1897.1 BRIXTOX — ETHNIC AFFINITIES OF THE GUETARES. 497 



were not actually related to the Nahuas, they were at least under 

 their cultural influence."^ 



These two guesses, so widely asunder, by eminent living authori- 

 ties, indicate how uncertain ethnographers are as to the relationship 

 of this once important and cultured people. 



This uncertainty I shall endeavor to dispel by an examination of 

 a few words preserved by early writers supposed to be in the 

 Guetar language ; by a comparison of some proper names stated 

 to be from their tongue ; and by the aid of an unpublished vocabu- 

 lary obtained from what was believed to be the last remnant of the 

 tribes, about forty years ago. 



The traveler Benzoni visited the area of Costa Rica in 1528, and 

 gives the following five words of the language of the " Suerra " (to 

 be pronounced according to the Italian alphabet) :^ 



Earth, t'sc/ia. 



Men, cid. 



Sickness, s^asa. 



Gold, chiaruela. 



Great, tnatto. 



A wild animal, cascuii. 



These words mostly belong without doubt to the Talamancan lin- 

 guistic substock. Thus, ischia = Talamanca ischiko, earth, and 

 Cabecar hizhku. The word for men, cici^ is the Cabecar, /VyV/ that 

 for gold, chiaruela, appears a modification of the Talamanca txela, 

 copper, perhaps yellow metal. The word for large, inatto, belongs 

 probably to the Cuna, which has tumati ; and cascuii has too vague 

 a meaning to identity. The term stasa for sickness does not appear 

 in modern vocabularies. 



But the " Suerre," although assumed by Dr. Berendt and others 

 as identical with the Guetar tongue, is not positively known to 

 be so ; and geographically it appears to have been on the north 

 coast along the river of the same name, some distance from the 

 province of the historical Guetares. 



I have found but one word of the ancient Guetar language pre- 

 served by the early conquistadores, but it is almost convincing of 

 their linguistic position. This is ueritecas or biritecas, applied by 

 them to the women of the neighboring province of Goto, because 

 they' went forth to battle with the men and joined like them in 



^ Translated in my Report upon the collections exhibited at the Columbian Histori- 

 cal Exposition, Madrid, p. 40, sq. (Washington, 1895). 



2 Benzoni, Historia del Mondo Nuovo, fol. jj (Venice, 1572). 



