Padouca

[Michael McCafferty]

Padouca is not attested in the early Illinois Jesuit sources. However, Pierre
Potier, a Jesuit missionary at Detroit, recorded a personal name of a Native
American in the form <PATOKA>, in the mid-1700s.

This is also the name of southern Wabash River tributary. I have not seen this
hydronym attested until the early 1800s, in English language reports.

The Miami-Illinois attestation dates only to the turn of the 20th century.

Michael McCafferty


Quoting Koontz John E <John.Koontz at colorado.edu>:

> On Wed, 27 Apr 2005, David Costa wrote:
> > In various forms, it's attested in Miami, Shawnee, Sauk, and Meskwaki.
> >
> > >> In Algonquian languages, the 'Padouca' name always indicates the
> Comanches.
>
> In modern Siouan languages it refers to the Comanche, too, or to an
> unknown group.  I think it's probably safer to say that ethnohistorians
> are reasonably sure that before it referred to the Comanche it refered to
> their antecedants, apparently Plains Apache gorups, perhaps with the Kiowa
> included.  The more or less seemless shift from Apache to Comanche
> suggests it applies to people forma given area, or with a particular
> cultural or subsistance pattern, rather than to specific linguistic
> groups.
>
> >From the pre-Comanche through the early Comanche periods we are in the
> period before vocabulary lists for Siouan languages, and very nearly so
> for Miami-Illinois.  The sources for the term(s) in this period are French
> texts.  The source of the form seems to be Dhegiha, Ioway-Otoe and
> possibly Miami-Illinois sources, presumably with a tendency toward
> Miami-Illinois intermediaries.  I'm not really able to site chapter and
> verse on the arguments these days.
>
> A somewhat similar pattern exists for the various terms for Northern
> Caddoan groups which lead to modern English Pawnee, except that the
> reference remains "Northern Caddoan."
>
> The etymologies for both terms are obscure, though Padouca might be 'round
> head', assuming that some u and n confusion was involved early on, and
> assuming that the term as it occurs in some modern languages has been
> borrowed from French.
>
>