Winnebago Song (Re: SSILA Bulletin #205) (fwd)

Koontz John E John.Koontz at colorado.edu
Thu Feb 5 08:15:46 UTC 2004


What convinced me this was Winnebago was (1) "hizhan" = hiz^aN 'one, a',
as Rory pointed out, (2) "Hicha kolo" = hic^ako'ro 'friend', and (3) a
fairly frequent occurrence of final consonants.

I'm not really familiar with Winnebago texts, either in terms of dealing
with them regularly or in terms of knowing which ones are known.  I don't.
off hand, recognize the source of this one.  My impression is that this is
written in no very systematic orthography, or perhaps "simplified" from
something like the Radin orthography by someone who didn't understand
that.

I've included a few potential identifications of words.

> Wunk-Hi       Wawan
  waNaNk hi
  man    CAUSE

The last word of the title resembles OP waa'waN, the name of the "pipe
dance" or adoption ceremony, but I haven't identified a Winnebago form
here, and I'm uncertain of the first part, too.

Note that the text follows the repeated parallel lines approach that we
see in Dhegiha ritual texts, too.  Each line comes close to being in the
form

  hiz^aN  XXXX      ka  z^eeske=s^uNnuN=   naN
  one                   thus    habitually DECL

  (I?) ... one, always in that way.

The repeated -ka element is a bit puzzling, but could be a first person
causative following -k:  -k + ha > -ka.  The imperative inflects A1 =ha,
A2 =ra, A3 =hi.  Alternatively, there is a postverbal particle k?e
'often'.  However, the vowels are generally along Continental lines and
more or less accurate.

I suspect that most of the elements I'm having difficulty with are verbs,
probably first persons, possibly third.  The first person hypothesis is
supported by things like -do- in line one (because r stems have the
inflection A1 dV- , A2 s^VrV, A3 rV), and maybe by the repeated -ka
(along the causative lines suggested).  As little as I understand the
verbs here, it seems possible to me that this is a list of war exploits.

> Hizhan, hodochuch ka,       zhe ske shununa.
  hiz^aN                      z^eeske=s^uNnuN=   naN
  one                         thus    habitually DECL

Here -ka is a problem after -c^.  Presumably chuch is c^uc^, but -xux is
'break something brittle'.

> Hizhan wa ya kitt'ehka[,]       Zhe skeshunana;
  hiz^aN       git?ek     (h)a    z^eeske=s^uNnuN=   naN
  one          be bruised-I CAUSE thus    habitually DECL

> Hizhan wa ya zhi zhi ka[,] zhe ske shun[u]na       ya.
  hiz^aN       z^iz^ik (h)a  z^eeske=s^uNnuN=   naN
  one                        thus    habitually DECL (vocable?)

There is a verb booz^iz^ik 'to wiggle' in Marino. in which boo- is the
outer instrumental 'by shooting', here essentially 'spontaneously'.  The
hi-locative paradigm (with regular verbs) is A1 yaa-, A2 hira-, A3 hi-.
This might be relevant here and above in terms of -ya-, but wa-(h)i-(h)a-
Obj3p-LOC-A1 is wi(i)a-, not waya-

> Hicha kolo hinuk  lo       innagle    wi dokan nana.
  hic^akoro  hinuNk roo        naNk (?) wi
  friend     woman  body (?)   SIT      PLUR

> Hizhan do maiku ka[,] zhe ske shununa.
  hiz^aN                z^eeske=s^uNnuN=   naN
  one                   thus    habitually DECL

In this line I think the verb might be ru?aN 'to carry' or possibly
rogiguN 'to dare'.  These have the first persons duu?aN and roagiguN,
respectively.  Marino lists ruaiNgu 'lift up', which is clearly based on
the first and closer in form.



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