Wasichu

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As Wasichu , German takes fat , Lakota and Dakota refer to people of European descent.

description

The term Wasichu, also Wasi'chu or Wašíču , expresses how the local Indian population assesses the relationship of Europeans to nature, to land and towards them.

The first Europeans who met the Lakota called this tribe Sioux - a contraction of the archaic French-Canadian word Nadowessioux meaning snake or enemy . The Lakota, in turn, used this metaphor to mark the newcomers.

Wasichu stands for greedy people. Typically this refers to whites , although the term does not actually specify skin color or race.

Black wasichu was used for people of African descent ( African American ). Even Indians who adopted a strange way of life could become Wasichus.

etymology

The etymological origin of the word Wasichu is not known, some tribes of the northern prairies called Europeans with very similar words. In the Hidatsa, for example, the word for white is maší , which is clearly related to wašíču, since the "m" in the Hidatsa language is equivalent to the "w" in the Lakota. This possibly suggests that the Lakota had borrowed wašíču from another language. The word may also come from wašíŋ ičú - which, as already mentioned, paraphrases someone who takes fat and was collectively transferred to non-Indians who stole their resources from the tribes.

The Dakota also means the English language with the term wašíču . Among the Lakota, English is called Wašíču iyápi .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Simcikova, Karla: To live fully, here and now: the healing vision in the works of Alice Walker . Lexington Books, 2006, ISBN 0-7391-1160-4 , pp. 88 .
  2. ^ Staub, Michael E .: Voices of Persuasion: Politics of Representation in 1930s America . University of Cambridge Press, Cambridge, UK 1994, ISBN 0-521-45390-9 , pp. 62 .
  3. ^ Ullrich, Jan: Lakota Grammar Handbook, Lakota Language Consortium . 2016, ISBN 978-1-941461-11-2 , pp. 520 .
  4. ↑ LaFontaine, Harlan, and Neil McKay: 550 Dakota Verbs . Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2005, ISBN 0-87351-524-2 , pp. 145 .
  5. ^ Ullrich, Jan: New Lakota Dictionary . Lakota Language Consortium, 2008, ISBN 978-0-9761082-9-0 .