Viewing page 6 of 39

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

[[preprinted]]
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

WASHINGTON, D.C., 
[[/preprinted]]

February 25th. 1905.

Miss Alice C. Fletcher,
214 First Street, S. E.,
Washington, D. C.,

Dear Madam:---

As to the presence of the Basques on the St. Lawrence and about New Foundland there are many early references. Peter Martyr states that S. Cabot named what is now Canada Bacallaos because the seas and rivers about it teemed with a "certeyne bigge fysshe" which the inhabitants call baccalaos and which were so plentiful that they sometimes stopped his ships. Now, bacalaos is the Basque name for the codfish. This shows that Cabot must have learned the Basque name from the Indians at that early date. Harrisse (Bibl. Am. Vet.) says that as early as 1509 seven savages were brought to Rouen, apparently by Basques. Again the term [[underlined]] original [[/underlined]] used by Champlain, Sagard and others is the Basque [[underlined]]orena[[/underlined]] or [[underlined]]orina[[/underlined]], a deer; and these same writers employed the Basque term [[underlined]]pilotois[[/underlined]] to name the Indian sorcerers when first known to them, showing that the interpreters obtained the Basque names for these things. Cartier in 1534^[[-5]] found the Indians on the St Lawrence river and Gulf well acquainted with the European fur trade. Two leagues above Tadousac there was a place called Echaffaut aux Basques evidently a place for drying fish and for trade. For other references see Early Trading Companies of New France by Biggar and the New edition by Thwaites of the Jesuit Relations.

Very respectfully, 

[[signed]]J. N. B. Hewitt[[/signed]]