chichimeca (false etymology/mnemonic/rude joke)

Fri Oct 27 12:49:49 UTC 2006

Susan,
	"Chichimeca" doesn't come from "dog" and "rope". "chichimecah" is a  
plural noun meaning "inhabitants of (the altepetl/town) Chichiman". A  
singular inhabitant would be "chichimecatl". The name of the town  
itself can be divided into "-man", an ending for names of towns in  
Nahuatl, and "chichi". There is a "chichi" meaning "dog" which has  
two short "i"s (Nahuatl distinguishes between short and long vowels),  
but the "chichi" in "chichimecatl" has two long "i"s, so it can't  
mean "dog". The "chichi" with long "i"s is a shortened form of the  
root for the Nahuatl words meaning "breast" and "milk".

The analysis of town names in Nahuatl is usually not that difficult.  
On the one hand, there is a fixed set of endings, of which "-man" is  
an option. On the other hand, you need to find out what the beginning  
portion, in this case "chichi", of the town name means. It has been  
my experience that the great majority of these town names are related  
to themes of Mesoamerican sacred landscape. So if you are trying to  
translated one of these names and your options include something  
having to do with landscape components of the migration (Aztlán,  
Chicomoztoc and Colhuahcan), go with that option. There is a very  
beautiful representation (in the Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca?) of the  
infant Nahua clan founders suckling from a gourd tree. This, along  
with the morphological analysis of the town names, is the kind of  
evidence you would want to look for in order to translate  
"chichimecah" and "chichiman".
John

John Sullivan, Ph.D.
Profesor de lengua y cultura nahua
Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas
Instituto de Docencia e Investigación Etnológica de Zacatecas, A.C.
Tacuba 152, int. 47
Centro Histórico
Zacatecas, Zac. 98000
México
Oficina: +52 (492) 925-3415
Fax: +52 (492) 925-3416
Domicilio: +52 (492) 768-6048
Celular: +52 (492) 118-0854
idiez at mac.com
www.idiez.org.mx

On Oct 27, 2006, at 4:39 AM, Susan Gilchrist wrote:

> Dear listeros,
> I'm looking at what seem to be three examples of the same thing,  
> where breaking a long word into some short words seems to result in  
> a mnemonic for learning new words, but it can turn into a "false  
> etymology" and/or an insult:
>
> Chichimeca = dog (chichi) + rope (mecatl)
> Dominicanes = God (Domini) + dogs (canes)
> Manhattan = man + hat + tan
>
> I found a long explanation online for "domini canes," which  
> eventually became the basis for the escudo of the Dominicans, but  
> had nothing to do with their being called Dominicans in the first  
> place (from: "St. Dominic and His Work, by Pierre Mandonnet, O.P.,  
> Translated by Sister Mary Benedicta Larkin, O.P., B. Herder Book  
> Co., St. Louis/London, 1948. Domini Canes by Pierre Mandonnet,  
> O.P.," online at http://www.op.org/Domcentral/trad/domwork/ 
> domworka6.htm )
> As far as I know there's no explanation for "man + hat + tan"  
> unless it's that it's an easy spelling to read in English and Dutch  
> (maybe as man + hatt + an).
> I've found sort of an explanation of chichi + mecatl but am not  
> sure what to think of it;
> "As the Spaniards and their Amerindian allies from the south made  
> their way into Nueva Galicia early in the Sixteenth Century, they  
> encountered large numbers of nomadic Chichimeca Indians. Philip  
> Wayne Powell - whose  Soldiers, Indians, and Silver: North  
> America's First Frontier War is the definitive source of  
> information relating to the Chichimeca Indians - referred to  
> Chichimeca as "an all-inclusive epithet" that had "a spiteful  
> connotation." Utilizing the Náhuatl terms for dog  (chichi) and  
> rope (mecatl), the Aztecs referred to the Chichimecas literally as  
> "of dog lineage." But some historians have explained that the word  
> Chichimeca has been subject to various interpretations over the  
> years, including "perros altaneros" (arrogant dogs), or "chupadores  
> de sangre" (blood-suckers). The Spaniards borrowed this designation  
> from their Aztec allies and started to refer to the large stretch  
> Chichimeca territory as La Gran Chichimeca (the Great  
> Chichimeca)." –from  THE DIVERSITY OF INDIGENOUS MEXICO By John P.  
> Schmal ( http://www.somosprimos.com/spmar02.htm)
>
> The reason I'm curious about it is that it seems as though a  
> picture of a dog attacking a person might relate to "dog + rope."  
> The odd thing about the picture is that the artist didn't make it  
> clear whether the rope was attached to the person or to the dog,  
> maybe indicating it wasn't an eyewitness report by the artist. This  
> is the picture: http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger2/4912/3197/1600/ 
> b73-1599-trial-Cholula-1519.0.jpg
> I wonder whether the horrible attack dog and the mild-mannered  
> coyote might have to do with the Chichimecas and the Dominicans  
> respectively, since Bartholome de las Casas was a Dominican. In  
> other words it's a reminder that Las Casas was horrified by such  
> crimes. (In Christian art dogs are sometimes very positive and  
> sometimes very negative.) But maybe the dog and rope in the picture  
> have nothing to do with Chichimecas. My question is whether it  
> seems as though this picture has to do with bilingual picture  
> writing, where both a Nahuatl and a Latin word are broken down into  
> short words. In other words it seems as though the same method of  
> language teaching might be working in both directions. But on the  
> other hand, is a Chichimeca word being distorted in order to  
> translate it into Nahuatl and then into Spanish?
> Susan Gilchrist
> http://elboscoblog.blogspot.com/
> _______________________________________________
> Nahuatl mailing list
> Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl

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