Osage

[Rankin, Robert L]

>Several elderly Poncas have told me the word 'waz^az^e' comes from
we'sa,
the Ponca word for snake. I've recorded this several different times
over
the last 25 years from several different Ponca sources.

>It's interesting to note most of the individual and family names in the
Ponca Waz^az^e Clan, both in Ponca and translated into English surnames,
generally have something to do with 'snake' (e.g. "Little Snake" or
"Snake").

Although wazhazhe can't really be derived phonetically from wes'a 'snake',
it is certainly true that most, if not all, of the groups that have a
wazhazhe clan or sub-clan associate it with snakes.  I think all those
separate attestations must mean something.  Snake seems to be one of those
words that has undergone periodic taboo replacement in Siouan.  I don't
recall that there is any word for it reconstructible to Proto-Siouan.
Dhegiha languages all use wes'a (in local pronunciations), Chiwere speakers
have coopted the wakhaN 'sacred' word for 'snake'.  There are parallels in
Algonquian where manitou is 'snake' in some of the languages around Iowa.

Bob