Ethnic Terms

[Koontz John E]

On Tue, 23 Jul 2002, Tom Leonard wrote:
> 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 ...

This is interesting, because (a) 'ghost' or 'spirit' based names are
actually fairly common, as I think Tony pointed out, and (b) elisions of
r- and y-like things between vowels are fairly common in fast speech in
Siouan languages, e.g., e'ge for e'gidhe in Omaha. Also (c) the
observation on names certainly seems confirmatory:

> 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").

On the other hand, stem initial n's usually seem a bit more resistant to
this sort of elision - I can't think of any other examples, anyway - and I
think the fricative is still different, i.e., I think it may be
wana(N)'ghe in an orthography that distinguishes the two.  I'll check.

> 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. ...

Loss of obstruents before an unaccented final -e is also pretty common,
though I think mainly in Dhegiha, wasae or wasa for wasabe, for example.
I think of this as occurring more in Osage and Kansa, though.  I've never
been clear on why and when this occurs.

JEK