OAS ARCH NOTES 89-2:26-9
John Steckley
In Jesuit Father Pierre Potier’s Huron-French dictionary of the 1740s (essentially a recopying of 17th century material with some scattered Wyandot additions) there is an entry that poses some interesting questions concerning the Huron and contagious disease:
“,annra (1) … maIadie contagieuse … pudenda viri … (2) / contagious disease … male genitals /” (Potier 1920:451)”
Supporting evidence for the existence of both meanings–male genitals and contagious disease–appears in other Huron dictionaries.
1.0 Male Genitals
1.1 “hannra membre virile/male member/” (HF *65:133 c.f., FH #62:34)
In this example the -ha- prefix is significant, as it indicates that the object pertains to a male. When this masculine pronoun is absent, but the reference is still primarily to penis we get a metaphoric use of the word. This can be seen in the following example:
1.2 “virga ,annra” (FH #62:33)
The Latin word ‘virga’ is typically translated as cane, rod, graft,, branch or wand, but can also refer to sprouting trees or similar plants. In the entry presented above we also have the following words:
1.3 “,ontatennronniak…ahonannronnia”
The verb that the noun is incorporated into appears to be “ondi”, meaning ‘to make’ (Potier 1920:408-410). This verb can be used to convey a sense of rising sprouting, as we can see from the following:
1.4 “Le ble & la lever … le ble (ou autre semence etre leve) /Corn etc rises…Corn (or other seed) has risen/” (Potier 1920:409)
I believe that the two Huron words presented in 1.3 can be translated as, ‘they (penises) rise’ and ‘he (penis ) is made to rise’, with reference to the sprouting of corn or other seeds. It is not surprising that this usage occurs in only one of my Huron dictionaries, as the content is a bit ‘racy’ for the Jesuits to write or for respectful Huron to say in their presence (see 3.3).
2.0 Contagious Disease
2.1 “,annra maIadie contagieuse / contagious disease/” (FHO)
2.2 “Contagion ,Annra / contagion/” (HF #65:133)
There are several verbs into which this noun is incorporated when it takes the meaning of ‘contagious disease’. The one that is most commonly found in the Huron dictionaries is in the combination ‘onnratarion’. The earliest occurrence of this word is found in Jesuit Father Jean de Brebeuf’s prayer recorded in the Jesuit Relation of 1636. The following is the sentence in which it was found:
2.3 “que si la contagion nous attaque derechef, din de ongnratarrie (3) etsesonachien, detourne-la aussi; serre8a itondi;
French -/And if contagion attacks us again, turn it aside also./
Huron -/And if contagion he will attack or kill us again, stop it too. (4)/ (JR10:68-72)
The ‘again’ reference here is probably relating to the fact that an epidemic had hit the Huron in 1634. Later entries are the following:
2.4 “n/ou/s sommes sujets a une infinite de malades / Te 8arati de taot on,8aioc0a
nondratarion ,aatsi.
French: We are subject to an infinite number of diseases.
Huron: They are uncountable, all of those things that kill us, those things that are called contagion.” (FHc1693:207)
2.5 “on,8andrataries nous auons la contagion / We have the contagion./” (HF#65:133)
2.6 “onnratarion…toute maladie contagieuse / all contagious maladies/” (Potier 1920:452)
Analysis of this word is difficult. Some speculations concerning its etymology will be presented below. The ending, with -on- taking the stative aspect (examples 2.4 and 2.6), -e- taking the purposive aspect (example 2.3) and -es- taking the habitual aspect (example 2.5), is probably the motive suffix, signifying motion or intention. The following are examples of the use of this suffix, using the verb root -,entenr-,meaning ‘to have pity’ (Potier 1920:390-391 #12):
2.7 “,itenrande je viens avoir pitie / I come, having pity. ,itenrandes je viens ordinairement avoir pitie / I ordinarily come, having pity. e8a,itenrannon je suis aller avoir pitie … / I am going, having pity. stanta t’ekitenrande je ne viendrai point avoir pitie / I will not come having pity. (Potier 1920:29 “verbum motus”)
The semantic content of onnratarion, then, must probably include the notion of motion, perhaps that it is something that travels.
The noun -nnr- is also incorporated into the verb -(en)ha(on/w)-, meaning ‘to carry’ (Potier 1920:257-258 #9 and 377 #29), as can be seen in the following:
2.8 “hannrenha8uind il a apporte la maladie / He brought the disease./” (FH #52:34; c.f., HF #65:133)
It would seem, then, that the Huron spoke quite literally of people being , ‘carriers’ of disease.
The diseases being referred to were probably ones involving visible symptoms on the skin. This is suggested by the entries that have the noun -nnr- translated by the French word ‘playe’, meaning ‘sore’ or ‘wound’. The following is an example:
2.9 “Playe onnra,on c’est une vielle playe / It is an old sore or wound./ (FH #62:33)
The verb that the noun is incorporated into here is -,aon-. It means ‘to be old’ (Potier 1920:235 #66). Interestingly, in the same dictionary that contained 2.9 the noun is incorporated into the same verb with the following meaning:
2.10 “,Annra,aon vielle maladie / old disease/ (FH #62:34)
3.0 The Male Genitals and Contagion Connection
How did it come to be that the Huron had what appears to have been the same word meaning both male genitals or penis and contagious disease? As far as I know, Huron is the only Iroquoian language that had that connection of meanings. Possible scenarios are the following:
1) that an original meaning ‘penis’ later extended to a derived meaning of ‘contagious disease’;
2) that an original meaning ‘contagious disease’ later extended to a derived meaning of ‘penis’;
3) that two different words originally distinct in sound as well as in meaning came together or ‘assimilated’ due to either sound change or through the ‘motivation’ of a logical connection between the two, or a combination of both sound and semantic change;
4) that the noun -nnr- meaning ‘contagious disease’ was developed by a process of ‘back formation’ either from a Huron word onnratarion whose etymology was forgotten (or which was just a large word) or from a foreign word onnratarion, borrowed into the language with an unknown etymology.
Concerning the latter possibility, back formation is a linguistic process through which people interpret the morphology (structure) of a word as being other than it really is (or historically was), typically because knowledge of the etymology is lost, or, in the case of borrowings, was never known. Examples in English are ‘baconburger’ and ‘cheeseburger’.
They were created through back formation from ‘hamburger’, itself ultimately derived from the placename ‘Hamburg”. As -ham- has a meaning related to food, although a hamburger does not contain ham, back formation created the construction ‘type of food plus burger’.
There is a fifth possibility, that I have discounted as unlikely, that the two just happened to be homophonous (sounding alike), with no logical connection between them. This I find unlikely as Potier put the two in the same entry. In the more than 500 noun list in Potier’s Huron-French dictionary there is not one with multiple meanings in which a logical connection is not readily apparent. Rather, Potier errs in the opposite direction, sometimes giving multiple entries for words that are the same. The following are examples:
3.1 “8ara, toile d’araignee / work of spider (i.e.), a web. ,aara … sac … re/t/s/bag … net/” (Potier
1920:446)
3.2 “,aenta … baton … perche…pieu &/stick … pole … stake etc… ,aenta … buchette … promesse… parole / stick … promise … word/” (ibid)
In the first example the connection is that both involve weaving; the meaning of the noun is ‘woven product’. In the second case, the connection comes from the practice of delivering a stick to someone to make a promise (typically of a gift) or to deliver a message.
The fact that one meaning in the entry is translated into French and the other into Latin should not be seen as indicating that they come from difference sources or different words. Potier several times translated into Latin what to him seemed the ‘dirty’ sense of a word, while translating into French the one he thought was ‘cleaner’. The following are examples:
3.3
Huron-onnenha Huron-,a8innoncha
Latin-semen huum/human semen/ Latin-verenda mulieri/female external sex organs/
French-ble d’inde (5)/corn/ French-l’age d’une fill nubile ou nouvellement mariee
Latin- testiculi/testicules/ (7) /the age of being a nubile girl or one newly-married/
French-oeuf (6)/egg/
All of the possible scenarios have in common a logical connection made between ‘penis’ and ‘contagious disease’. I feel that the most likely semantic motivation for such a connection would be that sexually transmitted diseases were the first or most devastating contagious disease early experienced by the Huron, and that such diseases were perceived as being spread by males, possibly those from outside the society (i.e., traders or captured enemies adopted into the society).
The evidence I have so far gathered from other Iroquoian languages is tantalizing but inconclusive. Mohawk has a clear cognate (related term) -nhr- meaning ‘disease’ (Michelson 1973:81), but their word for ‘penis’ is ohno:ru, meaning literally ‘covered with human skin, flesh’ (Michelson 1973). Tuscarora has a clear cognate -htr- for ‘penis’ (Tuscarora regularly has a ‘t’ when Huron has an ‘n’, in certain circumstances; (Rudes 1987:#592), and has a similar word that might be a cognate -nhur- for ‘disease with visible symptoms’ (Rudes 1987#931). From this slight evidence I put forward a suggestion that will have to be proved or disproved through more research in other Iroquoian ‘languages. The suggestion is that Tuscarora might present and be preserving an original distinction, Huron a coming together of the two different forms, and Mohawk a new distinction being created from the development of a new word, or the increased use of a word possibly used before as a euphemism.
The purposes of this short paper are to present several possibilities concerning the Huron and how they thought of disease, and to invite feedback. It is a small part of a larger, ongoing linguistic study of the Huron and disease.
Comments and suggestions are very welcome.
Acknowledgements
Thanks should be given here to Dr. Herman Suligoj, a colleague of mine at Humber College, whose help to a sorry Latin scholar is much appreciated.
Footnotes
1-The Superscript -d- here is a Wyandot addition.
2-There was another word in Latin in this entry but it was too blurred for me to read it.
3-The -g- here is a Bear dialect feature.
4-I do not believe that too much should be read into the use of the masculine form here concerning contagious disease, as the same reference was made concerning ‘famine’. I think that the masculine form was used as ‘attacking’ in this way was perceived as being a typically male action.
5-Potier 1920:450.
6-Potier 1920:450.
7-Potier 1920:452.
References Cited
FH #62
French-Huron dictionary, n.d.
FH
c1693 French-Huron dictionary, dated around 1693
FHO
mid 1650s French-Huron-Onondaga dictionary
HF #65
Huron-French dictionary, undated
Michelson, Gunther
1973 A Thousand Words of Mowaks. Ottawa, National Museum of Man.
Potier, Pierre
1920 The Fifteenth Report of the Bureau of Archives for the Province of Ontario 1918-1919. Toronto, Clarkson W. James.
Rudes, Blair A.
1987 Tuscarora Roots, Stems, and Particles: Towards a Dictionary of Tuscarora. Algonquian and Iroquoian Linguistics, Memoirs 3. Archaeo 4 8, p p I
Thwaites, Reuben G. (JR)
1896- The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, 73 vols., Cleveland, The Burrows Bros.
1901