Caddo ethnic terms

[Anthony Grant]

Dear all: Given the greater proxoimity of Mexicans (of whatever oriign) to
where the Caddos lived, I suspect that it was easy enough for Caddos to
regard them as the prototypical whiote men, soimply because they'd se more
Mexicans than any other white people.  The fact that mexico was still a
Spanish colony doesn't really affect this, since it was more a question of
wherther Spanish (etc) people living in mexico identified themselves as
being 'Mexican' which might be important.  Lots of whites who had property
and salaves in the West Indies called themselves West Indians in the 18th
century.

Incidentally, there may have been Tlaxcaltec or other nahuatl influence in
the Caddo area, since the Caddo word for bread, /dashkat/, is a loan from
Nahuatl 'tortilla'.  Caddo has absorbed words froma greater range of Native
languages than any other Native language I know of.

And kanush means Frenchman in Chitimacha, for what it's worth.  They had
'espani for 'Spaniard', 'inkinish for 'English' and yah (< ja ) for
'German'.

Anthony

----- Original Message -----
From: Koontz John E <John.Koontz at colorado.edu>
To: Siouan List <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Monday, July 29, 2002 7:02 AM
Subject: Re: Caddo ethnic terms


> On Sun, 28 Jul 2002, Wallace Chafe wrote:
> > It's nice to find an excuse to talk about Caddo. Maybe this should be a
> > Caddoan list too.
>
> As far as I'm concerned folks are welcome to discuss Caddoan languages on
> this list.  That parallels the Siouan and Caddoan Conference, certainly,
> which has always been intended as joint.  A certain amount of explanation
> may be required for benighted Siouanists.
>
> > The Caddo word for Frenchman is especially interesting. It's ka:nush,
with
> > an accent on the first syllable. Hoijer's Tonkawa dictionary gives
ka:nos
> > for "Mexican", noting its origin in Mexicanos. I suspect that the Caddos
> > borrowed it from the Tonkawas, though I suppose they could have invented
it
> > independently. Palatalization of s to sh after u is regular in Caddo, so
> > it's a perfect match. Evidently this word first referred to any
European,
> > and then got narrowed down to Frenchmen, while ispayun came to be used
for
> > Mexicans.
>
> I'm thinking that maybe Mexican as an ethnic term covering Euro-Americans
> must date from Mexican independence, though, right?  But that would be
> after 1821 (War of Independence 1810-1821), by which time the French no
> longer figured as a colonial power in the area (Louisiana to Spain 1763,
> to Franch 1803, to United States 1803), so it appears that the terminology
> has been adjusted substantially in the 1800s.
>
>