wakhan in nominal position (fwd)

[Koontz John E]

Something else I misrouted.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2002 09:07:11 -0600 (MDT)
From: Koontz John E <koontz at spot.colorado.edu>
To: Jan F. Ullrich <ullrich.j at soupvm.cz>
Subject: RE: wakhan in nominal position

On Thu, 6 Jun 2002, Jan F. Ullrich wrote:
> What about the stem of the wakkaN'da ..., can it be use as a separate
> word, e.g. for modifying nouns?

Not to my knowledge.  The only other word I've encoutnered with the root
-kkaNda is wakkaN'dagi.  The one other instance of -kkaN in this sense (as
opposed to 'vein, sinew, cord') is maNkkaN' 'medicine', e.g., x'ade
maNkkaN' 'tea, lit. grass (or herb) medicine' or maNkkaN' sa'be 'coffee,
lit. black medicine'.

The usual stative verb for 'holy, sacred, mysterious' is xube.  This has
an awkward near homophone with 'inebriated'.  I think there is an accent
difference, but, to my chagrin, I forget which is which, and I avoid
guessing in this case.  I do recall that both forms have distinct cognate
sets, so that they are actually only coincidentally similar.  Xube is used
in various other forms like waxu'be 'a sacred thing', or dhaxu'be 'to
speak of as sacred', and so on.  The root s^kaN is 'to move, to make an
effort, to try'.  I'm not aware of any sacred connections in Omaha-Ponca
for that verb, though it does refer to a virtue, or pattern of good
behavior, in Omaha and Pona culture.