Dzunuqua WAKASHAN

[Mike Cleven]

At 11:13 AM 2/1/99 +0100, Henry Kammler wrote:
>Dell Hymes wrote:

>> And Kwakiutl Ts'o:noqoa, 'an ogress reprsened on masks and
>house posts, seems
>>
>> likely to come from Chinookan -t'u-naqu, which is analyzable in
>Chinookan
>> (t'u- good, powerful)
>
>Another interesting case. The sources are not exhaustive on this
>but among the
>Nuuchaahnulth the Ts'o:noqoa (or Dzu:nuq'wa) went by the name of
>I'iishsu'ilh
>[?i?iis^su?il] which is something like "pitch woman". [The one
>that used to
>snatch children in order to put them into her smoke house like
>salmon, as
>staple food. Later Snot Boy  - !intHtin - kills her.] If we don't
>find a trace
>of the Tsonoqua-word among the N., then maybe the word travelled
>via the Salish
>peoples. Any evidence on the Salish side?
>(maybe I should cross-post this...)

The one I know of is Quamichan, mentioned in a recent post about the
Cowichan area.  The language here would be Hulqiminum, and I don't know the
correct spelling.  She was a flying cannibal giant who lived in a series of
caves on the north end of Saltspring Island, and would steal children to
eat from the people now known as the Cowichans; who adopted that name (a
variant of hers) when they killed her.  Took the whole tribe to do it,
though, I think......