<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Hello all...<div><br></div><div>Bob basically has the Algonquian end of this story correct. The term <acansa> got borrowed into Illinois early on as what appears to be a cover term for all the Dhegiha tribes. By the mid-19th century, <i>kaansa</i> is the Miami-Illinois term just for the Kansa tribe, and there are other terms for the Quapaw, Osage, etc.<div><br></div><div>And yes, Bob is right, very early on, Illinois acquired a term essentially meaning 'Kansa/Dhegiha nut' as their word for 'pecan'; in LeBoullenger's circa-1720 Illinois dictionary, this appears as <acansipacane>, while Pinet's Illinois dictionary from 20 years before gives the plural <<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; ">acansepacana</span>>. By the late 19th century, this variably appears in Miami and Peoria as <span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; "><i>kaansa pakaani </i>or </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; "><i>kaanseeseemini</i>. Shawnee has similar <i>kaa0eemi</i> 'pecan' ('0' = theta), which was later borrowed by Unami Delaware as <i>ká·se·m</i> (some speakers changed this to <i>ká·nse·m</i>). </span></div><div><br></div><div>And finally, the Miami-Illinois name for the Ohio River is literally 'the Kansa/Dhegiga River'; the most common variant seen is <span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; "><i>kaanseeseepiiwi. </i>Shawnee also has this, as <i>kaa0eewi0iipi</i>.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><br></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;">I've assumed for a long time that what this means is that Miami-Illinois speakers and Shawnee speakers first encountered Dhegiha-speakers on the Ohio River, presumably in southern Ohio or maybe southern Indiana, at a time when they weren't seperated into their modern divisions yet, and when something sounding like /kaansa/ was their name for themselves. I also assume this is when the Algonquians first encountered pecans, or at least when they first encountered them in big numbers. </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><br></span></span></div><div>Dave</div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:27.0pt;line-height:12.0pt;mso-pagination:
none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><br></span></span></p></div><div><div><div><blockquote type="cite"><div><blockquote type="cite">I'd like to know how it's known that Kansa does not mean "south wind", "floats with the current," etc. <br></blockquote><br>Because Kansa and all the other Dhegiha languages have their own, different, term for 'south wind'. It is /ak?a/, where ? is a glottal stop and ak?a is accented on the first syllable. Kansa was a term used by the Algonquian-speaking tribes of the Ohio Valley to refer to all the Dhegiha-speaking tribes. It is probably the term the Dhegiha speakers used to refer to themselves, but it has no meaning other than that. Algonquian speakers prefixed it with a short /o-/ prefix, one that is often used in Algonquian for ethnonyms (Odawa, Ojibwe, etc.). This short o- evolved in Illinois Algonquian into /a-/, giving rise to names like "Akansa", "Akansea", etc. found throughout early accounts. Originally it seems to have been used to refer to all Dhegiha speakers, not just the Quapaw, and, of course, most of the Dhegiha tribes have a Kansa clan ("gens" in Dorsey). <br><br><blockquote type="cite">I'm also interested in knowing more about any connection between Arkansas and pecan in Miami/Illinois. Bourgmont, in his "Exact Description of Louisiana" (circa 1725), after mentioning the Quapaw and ascending the Mississippi River, says, "There is also an abundance of nuts, extending over more than 200 leagues of land, called by the Indians Akansapaccana, from which they make oil to grease their hair and their firearms. But these nuts are found only in certain regions. There are a great many of them on the Wabash." Could early references to the Arkansas on the Ohio River be a folk explanation arising from the Miami/Illinois word for pecan? I'm curious.<br></blockquote><br>I think it's pretty clear that these Algonquian speakers called the pecan "the Kansa nut". I believe Shawnee has a term like /kaathemini/ (where /th/ is like the the first sound in "thick"). I'm not sure about the term /pakkana/, but maybe Dave Costa will enlighten us. Kaathemini is "Kansa nut" however, so there was definitely some kind of association.<br><br>Early maps of the Ohio Valley also show a "River of the Akansea". On some maps it seems to be the name for the Ohio but on others it seems to be a tributary.<br><br>For what it's worth, the names Omaha and Okaxpa (the latter for Quapaw) do seem to mean upstream and downstream respectively. <br><br>Bob<br><span><winmail.dat></span></div></blockquote></div><br></div></div></div></body></html>