Odds & Ends of Ioway-Otoe in Omaha Sources

[Jimm G GoodTracks]

John!
I'm just now getting to reply to EM.  My modum was dead.  I suspect it is
the result of an electrical storm, that also wiped out my VCR & answering
machine.  One of the local Ioway families here, who has some expertise
with computers, installed a new, more rapid modem.  He said that
electrical storms can access the PC via the telephone lines, even when
the PC is turned off.  I didn't know that!

Wibtha hon! ...for the information below.  I cannot speak for Louanna (in
Mexico) and Jill (relocating to ??; EM voided), or anyone else, but I
appreciate you pointing out the selection (p.465: Sacred Pipe Dance
Tobacco Filling Song).  I am not surprised as some years ago, I found an
IO Wekan (story) song embedded in an otherwise OP hand written document.
It was interesting as an example of altering (if that's the right term)
of the oral literature being shared at the turn of the century, and
narrated in contemporary times (1970's) upon my request, and gift of
tobacco.

The story was from Turtle Goes On The Warpath.  I recognized the song and
melody immediately, as we (I and LilaW together) recorded it from an
80+yoa OM elder married to an Oklahoma Ioway elder.  I say this as the
only story songs I/ we got, were from Okla Ioways or OM's married to an
Okla-I.  The taped song appears on p.51 (Bk I: IO lang.; 1977) as "Ketan
Xanje" (Big Turtle [Song] or Big Snapping Turtle [song]).  It was written
as sung, as:

Ketan Xanje daduge.   He-e yo, he-yo, hi-ye-e-e (X3)
Ketan Xanje arastawi. He-e yo, he-yo, hi-ye-e-e.

Big Turtle bites off a piece.	[radage = bite off s.t.]
You see the Big Turtle.

The more accurate (recovered) version, which incorporates the story plot
was given as:
(Note:  The words were written in Dorsey orthography).

Ketan Xanye waje gu hi, anye ke.
Isa naNGa hie je guhe.	

Big Turtle is coming back from touching (the foe,  i.e. counting coup).
You said (that) this (one) is coming back.

[As per DOR= the letter "K" is written backwards:
[Ketan qanye watce Kuhe (anye ke).  ica - nanya hie tce Ku he]

[OP version as per DOR= the letter "K" is written backwards; "T" is
upside down; "$" is a "c" with line thru it].
[KeTanyga wate agi-biama.  ecai $an e teagii ha].

My manuscript page (copy) says the "Tciwere" version was rendered by
Sanssouci.  Further, it says that "Frank LaFlesche reads "wa't^e" for
"wa'te", but doesn't understand use of last clause "e te agii ha"."
The song doubtlessly was rendered from Mary Gale LaF.  My MS must be a
copy of the hand written notes from DOR.  At the top, on left hand column
is written "p.257", followed by the Turtle melody written out onto a
musical scale, followed by the notation = "p.269", then "257.4. words of
song of Iowa origin with Omaha pronunciation."
The page has notations of other referenced pages with other sample
sentences in both IOM & OP, that seem to be in refernce to a story
adventure of the Rabbit.

Perhaps, John or Bob will recognize this manuscript page, that may be
from DOR or even Marsh, although I doubt it.

Meanwhile, "ranyi ka re ke (thani ga the ke)", may be = wagiruthe
(receive s.t. from another).  And usually, " ranyi hinrap^owi = (we are
smoking tobacco)".  So then, that is not quite a match for the 2nd
phrase.  I will have to work on that one.

John, if you come across any other songs/ names, do let me know the
location (pp.) or send it EM.  Unfortunately, I donot have a copy of
DOR's OP texts.
I have a question, namely, how might one take the musical notation in
Fletcher &LaFlesh, to render it into a mellody.  Once, I had a piano
teacher do a rendition on piano of such an Otoe transcription.  It was
better than nothing, but still left much to be desired.

And yes, I am aware of the "good natured" joking by the Poncas in past
times.  They said the OM (language) sounded like they had something in
their mouths while talking, and the Pawnees talked like chickens.
Jimm


On Mon, 16 Jul 2001 23:39:45 -0600 (MDT) Koontz John E
<John.Koontz at colorado.edu> writes:
> It occurs to me to mention for the benefit of the IO scholars out
> there
> that there are some possible IO song texts embedded in Fletcher &
> LaFlesche.  An example would be p. 465:
>
> WakoN'da thani ga the ke  (repeat three times)
> Eha thani hiNga we tho he thoe
>
> (repeat whole twice)
>
> This is rendered something like:
>
> Wakonda we offer this tobacco.
> Now we are smoking it.
>
> The th (edh) is presumably /r/.  Thani is not the usual word for
> tobacco
> in OP, where it would be nini.  I was particular struck by the final
> k[h]e, which F&LaF interpret as the 'horizontally extended' article,
> though it is also the declarative.  But except for words that are
> more or
> less invariant all across Mississippi Valley Siouan this text gives
> F&LaF
> considerable difficulty.
>
> How about:
>
> WakhaNda, rani ka re khe
> Eha, rani hiNga we ro he roe.
>
> Now is it IO?
>
> There's an OP verb gadhe 'to donate' (a g-stem), which may figure in
> "ka
> re".
>
> There are also a fair number of IO names in the Dorsey texts, and
> some
> songs explicitly identified as IO.
>
> There is an Omaha-Ponca exclamation hiNda(khe) which occurs
> frequently in
> the Dorsey texts glossed as 'let's see'.  I'm always thought it was
> remarkably close to IO 'we see (DECL)', where the verb form should
> be
> haNda < hiN + a...da.  OP would have aNdaNbE < aN + daNbE, with a
> totally
> different stem for 'to see'.
>
> There is also a point in the story of Haxige (in Dorsey 1890) that
> seems
> to involve some language humor at the expense of IO speakers, though
> it
> could also simply be a left over from an IO telling of the story.  I
> suspect humor, however.  Haxige's brother is killed by the
> Watermonsters.
> He tries to kill the children of the Watermonsters, but only wounds
> them.
> Learning that Buzzard is going to doctor them, he kills Buzzard and
> goes
> himself, disguised as Buzzard.  He shoos everyone out and starts
> cutting
> up the children and boiling them.  The Watermonsters get suspicious
> and
> send the grass-snake to spy on him.  He catches the snake and to gag
> him
> he stuffs boiled watermonster strips down his throat.  The snake
> returns
> to the Watermonsters to report what's happening and can only mutter
> "Haxuka! Haxuka!"  Nobody can figure this out at first, but then
> someone
> exclaims "Wait!  He's got something stuck in his throat!  Pull it
> out!"
> I strongly suspect that Haxuka (Haxuga) is IO for Haxige.
>
> JEK
>