Meaning of Siouan word "Shke-ma."

[Tom Leonard]

A translation I have from some other Ponca sources:

Spoken:
S^upHi'(a)de aN'he (the rest are song vocables)

When I got to where you were, they were fleeing

MaN'chu ni'ta - Bear Ears

Free translation: Bear Ears, when I got there, they were fleeing

One individual I spoke to about this song insisted the word was "ni'ta"
(ears) and that the song was ABOUT the individual named MaN'chu ni'ta (i.e.
the enemy were running away from MaN'chu ni'ta). A few other Ponca sources
gave the same or similar translations.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Rory M Larson" <rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2005 4:59 PM
Subject: RE: Meaning of Siouan word "Shke-ma."


>
>
>
>
> Tom - Thanks for pointing out that the "e" in "Shke-ma" is
> pronounced [i].  That shoots down all three of the ideas I
> posted the other day.
>
> Jonathan - Thanks for posting the whole text, and the hints
> that go with it.  That makes the picture a whole lot clearer!
>
> > L.    SHUPIDE THE THO UnHAY
> > S.   SHUPIDE THE THO UnHAY
> >       SHUPIDE THE THO UnHAY
> >       SHUPIDE THE THO UnHAY
> >       SHUPIDE THE THO UnHAY YO HAY YE OI
>
> > tail. MOnCHU SHKEMA SHUPIDE THE THO UnHAY
> >       SHUPIDE THE THO UnHAY
> >       SHUPIDE THE THO UnHAY YO HAY YE YA
>
> It looks like A = a, AY = e, or perhaps ai, E = i, O = u, and
> Un = aN.  That leaves us with I, which might represent ai, or
> perhaps i, or maybe even ia.  I presume TH = dh.  So in NetSiouan,
> the repeated line should initially be transcribed as
>
>   s^upaidi dhi dhu aNhe
>
> > SHUPIDE -- WHEN I ARRIVED ON THE SCENE, YOU RAN AWAY.
>
> s^u- + motion verb means the motion is toward you.  John Koontz
> has described an Omaha elder feeling his way around a darkened
> room, warning the people in his path: "S^ubdhe'", "I'm going
> toward you".  In this case, the motion verb is surely pHi,
> which means "I arrived there".  (I believe this is aspirated;
> John or other OPanists might want to comment on this!)  So
>
>   s^upHi' probably means "I arrived at where you were".
>
> -di would probably be the "when" part of that.  In OP, "when"
> is typically tHE-di, but the tHE is presumably just the
> positional that wraps up the preceding into a single chunk.
> It might reasonably be left out, in which case we would have
>
>   s^upHi'(a)di = "when I arrived at where you were".
>
> The UnHAY must be aN'he, or aN'ha-i, meaning "to flee".
>
> The THE THO is more problematic, but I find it tempting to
> read it as dhe'dhu, meaning 'here', despite the inconsistency
> in the rendering of the first vowel.  Putting it together, we
> would have
>
>   s^upHi'(a)di dhe'dhu aN'he (or aN'ha-i)
>
>   "When I arrived here where you were, to flee... (or he fled...)"
>
> >       SHUPIDE THE THO UnHAY YO HAY YE OI
>
> This might complete the sentence.  If the line suggested above
> is valid, I would think YO HAY could be uhe', 'to pass', with
> epenthetic Y from preceding aN'he.  In other words, somebody
> went (passed) fleeing.  The YE would represent the -i particle,
> strongly stressed with preceding epenthesis.  The OI would be
> the closing particle, something like -u! or hau! or ho!  With
> this interpretation, the sentence comes out as
>
>   s^upHi'(a)di dhe'dhu aN'he uha'-i hau!
>
>   "When I arrived here where you were, they went fleeing!"
>
> This has the slight problem of seeming to switch from direct
> address to third person reference with respect to the enemy.
> This might be reasonable, however, if one is addressing the
> leader of the band, but referring to his men as fleeing.
>
>
> > tail. MOnCHU SHKEMA SHUPIDE THE THO UnHAY
>
> The assumption has been that MOnCHU SHKEMA is all part of the
> name, which I gather is supposed to be Dakotan.  But if it is
> Dakotan, the first part should really be MATO.  If SHKIMA is
> to be pronounced s^ki-ma, then I think we can get a reasonable
> OP translation as part of the sentence.  In OP, s^ki can mean
> "you come back".  The MA would be a pluralizing article, -ma
> or ama'.
>
> Now when they are talking about this Sioux running away, are
> they talking about a single man fleeing from individual combat,
> or do they mean that the war band of a particular leader was
> put to flight?  I suspect the latter.  How would that band be
> referred to?  Could it be [leader name] + (a)ma?  I noticed
> recently that this happens in Old Norse, in which you can have
> constructions like "They Ingolf were ..." for "They (under the
> leadership of) Ingolf were ...".  If this works, we should be
> able to assume a Dakotan leader named MATO, transparently known
> to the Ponkas as MOnCHU, whose war band was routed.  The line
> might read
>
>   MaNc^Hu' s^ki-ma(-s^e) s^upHi'di dhe'dhu aN'he ...
>
>   "MaNc^Hu' you-all that came back, when I arrived here where
>     you were, to flee ..."
>
> And the sentence would end
>
> >       SHUPIDE THE THO UnHAY YO HAY YE YA
>
>   s^upHi'di dhe'dhu aN'he uha'-i a?
>
>   "... when I arrived here where you were, did they run away?"
>
> The final YA would be the question particle -a, with preceding
> epenthetic Y.
>
> > MOnCHU SHEMA -- THATS A SIOUAN NAME [...]
>
> Jonathan- is that a typo?  SHEMA for SHKEMA?  Otherwise, does
> this translation seem at all reasonable?
>
> Rory
>