Varmints (Re: Does anyone know these?...)

[Jim Rader]

A bit off the Nahuatl topic, but the word variously spelled
"memaloose," "memaloost," "mimaloos," etc., in Chinook Jargon means
"dead."  There are several  Memaloose Islands in the Columbia River
--the ones I find references to are near the town of Hood River in
Oregon, not that far from Mt. Hood.  The word "memaloose" in place
names supposedly refers to Indian burial grounds, which makes sense
for these islands, because the Repatriation Office website of the National
Museum of Natural History inventories skeletal remains found there.
Not to question Mr. Montchalin's recollection, but I can't imagine
how this word got applied to an animal (and I can't find any written
records of its use in Nexis or our own files).  The animal he
describes sounds like a marmot, but I'm not at all familiar with the
Mt. Hood area and couldn't say if marmots live there.

One Nahuatl bird name that's taken a strange turn is <hua:ctzin>,
which FK's dictionary defines as Herpetotheres cochinans, the usual
vernacular name for which is the Laughing Falcon.  Somehow this name
got applied the the hoatzin, the international vernacular name for
Opisthocomos hoazin, a totally unrelated and dissimilar bird of the
Amazon basin, hundreds if not thousands of miles from Mesoamerica.
I've never tried to figure how this zoological scramble took place.
Just as a matter of curiosity, is <hua:ctzin> described in the
Florentine Codex?

Jim Rader


> What are the differences between these animals?  Does any one of them come
> close to the memaloose found in the Mt. Hood National Forest in Oregon?
> Memalooses are bigger than rats, about a foot to a yard in height, sit
> back on their haunches, and have opposable thumbs just like monkeys or
> possums do.  They like to cry out 'mee!' and this might be why they are
> called me[e]malooses.  They are capable of getting into your backpacks and
> would just as soon steal cookies and fruit juice from you if you don't
> keep them at bay by throwing rocks at them.  I think they are either
> omnivorous or vegetarian, and tend to live in troops of about a dozen or
> more at once, mostly making their homes in rockpiles in the high cascades.
> They are probably related to the white prairie dog of southeastern Oregon,
> but instead of living in the plains like to live in higher elevations.
>
>