.dombii as scavenger woman

[Michael Witzel]

The word Domba is treated by Kuiper together with other words for drum, on
p. 84 -87 (Domba p. 87) under the heading (Rgvedic)  :   "43.  dundubhi'
'drum' ",   see:

>F.B.J. Kuiper, Proto-Munda Words in Sanskrit, Amsterdam, Verhandeling
>der Koninklijke Nederlandsche Akademie Van Wetenschappen, Afd.
>Letterkunde, Nieuwe Reeks Deel Li, No. 3, 1948

There is a comparison of many other words for drum with similar shape: Skt.
dunduma, DiNDima,  tumbukin, ADambara (Vedic), lambara, Dimbima, Pkt.
heramba,  Pali dudrabhi.

and cf. Munda:  Santali Dobo, Dhob, Dhobo; Dhobo Dhobo 'dull flat sound';
lobhor lobhor , Daba Dubu, etc. etc.;  all for sounds of drums;
and typical Munda formations such as Dhom-ba'k :: (Tama'k  < reborred
Hindi?) ::  tum-da'k, etc. etc.  and various reflections in NIA languages:
Hindi TAmak, Marathi dumAG, damua,  etc. etc.

Further, Dravidian:  Tamil tuTumai, Telugu tuDumu, Kannada tuDubu etc. etc.

Finally, Kuiper connnects Santali DoDom DoDom 'sound of drumming', and with
a slightly different -o-, DoDom DoDom 'sound of Doms drumming when arriving
in a village' with  the word Dom designating  a 'certain low Hindu caste,
... small agriculturists and .... drummers' = Hindi Dom(b), Skt. Domba,
Pkt. Dumba  (who cook dogs!), and concludes "the Dombas must have been
named from their drums, like the Pariahs (Tam. paRaiyaN2 from parai 'drum')"

As Pinnow points out in his intro., one should be careful with such
onomatopoetic words as they are all over Munda (and beyond) and do not
always follow strict sound rules (a large topic of its own...).

Thus, Kuiper's reconstruction of a (P-Munda) root *Da-ba should not be
entertained anymore, as he himself says with reference to his 1948 book in
his 1991 book "Aryans in the Rigveda", intro. Since we are old colleagues &
friends, I may add that his comparisons were made 11 years BEFORE an
historical reconstruction of the Proto-Munda sound system was made by K.H.
Pinnow, Versuch einer historischen Lautlehre der Kharia-Sprache, Wiesbaden
1959.

The book is, however, still very useful as collection of materials, but
Kuiper has criticized me even for saying so (see his note in:  Mother
Tongue, Special Issue, Oct.1999 -- a useful journal for the proto-history
of Indian (and other) languages, membership + journal  only $25 per year,
see: ASLIP via my website:  http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm
).
He maintains that one has to be a good specialist in order to use these
data properly. --  Fine.


Nevertheless, it important that the Rgvedic word dundubhi 'drum' has no
retroflex. As can easily be seen, words beginning with retroflex are  very
rare in Vedic (Mayrhofer, EWA I, has only one word in a late text, a Sutra,
ApGS). There is some interchange in case of such 'foreign' sounds, see
Kuiper 1991.

However, reconstructed Munda includes just ONE retroflex, precisely D.
Similarly, Dravidian (DEDR) has only some 60 words with initial D/T.
They include:  DEDR 2958 Kuwi Dimbu 'gourd', 2954 Gondi TiGgO 'dancing
bells', 2948 Gondi TApur 'cattle bell;' etc.,  --   but the only ones which
come close are: 2947 Ko. Dab Dab  etc., 2945,  Kan. DanDAn   and the words
quoted above, 2949 DAm Dum, Tamil TamAN2am etc., 2944 Kan. TaN TaNa etc.,
etc.

Apparently, all general Indian words for drumming, probably impossible to
etymologize. (Though one could go into some detail here as well).

In short, it looks -- as Przylusky, Kuiper, Mayrhofer  have maintained --
as if an onomatopoetic
word has been used to indicate the drum and the people who drum, the  Dom(b)s.

-----------
>I do not have a copy of my own and I do not have the page number to
>hand but Kuiper's mention of .dombii occurs in the annotations at the
>back of the book.
>
>Best wishes,
>Stephen Hodge

========================================================
Michael Witzel
Department of Sanskrit & Indian Studies, Harvard University
2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge MA 02138, USA

ph. 1- 617-496 2990 (also messages)
home page:  http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm

Elect. Journ. of Vedic Studies:  http://www1.shore.net/~india/ejvs