Bear (Oral ~ Nasal Correspondences)

[Lance Foster]

Yes, to use a descriptive name rather than THE name is circumlocution (relates
to how a bear walks around a bush before crapping as my dad says). Also even
the word "bear" I think comes from the Germanic root that means "the brown
[one]".

In Ioway examples of this circulocution is not only "wathewe", but also "no
hair on the seat" "big foot" "big tracks" all of which in one story were used
to infuriate the bear.

One of the best examples I have seen describing this "talking around" the real
name of the Bear (and other powerful and spiritually dangerous animals) was in
the book on the Koyukon, "Make Prayers to the Raven : A Koyukon View of the
Northern Forest" by Richard K. Nelson. It relates to the relationship between
the hunter and the hunted, and the fact the Bear is so much like the human
being, frighteningly so when it is skinned. I am Bear Clan so all this is
fascinating to me.

Lance

SOUP wrote:

> On 27 Feb 2001, Robert Rankin wrote:
>
> > They tend to be tabooed in many cultures (including many Indo-European
> > ones: in Slavic 'bear' is 'honey eater' or 'the brown one').
>
> Yes, in Czech - the westernmost Slavic language - bear is called medve^d,
> where "med" = "honey" and "ve^d" = "the one who knows of". It is said that
> bear was considered so sacred or scary that the old Slavs didn't dare to
> speak up its real name and thus used a byname for it (which makes me wonder
> what the original name could have been).
>
> Jan

--
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)