Proverbs (whistling)

bi1 at soas.ac.uk bi1 at soas.ac.uk
Tue Sep 3 14:08:39 UTC 2002


Somewhere  I found a sentence jo omani 'he walks whistling' (as
the spirits of the dead do), though I'm not sure where from.
Bruce
On 8 Aug 2002, at 12:38, Jimm G GoodTracks wrote:

> I was going through some old EM's, and came to your responce below.  I
> would be interested in a list of these "sayings" from the older Ponca in
> White Eagle.  I wonder how many I would recognize, and how similar/
> different they may be from Otoe-Missouria, Ioways and Pawnees?
> Jimm GoodTracks
>
> On Thu, 20 Dec 2001 10:26:28 -0600 "TLeonard-tulsa.com"
> <tleonard at prodigy.net> writes:
> >  JEK wrote:
> >  I seem to recall a comparable warning for either Dakota or Omaha along
> the
> > lines of "Don't whistle, you sound like a ghost."  Presumably sounding
> like
> > a ghost is bad because one either becomes one or summons one.
> >
> >  I've heard similar admonishments from older Ponca folks around White
> Eagle,
> > Oklahoma. The one I always heard was: "Don't whistle while your outside
> at
> > night. You'll attract ghosts."
> >  The one I always loved was: "Don't eat too much fish. They'll make
> your
> > hair  grey."
> >
> >  Have recordings of these and others in Ponca.
> >  TML
>


Dr. Bruce Ingham
Reader in Arabic Linguistic Studies
SOAS



More information about the Siouan mailing list