Virtues-wolves-coyotes

[Koontz John E]

On Fri, 12 Jul 2002 bi1 at soas.ac.uk wrote:

> Does anyone know the derivation of the Lakota word for coyote
> yas^le or mayas^leca.  It is very 'opaque' as they say, not like most
> Lakota animal terms which often have a derived meaning as in
> s^ungmanitu or wamakhas^kaN. I think I once heard that it was an
> Athabaskan/Dine borrowing.

Buechel also gives mas^le and mayac^a.

I notice that Osage has dhasceke (tha-stse-ge) 'to make a gash in the
flesh'.  This would be from *ra-s^rek(e), while mayas^le^a would be from
ma(N)-ra-s^rek(a).  The root *s^rek- is probably either consonant final or
one of those ablauting nouns.  This is actually saying the same thing,
with different presumptions as to the basis of the phenomenon.

Buechel gives yaslec^a as 'to split with the teeth', but no yas^lec^a.

Miner gives for Winnebago gis^ere'k 'have hurt feelings' (gi- cf. Dakotan
ka-, not ki-), hu'us^erek ~ huus^e'rek 'bone' (huu 'limb', maybe
originally 'severed limb'?).  He gives se'rek 'be long and thin', as in
maNaNse'reserek 'cut long, but thinner than maNaNse'reserec^', or c^aas^'e
huNse'rek 'collar bone' (c^aas^e' 'neck', huNs'erek sic for
huus[^]e'rek?).

I think you could make a good case for something like 'it gashes by mouth;
a gasher', though the ma- part doesn't make any sense to me, unless it is
a fossilized form of the 'cutting' instrumental (cf. those Winnebago
forms, or OP ma[a]=).  I guess that's not very likely, since there's
already a ya- (*ra-) instrumental.  (Is the instrumental maya-?)  The
mechanics of truncating a final -c^a < *-ka are pretty obvious in Dakotan,
though in this case I think the -c^a is for once not that -c^a ~ -ka
suffix, but an organic part of the stem (originally).

If this seems reaosnable, then this is an example of the utility of
looking up etymologically equivalent forms in other Siouan languages to
resolve obscurities.  True, we usually resolve obscurities elsewhere by
looking things up in Dakotan, instead of the reverse!

JEK