Note 716 — Chapter X

Brasseur’s letter to M. Rafn in Nouvelles Annales des Voy., 6th series, vol. xvi, p. 263. He thinks the Scandinavians may have reached those remote parts at an early day. On pp. 281–9 he gives a list of words chosen from the Quiché, Cakchiquel and Zutohil, showing analogies with languages of Northern Europe, especially with the Scandinavian. Also see the same author in the Nouv. Ann. des Voy., 6th series, vol. iii, 1855, pp. 156–7. The Abbé in a letter to the New York Tribune, November 21st, 1855, in referring to the early inhabitants of Vera Paz, says: “They came from the east—not from the south-east, but from the north-east. I speak only of the tribes of Quiché-Cakchiquel and Zutohil. They came from the north-east, certainly passed through the United States, and as they say themselves, they crossed the sea in darkness, mist, cold and snow. I suppose they must have come from Denmark and Norway. They came in small numbers, and lost their white blood by their mixture with the Indians whom they found—whether in the United States or in these regions, certainly there must have been a Tula in our northern European countries. But what is more convincing of this migration or passage, I find the same result by a comparison of the languages. I cannot speak of the structure of them, but by what I have observed is that the fundamental forms and words of the languages of these regions (except the Mexican) are intimately connected with the Maya or Tzendal, and that all the words that are neither Mexican nor Maya belong to our languages of Northern Europe, viz.: English, Saxon, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Flemish and German, some even appear to belong to the French or Persian.”