igoo-i.] Spanish Doclmknts Relative to the Canary Islands. 37 



the Celtic languages, the Rev. Dr. MacNish, of Cornwall, who has 

 kindly undertaken a task beyond the writer's powers, that, namely, of 

 assigning Celtic values to the almost innumerable proper names 

 furnished by Dr. Bethencourt, as well as to investigate the construction 

 of larger locutions, phrases or sentences provided by him. In his- 

 attempt to explain the remaining terms, chiefly common nouns, with 

 some verbs and adjectives, the writer must apologize for the slender 

 Celtic outfit for the work which his library supplies. The books 

 chiefly drawn upon are O'Reilly's Irish Dictionary, which is admirably 

 full of botanical names, and Edward's English and Welsh Dictionary, 

 which is correspondingly deficient. 



The work of comparison had not progressed very far, before the 

 Guanche tongue revealed itself as more Cymric (Welsh and Breton), 

 than Gaelic. The very name Guanche seems to connect with the 

 Welsh givyn, white, and thus to have denoted a white population in 

 the vicinity of African negroes, swarthy Arabs, and red Iberians. 

 Among distinctively Cymric terms appear the Canary Island 

 guatatiboa, the national festival, in which it is not hard to recognize 

 the Welsh eisteddfod ; guayafan and guayafacan, co-adjutor of the 

 governor, answering to the W. cynipen and cympencun ; punapal, first 

 son, the V\l. pen-eppill, the chief descendant ; iiialgareo, rough music, the 

 W. niawlgamc^ to chant; qiievechi, dignity, the W. gofyged ; titogan, 

 heaven, the W. tiiddo-cwn, the covering of the head ; aniogante, berry, 

 the W. magon ; guanoco, weak, infirm, the W. gwan; and iguanoso, 

 with the same signification, the W. egwan. Compound words are 

 specially valuable as tests of correct or scientific comparison. Take, 

 for example, the Guanche word valeron, which denotes, "the cave of 

 the vestals " ; it is the Welsh ffau-lle-rhian, " the cave apartment of the 

 virgin." The name of a Guanche god was Atguaychafortanaman, and 

 this appalling word of seven syllables, means "he who holds the heavens." 

 In Irish Gaelic, it is adh-se-a-cabhai7--t-neamh ; and the latter part 

 "holds the heavens," is in Welsh cyniJiorth-nef. The Guanches had very 

 many words to denote goats and other domestic animals with peculiar 

 markings, and these, as provided by Dr. Bethencourt, so outran the 

 writer's patience, that, after translating a few, he gave the rest up as 

 hopeless, save in the hands of one to the Celtic manner born. Thus 

 nianonda is a black goat with white feet ; but ban-an-dubh, Irish Gaelic, 

 and gwyn-yn-du, Welsh, mean " white in black." A white and 

 cinnamon goat was called puipana, which is Irish buidke-ban, " yellow- 

 white." A male or he-goat was carabuco, the Irish culbhoc, but the 

 Welsh bwcli-gafr. 



