 0899 784 081<BR><BR>--- On <B>Thu, 2/24/11, Michael McCafferty <I><mmccaffe@indiana.edu></I></B> wrote:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="BORDER-LEFT: rgb(16,16,255) 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px"><BR>From: Michael McCafferty <mmccaffe@indiana.edu><BR>Subject: Re: [Nahuat-l] maxtlatl etymology<BR>To: nahuatl@lists.famsi.org<BR>Date: Thursday, February 24, 2011, 11:54 PM<BR><BR>
<DIV class=plainMail>Sorry that I have taken such a long time to get back to this.<BR><BR>It's good to remember, I think, that language is an expression of a biological, organic entity, and necessarily exhibits the traits of a biological organism. In other words, it doesn’t work like a machine, not in the way and to the extent that grammarians and morphologists would like for it to.<BR><BR>And it doesn’t evolve like a machine, regardless of the many regularities that we can observe within it. It’s not metal or plastic; it’s more like a plant than a food processor.<BR><BR>I think this relates to something Joe Campbell told me, something Frances Karttunen had told him and John Sullivan once—-that our theories about morphology and grammar are always going to be like cloth that is a little frayed around the edges, not cloth that has a finely stitched edge perfectly aligned.<BR><BR>A little fraying of the edges is precisely, I think, what is going
on in the case of tepe:ma:xtlatl, and nothing more.<BR><BR>Richard Andrews’ analysis of ma:xtlatl, which appears on page 282 of the second edition of his grammar, is notable:<BR><BR>“(ma:xa)-tl, “crotch, bifurcation” + (tla)-tl, “strip of cloth, leather” = (ma:x-tla)-tl “breechcloth” [The loss of the embed’s tem’s ephemeral /a/ is irregular. Compare (ma:xa-c)-tli-…]”<BR><BR>Although there are times when you can scratch your head reading Andrews’ grammar, I do trust the depth of his morphology sensibilities.<BR><BR>His analysis thus indicates that tepe:ma:xtlatl ‘fox’ is literally “mountain-breechcloth”. (Tom has told me off-list that fox skins were used for breechcloths. Not really that bad a name for the fox considering that in Northern Iroquoian the animal is called “bad-skin”.)<BR><BR>(But there still is a tiny part of me (the machine-oriented part, I fear) that keeps drawing me back to the irregular
and virtually inalienably possessed form of ma:xatl, which is -ma:xtli, as in noma:xtli, moma:xtli, amomax:tli, etc., and the popularized modern term “maxtli”.<BR><BR>That tiny part keeps saying that the possessed form's final -tli (which Joe has pointed out to me has the same final -i as in the possessed form -co:zqui of co:zcatl) could have been reanalyzed by native speakers as the absolutive suffix -tli, and thus was dropped to give us the ma:x- form of the root that we see ma:x-tlatl. But I’m willing to drop that idea. :-)<BR><BR>Michael<BR><BR><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>Nahuatl mailing list<BR><A href="http://us.mc1100.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=Nahuatl@lists.famsi.org" ymailto="mailto:Nahuatl@lists.famsi.org">Nahuatl@lists.famsi.org</A><BR><A href="http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl" target=_blank>http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl</A><BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></td></tr></table><br>