Note 133-2 — Chapter V

The moon is nipa or nipaz; nipa, I sleep; nipawi, night; nip, I die; nepua, dead; nipanoue, cold. This odd relationship was first pointed out by Volney (Duponceau, Langues de l’Amérique du Nord, p. 317). But the kinship of these words to that for water, nip, nipi, nepi, has not before been noticed. This proves the association of ideas on which I lay so much stress in mythology. A somewhat similar relationship exists in the Aztec and cognate languages, miqui, to die, micqui, dead, mictlan, the realm of death, te-miqui, to dream, cec-miqui, to freeze. Would it be going too far to connect these with metzli, moon? (See Buschmann, Spuren der Aztekischen Sprache im Nördlichen Mexico, p. 80.)