Paiwan Every Day 70: qidung

When I was a little child, we lived with grandparents. In Paiwan, grandparents and elders in the village are all vuvu irregardless of gender or blood ties.

Great-great-mother was also living with us at that time in late 1970s. Instead of vuvu, vuvu madraw and mother naluku taught me to call her vuvu qidung. I always thought it was because her skin was as dark as qidung or charcoal in English. I was so wrong! It is simply because qidung also means great-great-parent or great-great-child. 

Could these two meaings - charcoal and great-great-parent - be somehow related? I don't know, but I feel interested. 

navaikanga ti vuvu qidung. 

In English: 

Great-great-mother has passed.

Glossary: 

1. navaikanga: the root is "vaik" (to go). [na-vaik-anga] means to have gone somewhere; na- and -anga are two affixes that make a past perfect tense. 
2. ti: personal case-marker, nominative
3. vuvu qidung: great-great-parent

Reading: