Moziño (Jan 22) WAKASHAN

[Henry Kammler]

Hi there,

in the course of the last two weeks several of my postings and
forwarded msgs.
didn't get through to the list somehow. At least I didn't get
them. Now I repost
this and the following msgs. to the list, it's mostly Wakashan
stuff but it
seems to raise more interest on the CHINOOK list than on the
SALISHAN one. I put
WAKASHAN in the header so please simply ignore if you're not into
etymology.
My sincere apologies to anybody who might get these postings for
the second time
now.
Here I go:

***********************

Hi, Clark, how are-ya <g>

Dave wrote:

> Here are the words I found in a quick glance through Mozin~o's
"Noticias
> de Nutka", excepting proper names that didn't seem like sources
for the
> Jargon:
>
> * 'Beans are for them the most delicious dish.  "Taiz-frijoles"
they call
> them, that is to say "dish of kings"

On the use of _taayi_ (= tyee):
It is a kinship term that gives some insight into the social
constitution of
N. society. It does not mean "chief"! Rather it is the term for
the first born
son, i.e. the one among the offspring who was most likely to
inherit the
majority of his family's ritual rights and prerogatives (both are
called
_tupaati_, plural: _tuutuupaata_). His younger brothers (and
sisters) usually
also received some of the tuutuupaata but they were not taayi. In
a high
ranking family with many children the youngest ones did not
receive any
tuutuupaata and were then considered commoners unless they took
over some
tuutuupaata from an older sibling who had died.
Taayi was a prominent term, though, because in a potlatch when
handing out
gifts (NB: p'achitl; continuative: p'atlp'ayaa) the host often
called out the
name of the accompanying son of a high ranking guest. This fact
astonished
early writers like the missionary Brabant (in Hesquiat), who
noted that it
were not the visiting chiefs who got the presents but their
offspring. The
issue of handing down tuutuupaata through generations was central
to N.
thinking, everything was grouped around the youngest component of
the society
(_asma_ = "the beloved youngest one"), a very neat idea, I think.

>
> * 'A contrary fate is that of the plebeians or Meschimes...'

The free commoners were the biggest group within N. society.
Their name is
_masch'im_ [masc^'im] from:
ma............ to dwell
-sch'im.......together with
This connotes their residence in their lineages' big houses,
together with
their chiefs, to whom they were related by blood ties.
"chief" is  _Ha'wilh_  [Haw'il]
"slave" is   quulh  [quul]

> * 'The Engish commander ... [and] the Spanish ... have been
examples of
> kindness to [the Indians].  They say Cococoa Quadra, cococoa
Vancouver,
> when they wish to ponder the good treatment of any of the
Captains that
> commanded the other ships.'

cococoa is probably  _'yuqwaa_  [y'uq°aa]
[y'] is glottalized [y] and may sound to Spanish ears like a
platalized [k]
[q°] is a rounded [k] spoken back in the throat (uvular) with a
rounding of
the lips. It takes "longer" t pronounce than [k] and may have
been for the
Spanish like two [k]. Or the natives imitated the unskilled
pronunciation of
the Spaniards and actually said it similar to Mozin~o's
renderings.

> Note also the Nuucha'nulth's ready use of the Spanish word
'frijoles'.

That's pretty interesting. I would like to know how "frijoles"
sounded.
According to the sound laws in Nuuchaa'nulh it must have been
*[niXunis] or,
less likely, *[piXunis].
[f] and [r] are nonexistent in N, they would have become [p]
viz.[n]
cf. [naayis] from "rice"
consonant clusters are not "allowed" at the beginning of words:
[fr] >
{[p]/[n]}, the first is usually dropped
cf. [tuup] from "stove"
[o] becomes [u]; unstressed [e] becomes [i]
[l] is not rendered as the phonetically closest relative [l~] but
as [n]
cf. [eepinis] from "apples"

In a like manner N. words were back-simplified when they
travelled with the
traders...

Henry