More on Eagles

[Koontz John E]

In a penny, in for a ream.  Or is it a quire?

Here are some Mississippi Valley eagle terms for comparison.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 00:52:31 -0700 (MST)
From: Koontz John E <koontz at spot.colorado.edu>
To: Michael Mccafferty <mmccaffe at indiana.edu>
Cc: RLR <rankin at lark.cc.ukans.edu>
Subject: Re: eagles

> On Tue, 9 Jan 2001, RLR wrote:
>
> > It looks that way. Kaw has:
> >
> > xuya'  'golden eagle'
> > xuya ppasaN  'bald eagle'
> > xuya lez^e 'spotted eagle' (presumably the immature one).

Buechel gives:

anuN'khasaN, xuya', waNbligles^ka

He specifically indicates that the latter is spotted, which, of course, is
the sense of gles^ka, a match, allowing for the added formant -ka in the
Dakotan, to Kaw lez^e, though the latter comes out looking like Dakota
'tongue', amusingly enough.

Xuya in Kaw is from PDh *xu'dha (or *xu'ra, depending on how you write the
r), which comes out xidha in OP.  Earlier this is PS *xu'ra.  Dakotan
xuya' is from PS *xu'ra, too, of course.  Dakotan and Kaw agree that *r
should be mushed out as y.

ANuN'khasaN is 'white (pale) on both sides' and refers to the (adult) bald
eagle.  Xuya' is defined as 'an aged eagle, a common eagle'.

Of waNbli' Buechel says 'the royal war eagle' ~ gles^ka.  The Indians knew
of four kinds of eagles, waNbli gles^ka, anuN'khiyaN, anuN'khasaN, and the
common eagle xuya'.' The spotted eagle is 'the epitome of the powers of
the north.'

Of anuN'lhiyaN Buechel says 'a cross breed of any living thing.  An
eagle.' He adds:  Situpi kiN a'taya skaska 'while their tail tips only are
black'.  The first part actually says 'tail feathers the wholly white
(reduplicated as plural), so the English is additional, not a translation.
Presumably this pair of phrases characterizes the AnuN'khiyaN.

---

LaFlesche lists for Omaha:  Xidha' 'eagle', PpasuN 'bald eagle' (whitish
head), xidha' ska 'golden eagle' (white eagle), xidha' gdhezhe (Kaw lezhe)
'gray sea eagle' (spotted eagle).  The first term may be a generic.

Dorsey, in a list of birds gives xidha ska and xidha gdhezhe without
gloss.

--

LaFlesche lists for Osage:  xudha' 'eagle' (generic?), x[u]dha'ppa 'bald
eagle', x[u]dha' 'golden eagle', x[u]dha' sha 'red eagle', and x[u]dha'
ska 'white eagle'.  Also a'huttatta 'sacred mottled eagle'.  The [u] are
cases where he reverts to i for u, an Omaha-ism.

He says that xudha'lezhe 'spotted eagle' rfeers to the immature golden
eagle, whose tail feathers are spotted.  Under x[u]dha 'golden eagle' he
says it is the symbolof courage, and that the black on the tips of the
tail feathers represents fire and charcoal.  He refers to x[u]dha sha 'red
eagle' as 'a mythical eagle'.

---

Throughout I've been adding accents, aspiration, retranscribing, etc.

Somewhere I've seen that war eagle terminology in an old source.

I definitely recommend that article on Cheyenne ornithology in the Plains
Anthropologist.  Very nice.

JEK