Proverbs (whistling)

Koontz John E John.Koontz at colorado.edu
Thu Dec 20 07:35:13 UTC 2001


On Wed, 19 Dec 2001, Jan F. Ullrich wrote:
> Shake' nitha'pa kte.
> Your fingers will change into balls.
> When scolding children for pointing at the rainbow.

I seem to recall a comparable warning for either Dakota or Omaha along the
lines of "Don't whistle, you sound like a ghost."  Presumably sounding
like a ghost is bad because one either becomes one or summons one.

And I remember a comment in a story that Catherine Rudin showed me that
indicates that ghosts are afraid of flapping laundry.  This now smacks
(cf. schmecken?) to me of some supporting statement along these lines.

JEK



More information about the Siouan mailing list