Dhegihanists: Ethnonyms for SE tribes?

R. Rankin rankin at ku.edu
Thu Aug 15 22:18:25 UTC 2002


> > Could Quapaw /hi$a/ have something to do with the
little-known Caddoan tribe
> > whose name is usually spelt Eyeish?  One Caddo clan
was supposedly of Quapaw
> > origin and was called Imaha - a clearly Dhegiha
name!.

They may well have been the group of Quapaws who moved
in with the Caddos when they left Arkansas.

The Dhegiha "Caddo" term is probably better preserved
in the Osage form /hiN:$a/ (long, nasal V as Carolyn
recorded) than in the Kaw term.  As for Eyeish, I
really can't offer an opinion.

> I'd noticed the Imaha.  They're one of the four (?)
[five -- RLR] Quapaw villages that Dorsey mentions in
his survey article Siouan Sociology, ...

which is mainly a
> list of bands, clans, and villages from various
sources.
>
> Bob Rankin and I have a long standing debate over
whether the village name
> Okaxpa ("Quapaw, lit. downstream") is opposed the
village name ImaNhaN, or to the tribal name UmaNhaN
("Omaha") both literally "upstream".  Or, of
> course, whether they are all independent of each
other.  A major
> constituent of this issue is whether Okxapa properly
applied originally
> only to the village Okaxpa, or to all of the Quapaw
(in later terms).

Well, FWIW, the village name was okaxpa-xti 'real
Quapaws' in the French accounts.  I won't recap all the
rest -- it must be in the archives someplace.

Bob



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