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Songs in Fox (Mesquakie) Texts

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Songs in Fox (Mesquakie) Texts Songs in Fox (Mesquakie) Texts. Linguistics and Philology IVES GODDARD Smithsonian Institution Two kinds of songs are encountered in Fox textual materials, ceremonial songs (which are sung in the performance of ceremonies) and story songs (which are sungby characters in traditional oral narratives). This paper briefly exemplifies some of the features of these songs as texts. Songs present problems of editing, presentation, and translation, but they also have lin­ guistic features that differ from those of ordinary spoken language. Some of these features can be shown to be archaic, while others may be the peculiar characterists of songs as a special speech register. This paper does not deal with the musical aspects of the songs discussed, for which no recordings are available. I. Songs from the Legend of the Owl Sacred Pack (Alfred Kiyana) Alfred Kiyana's legend of the Owl Sacred Pack (Kiyana 1914; abbreviated in textual references as O) contains a number of songs that were used in conjunction with the pack, both in the pack ceremony itself (which was no longer performed when he wrote) and in war and curing activities that made use of the pack. The pack was war medicine, especially indicated to be for the treatment of bones broken by gunshot. These songs are given first in the phonetic transcription of the sung versions obtained by Truman Michelson (1921). These transcriptions have been slightly modernized as regards the choice of phonetic symbols and have been checked against Kiyana's manuscript. In the center are the spoken- word equivalents written phonemically, with a dagger marking those not actually used in everyday language. On the right is a translation, generally following Michelson's. Fuller word glosses are given in some cases below each song, and a discussion follows. It will be evident that a major decision faced by any editor of materials of this kind is what transcription to use. The phonetic transcription ob­ scures the identity of the words, while the phonemic transcription distorts 212 IVES GODDARD 213 normalizes, and even omits features of the song texts that have no ordi­ nary spoken-language equivalent and which may, therefore, be of particular interest. Any solution seems to require multiple presentations of some sort. The metrical structure of Fox songs is determined by syllable counting, but the exact rules and repertoire of verse types have not been determined. For example, the first song has the structure 10-6-10, with the third line chiastically repeating the first. The second song is 9-4-13, with the third line repeating the first. The third song is 7-7-8, with the first two lines identical. In some cases one can suspect that the structure is different from the way Michelson presents it, and a few of these have been noted. The significance of such songs typically goes beyond the direct meaning of the text and involves allusions to the blessing of the founder of the cere­ mony, to the ceremony itself, or to the use of the medicine, often couched in more or less conventional metaphors and other kinds of indirect language. In the case of the Owl Sacred Pack the founders were Black Rainbow and his niece Deer Horn. They were jointly blessed by an owl manitou during conventional puberty fasting. The owl appeared to them as a man, gave them instructions, and left them the sacred bundle, except for the wooden flute which they were to make.1 The songs will be presented in the order in which they occur in the text, with commentary following each one. Superscript numbers in the texts and translations indicate the number of repetitions of a word. (1) Stay-at-Home Song (nesapiwi-nakamo-ni; 016D-F [Michelson 1921:18.35-37] ). [wi'na' wi- -f- na' wvna* He does have the nature wi'teko'wi'pani' +] witeko'wipani of an owl, [mehtoseneniha- +] mehtose' neniwa a person [wi'teko'wi'pani' + wi teko' wi pani does have the nature of wi'na wi'na'l an owl, he does. (wina 'he (emphatic)'; wi teko-wi pani 'he surely is an owl'; mehtose'neniwa 'person'.) JThe bundle itself was purchased by Michelson in 1914 for the Museum fur Volkerkunde in Berlin, where it is today. The authenticity of the bundle has been questioned (Skinner 1924, 1925:341; McTaggart 1976:36-37, 41), but this should not reflect on the authenticity of the legendary account that Kiyana wrote, giving his source as his father's brother Anawowata (see also Michelson 1926:575-576). In particular, the fact that there are places in the songs that Kiyana evidently did not understand (see especially songs 5.3, 6.2. 8.3, and 8.4, below) argues that the songs were not his invention. 214 LINGUISTICS AND PHILOLOGY This song was sung every noon by the guardian of the red-stone (catlinite) pipe while the sacred pack was on the warpath. Its esoteric meaning is: The man sings about how, being blessed by the owl, he has the spirit of an owl (Michelson 1921:19). The form witeko'wipani 'he is an owl' is what may be called the assertive mode of the independent order of (independent indicative) wi'teko'wiwa 'he is an owl'. While not an archaism, this mode is extremely rare in texts and is at present used only in the third person: we'pesi'hi'pani 'he surely is crazy', wepesvhvpaniki 'they surely are crazy' (cf. wepesvhiwa 'he is crazy'). These forms do not have a preterite meaning, unlike the cognate modes in other languages (Goddard 1979:146-148).2 (2) [Departure Song] (017G-I [Michelson 1921:20.6-8]). [he'ya'ya'ni' + he'yaya'ni'hi +] e'ya'ya'ni? Where I am going,2 [meno'htani'] ^meno'tani against the foe is [he'ya'ya'ni'hi he'ya'ya'ni" he'ya'ya'ni'] e'ya'ya'ni3 where I am going.3 (e'ya'ya'ni 'where I go'; \meno'tani 'against the foe'.) This song, which is not named in the text, is sung just before depar­ ture by the one carrying the pack on the warpath. The archaic word meno'tani means something like 'the enemy side'; the phonemicization given was obtained in 1990 from a ritualist who knew it as an old word of uncertain meaning. A fuller expression, used synonymously, is a'sowi- meno'tane '(in, on) the opposite (i.e., enemy) side' (Michelson 1930:68.3 [phonetics thus]). Probably meno'tani has been extrapolated from a'sowi- meno'tane by back-formation, since the meaning it shares with the longer expression must originally have depended on the presence of a'sowi 'across, on the other (side)'. Another synonymous extrapolation is the ostensi­ ble plural form (asowimenotanani) (Michelson 1932:62.23 [unphonemicized song text]). The verb underlying the simplex was a cognate of Menominee meno'te'w 'he goes partners with someone' (< PA *men- 'grouped apart' + *(-)o-te- 'to dwell together as a group');3 hence the simplex noun would have originally meant only 'team, side, associated group'. Very similar in use to the assertive mode is what may be called the conclusive mode: kehke'netamo'hapa 'he did have knowledge of it' (Michelson 1925:92.16 = B111E); ascmeko inohinowehapaniki '(I conclude that) they are just lying' (Michelson 1925:90.5 = B105E). The ending -hapa(n-) is cognate with the reflexes of apparent PA *-sa(pa)n- in other languages; these are variously used, including as emphatic modes with present reference (Goddard 1979:148-152). From PA *ote- are derived words for 'village' (Fox o'te'weni, Munsee o'ti'nay, etc.) and the possessed agent noun PA *neto'te'ma, originally presumably 'fellow member of my coresident group', with reflexes such as Fox neto'tcma 'my sibling (of same sex)', also used reciprocally between a man and his "clan tutelary" (Jones 1911:810; Michelson 1930:118.15, 119), and Ojibwa ninto'te'm 'my clan totem', the source of the English word totem. IVES GODDARD 215 (3) Clan-Feast Songs (kikenowi-nakamo-nani; 019B-0 [Michelson 1921:20.18- 31]). These songs are sung at the beginning of the clan feast, before'the dancing. 3.1 [tepehkwi' no'tama'ni'] tepehkwi Night is what I carry on my no'tama'ni back, [tepehkwi| no'tama'ni'] tepehkwi night is what I carry on my no'tama'ni back, [nahe'kayo- no'tama'ni' +] nahe'ka='yo what I carry on my back no' tama' ni gently. (tepehkwi 'night'; no'tama'ni 'what I carry on my back'; nahe'ka 'quietly, softly, slowly, carefully'; --'yo 'for', or a vocable yo' to fill out the meter.) Michelson (1921:20) gives the esoteric meaning as: Late at night, the sacred pack. This interpretation takes no'tama'ni 'what I carry on my back' as 'my sacred pack', which is a common metaphor referring to the carrying of sacred packs in war. Against this, however, is the fact that tepehkwi is the noun meaning 'night', not the particle tepehki 'at night'. The literal meaning of each of the first two lines is thus 'night is what I carry on my back'. Since night would be desirable as concealment for the warriors relying on the medicine in the pack, it seems possible that the esoteric meaning could be: The owl brings night (as concealment for warriors). This would be consistent with the other songs in this set, which identify the owl, without naming him (3.3, 3.4), and allude to his assistance to warriors (3.2). Such an expression would have a striking parallel in a ritual designation of the owl in Navajo that literally meant 'he who brings Darkness back in his canoe', though the reference to canoe travel can only be deduced from cognate expressions in more northerly Athapaskan languages (Sapir 1949:222).
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