MANDAN redux (was Re: Dakota Band Names and Pomme de Terre)

[Alan H. Hartley]

Koontz John E wrote:

> If you consider Mendota in contracted form as Mendon, you can easily see
> the basis for Mantanton.  Pursuing the obvious question, I don't see that
> this helps us understand the term Mandan, which is rather different in
> form in the original, cf., OP mawadaN.  The similarity of Mendon ~ Mantan
> and Mandan is mainly in English.

I still question whether Siouan forms in mawa- are really the direct
source of de la Vérendrye's Mantanne, which he explicitly labels
Assiniboine and which is undoubtedly the source of Eng. Mandan. I think
he would have written the name as Maoua- (or something similar) had the
native etymon been mawa-. (And remember Mandan maNta 'Missouri River':
is it reasonable to imagine the Assiniboines arriving at the Missouri,
inquiring of the resident Mandans the name of the river, adding to it
their locative suffix -n and using it to refer to the Mandans, 'those at
the Missouri'?)

Granted Mendon ~ Mantan may well be of different origin, but the
earliest Fr. examples we have of them (Mantan- and Mantanne) are nearly
identical.

Alan