Possible Siouan origin?

[Michael McCafferty]

Listeros,

In the Illinois-French dictionary there is a curious entry: <sakima>, which
is glossed "serpent".
This term's appearance in this dictionary seems to be the only time it is
attested in Miami-Illinois and there appear to be no cognates in other
Algonquian languages that mean "snake".

Now, there is Proto-Algonquian */sa:kima:wa/ 'chief' (Aubin #1936; also in
Hewson #2914), and that term, according to what Dave Costa told me this
week, does have reflexes in Eastern Algonquian and perhaps in old Fox.

Although Illinois <sakima> and PA */sa:kima:wa/ are on the surface quite
similar, the discrepancy in their glosses is troubling. One might be led to
believe that there was an old Jesuit in the Illinois Country who simply made
a mistake when he recorded the Illinois term. However, there are two
additional terms related to the entry <sakima> that show that this was not a
error:

1) <sakimai"ac8i>  glossed   "medecine (sic) c[on]tre les morsures"
(medicine for bites), with diaresis over the <-i->;

2) <sakimai"ac8eta>  glossed  "qui pense (sic) les mordus". The latter term
is a participle, and the French translation is "(he/she) who bandages the
bites ("pense" for "panse," meaning "bandages").

I was wondering if, despite the apparent relationship between <sakima> and
PA */sa:kima:wa/, there was a chance the Illinois term was a borrowing from
Siouan. Is there anything like <sakima> in Siouan meaning "snake"?

wiipaci,

Michael McCafferty

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