bear, acorn

[Koontz John E]

On Mon, 26 Feb 2001, Lance Foster wrote:
> wathewe (the black one)

This looks right to me.

> mahto

Should be something like maNtho 'grizzly bear'

(Definitely Ursus arctos - I couldn't remember it.  Thanks for correcting
me; U. horribilis is now considered conspecific with the Eurasian brown
bear U. arctos, at least at the somewhat popular level of reference in
that field that I frequent.)

> munje

Or muNj^e 'black bear' (U. americanus) or at least that's the impression I
had from the sources the CSD used.  This is the correspondent of huNuNc^
in Winnebago, though the initial sounds don't match.  Or, in short, this
is the term that seems to be of Uto-Aztecan origin in Siouan.

> I tend to see mahto as Ursus arctos (Ursus horribilis etc) and the
> 'older' term, while munje is Ursus americanus.. and there is a clan name
> that means Black Bear, ...

> tunap'in

The naNp?iN part is presumably 'to wear around the neck'.  I'm not sure
about the "tu" (thu? i.e., with aspirated t, not theta).

JEK