wild cats etc

[Anthony Grant]

RE: the Dakota form for 'white man', I have heard (possibly from you, John)
that there have been folk-etymological attempts to link it up with a word
meaning ' be evil'.  I've also heard Wasichu used as a term for whites among
Indians who are not Siouan but who have an interest in Pan-Indianism.
Dakotanism (often billed as 'Lakota spirituality') has enjoyed something of
a reception in England too among New Agers.  My understanding is that many
Lakotas would be displeased at this.

Allan Taylor has a note on Trickster etc in his 'Comparative Caddoan', of
which I forget the details.

Anthony
----- Original Message -----
From: Koontz John E <John.Koontz at colorado.edu>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Thursday, July 18, 2002 8:27 PM
Subject: Re: wild cats etc


> On Thu, 18 Jul 2002, Anthony Grant wrote:
> > Maybe this is why terms for 'whiteman' and 'trickster' (and both of
> > these from 'spider') are the same in some Northern Plains languages.
>
> It's not quite that simple, since the two cases of 'spider' = 'Trickster'
> that I know of off the top of my head are Cheyenne and Dakotan, and the
> Cheyenne case includes 'whiteman', while the Dakotan case doesn't.  On the
> other hand, as far as I can recall Mandan also has 'Trickster' =
> 'whiteman', but not 'Trickster' = 'spider'.  A further dimension, of
> course, is whether Trickster is called Whiteman in English by persons of
> the group in question.
>
> In the Dakotan case the term for 'whiteman' (was^i'c^huN) does, however,
> suggest a category of supernatural beings (s^ic^huN), though the 'steals
> fat' analysis is widely accepted by speakers, and apparently some people
> object to the s^ic^huN analysis, on prescriptive moral grounds ("people,
> and certainly not white people, can't be spirits") or on grounds of logic
> ("who would have thought a dumb thing like that?!").  Of course, I'm not
> sure if everyone who has made a contrary argument to me has been a Dakota
> person.  I suspect in most cases they haven't been, in fact.  Dakotanism
> doesn't seem to be an evangelistic movement except among 'whitepersons'.
> (I didn't mean the 'whitepersons' sarcastically.  It's just the plural.)
>
>
>