Owl, great horned owl, Bubo virginianus. ƛ̓áax̣ʷ pawá miimánu ‘they are all the owls’; qúyx̣ miimánu ‘snowy owl, Nyctea scandiaca‘ (“the white owl is the sacred one”); máamɨn miimánu ‘spotted owl, Strix occidentalis‘. [NW ámaš; Y mimanú; NP /sax̣lat´mo/ (Art Motanic equated miimánu and šax̣latámo); Aoki 1994:628, following Alan Marshall, defines sax̣latámo as ‘screech owl, Otus asio‘; NP palx̣óockin̓ /plx̣óckiˀns/ ‘snowy owl, Nyctea scandiaca‘ (?).]
As spoken by a group of elders in the early 1980s when thinking about putting their language to writing.
The words and sentences in this dictionary are mostly the contribution of Twáway, otherwise known of as Inez Spino Reves. Twáway has never flinched from working with linguists, and her command of the “old language” with all its intricacies of grammar and vocabulary is second to none. Other Umatilla contributors are Charley McKay, Donald Joe, Emily Littlefish, Fred Hill, Joan Watlamet, Mildred Quaempts, and Thomas Morning Owl. Animal and plant identifications were much aided by botanist Dave Corliss (personal communication) and by Eugene Hunn (1979, 1990).
