Ponca - pathanike?

[Kathleen Shea]

I'm sort of late commenting on this message and haven't yet caught up with reading later messages, but I couldn't let this one pass since I think I have an answer.  Uncle Parrish (Williams), the 91-year-old elder and fluent Ponca speaker who is my consultant remembers accompanying his parents as a child to one of the dance societies that were in existence at that time among the Southern Poncas.  The three that he mentioned (with the Ponca accepted spelling in parentheses) were nudaN (nudaN) 'warrior,' ppa dhattaN (pa thataN) 'strong/bitter drink/drinkers' (a translation not offered by Uncle Parrish but that I surmised from the common translation of the name of a currently active dance society--I believe under the sponsorship of Grandma Rosetta [Arkeketa] LeClair at Burr Hill--ppa dhac^aN [pa thachaN] 'strong drinkers'), and ppa dhiNge (pa thiNge).  (As I recall, Uncle Parrish said that the first, nudaN, took place in a longhouse near the present-day Ponca Indian Baptist Church, and the other two, each in a round house, were located west of White Eagle, towards present-day Marland, and were sponsored by persons with the last names Jones and Roy, respectively.)  Although Uncle Parrish didn't offer an explanation for any of the dance societies' names except nudaN, I was told by another Ponca speaker that ppa (pa), with the meaning of 'strong, bitter' (unrelated to the meaning 'nose, head, profile' of its homonym) refers to the strong coffee that the members of pa thataN drank as opposed to the members of pa thiNge, who didn't have any--or ran out of--coffee (thiNge ' to lack, to be without').  I hope this sheds some light on a possible meaning for the term "ppa dhiNge" if, in fact, that's the word (phrase) in the song you mention.

Kathy Shea

----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jonathan Holmes 
  To: Siouan List 
  Sent: Monday, September 27, 2004 9:37 PM
  Subject: Ponca - pathanike?


  Just wondering...

  In a document of transcribed Ponca Songs, being:
  Warrior, Sylvester and Lamont Brown. 

  1967. Ponca Songs Sung and Translated. Recorded by Tyronne H. Stewart, October 1967 at Oklahoma City, OK. Transcribed by Earl C. Fenner and Jon Orens.

  ...on page 10, is listed a song that the commentary says,

  "This song, he's calling his friend. He had gone on the war path. At the beginning of the second part, 'pathanike', that we don't know. It's an ancient word which we have never learned as to what it means. But the first two words is 'kotha nuda he tha', it means 'friend had been on the war path.' 

  I was wondering if anyone may want to take a crack at trying to figure out what the old Ponca term pathanike might mean. I'm pretty sure 'pa' means 'head' or 'first'.
  Jonathan Holmes


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