Names

[Bruce Ingham]

On the subject of names again, I recently met over here a man called
Colin Taylor, who I believe David Rood has also had e-mail contact
with, who has written a few things about Plains culture and history
and was interested in the question of Sitting Bull's name and
whether it really was 'Sitting Bull' ThathaNka Iyotake (or Iyotaka) or
in fact ThathaNka IyotaNka 'Most Important Bull'.  Boas and
Deloria's Grammar actually favours the second meaning.
	I myself always thought that the presence of the -N- in the
word for sitting was through the influence of Dakota which was
written much earlier and might at that stage have become a sort of
standard or perhaps the name was originally written down by a
Santee or someone who had learnt to write Santee.  Also, although
I don't know any other name with Iyotake 'sitting', there are quite a
few parallel names with najiN 'standing', ThathaNka Najin 'Standing
Buffalo', Heh^aka NajiN 'Standing Elk', Matho H^lo NajiN 'Standing
Growling Bear' etc.   Also haven't ever seen iyotaN as a modifier
following a noun, but usually as a emphasiser 'most' followed by a
modifying verb as in iyotaN thaNka 'most great'  or in the verb
iyotaNla 'think important'.
	Also the pictograph for his name has a buffalo turned
vertically as though sitting.
	Has anyone else heard of this controversy.  Any ideas?

Bruce

PS
 a last flash of inspiration.  Perhaps it could have been thathaNka
iyotaN thaNka 'most great bull', like ChetaN ThaNka 'Great Hawk'
Dr. Bruce Ingham
Reader in Arabic Linguistic Studies
SOAS