kiyaga
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Wauja[edit]
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
kiyaga
- a color or pigment that is pale, pastel, light-colored, cloudy, watery, milky, or misty.
- circumlocution or euphemism for water or rain
- Nejota. Itsa weke eu, itsa weke, itsa weke, itsa weke ... Kiyaga takeneu. Tururueneu.
- So that's exactly how it was. It was like that, [and] like that, [and] like that [i.e., the women met their lover like that again and again]... Rain fell, [and] thunder came again [i.e., the dry season ended, and thunder was heard as the first rains began to fall.]
Usage notes[edit]
- Wauja have described kiyaga as the color of the silt that rises in the water when you step through a clear stream. Note that this word ends with the –ga suffix, found in many nouns that refer to liquids.
- Blue eyes are described as kiyaga.
- In the story excerpt above, the storyteller Aruta could not simply say Uno takeneu ("Rain fell"), because his daughter-in-law's name is Uno ("Water"). As a matter of respect, a Wauja refrains from uttering the name of his or her daughter-in-law. (The polite way to refer to the spouse of one's son or daughter is "wife/husband of so-and-so" or "mother/father of so-and-so.") That's why, in the example above, the storyteller used the circumlocution Kiyaga takeneu ("pale/watery stuff fell"). Ulawalu and her sister Uhekualu kindly pointed out this substitution in Aruta's telling of the story in 1989.
Related terms[edit]
- kiyagapai (“is a pale, cloudy, watery, milky color or pigment”)
References[edit]
- "Nejota. Itsa weke" (transcript p. 40) uttered by Aruta, elder and storyteller, while recounting story of "The Caiman Spirit and the Origin of Piqui," (Yakaojokuma), November 1989. Recorded in BBC film, "The Storyteller."