Iroquois expression

Posted by Victoria S Dennis on November 18, 2005

In Reply to: Iroquois expression posted by Michael on November 17, 2005

: I seem to remember that in one of Patrick O'Brien's naval novels, he has Dr Maturin claim that the expression "that cuts no ice with me" comes from a transliterated Iroquois expression "katno aiss' vizme" meaning "to leave unmoved or indifferent". Can anyone tell me whether there is any truth in this, and what the actual Iroqouis expression he was referring to might have been?
I don't think any etymologists take this idea seriously. It's quite likely that O'Brian didn't believe it and didn't mean his readers to believe it either - see the discussion here:
jfinnera.www1.50megs.com/ Fortune.htm