Bows (IO tradition)/Yankton sociology (fwd)

[Koontz John E]

Almost got caught by Bruce again, but noticed in time that this hadn't
gone to the list!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2001 22:59:02 -0600 (MDT)
From: Koontz John E <koontz at spot.colorado.edu>
To: Bruce Ingham <bi1 at soas.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: Bows (IO tradition)/Yankton sociology

On Tue, 17 Jul 2001, Bruce Ingham wrote:

> I was inyerested to hear about the Algonquian origin for Itazipa 'bow'.
> Does anyone know what is thought to be the actual Algonquian
> likely form?

I hope Bob will reply on this, because this is something he and the CSD
editors noticed, but in general, the Algonquian forms we were working
with, replaced with better transcriptions in some cases by Costa and
McCafferty, were:

Algonquian: PA (from Aubin's original list) *me?tekw-a 'wood, an.';
Menominee: (ne)-mee'tek my bow'; Fox: me'yta bow'(raised y); Sh.: mytekw-a
~ meytekwa (raised y in both) 'bow'; Miami: mite'kopa bow'; Chey.:
ma'tahke bow, archaic term', also Kickapoo: mehteeha bow' Voorhis-65.
[Some of the embedded ' may be ?, and I think Aubin may not be considered
a reliable source for the original data at least.]

Ojibwa, Cheyenne and Menomini (presumably moderated by Winnebago and IO)
are the logical possibilities.  If other Siouan languages were involved,
transmission from Miami-Illinois or maybe Fox-Sauk-Kickapoo becomes a
possibility.  Ojibwa isn' given here, and Menominiee looks closest, but is
lacking the final -w-a that explains the final -u in Winnebago, which
makes it somewhat difficult as a proposed source.  Of course, though we
suspect something later than Proto-Algonquian as a source, it's a stretch
to try to explicate the loans entirely in terms of the modern languages on
either side.  Perhaps a generalized Pre-Menominee actually had something
like *mee?tekwa.  But that wouldn't explain the final a of Dakotan
*m)ita(zipA).

> I had thought, purely impressionistically, that it had something to do
> with yajipa 'sting, prick'.

Well, jipa could certainly be related by sound symbolism to the zipA part
of the attested form, which is probably of Dakotan origin. I don't think
anything but the -it(a)- part is supposed to be accounted for by
Algonquian precedents.  One might argue that this is just i-tha-, but, of
course, it's ita- not itha-, and I seem to recall that tha- can be added
further to the front of this.

> What about 'spear' wahukheza.  It looks as though it comes from
> something like hu 'stick', kheza 'barbed'.  But it may be just folk
> etymology.

It looks straight forward enough to me, except that I wonder if kheza
doesn't just mean 'sharp' here?  Buechel says kheze' is 'the barb of a
fishhook, the sharp point of anything'.  'Barb' may be a specialized
sense.  Buechel also gives ik(h)aNc^ola, which seems to a bow-spear.
This is 'string-less' or 'unstrung'?

The terms for 'spear' in various siouan languages are often transparently
things like 'stabber', which doesn't lead to a special 'spear' set.

> Similarly with 'shield' wahachaNka which looks like ha 'skin, hide',
> chaN 'wood' ie 'hide hardened to a texture like wood'.

Maybe c^haNka refers to the wooden frame?  In fact, maybe the term
primarily refers to the framework?

> This takes us back to the discussion earlier this year about the
> seeming morphological transparency of a lot of basic Lakota words. Are
> the spear and shield words thought to be borrowings?

I don't think these terms are loans, and I generally agree with the
perception of most Siouan languages as depending heavily on fairly
transparent compounds of shorter stems, along with verbal derivations.
These constituents are generally, but not always, attested elsewhere in
the language.  A case in point would be Mandan, where ko'xaNte 'corn
(kernels)' is not analyzable in Mandan.  There is ko(r) 'squash', but what
is xaNte?  It turns out that this can be elucidated by forms like Dakotan
xaNte' in the non-cedar sense of 'small plant' or OP xa'de 'small leafy
plant' (sometimes rendered 'grass').

Still apart from this tendency, there are at least some exceptions like
'bow' waiting to be noticed.  Sometimes a hint is provided.  The kinds
I've noticed are things like:

- the presence of an unusual cluster (gm in wagmeza or igmu)

- less certainly, perhaps an atypical final vowel (u in a noun as in
maNaNc^gu 'bow' in Winnebago)

- or in a heavy cluster in an atypical location (maNaNc^gu again, which
can't be explained by the typical suffixing of -ke < *ka as a formative)

- more certainly, an atypical length for a root (kku'kkusi 'pig' in OP)

Of course, loans often stand out like a sore thumb when compared across
languages, because they lead to irregular correspondences.  Not all
irregular correspondences are due to loans, and some loans may produce
regular correspondences.  For that matter, many words have no cognates and
can't be compared, but irregular corespondences are still very suggestive
when they occur, and before the recent work of the CSD there's been some
tendency by Siouanists to overlook irregularities in sets like 'tobacco'.

A prevailing problem is the strong tendency of Americanists to stick to a
single family.  There are some exemplary exceptions around, but many of
us, and I'm a good example, are not really familiar with anything but, in
this case, Siouan.  Another problem may be that it is legendary that
American languages are not very prone to borrowing.  As an expectation
this can be quite self-fulfilling.  A loan that isn't expected isn't
noticed, and a loan that isn't noticed apparently hasn't occurred.

By the way, Bruce, has your Lakota dictionary come out?  I have to confess
I haven't ordered a copy yet, and I should rectify that!

JEK