Missouri, etc.

[Michael McCafferty]

Listeros,
Apparently the filter installed on my e-mail account to counteract junk mail
acted upon messages coming in from the Siouan list. The messages I missed
concerning Missouri and related matters have been forwarded to me by another
member of the list and I have a few comments. I will mark my responses with
my initials MM:


========================
>As I start to write my thesis, beginning with an overview of Omaha history,
>a
>miscellany of questions has been occurring to me, some relevant and some
>not.
>I thought I would post some of these to the list, to find out what is known
>about them.

>1.  The earliest French name for the Missouri River is Pekitanoui.  Does
>anyone know where that comes from or what it means?  Is it Algonquian?

Yes. Note Fox /pi:kihtanwi/ 'Missouri River' and Menominee /pe:ke?tanoh/
(loc.) 'on or at the Missouri River'. The term appears to mean 'Muddy
River'; compare Plains Cree /pi:kan/ & /pi:ka:kamiw/ 'it is turbid, muddy',
and /pi:kano(:wi)-si:piy/ 'muddy river, Missouri river'.


MM: The first recording of an Algonquian name for the Missouri River was
done on either June 25 or June 26, 1673, by Jacques Marquette during his
stopover at the Peoria village on the Des Moines River. We can see the
hydronym that the Peoria, a Miami-Illinois-speaking tribe, gave him on his
holograph map of the Mississippi. Marquette wrote <PEKITTAN8I> (8 = the
sound /w/). This is Miami-Illinois
/peekihtanwi/, a third-person inanimate intransitive conjunct verb that has
undergone initial change
(/piik-/ > /peek-/ ). It means ‘it-flows-mud’: /peek-/ ‘mud’, /-ihtan-/
‘flow’ , and /-wi/ the requisite verb suffix. Verbs are commonly place names
in Miami-Illinois, as elsewhere in Algonquian. This Miami-Illinois term is
cognate of course with the Fox term offered above. In late historical times
the river was known in Miami-Illinois as /peekamiiki siipiiwi/
‘it-is-mud-water river. Marquette's map can be found in a number of
publications, but the best copy is Plate V in Sarah Jones Tucker's
collection of maps on early Illinois: _ Indian Villages of the Illinois
Country_, Illinois State Museum Scientific Papers 2(1). Pt. 1. Springfield,
1942. Her copy is the size of the original, which is at the Jesuits'
archives in St-Jerome, Quebec.

Michael

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