Branch, Comb, Sacred. Deceive (Re: Ethnic Terms and Trickster terms)

[Koontz John E]

On Tue, 23 Jul 2002, R. Rankin wrote:
> Koontz> It seems to me that there are a couple of near homophones for
> gaghe, which actually are gaxe - something like 'branch (of a stream)'
>
> That's /gaxa'/ 'creek, branch'.  The accent and final V are different.
> I don't know about length.

Dorsey has xdhabe' gaxa' ge 'the scattered treee branches' (tree branch
the-scattered) and gaxa'xa 'with many branches' in the texts, but I know
the form gaxa' (to correct it per Bob) referring to 'creek' occurs
elsewhere in Dorsey's materials.

The texts also have gaxa' 'to go beyond' and gaxa'=tta 'to the side'.
Especially interesting is dhi'?e gaxa' 'half the body' which appears to be
literally 'flank(s) beyond', but that makes sense because the context is
'eating half the body' (in an eating contest).

> > and/or 'comb',
>
> For the Kaws, that's /gaphe'/, I think.

Yes, it's h < *ph in OP, (gi)gahe 'to comb (for someone)'.  A 'comb'
is mikka'he, which looks like it might be related, but the pattern is
unusual, whatever it is!

> BTW, in the discussion of the trickster and spider names, the Osage
> and Kaw term, /cci/e xop/be/ probably doesn't have anything to do with
> /xop/be/ 'sacred, holy'.  It is much more likely that it relates to
> the verb /ixop/be/ 'to tell lies, deceive'.  The /cc(e)/ part remains
> a mystery to me, as I don't buy into 'lying buffalo cow'.

OP has i'...usis^taN 'to tell lies', and u's^i=...khidhe 'to deceive' (or
u's^i=...kkidhe 'to deceive oneself' (dative and reflexive causatives), so
I wasn't prepared for that one!

I also found wawe'kkittatta 'a deceiver', which may shed light on
Quapaw homittatta 'trickster'.

So, to conclude this section, there really aren't any convenient near
homophones to gaghe 'to make' that would explain wa(a)'xe 'whiteman' and
also explain the different fricative there.  If it were *wa(a)'xa, it
might be 'outsider, one from beyond', I guess.  But it isn't.

Incidentally, to resolve a point on which I was unclear a while ago, in
Omaha-Ponca it is xube' 'sacred, mysterious, wonderful, awe-inspiring',
with at least the derivatives dhaxu'be 'to speak in wonder, to express
wonder' and waxu'be 'sacred thing'.  And waxu'be can be used a modifier,
e.g., tti' waxu'be 'sacred tent' or aN'ba waxu'be 'sacred day, Sunday'.

I can't find xube (accented maybe xu'be) '(a) drunk' anywhere, but I'm
pretty sure I remember it in use.  Swetland/Stabler gives xube (accent not
indicated) as 'hallowed; holy; wizard'.  For 'drunk' in the same source
there's dadhiN 'to intoxicate; intoxicated; drunk'.

There is dhaxu' maybe dhaghu' (can't tell in the source S/S) 'to suck',
which is part of this last set.  (I can't find *ghube either in the texts,
by the way.)  The root *xep ~ *xop ~ *ghop ~ *gho 'to suck' is widely
attested in Mississippi Valley, and occurs also in Southeastern (as *xp)
and in at least Hidatsa in the NW.  This is presumably the connection in
'drunk', though it's possible that 'wizard' is involved.  Intoxication is
widely regarded elsewhere in the world as a sacred or at least
mystery-involving state.

The 'suck' sense may also be connected to 'to lie', though it's also
possible that there's a connection to the 'sacred' set.  Since 'to lie'
involves the i-locative, that the sense of the root xobe ~ xope isn't
precisely clear.  I wouldn't consider it impossible that 'deceit' might
have a 'sacred' or 'divine' association.  Essentially that's what
Trickster embodies.  The sacred is not always a positive thing; sometimes
it's strange and terrible and destructive.  I suppose 'sacred' might also
occur in 'lie' by way of a euphemism.  However, on the whole, it seems
safer to think of three or four similar roots here until we've done a lot
more spade work.

I don't have a clue as to what the *tti or *tte (c^c^i or c^c^e in Kaw) is
on the front of 'Trickster' in Kaw either.  Could this c^c^e- be from
*s^Re (OP s^ne-, Os sce-)?  Not that I can see how that helps, either.
INde (iNj^e ?) is 'face'.  Ine'gi (ij^egi ?) is 'uncle'.  These could be
truncated, but the series is wrong for c^c^e - they produce j^e.

JEK