Glossary of Non-Indian Nations
Mentioned in the Website

African-Americans -- the first slaves arrived in the English colonies in America from the African continent in 1609. Considering the substantial amount of time that black people have been in America, it is not surprising that they have had some influence on the folklore of the American Indian tribes. Among the conduits for African folklore reaching the American Indian nations were the stories collected by Uncle Remus. Many of these are ultimately of African origin. Parallel stories: 1 (Tar Baby), 2 (Briar Patch).

Altai (Black Tatar, Mountain Kalmuck, Oirat, Tele, Telengit, Teleut, White Kalmuck) -- a Siberian people living near the Altai Mountains speaking a Turkic language. They were nomadic pastoralists, but noted for their metal working as far back as the IId Millennium BC. The Altai originally practiced shamanism, but with Russian contact in the XVIIIth century, they increasingly embraced Orthodox Christianity. Many are Tibetan Buddhists. With industrialization most of the rural population of the Altai has dispersed to jobs in urban centers. Mentioned in commentaries: 1.

Americans -- see Big Knives and African-Americans.

Arabs -- originally a desert-dwelling people of the Middle East, chiefly of interest because they named and catalogued most of the visible stars. Mentioned in footnotes: 1; Mentioned in commentaries: 1.

Bantu -- the name of the largest language group of sub-Saharan Africa. Parallel stories: 1.

Big Knives (Maîxede), Long Knives -- the name given by the Great Lakes tribes to the white Americans and to the English colonials who preceded them. So called from their use of long hunting knives and butcher knives, but most particularly from the sabers employed by their cavalry. See also the Big Knife Age. Mentioned in histories: 1; Mentioned in stories: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9; Mentioned in commentaries: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8; Parallel stories: 1.

Bulgarians -- a Balkan nation closely related to the Russians. Mentioned in commentaries: 1.

Buryat -- a largely Turkic speaking people living around Lake Baikal, and now number about 300,000. They were once nomadic and associated with the Mongols. The Russians annexed their territories in the treaties of 1689 and 1728. They came under the influence of Tibetan Buddhism which was almost wiped out by Stalin, but has since enjoyed a revival. Mentioned in commentaries: 1.

Chinese -- the oldest continuous civilization in the world. The American Indians show the greatest genetic affinity to the Chinese, but have no known linguistic similarities with Sino-Tibetan language group. The Hotcâgara were familiar with the Chinese in the XIXth century, and called them Hókereséretc'û´, "those who make a long queue" on account of the hairstyle of the time. Mentioned in footnotes: 1; Mentioned in commentaries: 1, 2.

Chuckchee (Chukchi) -- a people of northeastern Siberia living in the Chukchi Peninsula on the shores of the Arctic Ocean and Bering Sea. They now number ca. 15,000. The Reindeer Chukchee (Chauchu, "Rich in Reindeer") economy was founded on reindeer herding, and the Maritime Chukchee (Anqallyt, "Sea People") hunted seals, whales, and other sea mammals. The Chukchee as a whole are called Luoravetlan, "True People". The Chukchee were animists and practiced shamanism. The Russians first made contact with them in 1644. By contemporary times the Chukchee have been almost completely Russianized. Mentioned in footnotes: 1, 2, 3, 4; Parallel stories: 1, 2.

Egyptian -- one of the great civilizations of antiquity. The original kingdoms of Upper Egypt in the south and Lower Egypt in the north, were united under the first pharoah, Menes. Their polytheistic religion was largely solar oriented. The language of ancient Egypt evolved into Coptic, which was spoken in Christian times, but is rare today. Mentioned in commentaries: 1 (the goddess Nut), 2 (hands of the Aten), 3 (hands of the Aten), 4 (treatment of the jawbone of the dead), 5 (treatment of status in Egyptian art), 6 (Sirius as Sothis), 7 (Orion as the Armlet).

English (and British) (Hotcâk, Zaganâc) -- a major colonial power from the XVIIth century on. They founded the first permanent English speaking colony of the New World at Jamestown in 1607. This led to conflict with the Native American tribes, at that time principally the Powhattan. In 1621 Plymouth was founded by Puritans, marking the establishment of New England. From these initial outposts, the settlers moved ever westward coming into conflict with the Indian nations they met in their progress. In 1763, with the victorious outcome of the French and Indian War, the British were able to seize all of Canada from the French. However, not long afterwards, in 1775, the American colonists began a successful war of independence from the British Crown. The American expansion westward devastated the Native American tribes, most of whom sided with the British in the subsequent War of 1812. With the Louisiana Purchase by the United States and the fixing of the 48th parallel as the boundary with Canada, a stable partition of English speaking North America was achieved. This left the Indian tribes with no European ally with which to counterbalance the aggression of American whites. Pagan Old English (Anglo-Saxon) mythic material may occasionally converge with that of the North American Indians. Mentioned in commentaries: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6; Mentioned in texts: 1; Parallel stories: 1.

Fiji Islands -- Parallel stories: 1.

French -- an important colonial power in the Great Lakes region, having established New France in Canada during the XVIIth century. The Hotcâgara were allied with the French for as long as they had a presence in North America. The Hotcâgara were among those Indian nations that the French were able to turn against the Fox and later the English. Many Frenchmen joined the tribe and have left numerous descendants among the present day Hotcâgara, as the following names attest: Decora, LaMère, Baptiste, StCyr, LaSallier, Menaige, Paquette, Bonaparte, and Bassette. The Hotcâgara call the French, Waxopínixdjî`nîgra, "Little Much-Spirit" people, or Waxopíniskága, "White Spirit" people; or simply Waxopíniga, "Spirit" people. This last came to denote all white people. This is because in 1634 the Frenchman Nicollet was the first white man to have made contact with the Hotcâgara. He was dressed in Chinese garb in conformity with his hopeful expectations, and when he arrived, he fired off two pistols. This caused the Hotcâgara to believe that he was a spirit (waxopíni), specifically, a Thunderbird. The French are also called Djimoxgemena, a name of unknown meaning and provenance. French loan words in Hotcâk: ajenî´na, "angel"; bík, pek, "playing card" < fr. pique, "spade"; Zaganâc, "English" < fr. les Anglais. Mentioned in texts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7; Texts in French: 1; French letters: 1; Mentioned in commentaries: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36; Hotcâk stories told by Frenchmen: 1, 2, 3, 4.

Germans (Dagheri) -- in ancient times a warlike, forest dwelling people of Indo-European speech living in northern Europe. Their environment was very similar to that of the Hotcâgara. In modern times a great many Germans settled on what were once Hotcâk lands. German missionaries, most particularly Jacob Stucki, did extensive work among the Hotcâgara, and produced the first Hotcâk Bible. Today a massive linguistic program to analyze and preserve the Hotcâk language is being undertaken at Erfurt University principally under the leadership of Johannes Helmbrecht. Mentioned in commentaries: 1, 2. Parallel stories: 1, 2.

Greeks -- in ancient times a forest dwelling people of Indo-European speech living on a mountainous peninsula on the Mediterranean Sea. They are the original culture of Western Civilization. Mentioned in commentaries: 1 (Earth), 2 (Gaia), 3 (Gaia), 4 (Aries), 5 (Okeanos), 6 (Okeanos), 7 (Acheloos), 8 (ferry man of the dead [Charon]), 9 (Charon), 10 (Charon, Orpheus), 11 (Demeter & Persephone), 12 (Demeter & Persephone), 13 (death & sleep), 14 (Pegasos), 15 (Orion's blindness), 16 (Ixion), 17 (Herakles), 18 (Pythagoreans), 19 (winged sandals of Hermes), 20 (Hermes, caduceus, heralds), 21 (caduceus), 22 (eagle and Zeus), 23 (Apollo, hawks, arrows, & physicians), 24 (souls as shades), 25 (Bisected Man ritual), 26 (Charon, Orpheus), 27 (Achilles & Briseis), 28 (dyads), 29 (Orion & the scorpion), 30 (warfare in the Iliad). Parallel stories: 1 (Pegasos), 2 (birth of Aphrodite), 3 (Hermes, Argos), 4 (Argos Panoptes), 5 (Pandora), 6 (Pandora), 7 (Narcissus), 8 (Icarus), 9 (Niobe), 10 (Waters of Forgetfulness), 11 (Judgment of Paris), 12 (Cheiron), 13 (Thersites), 14 (Tantalus; Philemon & Bacis), 15 (Erichthonios), 16 (Lucifer), 17 (Dioskouri), 18 (Odysseus & the Sirens), 19 (Peleus & Thetis), 20 (Bellerophon), 21 (exposure of the infant Oedipus), 22 (Orion and Scorpios), 23 (Ixion & Nephele).

Christian -- a strongly Hellenized religion that began as a Jewish theological contention that a certain Jesus (Yeshu) of Nazareth (b. ca. 4 B. C.) was the prophesied Messiah (Greek, Christos). It soon became heretical by contending first that Jesus had a dual nature that embraced God the Father (Yahweh), and afterwards asserting that there was a trinity that included the Holy Spirit. It spread throughout the Roman Empire and by the reign of Constantine the Great, had become the official religion. Its basic contention is that God took the form of the man Jesus who sacrificed himself to vicariously atone for human sins (including Original Sin), and that those who believed in his divinity and purpose would achieve immortality in a spiritual paradise. Christians were known to the Hotcâgara as "Black Robes" (Waisép’î), because of the attire of the Jesuits, the first Christians encountered by the north central tribes. Mentioned in commentaries: 1 (light = life); Parallel stories: 1 (curing with spit), 2 (the Trinity).

Macedonia -- a Greek kingdom in the north that began to dominate Greece under the reign of King Philip. His son, Alexander the Great, unified Greece and formed an invincible army under his personal command with which he created the greatest empire of its time. After his death, the empire fragmented and in time Macedonia came under the ægis of Rome. (Present day Macedonia is Slavic and therefore unconnected to the heritage of the ancient Macedonians.) Mentioned in commentaries: 1 (Bisected Dog ritual).

Hawaian -- Parallel stories: 1.

Hebrews -- a warlike nomadic people who settled in Canaan and eventually established the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea there. Most parallel stories derive from the Hebrew Bible, some portions of which were translated into Hotcâk in 1903. However, the early influences of Christianity through missionaries and settlers would have allowed the infiltration of Old Testament stories into oral literature of the North American tribes. Mentioned in translations: 1 (word for "thistles"); Mentioned in commentaries: 1 (Creation of Man), 2 (light = life), 3 (Ark of the Covenant), 4 (Moses & the burning bush); Parallel stories: 1 (Original Sin and the Forbidden Fruit), 2 (Adam and Eve), 3 (Lucifer), 4 (Noah), 5 (Ten Commandments), 6 (David and Goliath), 7 (Jonah), 8 (Joseph), 9 (Solomon), 10 (Samson & Delilah).

Indian (Hindu) -- people of the vast Indian subcontinent of south central Asia, where the Indo-European language, Sanskrit, used to dominate. A great religious literature exists in this language dating back to high antiquity (ca. 1500 B. C.). The polytheistic religion of Sanskrit speaking India evolved into modern Hinduism. Mentioned in commentaries: 1 (Birth of the Ashvins), 2 (Svastika), 3 (the eating of Soma), 4 (the soma herb), 5 (avatars), 6 (Prajâpati & Rohinî), 7 (Agni), 8 (Lubhdaka = Sirius), 9 (Karna's golden earrings), 10 (the eating of Soma), 11 (prevention of revenants). Parallel stories: 1 (Yama, dogs), 2 (Krshna & the Cow Herders), 3 (Soma), 4 (Birth of the Ashvins), 5 (Cyavana, Sukanyâ, and the Ashvins), 6 (Yudhisthira answers Dharma), 7 (Yama & Yamî, Ashvins), 8 (Orion as the Arm), 9 (the Trinity).

Indo-European -- a language group comprising most of the languages of Europe and India, including such languages and language families as Germanic (including English), Celtic, Italic (including Latin), Greek, Albanian, Tocharian, Hittite, Baltic, Slavic, Sanskrit, and Farsi. Mentioned: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.

Iranian -- the modern Farsi speaking people of south central Asia, the descendants in language and culture of the Persians of antiquity. Parallel stories: 1 (Jamshid and Taxmoruw).

Irish (Hit’ewaracicik) -- a people whose native speech, Gaelic, belongs to the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family. The Irish were known to the Hotcâgara mainly from lead miners in their region of Wisconsin. There were many clashes with these miners, so the relationship on the whole was not good. The name of the Irish in Hotcâk, Hit'e waraci(ci)cik, means "Foreigners". The word hit'e means language, and the second part of their name is analyzed as wa-ra-cicik, meaning, "those who go about acting badly". So the compound means, "Those who speak poorly" a reference to the language barrier. Cf. the Hotcâk name for Fountain City, Hit'ewaracicik Tcinâk, "Foreign Town". Mentioned in commentaries: 1 (Champion's Portion), 2 (Champion's Portion); Parallel stories: 1 (Aided Conrói Maic Dáiri), 2 (Lugaid).

Maori -- Parallel stories: 1.

Norse -- a name given to those Scandinavians who spoke Old Norse (Old Icelandic). They have a substantial literature in sagas, histories, and the writings of Snorri Sturluson. Mentioned in commentaries: 1 (the word mann), 2 (one-eyed Odhinn); Parallel stories: 1 (Gleipnir), 2 (Gleipnir), 3 (Gudhrun & Atle), 4 (Binding of the Fenrir Wolf), 5 (Mimir's Well), 6 (Thorr's visit to the Giants).

Roman -- Rome (Roma/Ruma) was originally founded as an Etruscan trading town for the Latin market. It gained hegemony over the other 30 cities of the Latins, and gradually rose to preeminance, becoming the greatest ancient empire of the Western world. Its mythology was largely euhemerized as early Roman history. Its pagan religion, which was strongly Hellenized, eventually fell to the advance of Christianity, whose god they had crucified. The Empire became unstable and financially weakened to the point that it was riddled with German incursions. Mentioned in commentaries: 1 (Bisected Dog ritual).

Spanish (Hotcâk, Spanioraga)-- a great European colonial power responsible for establishing white hegemony over most lands south of the Rio Grande and for exploring much of the American southwest and parts of the Mississippi basin. They introduced the horse to the New World and are the source of the Indian acquisition of this animal which so revolutionized nomadic lifestyles. Mentioned in commentaries: 1.

Tuamotuan -- a language spoken by 6,700 inhabitants of the Polynesian island of Tuamotu, and by another 2,000 people on nearby Tahiti. Tuamotu is the largest chain of atolls in the world, containing 78 largely low lying coral islands. On a few of these the languages of Puka-Pukan and Mangarevan are spoken instead of Tuamotuan. They seem to have been settled ca. 700 AD by Polynesians from the Society Islands. They were first discovered to the outside world when Tupac Inca Yupanqui reached them with an expedition in ca. 1480. Not long afterwards, they were encountered by Ferdinand Magellan, during his circumnavigation of the globe in 1521. They had been for some time under the control of Tahiti until the resignation of King Pamare V, after which they went over to the French. They cultivate copra and the rare black pearl, but the Tuamotuans otherwise pursue a subsistence economy. Some of the foods known to Tuamotu are vanilla, tropical fuits, yams, taro, and breadfruit. Huts were made with thatched roofs, although in recent times the rooves have been made of corrugated metal. Parallel stories: 1.

Zande -- a central African tribe. Parallel stories: 1.