Wolverines (Re: Virtues-wolves-coyotes)

[Jimm G GoodTracks]

"Wamakashkan" referrs to a variety of animals "traveling about the
earth".  Riggs says (p.518) that the Dakota use it for "creeping things",
while the Lakota use it for "game animals".
When used in a ceremonial context, it is made in reference to the
Southern Thunder (Direction) and generically for all "meat eatting
animals" (wolves, foxes, coyotes, etc.).
Jimm

On Mon, 22 Jul 2002 12:18:10 +0100 bi1 at soas.ac.uk writes:
> Thanks John
> The Stoney one looks like a cognate.  It was as you say a list of
> animals in Bushotter.  It is in text 114, where he groups them as
> thalo yul uNpi 'carnivors'.  In another text 105 he talks of
> 'starnge
> animals' wamakhas^saN...os^tekapi, but doen't say what they are.
> Possibly the sort that you get in Australia.
>
> Bruce
> n 17 Jul 2002, at 23:16, Koontz John E wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 16 Jul 2002 bi1 at soas.ac.uk wrote:
> > > While we are on animals I noticed in the Bushotter texts a word
> mnaja
> > > (ie mnaz^a) as 'wolverine'.  ...  I have also seen it in Riggs
> Dakota
> > > Dictionary as 'lion, wild cat'.  ...
> >
> > I looked in the Siouan Archives files, and in various dictionaries
> and,
> > other than the Bushotter and Riggs references found only a Stoney
> form
> > mnazan. I suppose the -n is the diminutive.  I think the fricative
> shoift
> > is normal.  I also checked under 'lion', 'cat', and possible
> phonological
> > matches without luck.  I'd expect something like *naNz^e in
> Dhegiha or
> > Ioway-Otoe, and like *naNaNs^ in Winnebago, though I also looked
> in
> > Omaha-Ponca under *bdhaNz^e and in Winnebago under *pa(N)naNs^,
> just in
> > case.
> >
> > This doesn't mean there isn't some attestation out there.
> >
> > I did notice "shanmonikasi" as a variant for 'wolf, prairie wolf,
> coyote'
> > in IO, attributed to Maximilian.
> >
> > I also think I saw the Bushotter reference in question.
> Interestingly, it
> > was a list of animals, and between 'badger' and 'lion' were
> ma'yas^lec^a,
> > s^uNkmanitu, and s^uNkmanitu thaNka.  In the interlinear these
> were
> > glossed 'coyotes, wolves, and large wolves', and in the free they
> were
> > glossed 'coyotes, foxes'.
> >
> > I suppose we can take 'lion' as a way of saying (in English) 'big
> cat',
> > consistent with 'cat' as a generic preditor term.
> >
> > JEK
> >
>
>
> Dr. Bruce Ingham
> Reader in Arabic Linguistic Studies
> SOAS