ASB puza

[Michael McCafferty]

John,
I believe I've also seen your cat somewhere. I'll keep my eyes peeled.

The squash vine-cat connection may also relate to the serpent aspect of the
Underwater Cat. The reality of this God involves a continuum of long-bodied
entities (not just kitties) --that may include vine plants-- that stretches
from leeches and worms to snakes and lizards to weasels, otters and martens
to pumas. Incidentally, alll of these animals are associated with the colors
white and blue (which may explain why blue trade beads were historically
such a hit).

Michael


>From: Koontz John E <John.Koontz at colorado.edu>
>Reply-To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>Subject: Re: ASB puza
>Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2003 19:58:12 -0600 (MDT)
>
>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
>
>

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