Bows

[Michael Mccafferty]

I think I laid this all out on day one. Maybe in my dreams.

:-)

On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, David Costa wrote:

> /bihi'/ is the Chickasaw word for 'mulberry', and this is probably cognate
> with Alabama /bihi/. Apologies if I mentioned this already, but a similar
> semantic connection is found in Shawnee & Miami as well; in Miami, 'bow' is
> /mihtekwaapa/, while 'mulberry tree' is /mihtekwaapimishi/, literally 'bow
> tree'. 'Mulberry' in Miami is /mihtekoopimini/ (Shawnee /mtekwaapimina/),
> literally 'bow berry'. I guess the reason for the connection is that
> mulberry wood was favored for making bows?
>
> Dave Costa
>
>
> ----------
> >From: Koontz John E <John.Koontz at colorado.edu>
> >To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
> >Subject: Re: Bows
> >Date: Tue, Aug 7, 2001, 11:53 pm
> >
>
> > On Thu, 2 Aug 2001 Zylogy at aol.com wrote:
> >
> >> Here is what I was able to grab in a very quick run-though at UCSB library:
> >
> > Thanks, Jess!  An association with 'back' is an interesting possibility I
> > hadn't thought of.  However, I think at least once of the cases you
> > mention is just chance.
> >
> >> Koasati:          ittobihi
> >>                 "back" : atabi
> >
> > My understanding of the Koasati term (per Karen Booker's note to Bob
> > Rankin that I mentioned before) is that it is a compound of itto 'tree,
> > wood' and bihi, which is probably the archaic term for 'bow', or at least
> > 'blowgun' or 'weapon' or something like that, cf. Alabama bihi 'bow'.  In
> > other words, after bihi was transferred to 'gun', ittobihi was innovated
> > to refer specifically to 'bow'.  It doesn't have anything to do with
> > 'back', I think.  I decided not to list it at the time since bihi doesn't
> > seem to bear any resemblance to the Siouan term.
> >
> >
> >
>
>


Michael McCafferty
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Indiana University
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mmccaffe at indiana.edu