Amerindian tribal names in North America of possible Basque origin

Abstract

The last decades have brought to light a lot of information on the early history of European-Amerindian contact. Some of the most sensational discoveries concern the importance of Basque fur traders, who had set up trading networks with the Natives of what is now Canada in the 16th century in Eastern Canada, long before the arrival of the French settlers in the early seventeenth century. The Basques were already in North America in the first decades of the 16th century, before Jacques Cartier (as were Portuguese, Breton and British fishermen as well). If Basque was not the first foreign language in use by Aboriginal inhabitants of the Northwest of North America, it was certainly the first to have an impact on their languages. The maritime culture of the Basques was one of the most important ones in Europe in the late Middle Ages, when they travelled to the Mediterranean, Ireland, the North Cape and the European coast for trade and fishery. It was their search for cod and whales which brought them to North America in the first decades of the 16th century, where they set up whaling stations along the Labrador coast, and later that century also along the Saint Lawrence River and the Maritimes. Trading with the Natives, in particular the Micmac and Montagnais, was also a major industry, especially in the second half of the 16th century. The evidence for this is encountered in historical documents (Barkham 1980, 1988, Huxley 1987, Turgeon 1982, 1985, 1990), in archaeological findings (Tuck 1987, Turgeon et al. 1992), in linguistic borrowings from Basque in Northeastern languages (Bakker 1989a) and in the former existence of a Basque based trade language (Bakker 1989b) in the Northeast as well as Iceland (Bakker et al 1991). It appeared that Basques were important pioneers in the contacts with the Natives. The early presence of the Basques in Northeastern Canada is further reflected in the existence of scores of