Padouca

[David Costa]

It's really not easy to tell, but there are indications in the historical
records that the Illinois and Miami did go on buffalo hunts into the Great
Plains west of the Mississippi. And the Miami-Illinois speaking peoples had
names for many other tribes that they never lived anywhere near, like the
Yuchi, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Stockbridge, Tuscarora, and Pawnee. My opinion is
that Midwestern/Great Lakes tribes were tremendously mobile prior to the
1700's, much more than we now realize.

Dave


> David wrote:

>> For what it's worth, this name seems not to be attested in Miami, Sauk,
>> Shawnee, or Meskwaki before the late 1800's. But that doesn't mean much.
>> However, the attestation of this word from Miami probably came from an
>> Indiana speaker, not an Oklahoma speaker.

> That was one of the avenues I was wondering about, and that would seem to
> provide support for the view that the name was widespread and the concept well
> known to speakers of native languages across much of the country.  Do we have
> any sense of what the context of use might have been for the Indiana speaker?
> I.e., local east-of- the-Mississippi tradition, vs. knowledge of Padoucas via
> communication with Oklahoma relatives?

> Rory