Re: Salmon

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>
> from Marcel Mauss: "Essai sur le don":
>
> Renommiergeld [approx. "showing-off money"]
>
> "
> But it is particularly copper plates ... which as central potlatch
> valuables are the object of important value systems and even a

cult.

> First and foremost, in all these tribes there is a cult and a myth
> connected to copper which is a living being. At least with the

Haida

> and the Kwakiutl copper is identified with the salmon, itself the
> object of a cult...
> Footnote: We will use this occassion to correct a mistake we made

in

> our "Note sur l'origine de la notion de la monnaie". We have

confused

> the word 'Laqa, Laqwa' (Boas uses both forms) with 'logwa'... But
> since then it has become clear that the former means "red; copper"
> and the latter only "something supernatural", things of value,
> talisman, etc. However, all copperplates are 'logwa'...
> "
>
> 'Laqa' for something equivalent to 'salmon'? I was reminded of the
> old parade horse PIE *laks- developping into four homonyms in

India,

> one of which meant "red", another "abundance" (one was still "a

kind

> of fish"). What's the connection here (if there is one)?

When I suddenly remembered Tamil 'milakku' "copper" and the whole
discussion of Mleccha, Meluhha, Malakka, Moluccas some postings back.
I have a map from an article in "New Scientist" that compares the
distribution of the Austronesian languages with that of the outrigger
canoe; overlap mostly, except for some small non-Austronesian areas
with outriggers on the coast of Western India and of East Africa
north of Madagascar. And why shouldn't copper be given the name of an
island?
Two more copper words:
Hattic 'sinti', 'siniti' (Glen)
Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (east) '*ntiti (Waruno Mahdi)

Torsten