ongaw-ongaw
Extended Definition / Cultural Note:
A traditional Boie’nen name for the praying mantis. The term is understood as deriving from ongaw ‘cat,’ referring particularly to the mantis’s broad, angular, highly mobile head, which may suggest a cat’s face, as well as to aspects of its alert, deliberate, stalking movement.
It is synonymous with amimitik, although the two names highlight different characteristics of the same insect.
Etymology / Word Formation:
From ongaw ‘cat’ with reduplication:
ongaw ‘cat’
→ ongaw-ongaw ‘cat-like; resembling or suggestive of a cat’
→ ‘praying mantis’
The reduplicated form therefore appears to have an approximative or resemblance-based function: ‘something cat-like.’
Semantic Motivation:
appearance- and behavior-based naming — based on perceived resemblance of the mantis’s head and movements to those of a cat.
Related Words:
ongaw — cat
amimitik — praying mantis; synonymous name emphasizing snapping movements
pitik — snap; spring or recoil suddenly
Cross-Reference:
See amimitik.
Usage / Register:
Traditional / folk zoological vocabulary.
Lexicographic note
These two words are worth preserving separately because they reveal two different Boie’nen conceptualizations of the same animal:
amimitik ← movement: “the snapping one”
ongaw-ongaw ← resemblance: “the cat-like one”
That distinction is more informative than reducing one to a mere “variant” of the other. It records how Boie’nen speakers historically observed, classified, and named the natural world through salient behavior and resemblance.