Siouan place name (Macy)

[Koontz John E]

On Thu, 17 Jun 2004, Mark-Awakuni Swetland wrote:
> Expanding on the Marriott family anecdote, I was told in the mid 1990s
> that Macy was a contraction of "MArriott CitY" => MACY.

It sounds like the explanation has varied some.  Was that from the
Marriott family?

I omitted to say that I'd noticed I got the "Omaha Agency" story from
members of the Waxe community and the "Maazi Tyndall" explanation from the
the UmaNhaN community.  Neither side seemed particularly familiar with the
other version.

I rather suspect that one or the other of the namings was first, but that
the second was then devised by members of the other community as a
community-promoting witticism, and over time came to be the only accepted
explanation in that community.

Because the English explanation(s) depend on clever and unusual acronyms,
while the Omaha explanation seems to have had some direct tie to a name, I
tend to think the Omaha name was first.  However, there seem to be some
unusual aspects of the Omaha name as a personal name.

It would be interesting if there were any documentation of the personal
name or placename at an early date.  The agency existed before the
allotment process by quite a few years, for example, and if the Macy name
was in use before Matthew Tyndall occupied the allotment area, that would
militate against the placename coming from Maazi (and/or Matthew).

One point to bear in mind is that Engish Macy is pronounced [meisi], while
maazi is pronounced [ma:zi] and may have been pronounced [ma:<dh>i], too,
in the past.  It's unlikely that a meisi pronunciation would lead to the
maazi explanation, while the maazi explanation, especially if maazi were
spelled in the LaFlesche orthography as "ma<c-cedilla>i" could lead to the
Macy explanation, by imposing an English pronunciation on the Omaha
orthography.  However, perhaps the Omaha explanation derives from the
"Macy" spelling.  That would indicate that the transfer was made by
someone familiar with the LaFlesche orthography and knowing Matthew
Tyndall (or knowing of him).

> Anecdotally I've heard Matthew Tyndall referred to as Mazi Tyndall.
>
> However, in Fletcher's 1882 Land Allotment register MS p.155, Matthew
> Tyndall, age 51, is listed as Sta-da-ha. I have not located the Elk Clan
> equivalent in the Fletcher and La Flesche 1911 listing. I will try to ask
> around and see if any of the old folks recall him.

Omaha and Ponca given names sometimes changed, as I understand it.  This
is one of the problems historians have with tracing some of the chiefly
lineages, I gather. The names passed from father to son, but the
chronology of this isn't directly documented in most cases.