"ENGLISH" INDIANS

Evening Star, Issue 19143, 9 January 1926, Page 4

"ENGLISH" INDIANS

DESCENDANTS ’OF PIRATES RESIDENT 1H SOUTH AMERICA A tribe of Indians who speak a. language of ‘ pidgin English, handed... down from the days of the old buccaneers 300 years ago, has been discovered in South America (slates tho .New York corrrsponde.nl of the ‘ Daily Tlcgraph '). 11 he American explorer, Ilyotl Verrill, who Ins jvisn returned from an extensive exploration trip and slndy of Indian tribes in tknural and .South America, reports the discovery of a tribo ot Panama Indians who ray " gadsooks ” and “ forsooth," use •'marry’ as an exclamation in dm .Elizabethan manner, and say “year ' and ‘■nay,” “then” and "ye,’ these words belonging, to tho English vocabulary they inherited from iinccfiior.s who learned them lato iu tho seventeenth century from Bartholomew eh arp and his ..50 buccaneers v ho sailed to I’amuna in The Most Blessed Trinity in lu3o, killing and burning tho Spanirads and looting, Sharp and his followers founded the town of Uidhanx, on (ho north-west toast of Panama, noar Bocas del ’loi'o, and Oklbunk exists y f| -day with a mixed population, ninny of whom br,nv (ha names of the jiirales who fonndrd the town, and arc regarded as their direct doKccmdants. Tho Indians live inland and up the river (said Mr Verrill). There ere ahem 10,000 members in I.lns tribe. ole y fished, raii-ed crops, build houses, and did all kinds of work for Sharp and his men. This is all de-cribcd in tho history of Sharp and his fellow adventurers. They always treated tho Indians well, an a. matter of policy, to keep them on their side., as against tho Spaniards. The Indians learned tho English language. They never gave up their own tribal language for nee among themselves, but they have retained English, too. Most of the tribes dow.ii there talk two languages—-their native tongue and Spanish. But this tribe is nn exception, ina-much as it talks iu own language and English —a pidgin English full m obsolete words. “ Gadzooks!” is a very common exclamation. I have fern told that Bus expression and some oilier obsolete English words are still used iti some parts of the Bahamas. Tim people of Oklbnnk have not writ len historv, and know nothing about the foundation of their city by pirates, but they Mil! hear witness to the days of the founders in their mimes. 1 found Coxmis, Sawkinsos, and Ringroses there. Coxon, Sawkin, and jl.itigroso were lieutenants of khiii'p. I found a number of Sharps there. Mr Verrill said he found a colony, predominatingly white, in complexion, which was formed of do'-cendaiUfi from members of o;ie of tho filibustering expeditions of "William Walker, who sought t.hree-rpKirter« of a century ago )o pet up republics sueemfnllv in Sonora (Mexico), Nicaragua, and Honduras, being finallv overt brown, capHired, and shot in Honduras. Tho fugitives of one of Walker's fibbusl e.ring partins escaped (o Panama about, IRGO. and remained there, being represented to-day by a, total of about, forty or fifty of their grandrlvldren and great-grandchildren.

yi> Terrill also described his visit (o (he independent Waok nation of DJonkn, which ha? boon formed in the interior of Dutch Guinea by descendant* of Afrioan *!*'•«*, who bod been oscanine from time to time for pearly four centnr>«. They are particularly interesting. h» said, because tb»y have formed a. language, a culture, social and political organisation o" their own, starting with nothin" Their language is called "tailfcc'tftllfcc." boint? a. mixture of English. Dutch. Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Indian. They ar° ruled by n bing who keeps himself in the moft frvcre fcollision, holding that it Is. very injurious for any subject to *o* him mors than once a year. Rebind this fee fear, more or less common to all RoyaHint, (bat ihov will ios° their prestige it Hoy become too common. I do not know of any other king (bat carries (he Ibeory to nidi an extreme. When f was there he made a trip from one part of his kingdom to another. On the return jminicy be was very much dWairN'd over the danger that some subject who had seen him going out should geo him coming in.