Hi Professor Crossley,

Hi, I'm not sure about the context in which "sewe" occurs but it appears to me that it might denote "snake".  My guess is that the referent could be a Snake God reverred in Manchu myths or folk tales?
I know that in Jurchen the noun for snake is reconstructed as "sege" and the intervocalic /g/ can be labio-velarized to /w/.  I think the word for "snake" in Manchu is "senge" or "sengge" (a variant of "sege")?

Best,
Wayne 

--- You wrote:
Like some others of you I recently saw this post on the Manchu-Study list. I was intrigued by this reference to "Sewe."  Is there some way to put this into a research perspective?  What could be meant here by "Sewe"?  What word meaning "god" is like "sewe"?  Is there a shamanic arcane?  Makes sense, I just don't know of research on this.
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