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Les Noms Natives des Villes de La Jamaique were not students...

Toussaintfreedom Says...

Les Noms Natives des Villes de La Jamaique

were not students of Indian languages.

In the absence of careful
observation, monolinguals are tempted to hear things in terms of the only
language they know, rationalizing without adequate data and producing
"popular etymologies." Jamaican names furnish some remarkable examples of this.
Navassa having been placed on one of the earliest maps, is continued, with minor differences of spelling, for a large key off the northeast end of the island, now a u.s. possession, but formerly associated with
Jamaica.

Though probably Arawak, the meaning is unknown.

The spelling, with double s, would seem English rather than Spanish.

Cagway is the English rendering of Spanish Caguay or Caguaya.

The
Spanish forms suffered when, on some maps, an I was substituted for C,
and one map further changed the C to L, Laguia, perhaps taking la as the
article for a noun guia. The English spelling further rationalizes the end
Jamaican Placenames
154 NAMES
of the name -way, and perhaps cag- was understood, in the contemporarj
pronunciation, as what we call a keg today - thus, a place or road for
transporting kegs. But when the point was fortified as Passage Fort, about
1660 (it first appears on Hickeringill's map of 1661) Cagway was soon superseded.

Caguay or Caguaya is very probably Arawak, but the meaning
is uncertain.

Wag-Water furnishes one of the most surprising developments.

Guaiguata is on 16th century maps for a port and then the river flowing
into it. But attempts to rationalize it produce the Spanish-likeAgua Alta
(deep water), and later the English took the second part of the wordl
-guata, very simply, as water, and Guaig- could easily produce Wag-.

This
could then be taken, by folk-etymology, to explain the remaining Wag as
referring to the erratic course of the river or its twisting currents.

Againl
we do not know what the Arawaks meant by the name, and the Spanisb
may have accepted it simply as a name, without explanation.

Guai- is a
common first element in many Indian tribal names of the Caribbean and
South America.

Guanaboa is more certain - at least the name is also found in the
neighboring island of Hispaniola.

Cundall (Place-Names) suggests with
some hesitation a possible connection withguanabana, the soursop, an annonaceous fruit common in the island; but he seems to prefer the Haitian
Arawak possibility, which might be translated "house of gold." The place
itself was not a town but a district, and it is possible the Spaniards hoped
to find gold there.

If so, they were disappointed.

Oracabessa shows the apparently irresistible effect of coincidence.

The Arawak form was written by the Spanish as Juracabes, with an ending
very similar to Spanish cabeza, 'head' or 'headland'.

If this was accepted,
what did Jura- mean?

The historian Edward Long made it Aura, air or
breeze, hence "windy headland.

Others have seen Spanish oro, 'gold' as
the first element.

Hickeringill (1661) at least records the initial spirant
(Hora- for Jura- ) though if he thought of Spanish hora, 'hour' 'time,' it
makes little sense with cabeza./uracabes is very probably Arawak, but of
unknown meaning.

Liguanea, the plain in which Kingston stands, has traditionally been
taken to be connected with the iguana - a green lizard of the kind quite
common in the Island, and now called by the Jamaican folkguana.

A picture of the lizard has been the symbol of Liguanea for over a century

Posted November 24 2023 at 7:35 PM

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