3 Osage Names

[Justin McBride]

I think Bob's on the money with Gretomih.  It looks like LetáN WiN, 'hawk 
woman,' where there are variant forms letáN~letóN for 'hawk,' and (I think) 
wiN~miN~mi for the female ending.  I looked in Burns's "Osage Indians Bands 
and Clans" (© 1984, Ciga Press, Fallbrook, CA) for names similar to 
Kishagashugah and Minckchatahooh, but came up with nothing.  But these sorts 
of transcriptions are notoriously slippery (read: awful), so it's possible 
you'd have to tweak them a whole lot to get them to the point where they 
would resemble something.  For instance, I can imagine the -shugah part of 
Kishagashugah being z^üce, 'red,' depending on whether or not these names 
passed through English filters over time; for some reason English speakers 
seem ever-ready to associate g with j^-like sounds and j with z^-like 
sounds.  This would probably not be the case, however, if Boilly intended 
his work for a French audience.

I keep coming back to the fact that these names look a little more like what 
I've seen in Kaw names than Osage names.  For instance, the possible use of 
miN for the female form in Gretomih lines up more with Kaw's tendency to 
nasalize w before nasal vowels (compare Osage wíNxci to Kaw míNxc^i 'one'). 
Plus, I can more easily see the -shugah part  Kishagashugah as Kaw z^üj^e, 
than Osage z^üce, 'red.'  Lastly, the first part of Minckchatahooh looks a 
whole lot like Kaw míNxc^i 'one' or míNj^e 'bow.'  I can even imagine a 
situation where Boilly's handwriting of minckc may have actually been 
mincho, which looks a lot like Kaw miNcho 'grizzly bear.'

By the way, what are the genders of the individuals associated with these 
names?

Good luck,
-Justin


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rankin, Robert L" <rankin at ku.edu>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 11:25 PM
Subject: RE: 3 Osage Names


Gretomih looks like the first part, greto, would be 'hawk'.  Mih would be 
'female, woman' if the letters ih are to be pronounced like the ee in keep. 
Otherwise it's a mystery to me.  This is interesting because the sequence 
gr- in Osage came to be pronounced as L over a century ago.

bob

________________________________

From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu on behalf of Billy Maxwell
Sent: Thu 12/6/2007 8:58 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: 3 Osage Names


Tom or anyone,
Just wondering if these names were translatable?
Billy
Dear Billy,
I have two colored lithographs of the same Osage Indians by Louis-
Léopold Boilly (1761-1845) from 1827 in my collection. In this time
this Osage Indian group travelled around in Europe. I sent separate the
photos . I know three names of these Indians Grétomih, Kishagashugah
and Minckchatahooh.

Greetings
Kilian from old Germany