OK, on a more serious note here's something I've always wondered about from one of my favorite books - "Hanta Yo - An American Saga" by American linguist and anthropologist Ruth Beebe Hill.

"Hanta Yo" means 'Clear the Way!', and the book is described as having done just that, clearing the way into "understanding the intimate lives and thoughts of the Teton Sioux. It is based upon an actual Mahto document discovered in 1865. It is the culmination of 25 years of research by it's author assisted by a full-blooded Dakotah Sioux who helped her achieve the translation...".

Anyway, here's one quote I find fascinating:

"Admit, assume, because, believe, could, doubt, end, expect, faith, free, forget, forgive, guilt, how, it, mercy, pest, promise, should, sorry, them, us, waste, we, weed - neither these words nor the conceptions for which they stand appear in this book; they are the whiteman's contribution to the vocabulary of the man he called Indian. Truly, the parent Indian families possessed neither these terms nor their equivalents".

What I wonder about is how much different life would be if these words and the conceptions they stand for were still "inconceivable" to our minds, our culture today? The possibilities just boggle the mind ... for me anyway!

daylia