Animacy and Inanimacy

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Animacy and Inanimacy
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The world is broken up into animate or inanimate
in Potawatomi

• Basically this means things are either alive or
  not alive.
• So a table is not alive but a tree is alive.
• Animate Inanimate
• nene- man taswen- cabinet
• kwé- woman msenaksegen-picture
• mtek- tree mtek jiptebwen- bench
• mko-bear gokpenagen-basket
  

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Spiritual things are considered animate

• All of these things are considered alive/animate
  
• Pwagen- pipe
• Sema- tobacco
• déwegen- drum
• emkwan- spoon used in a ceremony
• kno migwen- eagle feather

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Things in motion are also considered animate

• So a car that is parked would be treated as
  inanimate while a moving car is animate.
• A ball flying through the air would be animate
  but a ball sitting on the ground would be
  inanimate

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Many things in nature our considered animate or
alive.

• With this concept you really understand what was
  important to our ancestors and how they saw the
  earth as sacred. If a tree is treated in the same
  manner as a person and likewise a grasshopper
  treated just like a person it changes your
  perspective. Our ancestors saw the earth and all
  its animals as relations. Not better or higher on
  the food chain but equals. Often you would hear
  old people refer to my brother the bear or my
  sister the river.

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Animate persons in nature

• Gises- sun
• Dbekgises- moon
• Zibiwes- creek
• Mtek- tree
• Waskonedo- flower
• Jigwék- thunders
• Gmowen- rain

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Reverence for life

• Whenever someone is to take something from the
  earth it is traditional to put some tobacco down.
  We offer a prayer and thank the spirit of that
  plant or animal for giving its life so that we
  can live. Tobacco is how we traditionally pray we
  put it down during a storm to ask the thunders to
  be gentle on us and if we cross a large body of
  water we would put it down. Also if you made a
  spiritual request of someone we always offered
  tobacco first. One elder said that tobacco
  proceeds all things.

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So how does this effect the usage of the language

• When you pluralize a word it matters if it is
  animate or inanimate.
• Mko- bear Mkok- bears
• Dopwen-table Dopwenen- tables.
• Also when we say this or that it matters if the
  this we are talking about is living or
  non-living.
• Node- these inanimate things gode-these animate
  people or things.

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Even the verb we choose to use depends on whether
something is animate or inanimate

• Nwabma- I see him or her.
• Nwabdan- I see it.
• Wawyeya- it is round
• Wawyewze- he/she is round

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Finally it can be a stylistic device used by some
speakers

• For example if you are telling a story where
  there is a mirror and the mirror comes to life
  and starts talking once this happens it is now
  treated as animate. Also you could use it to make
  a point for example something in your own life
  which you consider sacred you could treat as such
  or treat something else as not sacred if it isnt
  important to you the speaker.