Spiders, Trickster, and Whitemen (Re: wild cats etc)

[Anthony Grant]

Dear John:

Fascinating stuff!

As I recall, Pawnee and Arikara call white people 'person white':
sahni$taaka in Arikara, tsahriksta(a)ka in Pawnee (apologies if there are
errors in these forms).  The Is^tahe form also occurs in a Wichita
vocabulary from the 1850s  to refer to some non-Indian ethnic groups.  (I'll
check up which ones; I think African-Americans and Mexicans had compound
names involving this stem.) It's probably a loan from Osage.

Anthony
----- Original Message -----
From: Koontz John E <John.Koontz at colorado.edu>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Saturday, July 20, 2002 10:19 PM
Subject: Spiders, Trickster, and Whitemen (Re: wild cats etc)


> On Thu, 18 Jul 2002, David Costa wrote:
> > Actually, the spider/trickster/white man terms in the Plains Algonquian
> > languages can all be shown to have meant 'trickster' originally in
> > Proto-Algonquian, not 'spider'. ...
>
> I decided to try to summarize the tgerms for 'spider', 'Trickster', and
> 'whiteman' in Missisippi Valley.  I haven't tried to include secondary
> considerations like what terms are used in English for 'Trickster', though
> this can be interesting.  For example, I gather that the Mandan may
> generally call him Whiteman in English, while the Omaha, having come to
> calling monkeys Is^ti'nikhe in Omaha now call him Monkey in English.
>
> If there's more interest, perhaps folks can add additional languages from
> the rest of the family, or fill in some of the holes, correct
> misimpressions, etc.
>
> All of the 'whiteman' terms are under suspicion, often indicated in the
> sources, of referring specifically to the French, originally, except for
> those based on 'big knife', which presumably refer to 'American'. Note
> that 'whiteman', though traditional, is something of an odd gloss.
> Presumably it originates in European color-based terminologies - red men,
> black men, white men, yellow men, too, for that matter.  But the Siouan
> terms generally have no reference to color, and usually specifically
> include both Euroamericans and Afroamericans.  Probably Asian Americans,
> too, for what that's worth, though I'm not sure. Sometimes African
> Americans are specifically distinguished as 'black whitemen'.
>
> The general idea is apparently 'non-Native, not indigenous people' as
> opposed to 'people of the usual kind' or indigenous Americans, who would
> normally be identified in terms of ethnic group.
>
> There are, of course, weakly developed terminologies for non-indigenous
> ethnic groups, too, though this list usually stops at 'French' (the
> unmarked case of normal non-indigenous people), 'British, Canadian',
> 'Spanish, Mexican', and the johnny-come-lately 'Americans, Virginians'.
> There is sometimes a substitution of the 'American' term for the
> 'whiteman' or 'non-indigenous people' term, and there may be confusion in
> the 'Spanish, Mexican' and 'French' terms due to the transfer of French
> authority over the Louisinana (exercised from St. Louis) to the Spanish.
>
> Dakotan
>
> Sa  uNkto'mi        uNkto'mi       was^i'c^uN
> Te  ikto'(mi)       ikto'(mi)      was^i'c^u(N)
>
> Santee from Riggs and Williamson.  Teton from Buechel and Ingham. I
> believe there are more variants of 'Trickster'. For 'whiteman', cf.
> sic^uN, s^ic^uN 'spirit or spirit-like thing in a man which guards him
> from birth against evil spirits' (Buechel).
>
> Dhegiha
>
> OP  ukki'gdhiske    is^ti'nikhe    wa'xe (not wa'ghe)
> Ks  c^c^ixobe                      is^ta'xe
> Os  hce'xope                       iNs^ta'xiN
> Qu  moi'kka         ho'mittatta    is^ta'xe, is^ta'xi
>
> Omaha-Ponca from Dorsey and Swetland & Stabler and LaFlesche.  Kansa and
> Quapaw from Rankin.  Osage from LaFlesche.  The Omaha-Ponca 'spider' term
> s glossed 'it weaves itself', but I suppose it could be 'it weaves for
> itself'.  Kansa 'spider' looks like 'holy house', the Osage one like 'holy
> buffalo'.  The Quapaw one resembles Quapaw mani'kka 'earth' (other Dhegiha
> terms similar, with the -n- somewhat elidable).  The Kansa, Osage, and
> Quapaw 'whiteman' terms are generally interpreted as 'yellow eyes', htough
> it's a fricative gradation of zi 'yellow' and sometimes the vowel is -e.
> Omaha-Ponca wa'xe is often explained as 'maker', but that would be wa'ghe
> < wa-gaghe.  Unfortunately, transcriptions distinguishing x and gh are
> scarce, other than Dorsey's.
>
> IO  wagri' xa'xaj^e isj^iN'khi     ma'?uNkhe
>                                    maNt^uNkhe, mat^?uNkhe ?'metal ...'
>                                    mai?uN ?'knife doer'
>
> The IO form for 'spider' is based on wagri' 'bug', but I'm not sure of
> xa'xaj^e.  The unreduplkicated form xa'j^e is 'hay'.  There is also wagri'
> xaN'xaNj^in~e 'swarming with maggots'.  Note that xaN'j^e ~ xaN'n~e
> (similar, but not etymologically identical) is 'big'.  The terms for
> 'whiteman' are explained as 'iron worker, land worker', which might work
> for the second set, cf. maNd^e' 'iron' (t^ = theta, d^ = edh).  UN is 'to
> do', but uNkhe is less clear.  The male declarative is khe, but
> declaratives are not usually (ever?) part of lexicalized forms in Siouan
> languages.  The last looks like a fast speech rendition of something
> beginning with maN(aN)'hiN 'knife'.
>
> Wi  wikirihoo'kere  wakj^aN'ka=ga  waxobiN'niN 'spirit'
>                                    waNaNksga' 'whiteman' (literally)
>                                    maNiNxe'te 'big knife' ('American')
>                                    ware'niNka 'work man'
>
> The 'spider' term looks like 'scalp lock bug'.  I believe the final -ga of
> 'Trickster' is the demonstartive attached to names or first person kin
> terms, etc., essentially a mark of respect, I think, or at least
> formality.  The first 'whiteman' term incorporates *xop-riN 'be holy',
> though this stem seems not to be found independently in Winnebago.  The
> general root *xop- is found throughout Siouan, and xop-riN, with the same
> auxiliary verb, occurs in Mandan.  The third version of 'whiteman' is
> probably the usual 'big knife' term for 'American', though contracted
> (maNaNhiN' 'knife' xete' 'big').
>
> JEK
>