ho 'circle'

[R. Rankin]

I don't think there's a consensus.  I remember a talk given by one Hochunk elder
(by proxy) at one of the Siouan conferences in which he seemed to think the name
should be rendered something like "great voice".  His ethnocentric view was that
they were the "oldest" Siouan-speaking tribe and presumably occupied the
original homeland in Wisconsin.  Needless to say, similar views, mutatis
mutandis, are held by a variety of other Siouan-speaking groups.  The bottom
line is that I think this particular person liked /ho-/ 'voice' as the meaning,
but even if this view is shared generally in the tribe, it can't be taken as
historically correct necessarily.  There are at least four homophonous
possibilities for *ho:, and we're dealing with several thousand years of
history.

See also my next posting.

Bob

> I'm having a paper published on Jean Nicollet and the Ho-chunk and have
> included in that article the "big fish" etymology. Should I withdraw that
> etymology before the piece goes to press? Siouanist of the world, unite!
> Let me know.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Michael McCafferty