white bear (fwd)

[Koontz John E]

On Wed, 14 Jun 2006, Jan F. Ullrich wrote:
> John Koontz wrote:
>
> > wahaN[']k[-]s^ic^a [destroyer evil] 'black bear'
>
> Actually, both Riggs and Williamson give waxaNksic^a in their Dakota
> dictionaries (not wahaNks^ic^a).

Ouch!  Quite right.  Putting on my glasses there is definitely a dot over
the h.  I am afraid that I am getting seriously farsighted (in the
negative sense).  In the past three years I have progressed from being
unable to read the Miner Field Lexicon with the naked eye to being (now)
unable to read Riggs/Williamson.

> Buechel lists the same word (including the glottal stop after x) but his
> informant Laban WhiteHorse translates it as 'marten'.

Perhaps it means wolverine?  My understanding is that wolverines are
essentially super-martens, and I believe that they are sometimes
considered to be bears in folk taxonymy.