Lakota names for other people

[Alan H. Hartley]

> Does anyone have any explanation for the names Susuni
> 'Shoshone' and ChiNcakhiza 'Apache'. Is Susuni and Shoshone the
> name of the people for themselves, because I have seen other
> native names for them.

In Hdbk N. Amer. Indians XI. 334, Ives Goddard writes "The name Shoshone
first comes to notice in reports of encounters with an Eastern Shoshone
group associated with the Crow in 1805... Although Larocque specifies
that this name was what they called themselves, subsequent investigators
have not found it to be used by any Shoshones as a self-designation,
except perhaps as a very recent borrowing from English...  Some Shoshone
speakers have speculated that the name may have been derived from
sonippih ‘high-growing grass’, but although such a form would have
regular reduplication and is grammatically possible it has not been
attested in use"

note: -ppih is an absolutive suffix sometimes used to form plant names
(Hdbk. N. Amer. Indians XVII. 707-8); the i is unvoiced (whispered)