Ethnic Terms

[Tom Leonard]

Thought I'd chime in on this one.......

I've heard from more than one Ponca source over the years that the term for
"white man" (wa'xe) was derived from wana'xe (spirit or ghost). The folk
etymology typically given was "Those old folks called them that because they
were pale and looked like ghosts....they were afraid of those people when
they first saw them" (that's a quote from a tape of the late Bessie
LeClaire).

There does seem to be some correlation. I've noted several names in Ponca
and Omaha where "wa'xe" was interpreted as "ghost" (e.g. Ma'chu Wa'xe -
"ghost bear"....very definitely NOT interpreted as "bear maker").

I've seen similar abbreviations in the everyday use of "wa'xe sa'be" (black
man). Often it's shortened to "we'a sabe" (very commonly used) or sometimes
wa'sabe or waa'sabe. Wa'sabe ("black bear") will sometimes get a chuckle
from a listener. But when I've questioned it, the response is very often:
"yeah.....but I knew what he meant". I've asked how come you don't use
"wa'xe sabe" and, nearly always, the response has been "that's the way
grandpa used to talk".

Also (from an earlier post) the Ponca word shpa-u-ni is typically translated
a "Mexican".

Regards,
Tom Leonard

> On Tue, 23 Jul 2002, Mark Awakuni-Sweltand wrote:
> > I recall that in one of the 1971 Omaha Language classes at the Lincoln
> > Indian Center, Elizabeth Stabler suggested the word "waxe" for
> > whiteman might have something to do with the white guy's propensity
> > for "making things." At the time I figured she was linking "waxe" to
> > "gaxe, paxe..." to make, I make, etc.
>
> I believe wa + gaghe would normally contract to wa(a)'ghe, like dative gi
> + gaghe contracts to giaghe.  This conracting behavior seems to come from
> the ga-instrumental stems, but it is regular with gaghe and gaNze, too.
>
> The only problem would be that Dorsey writes wa'qe, i.e., with the letter
> (q) that represents the voiceless fricative.  The issue is somewhat
> confused by the fact that Dorsey wrote q : x for x : gamma (or gh), i.e.,
> with the use of x reversed.  And LaFlesche just wrote x for both.
>
> On the other hand, speakers all come up with the 'makes things' or 'maker'
> explanation, and something like this may apply to one one of the Winnebago
> forms ('worker') and maybe the IO form, too.  Maybe Dorsey misheard the
> fricative in the word and just wrote it consistently wrong.
>
> Something that gives me pause here is the way the Ponca nuxe clan gets
> reanalyzed as 'ice' (naNghe?) though comparative evidence suggests the
> name here is an old term for 'reddish-yellow bison' attested as a clan
> name in other Dhegiha groups.  In other words, people tend to fix things
> so that they make sense, even if the sense is an innovation.
>
> JEK
>