"Lumbee" word list.

[Robert L. Rankin]

A paper given by Walt Wolfram and Nancy Estes at LSA on the Lumbees
prompted me to get this word list out and distribute it.  Most of you
won't be interested, but I know one or two of you are.  The Lumbees are a
group in North Carolina, near Lumberton, who claim Indian ancestry, but
who have often been looked upon as Blacks by most white Carolinians.
Wolfram and Estes showed that they speak a variety of English that is
clearly distinct from both local Blacks and Whites.  They've been seeking
federal recognition as a tribe for a long time. If you're interested,
there's a good book about them by Karen Blu.

Well over a decade ago, after I had given a couple of SSILA papers on
southeastern Siouan languages, someone (completely anonymously) mailed me
a Lumbee newsletter.  I'm afraid I didn't keep most of it, which included
a photograph of a very White-looking "chief" in horn rimmed glasses and a
full plains war bonnet.  But in the newsletter was a list of 55
purportedly Lumbee words.  Most of them looked like nothing I'd ever seen,
but a few looked very much like Catawba words.  The Catawba words suggest
that the vowels have European values, i.e., roughly IPA, but caution is in
order since the Catawba words could have been copied from Frank Speck's
published texts, while other words could be using English spelling
conventions.  Only the letters of the Roman alphabet are used in the list,
so it is easy to reproduce for you here.  My own commentary is [in square
brackets].  	Bob

Acorn		Ogo
Anisgina	Evil Spirits [all other words are in English alphebetical
				order]
Blackberries	Otasha
Blueberries	Getda
Black River	Lumbee [here <ee> clearly has its English value]
Big Tree	Yattkin  [c.f. the Yadkin tribe, of unknown affiliation]
Blackman	Negsi  [clear English influence here]
Bear		Niagi
Cherry		Gowa
Christ		Sega
Corn		Pagatour
Creator		Hodia
Devil		Segoe  [c.f. Christ, above]
Christian	Gaitur
Food		Gowa  [c.f. Cherry, above]
Fire		Ode  [there are a number of Siouan fire/burn forms with de
			sequences.]
Great Spirit
  or God	Mantoac [looks superficially more Algonquian]
Grapes		Wisa
Greetings	Bezon  [Some SE languages have bizzare variants of
			"bonjour".  this could be another one.]
Grandfather	Wuniish
Grandmother	Shiyoosh
Great Corn
  Ceremony	Waanowa
Great Feather
  Dance		Ostowa
Great Eagle
  Ceremony	Shago
Grand Head
  Chief		Gaa-Yu
Huckleberries	Oya  [How are these different from blueberries?]
Heaven		Tainade
Lord		Rhoya
Whiteman	Honio
Jesus		Jeru
Male		Hadji
Maple		Wata
Moon		Soika
Nut		Onio
May 		Yai
Peach		Odjya
Pear		Ogwa
Plum		Gae
Prophet		Proa
Red Raspberries	Dagwa
Reptile		Dunuwa
River		Iswa  [This is clearly Catawban, though the final V should
			be nasalized.]
Root		Oka
Sioux		Wasawi  [no comment]
Strawberries	Odjist
Snake		Usugi
Sugar		Owan
Sun		Mus
Warrior Society	Unlum
To Fall		Tukar
Tree		Geit
Tobacco		Openna  [Looks Siouan/Catawban, but there are "ope" words
			   referring to tobacco all the way to the west
			   coast, I think.]
War Chief	Dioni
Women		Yeow
Warrior		Waaow
----------------------------------------

That's it.  Comments invited.

Bob