The Basque History of the World - Mark Kurlansky [22]
Numerous reports claim that when Cabot and other early explorers arrived in North America, they encountered native tribesmen who spoke Basque. In other accounts, the tribesmen and the Basques learned and intermingled each other’s languages. In the sixteenth century, there was much speculation about the relationship between indigenous North American languages and Euskera. Esteban de Garibay used this as evidence that both North America and Basqueland were homes to survivors of the Flood. According to accounts from the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, including those of Peter Martyr, cleric of the court in Barcelona, who reported on the early discoveries, the tribesmen encountered by Cabot were already using the word baccallaos. Even if this were true, however, they did not necessarily learn the word from the Basques. In this period the Basque word for cod had numerous variations in different dialects of Euskera, including bacallau, bakaillo, makaillo, and makallao. According to one theory, the word bacalao was originally Euskera and comes from the Euskera word makila, which means “stick.” The cod were cured on sticks, and the Scandinavian word for dried cod, stockfish, has the same derivation, with stock meaning “pole.” But other linguists point out that Euskera frequently converts b to m when adopting foreign words, and the word makallao was probably borrowed from Spanish, Catalan, or Portuguese. The tribesmen could have learned the word from any of these languages. The critical issue is: When did they learn it?
A St.-Jean-de-Luz merchant wrote in 1710, some 150 years after the fact, that when the French were first exploring the rivers of Nouvelle France, they found indigenous people already speaking a patois that was part indigenous and part Euskera. There were many accounts that the indigenous language “had come to be half Basque.”
It has even been suggested that some indigenous words appear to be of Basque origin. The local name for deer is orein, which also is the Basque word. Pierre Lhande-Heguy, who became the first secretary of the Basque Academy of Language when this institute was established in 1918, observed a remarkable Basqueness in proper names of the Huron’s language. Among the Huron names that suggested Basque origin to him were the men’s names Anonatea, Arhetsi, Ochelaga, Ahatsistari, Andekerra, and Oatarra and the women’s names Arenhatsi and Ondoaskoua. But the similarity could be a coincidence, and some historians who concede an Euskera influence on local languages argue that it could have happened after 1497 when Newfoundland became known and a large Basque presence there was well documented. If so, the difficult language was assimilated in only a few years.
On the other hand, if the Basques had been in America for decades, possibly centuries before Columbus, why would there be no record of it? Some say, as is always said about the Basques, that they keep secrets. But the real answer might lie not in the nature of Basques but in the nature of fishermen. When fishermen find an unknown ground that yields good catches, they go to great lengths to keep their secret. In most fishing communities, there are boats with notably better catches, and the crews are silent about the location of their grounds. The cod and whale grounds off the coast of North America was a secret worth keeping, the richest grounds ever recorded by European fishermen.
ANOTHER SIGN THAT Basque fishermen preceded explorers is the fact that when the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Age of Exploration unfolded, the Spanish and Portuguese turned to Basque ships and mariners because the Basques were considered the people with experience. The Basques hunted voraciously and traveled restlessly. As the world became better known, Basque whalers were found everywhere. They were seen whaling off the coast of Brazil, far north in the Arctic, and down to the Antarctic. Many of the early European ships that explored Africa, America, and Asia were built by Basques and often piloted by Basques as well.
The Santa María, one of the ships