Meanings of Musqueam Ancestral Names: the Capilano Tradition
Meanings of Musqueam ancestral names: the Capilano tradition Larry Grant, Susan J. Blake, and Ulrich C. Teucher Musqueam and the University of British Columbia This paper explores the meanings of Musqueam (Salish) ancestral names, in particular, the history and meaning of the name qiy~plen~xw. Anglicized, and widely used, as "Capilano," its historical origins, morphology, and semantics have not been discussed. We suggest, examining evidence from (i) Musqueam traditional oral teachings and (ii) the internal morphological structure of this name, that "qiy~pIen~xW" is built on the stem [qiy~p] or [qey~p] followed by an onomastic lexical suffix (LS) [=len~xW]. The Musqueam language has a set of LSs which are used with male names~ and a separate set which are used with female names (cf. Suttles (2004:318-319)). Our paper includes related derivatives of the name qiy~plen~xw as well as the lineage of the Musqueam men who have carried this name. The recovery of the meaning of ancestral names is an important aspect in the recovery of language, culture and identity. 1 Introduction Our paper explores the meanings of Musqueam ancestral names, in particular, the history and meaning of the name qiy~plen~xw 1, or ··Capilano." This research is an outgrowth of one of the topics which we investigated· in the 2 context of taping and transcribing the oral life narrative of Larry Grant , an Elder from the Musqueam Reserve (xWm~ekW~y~m) located on the north arm of the Fraser River in southwest Vancouver. Aboriginal oral life narratives have become the focus for many interdisciplinary research interests that range from ethnography, linguistics and testimonial land claims, to issues of autobiographical memory and narrative, documenting the loss and revitalization of language and identity, both personal and collective.
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