NO. 6 CADDOAN LINGUISTIC STOCK LESSER AND WELTFISH II 



is given by the Pawnee proper for the Kitsai name. "Tawehash" 

 may be a variant of tiwa', possibly resulting from dialectic dif- 

 ferences of pronunciation; the synonymy of the Handbook includes 

 several Spanish variants, such as Teguayos, which seem to support 

 this view.^ "Yscani," suggested by Mooney on the evidence of 

 Bolton as possibly another name for the weku', an idea which is 

 supported by the disappearance from historical records of the name 

 Yscani at the time weku' makes its appearance, nevertheless accords 

 too closely with toka'ne or tsi's or both taken together. Further 

 the reason for the late appearance of weku' seems more probably as 

 suggested below. Of Mooney's names, we have no record of 

 "kishkat" and "asidahetch". The words can however be recog- 

 nized as good Caddoan. Of the names in the list above Mooney 

 lacks any suggestion of ita". One old informant suggested as an 

 additional band name netekwco'^kgrik"'', "the laughing people", but 

 others claimed this was the name of a village, not of a band. 



Traditions and statements of informants today agree that the 

 tawakarii"^' and weku' (towaconi and waco) spoke somewhat dif- 

 ferently from people of the Wichita bands, although mutual intel- 

 ligibility is affirmed. Discussion of the speech of these two bands 

 with contemporary Wichitas arouses laughter, apparently because 

 many of the turns of expression of the tawakgru''' and weku' speech 

 as grasped in Wichita phonetics have different meanings from those 

 intended, and sound ludicrous. One or two expressions still re- 

 called, though how accurately can not be determined, support this 

 view, indicating a real dialectic difference which has been lost: a 

 few others suggest as more probable difference of idiomatic usage 

 as the distinction between the speech of these two bands and that 

 of the others. As the weku' and tawakgru'^' were the westernmost 

 groups of the Wichita, and somewhat apart from the others, it 

 seems reasonable that local differences should have existed. 



The name generally given as the Wichita name for themselves is 

 ktriktri's, the name of one of the bands. The origin of the term 

 Wichita is open to some dispute. One tradition is that the first 

 native met by a white man, asked who he was, replied "wtts tta", 

 "a man, that's what I am", whence the name. The suggestion is 

 sound linguistically; but in view of informants' statements that tta' 

 was the name of a Wichita band, it may be that Wichita is a com- 

 bination of wtts — "man", and ita" — ^this group name, viz., tta' — 



' Handbook, pt. 2, pp. 705-706. 



