Here are some common words for body parts, organs, and things related to the body.
| mucu | eye |
| mucubine | tear |
| tiqi | ear |
| chini | nose |
| nipita | mouth |
| nipitapiela | lip |
| penani | tongue |
| cuna | throat/neck |
| chito | head |
| caqe | face |
| puchi | hair |
| acapu | knee |
| ichiqe | foot/leg |
| hue | hand |
| huetilo | finger |
| sacala | arm |
| huqui | shoulder |
| tuchiqe | fingernail |
| oquo | flesh/penis |
| una | body |
| yabi | bone |
| cume | heart/vital internal organ |
| chocolo | side, soul |
| atichicolo | soul/conscience |
| isi | blood |
| isi eye | vein (lieterally, a blood road) |
| chofa | liver |
| atimucu | bile |
| ayahibuano | excrement (literally “sitting in the forest”) |
Sentences
These examples come from the Timucua corpus, though some have been slightly simplified so they can be more comprehensible.
Mucubine tocota
Mucubine toco-ta
Tear come-part
Tears come and…
Acu nia yoquaco tocohanima chito chinaipelo habele.
Acu nia yoqua-co toco-hanima chito chi-na-ipelo-habe-le
This woman other-con come-when head 2sg-ins-step-irr-dec
When this other woman comes, she will step on your head.
Ano nihema bueta puchi sorobicho?
Ano nihe-ma bueta puchi soro-bi-ch-o?
Person dead-def obl hair cut-pst-2sg-q
Did you cut your hair for a dead relative?
Penanimano itori apichumota
Penani-mano itori api chumo-ta
Tongue-top alligator tail like-part
Her tongue was like an alligator tail and…
Caqi iyolaribe andaqua ychiqe nahitequa yaharobichule.
Caqi iyolaribe anda-qua ychiqe nahi-tequa yaharo-bi-chu-le
This serpent formerly-obl leg exist-so:that walk-pst-rem-dec
This serpent once had legs so that it could walk.
Cume
The word cume is a noun and it likely means “heart.” But it is also incorporated into different verbs to express states of being. For example, cume (heart) plus the verb areco (make) is glossed as “understand.”
Cume areco (heart + make) = understand
Other examples:
cume eche (heart + enter) = believe
cume mani (heart + think) = love
cume chebe (heart + lose) = disturb
cume pali (heart + rub) = desire
cume chocori (heart + strong) = be virtuous
cume nuya (heart + innocent) = be innocent
Sometimes the cume idioms are written as a single word and sometimes they are separated. There are many languages around the world that rely on “body words” to express emotions. In Choctaw, the word for neck is used in several expressions of emotion. In Hebrew, the word for liver is used to craft these types of expressions.
Cumele
Cumele is a common Timucua verb. It seems to mean: “to do something voluntarily.” Cumele has positive connotations, such as being virtuous… but it is also used to describe bad behavior, such as acting in a sinful way. Cumele is thus a complicated verb. If we translate it literally, it means “the will of the heart.” It seems clear that in Timucua, a heart can will a person to do both good and bad deeds. Cumele bears similarities to the verb “will” in English; being willful can have both a positive or a negative quality depending on the context.
These cume idioms are fascinating and very important. They are not only used with frequency in the language, but they also hint at some of the ways Timucuas constructed metaphors and conceptual understandings.