Omaha and Lakota Words

[Rory M Larson]

Scott wrote:
> I was wondering if anyone may have a breakdown of the word mexoga in 
Omaha and the word winkte in Lakota; i.e such as root words and literal 
meanings? 

The root mi(N) in mi(N)-x^uga is almost certainly the archaic root for 
'woman' that exists only in combining form in Omaha.  It should be the 
cognate of wiN in Lakhota wiNkte, which is still an active word for 
'woman'.

Both words refer to an MtF transgendered person, i.e. a male who is 
inclined to be female.

The Dakotan kte (ktA) is the potential particle cognate to Omaha tte.  The 
combination wiN-kte could probably be translated literally as "would-be 
woman" or "inclined to be female".

In Dhegiha, the root mi(N) meaning 'woman' is confusable with the root 
mi(N), cognate with Dakotan wi, meaning 'sun' or 'heavenly body'. Fletcher 
and La Flesche (p. 132 ff) understand the initial mi to mean 'moon', and 
record some Osage stories and lore about the condition which explain it as 
being the result of dreaming about the moon (woman) during the young men's 
vision quest.  In their dream, they lose a handgame with her, and wind up 
holding the burdon strap instead of the bow and arrows.  Thenceforth, they 
must live, speak and dress as women.

The authors tell us that x^uga means 'to instruct', and interpret mi-x^uga 
to mean "instructed by the moon".

Outside of this reference, we do not seem to have any knowledge of a word 
x^uga that means 'instruct' or 'instructed'.  The term x^uga does mean 
'badger'.  In either case, the -ga is probably a type of stative suffix, 
so we would be looking for a root meaning of x^u.  There is a root g^u, 
having a voiced rather than voiceless velar fricative, that means 'mark', 
which appears in ri-g^u, 'to draw', and ba-g^u, 'to write'.  I am not sure 
how sharp the phonemic distinction is between /x^/ and /g^/, because the 
former is much more common in initial position and the latter in the 
interior of words.  Badgers, x^u-ga, notably have a white stripe up their 
nose, so they could be considered characteristically 'marked' if we 
suppose that the x^u in their name is the same as the g^u in ri-g^u and 
ba-g^u.  If so, then mi(N)-x^uga could be translated as "marked as woman" 
rather than as "instructed by woman".

This is just a suggestion, though, which rides on a questionable 
supposition.  We really don't know yet what the x^u in mi(N)-x^uga means. 
But the whole term probably means something like "woman-inclined", one who 
is inclined to be a woman.

The mi(N)-x^uga term seems to be general in Dhegiha.  I believe I have 
also run into the same construction in IOM, or possibly Hochunk, so this 
is probably an older term than Lakhota wiN-kte.  I wonder if Jimm or Iren 
could add anything here?

Rory
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