Pawnee

[Lance Foster]

I have to go some hunting in my stuff, but I remember the following in Ioway
historical material:

1. Panyi is a Siouan name, relating to the erect headdress, like that of a
woodpecker's crest when angry. It is significant that woodpecker scalps on the
clan pipe are tied down so they do not stand erect, symbolizing the peaceful
nature of the pipe, but also its potential power in war to effect peace. Of
course IO also used that same headdress, the red roach (of deer tail hair or
turkey beard), which signified a warrior's status. Today's Iroska (Om Hethuska
etc)  (straight dance) uses that same headdress, and it is significant that the
Iroska was gained from the Pawnee, as part of a war, religion and adoption
complex that appears to have included the Grizzly Bear Doctor society and the
Pipe Dance of intertribal peacemaking/adoption. Pa seems to indicate "head" here;
"nyi" may mean "water" or "life", but I cannot say as it may be a contraction of
something longer in times past.

2. Padoke (var. Padunke/Padouca) was the Siouan/IO word for first the Plains
Apache (in the 1500s-1700s) and then the Comanche (in the 1700s-1800s; also later
known as Yetan, or Utes) who usurped the Plains Apache territory to the west and
also the function of slave raiders and traders to the Spanish southwest.
Padoke/Padunke was translated as "Wet Noses" or "Sweaty Noses", so here Pa means
nose, as it does in IO today.

[We have done Baxoje/Paxoje.. although the Omaha word is translated "Gray Snow"
and the Osage word is translated "Snow Heads"]

Pa is often translated as "nose" or "an animal's head" in IO. It is worth noting
that the Ioway word for canada goose is Paxanye "Big Nose/Big Head" and the word
for toe is "thipa"... so although one might translate pa as head, it also more
basically seems to indicate a protrubance of a smaller element (nose/toe/goose
head) from a larger element (face/foot/goose body)

Lance

Koontz John E wrote:

> On Wed, 18 Apr 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote:
> > I was talking about some of these ethnonyms with an archaeologist at Wichita
> > State U. last week and he felt that the Pa- in Pani, Paxoje and Padouca
> > ought to be a morpheme. I don't know that I agree, but it's true that all
> > may be borrowings.
>
> I should mention an idea suggested to me by Heriberto Dixon, namely that
> Pani, Pawnee, etc., might derive from (Sa)poney.  It would be a case of
> converting the Poney variant of the Saponey ethnonym to apply to all
> enslaved relatively western Indians.  This is interesting, but I don't
> know if the timing and sources support it.  Pani(a) as a component of
> ethnonyms is first attested in French from, I think, Miami-Illinois
> sources (like Padouca?), quite early and already refers to Northern
> Caddoan groups.  The attestations for it as a term in English for 'Indian
> slave' and referring apparently still to Northern Caddoans are somewhat
> later, but still early.  (Paging Alan Hartley!)

--
Lance Michael Foster
Email: ioway at earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~ioway
-------------------------
Native Nations Press,
1542 Calle Angelina, Santa Fe, NM 87501
Phone: 505-438-2945
info at nativenations.com
-------------------------
NativeNations.Com - Native Nations Press (http://www.nativenations.com)
Baxoje Ukich'e: The Ioway Nation (http://www.ioway.org)