Padoucah (fwd)

[R. Rankin]

Interesting -- thanks for the ethnohistorical
contribution.  This certainly looks like yet another
creative folk etymology and illustrates the fact that,
if you ask the speaker of a language to explain a
proper name that they don't have any real understanding
of, they make something up.  As is the case with
[pa'xoje~ ba'xoje] 'Ioway', they treat the /ppa-/ of
''Padouca'' as if it were 'head' and then try to find a
logical meaning for the rest, but like Mississippi and
''Mistersippi'', it doesn't quite jell.  The meaning
'Indian enemy to the West' fits with everything else we
know about the name though, and I take that part to be
accurate.  To some groups it seems to have become
specialized to Comanche or Apache, etc., but apparently
not the Osages.

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From: "Koontz John E" <John.Koontz at colorado.edu>
To: "Siouan List" <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 11:40 AM
Subject: Padoucah (fwd)


> >From a non-subscriber interested in Padouca.
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Wed, 4 May 2005 12:57:05 -0500
> From: duncan jimmy <duncanj at unionps.org>
> To: john.koontz at colorado.edu
> Subject: Padoucah
>
> ... I noticed a discussion of Pa doucah.
>
> I am not a linguist, but as an ethnohistorian, my
> older Osage informants from
> the 1970's and 80;s  insisted this did not mean just
> the Comanche, but any
> Indian (enemy) to the west. In the mourning ceremony,
> a scalp would be added
> to the sacred hawk and a bit buried with the dead
> Osage. These scalps had to
> come from the "west"  of where the tribe actually was
> at that time. Maggie
> Irons (Osage) and Hazel Harper (Osage) insisted that
> the term uki tse be used
> for related Indians; Ponca, Omaha, the various Sioux,
> etc,. Scalps must come
> from "pa ducah" They once "explained" (not
> translated) the word as "heads
> from which hair (scalp) could be used or taken" I was
> wondering if the
> westward movement of the Siouans over time may have
> led to this word being '
> left behind', So to speak.
>
> Jim Duncan
>
>