Dakota Band Names and Pomme de Terre

[Koontz John E]

I ran across a potato in:

Wedel, Mildred Mott.  1974.  LeSueur and the Dakota Sioux.  pp.  157-172,
Aspects of Upper Great Lakes Anthropology:  Papers in Honor of Lloyd A.
Wilford.  Ed. by Elden Johnson.  With a combined list of references. St.
Paul:  Minnesota Historical Society.

This article includes a list of early village (hence band) names, one of
which is Menostamenaton, glossed as Nation de la pomme de terre.  I assume
Meno is mno and ton is thuN[waN] 'village, band'.  I can't figure out
stamena, though -na might be the diminutive.

Warning - these names are not always glossed correctly, and the spelling
may be mangled at either the hearing stage or some later transcriptional
stage, e.g., Yanktons comes out Hinhanetonsouanons, where one might expect
Hi(n)hanctonouanons, for IhaNkthuNwaN=na 'little end-villagers'.  The
extra -s- may be a result of analyzing the form as Hinhanetons ouanons,
with a modifier (agreeing in number in French).

This latter was actually glossed 'village de la pierre separee des
autres', which I make 'stone village separated from the others'.  I think
this refers to the gloss 'Stone Sioux' for Ojibwa Assiniboine (assini- is
'stone' and boine is 'Sioux'), cf. Engish Stoney.

In this context, the 'separated from the others' is an early reference (c.
1683) to the notion that the Yanktonais are a group of Assiniboine/Stoney
Sioux who have separated from the rest and joined the Seven Council Fires
grouping instead.

This is a kind of fun list, if anyone is interested in old band names,
which are often nice early sources of vocabulary, e.g., the very first
name in the list is Tangapsinton 'village de la Crosse', Perhaps
representing tham-kapsin-thuN[waN] or something like 'ball-playing
village', from thapa 'ball' + kapsic^a 'to make jump with a blow, as in
shinney' (or kapsiNta 'to whip'?) + thuN[waN] 'village, band'.  Williams
gives t[h]akapsic^api as 'lacrosse'.  Riggs has t[h]akapsic^a 'to play
ball by taking up the ball in the club and throwing it' and
t[h]akic^apsic^a 'a ball club'.  Perhaps kapsic^a 'throw with a stick' is
a specialized meaning of 'make jump with a blow'.  It looks like the
t[h]a- in Santee is a reduction of thapa, corresponding in comparable
words to Teton thab-.  In this context, the -n- in Tan-gapsintons becomes
interesting.  Rather than nasalization, it's probably a reflection of -m
in tham-, a Santee vesion of thab-.

A better known example of a disappearing -n is Teton, if it's based on
thiNta 'prairie'.  In that case ThithuNwaN has to be reduced from
thiNl-thuNwaN, pronounced [thiNn=thuNwaN].

Another of LeSueur's village names that I just figured out, because it
*is* glossed correctly, is Ouidaougecunaton 'nation de l'Isle pleine' or
'People of the full island'.  Ouida is clearly wita 'island', but ougecuna
is somewhat obscure:  uz^kuna?  However, since oz^ula is Teton for 'full',
I suspect this is a misreading of ouge-ou-na.  So it really is
'full-island people'.

JEK