Bows (IO tradition)/Yankton sociology

[Michael Mccafferty]

Algonquian is not an issue here. This is a Siouan form.

Michael McCafferty

On Tue, 17 Jul 2001, Bruce Ingham wrote:

> I was inyerested to hear about the Algonquian origin for Itazipa 'bow'.
> Does anyone know what is thought to be the actual Algonquian
> likely form?  I had thought, purely impressionistically,  that it had
> something to do with yajipa 'sting, prick'.  What about 'spear'
> wahukheza.  It looks as though it comes from something like hu
> 'stick', kheza 'barbed'.  But it may be just folk etymology.  Similarly
> with 'shield' wahachaNka which looks like ha 'skin, hide', chaN
> 'wood' ie 'hide hardened to a texture like wood'.  This takes us back
> to the discussion earlier this year about the seeming morphological
> transparency of a lot of basic Lakota words. Are the spear and
> shield words thought to be borrowings?
>
> Bruce at .Date sent:      	Wed, 11 Jul 2001 13:48:22 -0600 (MDT)
> Send reply to:  	siouan at lists.colorado.edu
> From:           	Koontz John E <John.Koontz at colorado.edu>
> To:             	<siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
> Subject:        	RE: Bows (IO tradition)/Yankton sociology
>
> On Wed, 11 Jul 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote:
> > I was just talking with Kay Fowler and Jane Hill about this set and they
> > mentioned that the Uto-Aztecan term is *wata. This is not too different from
> > the Siouan terms, differing only by the feature [nasal] and the
> > stem-formative vowel.
>
> Is the UA *wata a regular set, or, as sometimes happened in early attempts
> at Proto-Siouan, a sort of formula covering some generally resemblant
> forms?  I've noticed that Americanists have a slight tendency to disregard
> the possibility of loans.  If forms like this are widely enough spread,
> we'd have to wonder if the Algonquian form was really 'wood', or just
> accidentally homophonous with it.  It occurs to me to wonder how regular
> the Algonquian sets are.
>
> Notice that the stem-formative vowel may vary from e in Siouan.  If the
> -a- in ita in itazipA is part of the stem, then it's a hypothetical
> *miNta.  In that case, however, the t > n shift in Santee is a bit hard to
> understand.  In regard to that n, I wonder about the behavior of the term
> in the less well attested dialects - Yankton-Yanktonais, Assinibone, and
> Stoney.
>
> Clearly it would be worth looking further for North American bow terms.
>
> JEK
>
> Dr. Bruce Ingham
> Reader in Arabic Linguistic Studies
> SOAS
>
>


Michael McCafferty
307 Memorial Hall
Indiana University
Bloomington, Indiana
47405
mmccaffe at indiana.edu