Meaning of Siouan word "Shke-ma."

[Rory M Larson]

Tom wrote:
> 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

That's reasonable.  And if the pronunciation is -de rather than -di,
we should probably be reading it as 'but' rather than 'when':

  "I arrived at where you were, but they had fled."

> 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.

That's also reasonable, and it may make it easier if we assume that we are
not
addressing the enemy leader.

How sure are we of the 'ears' translation?  We've been told by our Omaha
speakers that nitta' is 'ears', while ni'tta is 'living'.  These are pretty
close, distinguished by accent, apparently, in modern Omaha, and perhaps by
nasalization in niN'tta, 'living', according to Dorsey.  The name is listed
in Fletcher and La Flesche (52) with the translation "Grizzly bear's ears",
but the accentuation is only for a single compound word: MoNchu'nita.  The
other MoNchu' + X names I found among the Ponka listings are all verbal
constructions, most of them statives like 'living'.  Understanding the name
as "Living Bear" rather than "Bear Ears" seems to me to fit better with the
pattern of other names.

If "Living Bear" was the correct meaning of the name, then "Bear" is the
head
of the phrase, and could probably be used alone for short.  /ni'tta/ sounds
nothing like /s^ki'ma/ except for the vowels, and I don't think phonetic
confusion can be stretched far enough to explain such a substitution.  But
if
the man is Living Bear, or Bear for short, then we can still be talking
about
the man the Ponkas remember as MoNchu'nitta without the /nitta/ part of
that
having to be uttered in the song.  If the name were "Bear Ears", leaving
off
the "Ears" wouldn't be so plausible.

> (the rest are song vocables)

I don't know much about Ponka songs, but exactly what is the definition of
a
vocable, and how do we know one when we hear one?  How arbitrary or
conventional
are they supposed to be?  Why do we have that slight variation in the
ending
of the two lines, OI vs. YA?

Revised proposal (still interpreting vocables as words):

> > 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

    S^upHi'(e)de dhe'dhu aN'he
    I got to where you were at, but from here were fled ...

    S^upHi'(e)de dhe'dhu aN'he uha'-i OI!
    I got to where you were at, but from here they were passing in flight!

    MoNc^Hu' s^ki'-ma(s^e) s^upHi'(e)de dhe'dhu aN'he
    You-all who returned with/to Bear, I got to where you were at,
      but from here were fled ...

    S^upHi'(e)de dhe'dhu aN'he uha'-i a?
    I got to where you were at, but were they running away?

Not quite as thrilling this way.  Needs more work!

Rory