Meaning of Siouan word "Shke-ma."

[Rory M Larson]

Jonathan wrote:


>  "Ha  ni-ka-bthe,  i shay tho, ‘I’m going to be a chief’. Let me give you
the  story  behind this song. There was a young Sioux who was taken captive
among the Poncas and finally became a young man. Every now and then he’d be
missing.  Evidently  someone  had  told him that he was a captive among the
Poncas and that he was a Sioux. So he’d go back to the Sioux. One time when
the  Siouxs  raided  the  Poncas, someone spotted him. So the next time the
Siouxs raided again, they singled him out and they recaptured him, and when
they  recaptured him, he begged for mercy. He said, ‘When I get back to the
Siouxs, if you’ll pity me, spare my life.’ He said, ‘When I get back to the
Siouxs,  they  are going to put me in the place of my father in the council
of  chiefs.’ But the Ponca didn’t spare his life, they killed him. The song
goes  on  to say, MoNchu Shkema, that’s his name, but we don’t know what it
means.  I  ka-ga-ma  the,  i  shay  tho,  ‘you  said  he  was my frien! d’.
A-cha-tho,  that’s  a Siouan word which we can’t translate. I shay, ‘that’s
what  you said,’ ‘that you were my friend,’ meaning that after he professed
friendship  with  the Poncas, he had been in war parties against the Poncas
and  they  captured  him.  That’s  how  the  song  was made, for that man."
(Warrior & Brown, 1967, p. 30)

That commentary helps a lot.  I wasn't making much sense out of the
transcription alone.

  i shay is es^e', 'you said (it)'.

  tho must be dhoN, perhaps short for dhoN's^ti, meaning 'formerly'.

  i ka-ga-ma the might be analyzed in two different ways.  In either
  case, the ka-ga part must be kHage', or 'friend' in OP.  (I believe
  Dakotan would use kHola'.)

    1.  In both OP and Dakotan, a causative construction can be used
        with a relationship term to indicate a relationship between
        two people.  The causative is -dhe in OP, and -ye in Dakotan.
        To conjugate, an affixed pronoun is placed between the elements.
        Thus, to say 'He is my friend', we should have something like
        'friend' + 'me' + -dhe/-ye.  In Dakotan, 'me' is -ma-, but in
        OP it is -aN-.  So if we analyze this as a causative relationship
        term, we are left with a reasonable OP kHage'dhe, inflected with
        a Dakotan affixed pronoun, and no explanation for the preceding i.

    2.  In OP, a preceding i- may be attached to relationship terms to
        indicate the relationship in a verbal sense.  I think this is
        used more often in OP, while the causative is normally used in
        Dakotan.  So ikHa'ge would mean 'his friend' (and not 'my friend').
        In that case, ma the would probably be moNdhiN', 'he walks',
        used here as a behavioral continuative.  This interpretation
        seems more likely to me.  So ikHa'ge moNdhiN', 'he goes as
        his/their friend'.

Ha ni-ka-bthe is less clear.  I suppose the ni-ka is ni'kka, as in
ni'kkagahi, 'chief', or ni'kkas^iNga, 'person'.  The bthe might be
either bdhe', 'I go', or bdhiN', 'I am (a member of such a set)'.  If
ma the is in fact moNdhiN', as suggested above, then the possibility
of interpreting transcribed e as [iN] is supported.  Another word for
chief is gahi'ge, which seems to contain the same gahi as in ni'kkagahi.
The word s^iN'gaz^iNga, 'child', 'baby', is the only one I know of
besides ni'kkas^iNga to have that s^iN'ga element.  Perhaps s^iN'ga
originally meant 'youth' or 'youthful'?  In that case, a 'little youth'
would be a small child, and a young ni'kka would be a ni'kka who is
immature, hence a common man in contrast to a chief, which could be
extended from there to mean a person in general.  In that case, gahi'
could mean 'lead' or perhaps 'drive', and gahi'ge could mean 'leader',
while a ni'kkagahi would be one who leads ni'kkas.  This might suggest
that ni'kka is a fairly honorable term.  In Osage, it means 'man'
(La Flesche), so a ni'kkagahi would be a "leader of men".  But perhaps
it was even better than that in Ponka, meaning, perhaps, specifically
a young man of a good family, or the son of a chief.  Or perhaps the
preceding ha combined with ni'kka to produce this meaning.  Either way,
I would guess the meaning as approximately

  Ha-ni'kka bdhiN, es^e' dhoN
  "I am the heir-of-a-chief (?)", you said formerly.

A-cha-tho The only thing I can think of here is that the ch is being
used for [t?], which could give us at?a' or at?e', 'I die', for the first
part of that.


> MoN-chu Shke-ma, i ka-ga-ma the, i shay tho

The Shke-ma here should probably be s^ki'-(a)ma or s^kiN'-(a)ma.
To take one last shot at reading it in OP, I would try

  MoNc^Hu', s^ki' ama', ikHa'ge moNdhiN, es^e' dhoN(s^ti).

  Bear, you came back, it is said, he goes as a friend, you said formerly.

Beyond that, I would have to trust the Ponka elders and appeal to the
Dakotanists on the list for help on "Shke-ma".

I'd also like to note that the "yo he ye oi" and "yo he ye ya" series
listed look a lot like the other ones, though they can't have the meaning
here that I was attributing to them there.  Hence, Tom's claim that they
are semantically meaningless vocables is favored over my suggestion that
they were stylized sentence endings.

Rory





             Jonathan Holmes
             <okibjonathan at yah
             oo.com>                                                    To
             Sent by:                  siouan at lists.colorado.edu
             owner-siouan at list                                          cc
             s.colorado.edu
                                                                   Subject
                                       Re: Meaning of Siouan word
             03/11/2005 04:41          "Shke-ma."
             PM


             Please respond to
             siouan at lists.colo
                 rado.edu






I have enjoyed the different commentaries, and have learned a great deal on
the intricacies of linguistics. I just found another song translation using
the same name, but the story behind it may give some more insights to the
name origin. If the individual spoken of in both songs is the same
individual, and if this individual was a Sioux (Lakota) boy that was
captured by the Ponca and raised as a Ponca, and if we assume that the
Ponca translated his Sioux name to a Ponca pronounciation, can we still
theorize as to it's possible meaning?
Jonathan



Written Transcription of Ponca Song:


Ha ni-ka-bthe, i shay tho


Ha ni-ka-bthe, i shay tho


Ha ni-ka-bthe, i shay tho


Ha ni-ka-bthe, i shay the


A-cha-tho, i shay tho


Ha ni-ka-bthe, i shay the, yo he ye oi


MoN-chu Shke-ma, i ka-ga-ma the, i shay tho


A-cha-tho, i shay tho


Ha ni-ka-bthe, i shay the, yo he ye ya


(Warrior & Brown, 1967, p. 30)


Commentary:


"Ha  ni-ka-bthe, i shay tho, ‘I’m going to be a chief’. Let me give you the
story behind this song. There was a young Sioux who was taken captive among
the  Poncas  and  finally  became  a  young man. Every now and then he’d be
missing.  Evidently  someone  had  told him that he was a captive among the
Poncas and that he was a Sioux. So he’d go back to the Sioux. One time when
the  Siouxs  raided  the  Poncas, someone spotted him. So the next time the
Siouxs raided again, they singled him out and they recaptured him, and when
they  recaptured him, he begged for mercy. He said, ‘When I get back to the
Siouxs, if you’ll pity me, spare my life.’ He said, ‘When I get back to the
Siouxs,  they  are going to put me in the place of my father in the council
of  chiefs.’ But the Ponca didn’t spare his life, they killed him. The song
goes  on  to say, MoNchu Shkema, that’s his name, but we don’t know what it
means.  I  ka-ga-ma  the,  i  shay  tho,  ‘you  said  he  was my frien! d’.
A-cha-tho,  that’s  a Siouan word which we can’t translate. I shay, ‘that’s
what  you said,’ ‘that you were my friend,’ meaning that after he professed
friendship  with  the Poncas, he had been in war parties against the Poncas
and  they  captured  him.  That’s  how  the  song  was made, for that man."
(Warrior & Brown, 1967, p. 30)