Padouca

[Koontz John E]

On Thu, 28 Apr 2005, Rory M Larson wrote:
> 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?

I could be wrong, but my suspicion would be that terms known from Indiana
could perhaps be attributed to French-moderated social intercourse within
the French province of "the Illinois" and its subsequent French, Spanish,
and American "the Missouri,"  Generally speaking, in both cases, the
situation in the 1700s-early 1800s in St. Louis and environs.

On the other hand, terms from Oklahoma could reflect English-moderated
social intercourse in "Indian Territory" from c. 1840 or so on.

Some of the same ethnonyms - Padouca, (A)Kansa, etc. - seem to occur in
different senses and somtimes different forms in the two contexts, and
consequently change meaning over time, noticeably so in the case of groups
participating in both contexts.

Unfortunately, in both cases, unless a form is attested clearly early on,
it's not easy to refer it to a pre-Contact period.