Missouri, etc.

[Michael McCafferty]

From: "David Costa" <pankihtamwa at earthlink.net>
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: Re: Missouri
Date: Fri, Jan 2, 2004, 8:36 am




>And does 8ic8es mean 'bark'?

It's an archaic morpheme that's not attested in modern Miami, so I'm not
positive what it means. But it's not the basic word for 'bark'. Judging from
Gravier's Illinois form <8ic8essimingi> 'bouleau arbre' ('-imingi' = is a
morpheme meaning 'tree'), it probably means 'birch', so <8ic8es mis8ri> and
its alternate <8ic8essi> would actually mean 'BIRCH boat'.


MM: Yes, it indeed means ‘birch bark’. This term is actually something I’ve
known for a long time through Ojibwa, because of a childhood fascination
with birch bark canoes, which to me were exquisite. So, I knew about this
term many years before I saw the Illinois cognate in the Illinois-French
(“Gravier”) dictionary.

In Ojibwa its /wigwa:ss/ ‘birch bark and birch tree’. The Miami-Illinois
term written <8ic8es> and
<8ic8essi> by “Gravier” is /wiikweehsi/ ‘birch bark’.

But yes, as Dave notes, the term is not in modern Miami. The only indirect
mention I know of it is in Jacob Dunn’s recordings of the language where he
gives the common term for “canoe” and then follows it with a statement to
the effect “this is not a birchbark canoe”.

Michael

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