Siouan place name

[Koontz John E]

On Mon, 14 Jun 2004, [windows-1252] "Alfred W. Tüting" wrote:
>   That's what I could find about it:
>
> ? Elkhorn. The town of Elkhorn or Elkhorn Station takes its name from
> the Elkhorn river which empties into the Platte river a short distance
> from the town. It was incorporated by an act of the legislature approved
> January 22, 1856. Ta-ha-zouka (Elk's Horn), from whom the Elkhorn river
> takes its name, was associated with Blackbird, also an Omaha chief, in a
> treaty with the Spanish Governor-General of Louisiana in 1796.
>
> See also:
> http://www.elkhornvalleymuseum.org/newsletter03-2a.htm

I hadn't thought yet of a straightforward Internet search, I'm embarassed
to say.  Apparently the ten hour jaunt back from Wayne curdled my brains
more than I thought, even though David Rood did the actual driving!  It's
only one state over, but it takes a while to get there.

I had also forgotten to mention that I had noticed that Norfolk was on the
Elkhorn or that Ta Ha Zouka ran near the river.  I had more or less
rejected the Elkhorn itself as the source of the name, because various
sources, including Fletcher & LaFlesche, p. 89, indicate that the name of
the Elkhorn is Watte, which is a word of uncertain meaning, and,
incidentally, a minimal pair with wathe 'skirt'.  The minimal pair is
called attention to in Hiram Chase's Omaha Syllabary, a short article that
I was presented a copy of by Dennis Hastings some years ago.  It was a
thrill at the time to see that someone mentioned in Dorsey's texts
(besides Dorsey) was alive to the contast between tense and aspirate
stops.  "Hiram Chase [Wasabe TtaNga] was the trader at the Omaha Agency,
who had taken a Omaha woman [not named] for his wife." (Dorsey 1890:638)

In the page Alfred references it says "One was the tradition that the
river was named for Elkhorn, the first chief of the Omaha's to make a
treaty with Spain."

"Francis La Flesche, author of a history of the Omaha's, spelled the name
as "Tahe Zho Ka," and claimed it meant "the forked horn of a deer."

I suspect this is a reference to something like Fletcher & LaFlesche p.
146 (list of We'z^iNs^te or Elk clan names) Tahe'zhoNka ... Ta refers to
deer; he, horn,; zhoNka, forked."  The syntax of the reference suggests,
however, that some other LaFlesche statement may be intended.  It looks
like what has happened is that the raised n (represented N here) has been
deleted from the quotation of LaFlesche, whereas in the street and park
name the original source's representation of z^ (zh?) has been changed to
z and the raised n has been converted to a u, leading to the mysterious
zouka that puzzled me.  I suppose it's possible that somebody wrote down
ttahe' z^aNkka directly as ta ha zou ka.  In that case this would
illustrate several of the reasons why it's difficult to recommend writing
Omaha with English spelling.

Another problem with understanding z^aN'kka is that the usual word for
'forked' is z^a'tta < PMV *z^a't-ka, cf. Teton z^a'ta < *z^at-.  So
z^aN'kka is a somewhat exotic word.  It actually isn't listed in
any of the usual Dhegiha lexical sources, though Dorsey's texts include
one instance of maN-i'ttaghe-z^aN'kka for 'notch in the base of an arrow'.

"Sheldon included other information. Dr. J. T. Link of Seward, who had
spent nearly twelve years researching place names in Nebraska, claimed it
was not an Omaha word and should be translated as "Elkhorn." He found no
record of an Omaha chief nor a treaty. He also claimed that tribes did not
use individuals' names for streams even though there was some significance
for a person when an important incident occurred that associated him with
a stream."

I won't go into the issue of the treaty, though there are records of an
agreement between the Spanish and a "Wajinga Saby," I think, and certainly
Waz^iNgasabe / Blackbird / Pajaro Negro was a historical figure.  I don't
know if there was a figure Elkhorn separate from Blackbird, or if that was
an earlier name of Blackbird.  Fletcher & LaFlesche (p. 82) mention that
Blackbird was the protege and supplanter of an earlier unnamed figure in
the contest to control European trade.

In regard to Link's latter contention, that streams were not named after
people, just on p.  89 of Fletcher & LaFlesche where I found 'Elkhorn'
there's "Logan hi te" 'Hyde Creek' 'where Logan {Fontenelle] came to
trade', and "Uki'patoN tenuga t?ethe te" 'Pebble Creek' 'where Uki'patoN
killed a buffalo bull', the later also known as '"Pa'tithihu izhiNga xa i
te" 'where the son of Pa'tithihu is buried'.

Summing up, it appears that Ta Ha Zouka is intended to represent
Omaha-Ponca Ttahe' Z^aN'kka, (Tahe' ZhoN'ka in the Macy Schools
orthography), an Omaha personal name meaning 'Forked Antlers' (or maybe
referring to a particular stage or configuration of elk antlers).  It
isn't the name of the Elkhorn River in Omaha(-Ponca), though it may have
been intended to be.  The Elkhorn River is actually called Watte' (Wate'
in the Macy Schools orthography).

(Note that both the LaFlesche and the Macy Schools orthography uses
apostrophe (') for glottal stop, but when I am forced to use ' for the
acute accent I switch to ? for glottal stop.)