Colorado typonyms.

[Koontz John E]

On Tue, 11 Jul 2006, Rankin, Robert L wrote:
> I was looking at a map of the Southwest and noticed that, in SE Colorado
> between the towns of Eads and Lamar there are several lakes or
> resevoirs. They seem to have names in some Dhegiha dialect, ...

Somewhere I have heard that in the days of Osage oil money some parts of
southeastern Colorado were popular with the Osage as summer vacation spots
- reached in automobiles, I gather - and for some reasons I assocate these
names with that tidbit.

FYI, see http://www.kcedf.org/demographics.htm:

> History
>
> On April 11, 1889, Colorado Governor Job A. Cooper signed a bill
> creating Kiowa County. The name was derived from the Kiowa Indians who
> hunted and lived in eastern Colorado before European's [sic] arrived.
>
> During the early settlement of Kiowa County, the naturally occurring
> Great Plains Reservoirs attracted Indians, settlers and trappers. The
> Indian named reservoirs include: Neesopah, meaning "Black Water";
> Neegronda, meaning "Big Water"; Neenoshe, meaning "Standing Water"; and
> Neeskah, meaning "Queens [sic for Queen's?] Lake". These recreational
> waters attract many people to this area today.

These placenames are glossed in Bill Bright's monumental Native American
Placenames of the United States, p, 320.  Without going into details,
David Rood, p.c., surmises NeeSkah 'white water', NeeGronda 'broad water',
NeeSopah 'entrail water', and NeeNoshe 'principle water'.

> Nee is obviously /niN/ 'river, lake'. -skah, -gronda, -sopah are
> attempts at 'white', 'big', 'black'. -(n)oshe may be 'full' or
> 'principle', as in "Neosho".

Carolyn Quintero's correction of NeeNoshe to 'Standing water' seems
plausible, given Osage phonology and the details of the transcription
apparently employed, and matches the views of the Kiowa County site cited
above.

Bob Rankin's correction of NeeSopah to 'black wate' also seems plausible
in this light, and also accords with the Kiowa County site.

NeeSkah as 'white water' seems more likely than 'Queen's Lake'.  There is,
of course, no Osage word for 'queen' sensu stricto, the concept being
entirely alien to Osage culture.

However, most Siouan languages do have a word for 'queen' in the sense of
the queen ina deckof cards.  The Osage expression per LaFlesche is z^e'ga
z^iNga 'little leg(s)' which he explains as referring to the old style
image of the queen (full torso, with very abbreviated legs below).  That
doesn't seem to help clarify the name, either.

One possiblity would be that someone named 'Queenie' in English but
(wak?o) ska or 'white (woman?)' in Osage was the namesake.

Another possobility is that the name "Queen's Lake" is simply an
alternative English-based name that has no connection with the name
NeeSkah.

> Does anyone know how these lakes were named?

Or when, for that matter.  Not a clue!

So, employing the awkward "NetSiouan" transcription for ASCII mail that I
am still using, I make the names:

NeeGronda = niN graNce (newer pronunciation niN laNce) 'big water'
   (c = ts; VN = nasalized vowel V)
NeeSopah = niN sapa 'black water'
   (z^ = z-hacek = the z of azure)
NeeNoshe = niN naNz^iN 'standing water'
NeeSkah = niN ska 'white water'

Here's the link to MapQuest for a run between Eads and Lamar.

http://www.mapquest.com/directions/main.adp?go=1&do=nw&rmm=1&un=m&cl=EN&ct=NA&rsres=1&1ffi=&1l=&1g=&1pl=&1v=&1n=&2ffi=&2l=&2g=&2pl=&2v=&2n=&1pn=&1a=&1c=eads&1s=CO&1z=&2pn=&2a=&2c=lamar&2s=CO&2z=&r=f