Stars, etc.

[Koontz John E]

On Mon, 19 Feb 2001, Richard L. Dieterle wrote:
> Here is what I have in WI on star, sun, moon:
...
> wiragos^ke, pl. wiragos^kera	star [Gatschet]
> wirakos^kera	                star, stars ("sun-suspended") [Dorsey]
> wiragus^kera (we-dah-goose-ka-dah)	  stars [Th. George]
> Wiragos^ge HaNke Dirani	    the North Star (Polaris), "the Star
>                             that does not Move." (cf. Crow, Ihaxaz^ise,
>                             "the Star that does not Move.")
> Wiragos^ge XedenaNgere  	   The Large Star, Morning Star
> Wiragos^gew'iNga	           Star Woman, a personal name in the Bird Clan
...
> wiragos^ke ho-ikada	        shooting star [Gatschet]
> wirakos^keras^ibare	        a meteor [Dorsey]
...

The reading wiiraguNs^ge, with nasal uN is from Miner.  It's interesting
to notice that earlier versions all have o or u. not uN.  Marino (Radin)
also has -gos-.  This also tends to argue against the 'make' reading in
*-hkax-, since it eliminates the any parallelism with -guNs-.

> Dorsey's analysis of wirakos^kera as "sun-suspended" is interesting.
> The nearest thing to kos^ke that I can find (other than skunk words) is
> gus, "rope."  I had rejected the XIXth century translations of "sun" for
> wi, and had replaced them by "orb."  However, I can find no instance of
> a word like this for a non-luminous orb (like a ball), so I will adopt
> "luminary" after Koontz.

I borrowed this usage from someone!