Salmon

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)?

Torsten