Iskousogos

[Michael Mccafferty]

Sorry for the confusion, Bob.

The hydronym <8AB8SKIG8> that Marquette recorded during the Mississippi
voyage of 1673, which refers, as Marquette says in the narration of the
voyage, to the Ohio River as we know it today, is not related to "Wabash".

Unfortunately, the meaning of <8AB8SKIG8 was lost since Marquette died
before he could explain it. But when the place name made it back
to Quebec/France/civilization, it was tranliterated, incorrectly, to
"Ouabouskigou". Historians, at least beginning with Thwaites have thought
that Marquette's place name is related to Miami-Illinois /waapaah$iiki/,
the name of the Wabash River. However, except for the initial, /waap-/,
written 8AB- by the explorer and Ouab-/Wab- in French and English
forms of the Miami-Illinois name for the Wabash, these two names are
not phonologically related. "You can't get there from here," as they say.

Moreover, /waapaah$iiki (siipiiwi)/ 'it-shines-white river' referred to a
waterway that brackets today's Wabash River + the distal end of the Ohio
River, below the confluence of today's Wabash and Ohio. In other words,
the Old Wabash was a tributary of the Mississippi, and the Ohio a
tributary of the Old Wabash. So, not only do the two terms not mean the
same thing, they describe two different rivers.

I hope this clears up the confusion.

I'm writing a paper about all this and hope to put this false
equation back into Pandora's box. But darn if them cross winds ain't
something.

Ok. Back to All Things Siouan.

Best,


Michael

 On Fri, 13 Feb 2004, Rankin, Robert L wrote:

>
> I think there's some confusion here over what, exactly, we're talking
> about.  That, or I'm dyslexic.  My comment was about the river name
> 8abachkig8, which is found in one or another form on numerous early
> French maps of the Ohio Valley, sometimes as the name of the Ohio,
> sometimes distinguished from it.  Surely it is "Wabash" -- I certainly
> haven't any other explanation for it.  I was thinking that Iskousogos
> was supposed to be the most westerly of the names in someones inventory
> or map -- thus the possible comparisons with Wabash.
>
> > No connection. Iskousogos was one question. And 8AB8SKIG8 is another
> word.
>
> > And, no, 8AB8SKIG8 and Wabash are not related.
>
> Michael
>
> > Wabash IS Algonquian, of course, but perhaps I missed something: what
> > connection is there supposed to be between '8ab8skig8', 'Wabash' and
> > 'Iskousogos'?
>
>
>