[I wish someone would tell me how to do itals and accents in a post]
Miguel del Barco, the Jesuit who spent nearly 30 years among the Cochimi Indians at Mission San Javier (where he supervised the building of that great
church) analyzed a Cochimi term that had been identified earlier by Padre Eusebio Kino.
As reported in a history published in 1929, Kino put some flies into water "until they were in all appearances dead. Then he took them out, covered
them with ashes, and exposed them to the sun. The warm rays soon caused the insects to revive and fly away. Astonished at this sight, the Indians
exclaimed 'Ibimuhueite! Ibimuhueite!' "
Kino, who worked for around two years among Cochimi-speakers, interpreted this to mean, "They are brought back to life," and believed he had found a
way to convey "resurrection," a difficult concept presented in the Apostles' Creed [". . . and on the third day He arose again from the dead . . ."]
Barrco reduced the Indian term to its basic parts:
ibi - verb meaning morir uno [one is dying or dies]
muhuit - meaning a verb's action has occourred
te - indicating the action was completed in the past
Barco's analysis indicates that instead of meaning "They are resurrected," ibimuhueite actually meant ahora acabo de morir [it has died].
A couple of details of the fly story had long puzzled me. How did Kino trap a little flock of flies, and keep them in water just long enough to stun
them, but not drown them?
And wouldn't ashes stick to the damp, delicate wings, weighting them down enough to prevent flight?
Although Barco doesn't say so, his verb analysis seems to indicate that Kino may have fudged a bit. Instead of taking off, the flies may have twitched
slightly beneath the ashes.
When the Indians said, "The flies are dead! The flies are dead!" they may have been expressing astonishment that anyone would want to kill flies in
such a strange way.
[Based on Barcp's "Nota" in his Historia natural y cronica de la antigua California, Miguel Leon-Portilla, editor]
Two ways
Dave - 10-27-2008 at 10:23 AM
Quote:
Originally posted by bajalera
[I wish someone would tell me how to do itals and accents in a post]
Use the bold, italicized or underline buttons...or (much faster)
Use BB code.
When in "Post Reply" Look to the left under "Message". In blue, you will see "BB Code".
Click on it. It will explain the HTML code to include in brackets that highlight text.Eli - 10-27-2008 at 01:55 PM
Leara, I love reading your persepectives, thanks, SaraDavid K - 10-27-2008 at 08:05 PM
Lee, check your u2u for instructions to type thses... á, é, í, ó, ú, ñ, Ñ, ü, and the degree symbol º (for temperature or GPS waypoints=
Interesting Lera! Maybe the ashes dried the wings out and the flies were able to shake it off...?
David--those Ascii codes don't seem to work on my computer...bajalou - 10-28-2008 at 07:14 PM
Steve, you have to use the number keypad, not the numbers across the top of the keyboard. Since I use a laptop, it's a lot of bother the do a numbers
lock, then the code, then unlock the numbers.
Sooo, I loaded the ES keyboard, Spanish (Mexico) and just have to toggle the icons in the task bar to in to get the codes. (course I have trouble
remembering which keys, cause I don't use them much).bajalera - 10-30-2008 at 09:07 AM
