Stars.

[Jimm G GoodTracks]

It has been shared that IOM "star" = bikax?e,    from which one could
derive a meaning of  "Sun Crow" from the words:  bi (celestial body; sun/
moon) &  kax?e (crow).  And at the same time, it has been mentioned that
the oral literature speaks of the Twin Holy Boys and their father,
merging in with the Sun, Moon & North Star, respectively.   The statement
that the stars were campfires of the dead is new to me, not ever hearing
elderly informants say that, nor mention of it in the published accounts,
traditional stories, or ethnology studies.  And then, I could have missed
something, so would need a resource reference on it.

However, no one has mentioned here the Clan moieties for the IOM/ Winn,
Dhegihas  which indicate that the origins of the Clans were half from the
Sky People (moiety), and half from the Earth People (moiety).  I am not
familiar with the Dhegiha Clan stories, but the IOM/WI stories, say the
ancestors came to earth in the form of animals/ birds, changing into
human beings.

Perhaps, the Lakota "wicha-" (animate plural) is a carry over from a more
archaic era with the L/D/Nakotas were still affiliated with a Clan
system, that had the above features.  I do recall that the Eastern Dakota
(Santee), were the only group to maintain even a shorten version of the
Twin Boys story, which is well known even in the Northern Plains by
(Hidatsa/ Mandan) and the Algonquian neighbors.
Jimm

On Mon, 19 Feb 2001 12:50:28 -0600 RLR <rankin at lark.cc.ukans.edu> writes:
> > In Lakota the word for 'star' is wichah^pi .
> > Normally the prefix wicha- refers to animate plurals.  Does anyone
>
> > know why it turns up in the word for star?
>
> Hard to say. I'd guess either by accident or, perhaps, by
> folk-etymology. The form in several related languages is nasalized:
>
> Omaha-Ponca
> mikka'?e
> Kansa
> 	mikka'k?e
> Osage
> 	mihka'k?e
> Quapaw
> 	mikka'x?e
>
> These languages have no obvious reflex of a form that would underlie
>
> wicha "Man/person". However the folk etymology could have gone
> either
> way, i.e., the wicha in Dakotan may represent folk etymology
> connecting
> 'man' with 'star' (as in several traditional stories). Or the mi- of
>
> Dhegiha dialects may represent a fancied connection with mi- 'sun'.
> I
> resist connecting Dhegiha with mikka/mihka 'raccoon'. The m/w
> *should
> not* be corresponding here without a nasal vowel in the term, so
> there
> is certainly some sort of analogical change going on.
>
> The suffix is different in the two subgroups also. It appears as
> though
> -?e is a suffix in Dhegiha and the same -pi suffix we find so well
> represented in Dakotan nouns turns up there. So the glottalized
> fricative found originally in Dhegiha is historically most likely a
> composite with a morpheme boundary in the middle. Then the result
> underwent the usual Dhegiha change: *x? > k? > ? with Kansa/Osage
> retaining the middle form and Omaha-Ponca showing the last stage.
> There
> are plenty of other examples of this change.
>
> In the Comparative Dictionary files 'star' is very peculiar overall
> and
> hard to reconstruct. I don't have all the forms available at the
> moment,
> but I'll get them if anyone is interested. My recollection is that
> there
> are at least two quite distinct etyma reconstructible.  But there
> are
> problems with both. I don't think that any of them can be
> reconstructed
> with 'man' as a component though.
>
> Bob
>
> Is it from some other
> > earlier use or some other morph.  Does the wicha- occur in any
> > other Siouan reflexes for 'star'.  It is tempting to think of it
> as having
> > something to do with spirits of the dead, but I'm sure that's far-
> > fetched.
>