Details

Other Title:

Lengua de guatusos

Subjects:

Guatuso language -- Glossaries, vocabularies, etc.
Guatuso Indians.
Indians of Central America -- Costa Rica -- Languages.
Indians of Central America.
Language and languages.
Guatuso language.
Costa Rica -- Languages.
Costa Rica.

Form/Genre:

Glossaries.
Manuscripts, Spanish.
Manuscripts, Latin American.
Glossaries, vocabularies, etc.
Controlled vocabularies.

Language:

Spanish and Guatuso, with 1 letter in French, 1 draft letter in English, and a few notes and a fragment of a letter in German.

Summary:

Two versions of a vocabulary list of approximately 76 entries in Spanish and Guatuso (Huatuso), one presumably in the hand of the Guatuso Indian mentioned in the title as being 18 or 20 years old, and the other a transcription in the hand of C. Hermann Berendt, with annotations by him. Accompanying material includes a booklet (cover title: Apuntaciones de la lengua de los guatusos) with a preface, notes, and a Spanish-Guatuso vocabulary chart displaying Guatuso variants recorded from a total of 5 different Indian boys, with many blanks. The chart contains approximately the same number of Spanish entries as the lists, but the entries are ordered differently and appear to overlap but are not identical with those in the lists. The headings of the chart give details about the boys, including names and ages, which range from about 6 to about 11 or 12 years. In the preface, Berendt explains that the boys had been kidnapped (niños robados) by huleros (uleros), or rubber gatherers, on or near the Frio River (Rio Frio); that they were currently in the possession of (en poder de) families in Granada; and that when he had seen them in March 1874 they were well clothed and fed, and seemed content with their new situation. He describes their pronunciation as timid and lisped. In three instances, the heading gives the name of the family with whom the boy was staying, with the same given as the boy's surname (Mora, Bonilla, Reyes). Also included are the following items of correspondence: a draft letter from Berendt to Dr. Earl Flint in Granada, dated Masaya, 3 May 1874; a letter in French from Paul (Pablo) Lévy to Berendt, dated San Carlos, 10 August 1874; 2 draft letters from Berendt to Manuel Boniche, in San Carlos, both written from Granada, dated August 1874 and 23 September 1874; a letter from Boniche, dated San Carlos, 4 September 1874, addressed to Berendt in Granada; and a draft letter by Berendt in English to an unidentified addressee, dated New York, June 1876, with a fragment (in German) on the verso, of what appears to be a different letter. Berendt's letter to Flint concerns a plan to meet Flint in the upcoming week in Mesatepe, Nicaragua; and includes a postscript outlining a series of questions for Flint to use in obtaining information from certain Guatuso boys regarding their language. (For a Guatuso vocabulary obtained by Berendt through Flint, dated 1876, see Ms. Coll. 700, Item 162.) In Lévy's letter, he suggests that Berendt be in contact with Manuel Boniche in order to obtain Guatuso vocabulary from a young Guatuso who was living with (owned by) Boniche's father-in-law; he also discusses the Guatuso generally, referring to two warring groups. Berendt's exchanges with Boniche reflect his following up on Levy's suggestion; Boniche refers to the young man by name as Vicente Boniche. In the 1876 letter Berendt tells of his return from a 2-year sojourn in Central America, and requests the opportunity to make a statement about the Guatuso Indians, whom he describes as living in isolation on the northern slope of the volcanic chain of mountains in Costa Rica and in the lowlands extending to the shores of Nicaragua Lake and the lowlands at the headwaters of the Frio River.

Notes:

Ms. codex.
Title from caption title (f. 1r).
Foliation: Paper, 19. The manuscript comprises the following loose leaves enclosed within a contemporary paper folder: 2 separate leaves of vocabulary; 8 leaves (4 bifolia) forming a booklet, with preface, notes and a 3-page vocabulary chart; and 10 leaves (4 bifolio and 2 separate leaves) of letters.
Script: Transcription of vocabulary list, along with supplemental notes and additional vocabulary chart, as well as 4 draft letters in the hand of C. Hermann Berendt; 1 vocabulary list in the hand of the Guatuso Indian who provided it, probably named Vicente Boniche;1 letter in the hand of Manuel Boniche; and 1 letter in the hand of Pablo Lévy.
Origin: Vocabulary list written in San Carlos, Costa Rica, in 1874; transcription of list, notes and additional vocabulary chart written by C. Hermann Berendt, probably in Granada, Nicaragua, ca. 1874; 4 drafts letters written by Berendt in Masaya on 3 May 1874, in Granada, Nicaragua, in August 1874 and on 23 September 1874, and in New York in June 1876; letter written by Manuel Boniche in San Carlos, Costa Rica, on 4 September 1874; letter written by Pablo Lévy in San Carlos, Costa Rica, on 10 August 1874.

Penn Provenance:

From the collection of C. Hermann Berendt, later acquired by Daniel Garrison Brinton (ex libris stamp on front of paper folder).

Cited in:

Described in Brinton, Daniel Garrison. Catalogue of the Berendt Linguistic Collection (Department of Archaeology and Paleontology, University of Pennsylvania, 1900), p. 30 (no. 161).
Described in Weeks, John M. "Karl Hermann Berendt: Colección de manuscritos lingüistícos de Centroamérica y Mesoamérica," Mesoamérica 36 (Dec. 1998), p. 641 (no. 38).
Described in Weeks, John M. The Library of Daniel Garrison Brinton (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 2002), p. 73 (no. 408).

Cited as:

UPenn Ms. Coll. 700, Item 161

Contributor:

Boniche, Manuel.
Lévy, Pablo.
Flint, Earl.
Brinton, Daniel G. (Daniel Garrison), 1837-1899, former owner.

OCLC:

611514926