INDIGENOUS IN THE DAILY LIFE OF COLONIAL AMERICA (XVII-XVIII CENTURIES)

One of the most unique aspects of colonial American documents is the constant presence of loan words from the indigenous languages of the region. Many of them are well-known, especially those used and recorded by explorers and missionaries in their chronicles to name the new plants, animals, fruits, landscapes, indigenous peoples and geographical features, etc., that they encountered. However, there is still a considerable number of indigenous loan words that remain unknown to most specialists because they do not appear in these great chronicles or stories about expeditions. They were only used as part of the vocabulary employed by people in their daily lives to refer to furniture, household items, clothing or jewelery. In other words, material goods which were only mentioned in written documents when registering them as the property of their owners. This paper presents some of these other indigenous loan words documented in inventories, wills, auctions or goods valuations from the American colonial period.