Osage

[Koontz John E]

On Fri, 18 Jan 2002, Lance Foster wrote:

> There is a Chiwere word I recall, washunshun, was'uns'un, or something
> like it, which means 'the movement of a snake,' or the undulating of a
> river as the movement of a snake (think it was in Dorsey).
>
> I wonder if washunshun (etc.) is related to wazhazhe? It seems so, and
> that would help tie 'snake' and 'water' together, as the undulation, the
> back and forth looping of both a river and a snake.

Relying on Jimm Good Tracks's recension, I find wa^sansan 'zigzag',
wasunna ~ washunna 'soft, pliant', wasun'sun ~ washun'shun 'bends
(River)', wasun'sun ma'n~yi 'crawl (Snake)' (ma'n~yi 'to walk'),
wasun'sunna ~ washun'shunna 'to shake back and forth'.  Jimm's ^ is
usually a glottal stop.  I'm not sure what wa^sansan indicates. This
suggests was^uN 'to bend, change course', reduplicated often to
was^uN's^uN, and with s^ > s over time in the historical period as is
normal.  I don't think this is likely to be connected to waz^a'z^e or
we's?a either one.  Note that I also see waso'se 'brave', cf. OP was^u's^e
'brave'.

I also looked up 'Osage' and found wa'sasi, wa'shashi (< *was^as^e ?) and
wara^iye.  The first two are probably borrowings.  Miner gives wara's^ for
Winnebago (< waraz^- ?), which may suggest that the last (wara'-language)
is a folk revision of *wara'ye (< *waraz^e).