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A few words to add, first the correct name of the sweet potato vine is<u>
Ipomoea pandurata</u>, second another plant to consider is the Jerusalem
artichoke, <u>Helianthus tuberosus, <br><br>
<br>
</u>At 01:38 PM 2/3/02 -0500, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>The "pomme de terre" of
the historical Illinois Country is Ipomeia<br>
pandurata, the wild sweet potato vine. /mihkohpina/ is
Miami-Illinois<br>
('red potato'). Later historians often thought erroneously that the
native<br>
term referred to the white waterlily, whose Latin name escapes me at
the<br>
moment. N... t...<br><br>
La Salle has a good ethnographic report on these potatoes. They
account<br>
for two or three native-created place names in Indiana.<br><br>
Michael<br><br>
<br><br>
On Sun, 3 Feb 2002, Alan H. Hartley wrote:<br><br>
> 1813 R. STUART Oregon Trail (1953) 153<br>
> <br>
> "we fell in with a large field of the root called by the Ottos
"Toe" &<br>
> by the Canadians "Pomme de Terre," they are but seldom of
larger<br>
> dimensions than a hens egg, with a rough warty brown skin, are
never<br>
> more than six inches deep in the earth, and when boiled, resemble
very<br>
> much in taste the sweet potato"<br>
> <br>
> Is this Apios tuberosa/americana (ground nut), which I confuse
with<br>
> Psoralea esculenta (Indian turnip, prairie potato, pomme blanche).
I<br>
> assume it's the same as Dakota bdo/mdo, Lakota blo.<br>
> <br>
> I ask for two reasons, one practical, the other far out:<br>
> <br>
> 1.) to confirm a new meaning for pomme de terre in the
OED.<br>
> <br>
> 2.) to add to a continuing discussion on the Chinook Jargon
listserv<br>
> about the etymology of wapato. The latter first appears as wapto in
1805<br>
> in the Lewis & Clark journals, with ref. to the lower Columbia
where it<br>
> is cited as a native name for the edible aquatic root. The OED
etymol.<br>
> Cree wapatowa 'white mushroom' doesn't seem very likely, and
Howard<br>
> Berman (IJAL 1990) has suggested Kalapuyan *-pdo 'wapato;
potato'<br>
> borrowed into Chinookan with its wa- added. Just fishing here, but
the<br>
> superficial resemblance bdo~pdo, both referring to edible roots,
caught<br>
> my eye. And then one can prefix the Ojibway and Cree wap- 'white'
and<br>
> introduce it into Canadian French and then into Chinook
Jargon...<br>
> <br>
> Anyway, simply to learn the referent of pomme de terre would be
enough,<br>
> and much safer.<br>
> <br>
> Thanks,<br>
> <br>
> Alan<br>
> <br>
> <br>
> <br><br>
<br>
Michael McCafferty<br>
307 Memorial Hall<br>
Indiana University<br>
Bloomington, Indiana<br>
47405<br>
mmccaffe@indiana.edu<br><br>
"Talking is often a torment for me, and I <br>
need many days of silence to recover from the futility of words.<br>
C.G. Jung<br><br>
"...as a dog howls at the moon, I talk."<br>
Rumi</blockquote></html>