animate _wa-_

[Koontz John E]

On Tue, 6 Jan 2004, "Alfred W. Tüting" wrote:
> (a) as: "(he) has killed them in (the) water" and
> (b) as: "(he) has killed them in the/a house"

I can't elucidate the rest, but specific references to "killing in a
dwelling" and "killing in a stream" (perhaps with an indefinite "somebody"
reading of wic^ha) strikes me as plausible in a name or even text, even if
thi'wic^hakte is normally taken in an idiomatic sense of "murder, kill in
a socially unacceptable context."  I can recall specific instances of both
being recounted in the Omaha-Ponca texts, e.g., a case where a party of
Omahas pursuing a group of Dakotas came upon isolated Dakota tent at night
and fired into it, aiming at the shadows on the walls, and another in
which an enemy was killed in a struggle in a stream.  I don't think,
however, that there's any doubt about the idiom.