"phute'okicu" (etymological enquiry)

[Clive Bloomfield]

I've been little puzzled about the Buechel-Manhart etymology supplied  
for phute'okicu or phuto'kicu [=elephant] :
(Quote) Page 278 : "from pute'= upper lip + wokicu=what one  
RESTORES." (unquote, my emphasis). Why 'restores'? 'Restores' what?
Moreover, one notes that while 'wok'u' [with specialized meanings :  
i) give food to; ii) lend] does occur in the dictionary, the said  
form 'wokicu' is nowhere given.

If I am correctly interpreting B-Md.'s rather bamboozling system of  
tiny superscript dots & microscopic inverted "flyspecks"  for  
annotation of the unaspirated/aspirated/"gutturalized"/ejective  
consonantal contrast, as employed in their phonological  
transcriptions for each dictionary headword (2002 edition), this word  
is "phute'okichu", hence, apparently, that etymology from kichu  
'restore/give back'
(or is that just 'kicu'? - & I'm using a large magnifying glass!
In my edition of B-Md., the -c- is printed with NO dot, so accdg. to  
the Guide to Pron. p.xiv, it sounds as intitial ch- is Engl.  
'chair' : aspirated, no?).

B&D. supply [p.89, Sect 104, 1.] : kichu' =to give back one's own'.

On the other hand, at the entry for kichu (kicu?) 'restore' , B-Md.,  
(echoing Riggs' Dakota dict., s.v.), make a point of saying that this  
verb, by rights, ought to be kic'u, (as a derivative, obviously of  
k'u, with B&D's ki- 'back again' prefix), but ISN'T, and loses the  
ejectivity of C2. Perhaps then it is kicu, after all??

Initially, I supposed that some confusion had arisen, perhaps due to  
Fr. Manhart (possibly?) being rather 'hoist in the petard' of this  
somewhat quirky orthographical system, and that perhaps the verbal  
part of the compound might be simply a Dative-Possessive form of icu  
'take/take up', with added locative prefix 'o-' 'inside', hence  
etymology : 'he picks (it) up inside his upper-lip (trunk)'-- 
 >'elephant'.
But then one observes that icu has an (apparently reduplicated/ 
syncopated?) possessive form 'ikikcu' 'take back what one has given/ 
take back one's own' (B-Md. s.v.), and there also  exists a form  
'iikcu' 'take or obtain what one expects', but apparently no 'ikicu'!  
Wouldn't the form corresponding to my etymological speculation here,  
have been (phute)-oIKIcu?

Anyway, while people are setting me straight on that, here's another  
speculative idea to account for the etymology of 'phute'okichu' :

There is a verb ochu' meaning "to become damp in/to have drops of  
water inside".
The Dative/Possessive form might be "okíchu" : "it has [drops of]  
water inside (FOR him)"--->"his ....has [drops of] water inside".

Could the etymology of  phutéokichu be "his trunk (lit. upper lip)  
has [drops of] water inside" or "he has water inside his trunk",  
possibly originating when some Lakota person first saw a circus  
elephant giving itself a "shower"?

I know: it's a bit 'cute', and prob. transgresses good old William of  
Occam's ever-useful maxim, but I plead the mitigation of those  
infuriating dots swimming before my eyes!
Il ne s'agit qu' un crime passionel, monsieur le juge! ;)

Kind regards,

Clive.
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