Indigenous Bird Names

This is going to be a running list: I’ve been looking for etymological origins of Indigenous names (which as you can imagine is pretty hard to find, so any leads on resources are very much appreciated). I’m collecting Indigenous names for birds that are onomatopoeic (for languages from what the continent now known as North America). I start with those that are the most familiar to most of my readers, which are probably English-speaking North Americans. These are now also common English names (or parts thereof) of North American birds.

• chachalaca
• caracara
• sora?

Then, there are Indigenous transliterated words for species. In some cases I also included names based on bird song/sound, that weren’t explicitly onomatopoeic (but likely by extension have some sort of onomatopoeic root).

• Chickadee – onomatopoeia
  • Cherokee “Tsigili’i”
  • Arikara “škipipi”
• American robin – names related to the call
  • Cree “peyetchew”
  • Ojibwa “opitcki”
  • Nipissing “pipitshi”
• bald eagle – “the barker”
  • “migisi” (Ojibwe)
  • “mikisiw” (Cree)
• pileated woodpecker
  • “meme” (Ojibwe & Nipissing) – seemed imitative
• mourning dove (Arikara “little thunder”)
• ruffed grouse (Arikara name references that it’s startling, probably meaning from the abrupt flush)
• mallard
  • Cree as “sisib”
  • Ojibwa as “shiship”
• sharp-tailed grouse
  • Arikara “šiyó” (echoic of “Shoo!”)
    • “šiyóša” (pheasant) derives from this
    • “šiyóka” (greater prairie chicken)
• brown thrasher
  • Arikara “čhehúpaglagla gí” (means “to-chatter-with-one’s-own-teeth brown”)
    • catbird is similar but with “gray”
• turkey
  • “huexolotl” (Nahuatl) An English traveler in 1860 thought the word was echoic of its gobbling song. (Balderston & Schwartz 2012)

References

Balderston, Daniel, and Marcy E. Schwartz, eds. Voice-overs: translation and Latin American literature. SUNY Press, 2012.

Chamberlain, Alexander F. “Significations of Certain Algonquian Animal Names.” American Anthropologist 3.4 (1901): 669-683. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.1901.3.4.02a00050/pdf

Prince, J. Dyneley. “An Ancient New Jersey Indian Jargon.” American Anthropologist, vol. 14, no. 3, 1912, pp. 508–524. www.jstor.org/stable/659884 (23. duck)