wild cats etc

[bi1 at soas.ac.uk]

On 18 Jul 2002, at 13:27, Koontz John E wrote:
I must admit I've always preferred the 'spirit' interpretation of
was^icu.  It doen't mean that the Native Americans really thought
we were spirits, but they may have thought we looked like them.
Back in the Middle East the Persian referred to westerners as
c^es^m zaag^ which means 'light blue or grey eyed'.  It is not a
coincidence I think that Jinns or Spirits were also thought to be
c^es^m zaag^

I am signing off today and going to Saudi arabia for a couple of
weeks.  Wish you all  a good summer.  I have found the 'wolves,
coyotes etc' v. stimulating.
Bruce
>
> In the Dakotan case the term for 'whiteman' (was^i'c^huN) does, however,
> suggest a category of supernatural beings (s^ic^huN), though the 'steals
> fat' analysis is widely accepted by speakers, and apparently some people
> object to the s^ic^huN analysis, on prescriptive moral grounds ("people,
> and certainly not white people, can't be spirits") or on grounds of logic
> ("who would have thought a dumb thing like that?!").  Of course, I'm not
> sure if everyone who has made a contrary argument to me has been a Dakota
> person.  I suspect in most cases they haven't been, in fact.  Dakotanism
> doesn't seem to be an evangelistic movement except among 'whitepersons'.
> (I didn't mean the 'whitepersons' sarcastically.  It's just the plural.)
>
>
>


Dr. Bruce Ingham
Reader in Arabic Linguistic Studies
SOAS