HAYTIAIf WORDS. 
329 
to man, and common both to the islands and to the coasts of 
Cumana and Paria. Not satisfied with retaining these words 
borrowed from the Ilaytiana, they helped also to spread them 
all over America (at a period when the language oi Hayti was 
already a dead language), and to diffuse them among nations 
who were ignorant even of the existence of the West India 
Islands. Some words, which are in daily use in the Spanish 
colonies, are attributed erroneously to the Haytians. Ba- 
nana is from the Chaconcse, the Mbaja language ; arepa 
(bread of manioc, or of the Jatropha manihot) imd guayuco 
(an apron, perizoma) are Caribbee : curiara (a very long 
boat) is Tamanac: chmchorro (a hammock), and tutv/ma 
(the fruit of the Crescentia ctijete, or a vessel to contain a 
liquid), are Chayma words. 
I have dwelt thus long on considerations respecting the 
American tongues, because I am desirous of directing at- 
tention to the deep interest attached to this kind of re- 
search. This interest is analogous to that inspired by the 
monuments of semi-barbarous nations, which are examined 
was also heard by Amerieo Vespucci on the coast of Paria) ; aye or ajes 
(Dioscorea alata), copci (Clusia alba), guayacan (Guaiacum officinale), 
guajaba (Psidium pyriferum), guanavano (Anoua muricata), mani (Arachis 
hypogsea), guama (Inga), henequen (was supposed from the erroneous 
accounts of the first travellers to be an herb with which the Haytians 
used to ent metals ; it means now every kind of strong thread), hicaco 
(Chrysobalanus icaco), maghei (Agave Americana), tna/iiz or maiz (Zeu, 
maize), mamei (Mamroea Americana), mangle (Rhizophora), pitahaja 
(Cactus pitahaja), ceiba (Bombas), tuna (Cactus tuna), hicotea (a 
tortoise), iguana (Lacerta iguana), manati (Triehecus manati), nigua 
(Pulex penetrans), hamaca (a hammock), balsa (a raft; however balsa is 
an old Castilian word signifying a pool of water), barbacoa (a small 
bed of light wood, or reeds), canei or bu/tio (a hut), canoa (a canoe), 
cocv.jn (Elder noctilucus, the fire-fly), chicha (fermented liquor), macana 
(a large stick or club, made with the petioles of a palm-tree), tabaco (not 
the herb, but the pipe through which it is smoked), cacique (a chief). 
Other American words, now as much in use among the Creoles, as the 
Arabic words naturalized in the Spanish, do not belong to the Haytian 
tongue ; for example, caiman , piragua, papaja (Carica), aguacate 
(Persea), larabila, paramo. Abbe Gili thinks with some probability, 
that they are derived from the tongue of some people who inhabited the 
temperate climate between Coro, the mountains of Merida, and the table- 
land of Bogota. (Saggio, vol. in., p. 228.) How many Celtic and Ger- 
man words would not Julius Csesar and Tacitus have handed down to 
us, had the productions of the northern countries visited by the Romans 
differed as much from the Italian and Roman, as those of equinoctial 
America 1 
