Autonym of Mosopeleas-Ouesperies-Ofos

[Rory M Larson]

>>> Swanton's idea was that Tunica /us^pi/ is the remains of the "osope" of
Mosopelea.

>> Actually, I suppose that might work if we assume that the -pe/-pi ending
was a modifier, making Moso-pe as a name meaning, perhaps, "Little Ofo", or
some such thing.  (Nothing promising in the Ofo dictionary though!)

> It doesn't have to have a meaning in Tunica.  They couldn't parse it.

Yes.  If Swanton's idea is valid, I would expect the -pe/-pi to be Ofo,
since it was added to the native Ofo ethnonym to distinguish one village of
Ofo-ic speakers from a neighboring one.  In that context, the Ofo
themselves would have been most conscious of the distinction, and would
probably have invented the term.  Outsiders would have picked it up from
them.

For a meaning, perhaps 'good' would work for pi: Mosopelea/Uspi = the
"Good" Ofo.  The (very slender) Ofo dictionary doesn't have pi listed for
'good', but the Biloxi dictionary does.

Continuing this idea, the Mosopelea should be the ancestors of the Uspi,
but not of the Ofo-gula.  Perhaps the Ofo-gula were already living on the
Yazoo River when the closely-related Mosopelea/Uspi migrated down the
Mississippi and moved in with them?  This would explain why the two groups
were originally considered as distinct tribes.

Then, if this were the case, the s->f shift must have taken place before
1700, and only in the original Ofo-gula community.  The Mosopelea/Uspi
would not have participated in this, and hence kept their esses.  The later
alternation between Ofo-gula and Oso-gula, with the latter term appearing
in 1739 and 1764, would be due to the fact that the Uspi had merged into
the Ofo-gula in the 1720s, and that their pronunciation of the name and the
language still used /s/: Oso-gula.  If the French writers happened to get
the name from a true Ofo-gula, the f would be used; if from an incorporated
Uspi, it would be pronounced and spelled with an s.

Rory
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