pomme de terre

[Michael Mccafferty]

I should add that these potatoes aren't red until you cook them. But they
do grow to a somewhat colossal size in well-drained bottomland: about the
size of your arm and at least that big around. I'll also add that the
Miami-Illinois term below seems to be a reformulation of original
/mahkohpina/ 'bear potato', which also appears in the Jesuit documents and
elsewhere and for which there is a Proto-Algonquian reconstruction in
/ma0kwapenya/ 'bear potato'. Potawatomi historically had both 'bear
potato' and 'red potato' for this plant.

Michael

On Sun, 3 Feb 2002, Michael Mccafferty wrote:

> The "pomme de terre" of the historical Illinois Country is Ipomeia
> pandurata, the wild sweet potato vine. /mihkohpina/ is Miami-Illinois
> ('red potato'). Later historians often thought erroneously that the native
> term referred to the white waterlily, whose Latin name escapes me at the
> moment. N... t...
>
> La Salle has a good ethnographic report on these potatoes. They account
> for two or three native-created place names in Indiana.
>
> Michael
>
>
>
> On Sun, 3 Feb 2002, Alan H. Hartley wrote:
>
> > 1813 R. STUART Oregon Trail (1953) 153
> >
> > "we fell in with a large field of the root called by the Ottos "Toe" &
> > by the Canadians "Pomme de Terre," they are but seldom of larger
> > dimensions than a hens egg, with a rough warty brown skin, are never
> > more than six inches deep in the earth, and when boiled, resemble very
> > much in taste the sweet potato"
> >
> > Is this Apios tuberosa/americana (ground nut), which I confuse with
> > Psoralea esculenta (Indian turnip, prairie potato, pomme blanche). I
> > assume it's the same as Dakota bdo/mdo, Lakota blo.
> >
> > I ask for two reasons, one practical, the other far out:
> >
> >  1.) to confirm a new meaning for pomme de terre in the OED.
> >
> >  2.) to add to a continuing discussion on the Chinook Jargon listserv
> > about the etymology of wapato. The latter first appears as wapto in 1805
> > in the Lewis & Clark journals, with ref. to the lower Columbia where it
> > is cited as a native name for the edible aquatic root. The OED etymol.
> > Cree wapatowa 'white mushroom' doesn't seem very likely, and Howard
> > Berman (IJAL 1990) has suggested Kalapuyan *-pdo 'wapato; potato'
> > borrowed into Chinookan with its wa- added. Just fishing here, but the
> > superficial resemblance bdo~pdo, both referring to edible roots, caught
> > my eye. And then one can prefix the Ojibway and Cree wap- 'white' and
> > introduce it into Canadian French and then into Chinook Jargon...
> >
> > Anyway, simply to learn the referent of pomme de terre would be enough,
> > and much safer.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Alan
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> Michael McCafferty
> 307 Memorial Hall
> Indiana University
> Bloomington, Indiana
> 47405
> mmccaffe at indiana.edu
>
> "Talking is often a torment for me, and I
> need many days of silence to recover from the futility of words.
>                                                        C.G. Jung
>
> "...as a dog howls at the moon, I talk."
>                                     Rumi
>
>
>
>


Michael McCafferty
307 Memorial Hall
Indiana University
Bloomington, Indiana
47405
mmccaffe at indiana.edu

"Talking is often a torment for me, and I
need many days of silence to recover from the futility of words.
                                                       C.G. Jung

"...as a dog howls at the moon, I talk."
                                    Rumi