I was having a nostalgic look through the blog of the late lamented Ray Girvan, a valued contributor to the Hattery back in the day, when I hit on this post about an obscure but apparently real expression:
I remember from childhood a cowboy comic where an Indian character shouted “Onhey!” as he attacked. If I ever recalled it, I just assumed it was made up. To my surprise, it turns out to be authentic (or at least sourceable to period accounts). It turns up in a number of accounts of the Battle of Little Big Horn, as in that reportedly told by White Bull to Stanley Vestal:
White Bull said, “I saw a mounted soldier waver in his saddle. I quirted my pony and raced up to strike him and count the first coup on this enemy. Before I could reach him, he fell dying from his saddle. I reined up my pony, jumped down and struck the body with my quirt. I yelled, ‘Onhey! I have overcome this one.’ I took the man’s revolver and cartridge belt.
He gives another example of use and continues:
It all sounds plausible enough for closure for the moment, though both of these sources come via Stanley Vestal; it’d be nice to see independent confirmation. I don’t know what language it would be; “Sioux” covers three main languages (Lakota, Western Dakota and Easten Dakota) with multiple dialects.
So I thought I’d bring it here and ask if anyone knows anything about it; I’m sure Ray’s shade would appreciate answers.
Looking over the treatment of exclamations in the New Lakota Dictionary, 3rd edition (2022), of the Lakota Language Consortium, you can find the following:
The abbreviation PVP stands for post-verb particle.
Ablauting kta, kte (notated as ktA by the dictionary) is a post-verb particle indicating potential or intention.
I have the dictionary right here beside me. I’ll continue skimming and see if I find anything else.
From an interview with Chief Joseph White Bull in 1939, published in June, 1971 in American Heritage, “Echoes of the Little Bighorn,” by David Humphreys Miller:
[….]
My cousin Bad Soup [Bad Juice] was stripping the soldier I thought had been the leader and held up the buckskin coat. He looked in the pockets of the coat and brought out some papers with pictures on them [maps]. In one of the pockets he found coils of long yellow hair. But the dead leader had his hair cut short.
“ Onhey! ” Bad Soup cried. “That man there was Long Hair Custer. He thought he was the greatest man on earth, but he lies there now. And he cut his hair so he would not be scalped!” [….]
https://www.americanheritage.com/echoes-little-bighorn
@xerib
What is the word for counting coup in your dictionary? This is what the “brave” was doing, although he seemed to be slightly annoyed when the opponent died before he could complete the action.
This is an opportunity to say that the creators of
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_Dogs
use `Aho’ as a kind of generic indigenous greeting or exclamation (and that the show is IMHO well worth watching).
I think it might be a form of the following:
This appears to be a reinforced form of wáŋ:
The character ŋ indicates nasalization of the preceding vowel in this rather long-established orthography (not the velar nasal).
Yes, that sounds plausible.
I’m curious how the phrase ‘count coup’ came to be adopted in English. Various websites explain it, but the meaning is hardly transparent (to me, anyway). I think I first came across it in Evan Connell’s “Son of the Morning Star.” I remember looking it up and being less than fully enlightened by the explanations I found, and not at all enlightened by why it was rendered that way in English.
My suspicion was that use of a cryptic phrase was meant to suggest a practice mysterious to outsiders. Or perhaps the first English speakers to adopt the phrase didn’t altogether grasp its meaning either. I felt there was a touch of the ‘noble savage’ trope about it, but perhaps I’m too cynical.
Something of interest on that question here, from the Smithsonian ethnological reports:
The following must be the etymology of what is reported as onhey (at least when taking coup, if not perhaps for the other use quoted, when finding the hair), from the New Lakota Dictionary (2022), p. 66:
That looks right–Thanks!
Yes, that’s terrific!
Typo! Please correct cyápi to eyápi. These old eyes can’t tell a c from an e… (eyápi, 3rd pl. of eyé “say”.)
Done!
Thanks!