Historical questions

[Koontz John E]

On Wed, 31 Dec 2003, Rory M Larson wrote:
> 3.  The element /maha/ shows up in at least three
>     different contexts.  We have the Maha as the
>     UmaN'haN, or the Omaha tribe, which is said to
>     mean 'upstream'.  But we also have the Pani-maha,
>     who are usually Loup or Skidi Pawnee, but seems
>     sometimes to be used (or confused) for the Omaha
>     or Arikara as well.

The element here is *maNhaN 'upstream, against the flow'.  This is well
attested in Dhegiha, mostly in a form *hkimaNhaN that doesn't seem to
appear in Omaha-Ponca, where ita'gha=tta is used for 'upstream'.  (And
'downstream' is hi'de=atta, etymologically 'to the base'.)  A Quapaw
village named i'maNhaN is known.  In Ioway-Otoe you find iroma(N)ha(N) and
uma(N)'ha(N) 'upstream', and in Winnebago maNaNhaN' 'go against the
medium', and hiromaN'haNiNj^a' 'at the upper part of a river'.  As far as
I know the element isn't known outside of these languages.

I think paNdhiNmaNhaN in the sense of 'Skiri' or 'Arikara' is
transparently analyzable as 'upstream Caddoan'.  The Skiri are upstream of
the rest of the Pawnee on the Platte, and the Arikara are upstream of the
Omahas and Poncas on the Missouri.  Any supposition that the term applies
to the Omaha comes from uninitiated outsiders being confused by the
element maNhaN.

>     And between the Kansas and
>     Platte rivers, we have a couple of small rivers
>     flowing into the Missouri from southeastern
>     Nebraska called Nemaha, presumably Ni-maha.
>     So are these maha's coming from the Missouria,
>     Osage or Kaws, with the meaning of 'upstream'
>     on the Missouri?  The Nemaha is the 'river upstream',
>     the Pani-maha are the 'upstream Pawnees', and the
>     O-maha are the 'ones who dwell in an upstream context'?

The element here is *maNh-a 'earth, mud, muddy, miry', cf. Dakhota maNkha
(maNh-ka) 'earth', OP maNa' 'bank', (s^u'de)maNha 'fog' (riverbank smoke),
Ks maNha' 'land', Os niN'maNhaN 'marsh', IO maN'ha 'earth, muddy', Wi
maNaNha' 'mud, be muddy'.

> 4.  At the beginning of the 18th century, the Big Sioux
>     River is known to the French as the River of the Mahas,
>     apparently because the Omaha-Ponka were dwelling there
>     in the late 17th century.  Tabeau, probably writing
>     around 1806 if understand correctly, mentions a
>     "rivierre des mohens" several times.  The editor says
>     this is probably the Des Moines, but the river seems
>     always to be mentioned in the context of the Minnesota,
>     the James and the Upper Missouri, which suggests the
>     Big Sioux.  To Tabeau, the river of the Mahas seems
>     appropriately to be Omaha Creek in northeastern
>     Nebraska, where the Omaha Big Village is located,
>     but this is barely mentioned only in passing.  Could
>     mohen simply be an alternate spelling for the old
>     (river of the) Maha?  In French, it would be
>     pronounced something like /mohaN/, which is at least
>     as close to /umaN'haN/ as is /maha/.

Given the identification of the stream, that seems very likely to me.

> 7.  It looks like we have at least two words for 'horse'
>     in MVS.  In the Lower Missouri region, we have /kawa/,
>     from Spanish 'caballo', shared by the Osage, Kaw and
>     I understand the Pawnee.

I think the Dhegiha form is Ks kka'wa, Os hka'wa, the difference in kk and
hk being something of an arbitrary orthographic convention, though
preaspiration of the tense stops is pretty audible in Osage.  There is an
Omaha name kkawa'ha listed in Fletcher & LaFlesche (1911:189), a nikkie
name in the INs^ta'saNda clan, "meaning uncertain."  This could be either
'horse hide' or just 'horse'.

Wichita has kawa':rah 'horse' (citation form) ~ taaras (combining form)
(a' = accented a).  Since the Osage are reported to have obtained horses
int he early days by raising the Wichita, maybe they got the term from the
same source.  (Wichita also has wa:kha'c 'cow'.)

>     From further up, especially
>     perhaps the northeastern Nebraska region, we have
>     'horse' derived from the 'dog' term, *s^uN'ka.  In
>     Omaha, Ponka, Iowa and Oto, the word completely
>     shifts.  In OP, a new word, s^iN'nudoN, is coined for
>     'dog'.

I'm pretty sure Bob Rankin discovered an etymology for s^inudaN, but I'm
not recalling the details.

>     What do Iowa and Oto have for 'dog'?  In
>     Lakhota, the new form for 'horse' is the qualified
>     'dog', s^uN'ka-wakhaN'.  Is it the same in all the
>     Dakotan languages?  And what is the word for 'horse'
>     in Winnebago?

Ioway s^uN(uN)'ne, Otoe s^uN(uN)<ng>e 'horse'  <ng> = eng, n = n or enye
before e and i

Ioway s^uN(uN)'<ng>keni (or -kene), Otoe suN(uN)'<ng>keni (or -kene) 'dog'
(common dog) (cf. OP ukkedhiN 'common')

Wi s^uNuN'k 'dog, horse', s^uNuNxe'de, s^uNuNkxe'de 'horse' (big dog)