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Glossary
acorn bread - leached acorn meal, a staple
Ayutla - capitol of Mixeland, a remote village
bai e buna - gambling call, ‘you don’t want to feel that black bone over there or you’ll lose it!’
big-time - big get together, a pow-wow
bodau - ball of grass which wraps bones in grass game
bones - objects guessed in a handgame
demi - counting stick in a handgame
camputi - village, camp
cha - gambling guessors’ taunt, asking hiders to ‘roll ‘em again’. The request is usually ignored
clapstick - percussion instrument made of split elder stick
clapper - a clapstick
este - a gambling call for the bones ‘down the river’, toward pot
gambling song - chant sung while hiding bones in handgame
grass game - handgame played with wads of grass to help hide
handgame - gambling game, bone game, stick game, grass game
heno(m) - coyote
hilom - gambling
hilom soli - gambling song
hinduku - white bone, best of mountain lion or bear
hompu - gambling call, ‘upstream", away from pot, ‘toward door’
honi - heart
hudessi - man-killer; a warrior so fast he dodged all arrows
Ino O - Maidu fertility rock, ‘ass-rock’
joint grass - Equisetum species; looks something like a rattlesnake
kaiyenuk - gambling call ‘changed’, ‘switched’
kukini - spirit (kakani)
kodo - Earth
kuksu - historic secret society among north-central California tribes with ritual dance cycles and toloache (datura) usage.
kumi - maidu roundhouse, dancehouse, sweathouse among some
maidu - person; also name of a group of Californian Indian tribes
maidum-pano - bear-man; hudessi
menuk - gambling call for holding, ‘same as last time’
mowi - gambling call for the dark bones inside, a ‘heart shot’
Mixe - a remote tribe in Mexico
momi - maiduan word for water; momoli
munmumi - California wormwood
mude (muede) - maiduan word for black bear
nawol - gambling taunt by the singing side, asking callers to ‘clap your hands and guess, we’re tired of singing’.
noi - gambling call, ‘inside’, ‘mowi’
notokoyo - mountain maidu
outside - gambling call, called bones on outside away from center
pain - intrusive disease object
pani - maiduan word for tobacco
pano - grizzly bear
power - Qi, mana, personal energy, medicine
pulla - a pouch used for carrying gambling equipment
pumi - gambling luck
rattlesnake root - Sanicula species
roll, rolling the bones - hiding the bones
roundhouse - dancehouse, kumi
sewi - river, also, gambling guess for ‘outside’
sola - rattlesnake, ‘singing bite’
so–hoho - gambling taunt by callers, ‘roll ‘em again’
sulu - black-striped bone, best from deer fore-arm
sumi - deer
sweathouse - kumi, dancehouse of the mountain maidu
tai (tai’m) - northern foothill maidu
tai yam - Sacramento Valley
tanku - southern foothill maidu
tep - gamblling guess for the dark bone
tepyos - gambling guess for the plain bone, ‘tep reversed’
tsium sewi - middle fork of (Feather) river
uti - acorn
wole - white man
wolem sumi - white man’s deer, cattle
Wonomi - ‘the one who never dies’, the sun, god
we - gambling guess for the plain (white) bone. pronounced as English ‘way’
yamani - mountain;
hedem yamani - these mountains, the Sierras
hodem yamani - those mountains, the Coast Range
yayakit - gambling call, ‘down the center’
yayalsip - gambling call, ‘the door side’, ‘away from the pot’
yayadal - gambling call, ‘away from the door’, toward the pot
ye wenai! - an exclamation ‘that is good’
yellow-hammer - flicker, woodpecker
yokuslomi - gambling call, ‘outside’,
‘sewi’
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