ASB puza

[Koontz John E]

On Fri, 8 Aug 2003, Heike Bödeker wrote:
> What may be interesting to note is that is that many NAN languages derive
> the word for "puma" from "lynx/bobcat" (BF omahkatááyo, PCA *me'šipešiwa
> "puma; Great Lynx, Underwater Manito" as in Nakoda ig^mu-thaNka, Dhegiha
> iGdháN-seN-snéde "long-tail-bobcat"). A differentiation between Canadian
> lynx vs. bobcats is rare (bobcat as "spotted lynx": Miami-Illinois
> wiikwee-pinaiwa, Minnesota-Ojibwe gidagaa-bizhiw, BF kííhstsipimi-natááyo)
> — as are overlapping habitats...

Correcting some typos, it's iNgdhaN'=siN=snede, i.e., iNgdhaN < iNgdhaNga
'cat', siN < siNde 'tail' plus, of course, snede 'long'. The truncation
here is probably Omaha-Ponca's relict of Dakotan final vowel truncation.
I hypothesize something like Pre-OP *iNkraNk-siNt-srete here, though, in
fact, the compound may have been formulated fresh sometime since
Proto-Dhegiha from formerly productive iNgdhaN- (combining form of
iNgdhaNga) < *iNkraNk(e) + siN- (combining form of siNde) < *siNt(e) +
snede < *sret(e).  Either way, truncated combining forms aren't usual in
modern OP compounds, thought here are a fair number of fossilized
examples.

Based on Fletcher & LaFlesche, I'd have to agree that iNgdhaN'ga alone is
'bobcat', since they gloss it 'wild cat'.  Today this is 'cat'.  Lynx is
given as iNgdhaN'ga hiN s^kube 'deep-furred iNgdhaNga'.  It is fairly
clear that most Siouan languages don't draw any deep distinction between
different kinds of felidae, but terms can be compound derivatives without
being either (a) new or (b) non-lexicalized, even though underived terms
are a bit easier to found hypotheses upon.  The 'mountain lion' term is at
least in archaic form.

Dhegiha *iNkraN-ka, Dakotan ikmuN, Winnebago (w)ic^aNwaN, and Ioway-Otoe
udwaN seem to reflect a single somewhat irregular set for something like
*ikwuN or *itraN.  The only other set with this correspondence is one of
the curcurbit terms, apparently *wa-kwuN or *wa-traN.  All these forms are
very non-canonical for Siouan and presumably Proto-Siouan, and I believe
this term has lots of resemblants across North America, so it's probably a
loan set, possibly of Proto-Mississippi Valley age.

I swear that I encountered at one point in the literature on the
archaeology of the American Bottom (i.e., the bottom lands around St.
Louis - not at all what you're trying to parse) a passing reference to a
statuette of an image of a cat entwined with squash vines.  It may have
been an halucination, as I haven't been able to rediscover it in some
casual searching.  Actually, the association makes a certain amount of
sense to me, as both cats and cucurbits have somewhat similar inclinations
to a stripy-spotty exterior.  What puzzles me is that such an image should
have survived in a form that an archaologist would recognize immediately
as what it was.  It seems too much like the answer to a historical
linguist's dream to be plausible.  Hence my suspicion that it was an
halucination.  There was no picture.

JEK