Lakota=>Siouan polyandry inquiry

[shokooh Ingham]

Purely for comparative interest i can add that Persian has a word for it daamaad sar khaaneh 'bride groom at the house (of the in laws)'.  Some Arabic dialects say g'eidi 'a (diminutive) sitting (ie residing) person'.  English probably regards it as unremarkable and so doesn't have a word for it.
Bruce

--- On Sat, 24/9/11, Jan Ullrich <jfu at LAKHOTA.ORG> wrote:

> From: Jan Ullrich <jfu at LAKHOTA.ORG>
> Subject: Re: Lakota=>Siouan polyandry inquiry
> To: SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu
> Date: Saturday, 24 September, 2011, 15:47
> Dear Mark,
> 
> The term 'buried man' is an English rendition of one of two
> Lakota words for
> 'son-in-law'. Normally son-in-law was addressed thako's^,
> but another term
> was wicha'woh^a. The latter was used for a man who moved to
> his wife's band,
> rather than live with the band of his parents.
> 
> The term 'buried man' is possibly a translation of folk
> etymology although
> it must have been around for quite long as it was first
> mentioned in Riggs'
> 1852 dictionary. Riggs gave the following definition of
> wicha'woh^a  
> 
> "a man who lives with his wife's relations, literally a
> buried man" 
> 
> Buechel defines it as follows: "a man who lives with his
> relatives, lit. a
> buried man, or one who being attracted to a family stays on
> with them."
> (sic) Note the lack of "wife's" before 'relatives', which
> is very likely an
> omission done by Manhardt (who edited the manuscript after
> Buechel's death),
> as omissions of words or parts of words in both the English
> and Lakota texts
> are rather frequent in Manhardt's editing. (I find it hard
> to understand why
> Univ. of Nebraska Press re-published the dictionary under
> his editing or why
> it was re-published in the first place since the manuscript
> is problematic
> with respect to so many of its aspects.)
> 
> Deloria in one of her dictionary manuscripts gives the
> following definition
> of wichawoh^a: "son-in-law i.e. living near his wife's
> relations where he
> must enact his part, maintaining the correct attitude
> towards them at all
> times." Riggs defines wichawoh^a as "a buried man" taking
> woh^a to mean
> "cache," but from the second form for daughter-in-law -
> wiwayuh^a - it is
> quite clear that woh^a is a contraction of wayu and h^a.
> (cf.  wiwoh^a)."
> 
> What I think Deloria is hinting at is that the woh^a
> component of the term
> originates from the verb iya'yuh^a or one of its forms.
> This verb verb means
> 'to follow someone, to constantly stay close to (as a
> relative, a child to
> his/her mother etc.)'. I think this makes sense in the
> context of the kind
> of son-in-law and daughter-in-law that wicha'woh^a and
> wiwo'h^a respectively
> describe.
> 
> I never encountered any mention of polyandry among the
> Lakota other than
> Walker's. In the light of the above I tend to think that
> Walker
> misunderstood or misinterpreted some of the information on
> marriage and
> marital customs that the Lakota people had given him.
> 
> Jan
> 
> 
> 
> Jan Ullrich
> Lakota Language Consortium
> www.lakhota.org
>