University of Virginia Library

8. The most complete attempt at analysis of all Smith's Indian words and phrases
and the meanings he assigns to them is in Philip L. Barbour, "The Earliest Reconnaissance
of the Chesapeake Bay Area: Captain John Smith's Map and Indian Vocabulary,"
Pt. II, VMHB, LXXX (1972), 21-51. More recently, however, Frank T. Siebert, Jr., has
published studies of nearly half of the total, correcting Barbour's work in a few instances
("Resurrecting Virginia Algonquian from the Dead: The Reconstituted and Historical
Phonology of Powhatan," in James M. Crawford, ed., Studies in Southeastern Indian
Languages [Athens, Ga., 1975], 285-453, hereafter cited as Siebert, "Virginia Algonquian").
Siebert's work, based on William Strachey's "Short Dictionary" (The Historie
of Travell into Virginia Britania, ed. Louis B. Wright and Virginia Freund [Hakluyt
Society, 2d Ser., CIII (London, 1953)], 174-207) rather than on Smith, has the advantage
of supplying linguistic details known only to a specialist, but suffers from inadequacy
with respect to early modern English handwriting, usage, and colonial history.
For this reason, it raises questions regarding the "phonemic representation of the Powhatan
form" (Siebert, "Virginia Algonquian," 305-306) presented there.
Beyond Siebert and Barbour there are only scattered references to Smith's transcriptions,
principally in two monographs by the late Reverend James A. Geary of
The Catholic University of America, "Strachey's Vocabulary of Indian Words Used
in Virginia, 1612" (Strachey, Historie, 209-214), and "The Language of the Carolina
Algonkian Tribes" (David Beers Quinn, ed., The Roanoke Voyages, 1584-1590 [Hakluyt
Soc., 2d Ser., CIV-CV (London, 1955)], II, 873-900). For the problems involved, see
the facsimile of the Bodleian Library copy of Strachey's "Short Dictionary," in John P.
Harrington, "The Original Strachey Vocabulary of the Virginia Indian Language,"
Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Anthropological Papers, No. 46
(Washington, D.C., 1955), 189-202, with not a few slips; and Philip L. Barbour, "The
Function of Comparative Linguistics in the Study of Early Transcriptions of Indian
Words," Studies in Linguistics, XXIII (1973), 3-11.

9. More correctly, "ka katorawincs yowo" (see Siebert, "Virginia Algonquian,"
361); the "-cs" may represent the sound "sh" or "ch."

1. Siebert's suggestion of a misprint ("nemarough" for "nematough," ibid., 355) is
apparently based solely on Strachey. Whether Strachey's copyist miscopied, or Smith's
printer misprinted, cannot be determined.

2. Siebert's analysis needs reworking (ibid., 326); both Smith and Strachey clearly
have "r" in the second syllable. The Maryland form "matchcoat" cited by Siebert is
apparently not recorded before 1638.

3. Siebert has amplified and partly corrected Barbour here (ibid., 340), adding
cognates from Micmac and from his own unpublished notes on Unami; Smith's final
"-r" is evidently redundant, though it may represent a breathing sound, or inaudible
whistle.

4. Musical pipes; cf. Natick, pupehquon, "an instrument of music." Here, Siebert
has apparently been led astray by Strachey's carelessness (ibid., 367-368).

5. While the second element of this word, "-assin," clearly means "stone," Siebert's
conjecture that the first element, "matt-," represents a root meaning "uneven, jagged,"
seems farfetched. Geary's analysis, "mat- means 'red,'" corresponding with Barbour,
"Earliest Reconnaissance," Pt. II, 36, seems sounder semantically (see Quinn, Roanoke
Voyages, II, 897, s.v. "Tapisco").

6. Overlooked by Siebert, though he analyzes Strachey's "osawas, brass" in detail,
as a derivative from an element meaning "ore, mineral," plus a root meaning "yellow"
(Siebert, "Virginia Algonquian," 328-329, 409-410).

7. More accurately, "firewood, pieces of wood."

8. Siebert correctly emphasizes the meaning "reed, water weed" for this apparently
collective name, which may well have been primary in tidewater Virginia ("Virginia
Algonquian," 372).

9. The basic Algonkian element implies "sleeping together" (ibid., 385).

1. A common Algonkian name for the sturgeon, appearing in various forms in
Abnaki, Narragansett, Delaware, etc. (Barbour, "Earliest Reconnaissance," Pt. II, 35).

2. More specifically, "my friend" (cf. Siebert, "Virginia Algonquian," 342).

3. The first word should probably be divided "casa cunnakack" (cf. "[nu]ssaconnoke,"
the third day [singular], in Philip L. Barbour, "Ocanahowan and the Recently
Discovered Linguistic Fragments from Southern Virginia, c. 1650," in William Cowan,
ed., Papers of the Seventh Algonquian Conference [Ottawa, 1976], 2-17). The last word, an
unanalyzed designation, was still applied to the English in North Carolina in 1701, in
the form "Tosh shonte" (Barbour, "Earliest Reconnaissance," Pt. II, 46).

4. There is a study in depth of the numbers from one to ten in Siebert, "Virginia
Algonquian," 306-309, with extensive analyses.

5. Should read "Paransketassapooeksku." The typesetter misplaced the first "s."

6. Properly "Keshowghes." The word was undoubtedly intended to rhyme with
"owes," the "-gh-" representing a breathing sound somewhat as in the German phrase
"doch so"; the palatalization of the first sibilant ("sh" for "s"), however, may well have
been accidental (indistinct speech or mishearing). Cf. Rawcosowghs, immediately preceding,
and see Siebert's analysis ("Virginia Algonquian," 391).

7. Siebert has unfortunately omitted Smith's word, though he lists Strachey's
"nepaus[c]he," meaning "sun" (ibid., 392). Although this word seems to have meant
"luminary" rather than either "sun" or "moon," a full inquiry into its semantics remains
a desideratum.

8. Obviously a miscopy or a misprint of "popanow," meaning "winter" (see p. 16,
below).

9. A problem word, not yet analyzed.

1. Perhaps the most puzzling word in Smith or Strachey (see p. 29, n. 4, below).

2. Apparently an Algonkian parallel to the Greek Eumenides, "the Kindly Ones,"
a euphemism for the Furies. The Quiyoughcosucks were "the Upright Ones" -- including
the priests ("affinities") who served them.

3. This reference to Pocahontas has been overlooked by some of Smith's critics. It
shows how he thought of her before her arrival in London in 1616.

Relevant to the foregoing word list and diminutive phrase book, it should be pointed
out here that the idea for such a list seems to have been a relatively novel one. Only three
or four such "curiosities" have been found by the editor in contemporary or earlier
works. It has been postulated, however, that Harriot, after studying the North Carolina
Indians at firsthand, "may have gone on to compile a short word-book" for just such
later expeditions as the one Smith joined (David B. Quinn, "Thomas Hariot and the
Virginia Voyages of 1602," William and Mary Quarterly, 3d Ser., XXVII [1970], 274). A
last-minute communication from Professor Quinn, however, states that "Harriot's manuscript
on the Indian language was amongst the MSS deposited in Sion College, but was
destroyed with part of the library in the fire of London" of 1666 (personal communication
to the editor, Jan. 1979). That Smith had such a book in Jamestown seems improbable,
but Harriot could have shown it to him later, in London. William Strachey
could well have picked up the notion from Smith and expanded it into his "Short
Dictionary." The firm facts are that Smith recorded 137 Indian words, with a few errors
of transcription or translation, while Strachey's later vocabulary of 16 MS pages listed
nearly 600 more, including some duplication, as well as errors similar to Smith's.