Co-Wife

[Koontz John E]

This has nothing to do with contemporary Dakota culture, as far as I know,
but in looking at Siouan kinship terms, I've been struck by this Dakota
term.

the'yaku 'her co-wife'

I think this might be tha-iya'-ku or tha-eya'-ku, historically, from iya
'to speak' or eya' 'to say', i.e., perhaps 'her-(co)-speaker', 'her
someone she talks to'.  The initial accent suggests a contraction or
elision.

Buechel also says that the'ya means 'one who has more than one wife', an
interesting additional application of the term.  I think, however, that
this is a result of misinterpreting the definition in Riggs, which is
'when a man has more than one wife, one calls the other teya'.  I think
Buechel's additional definition is the result of taking the two clasues as
alternatives.

I haven't run into a recorded term for 'co-wife' elsewhere, but I assume
that most Siouan groups must have had such terms.  I suppose in the
context of many situations 'sister' might have worked.