ónone (color)
The word for color, ónone, doubled in its form the word for paint: ón. Ón marked only the substance and form of paint; it did not reference a paint’s hue. Instead, colors in general were known as ónone, a reduplicative word whose repetition of its core form (ón) indicated a continuous and intensive condition. The words for individual colors then took the form of verbs, referencing states of being: red was sé, best translated as “be-red.” Objects that were sé'sh were understood to “inhabit-red,” to be in red, as well as in all of the qualities associated with that particular color.
Colors were common trade items at fur trade posts, particularly verdigris and vermillion. All adult Native residents of the Awatíkihu (Five Villages) used body paint, whether for domestic, military, society, or ceremonial purposes. Additionally, artisans like Mató-Tópe utilized colors for their object and clothing designs. Locally, however, colors were important for their inhabiting qualities, a characteristic that could join such disparate things as a packet of powdered vermillion, a buffalo calf, and a piece of cloth, items used as hó'pini (“to be holy”) by Minitari leader Péhriska-Rúhpa on March 15, 1834. This call-to-inhabit has no English-language equivalent.