Language of the Voiceless: Traces of Taino Language, Food, and Culture in the Americas From 1492 to the Present

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mainland and those he had previously encountered in Cuba wearing naguas made of
cotton.
The use of the Nahuatl word masteles to refer to the Yucatan Indian attire at
that moment of the chronology of the text seems to be out of context. The words to
describe this item at that time of the narrative should have sounded like: eex >
‘underwear’, nook’ > ‘garments’, búuk > ‘clothes’ in Mayan. Instead, he employs a
corruption of the Nahuatl maxtlatl > ‘loincloth’ to make his comparison to the Taino
nagua. This could indicate a possible subsequent dictation of the text or a text written
by memory after a transition of experience by the source. This observation is made
because prior to his introduction of these words in the text, Diaz states that “they made
hand signs so the Indians could come and speak to them because at the time they did
not have anyone who could understand Yucatec or Mexican 100 ”. Here, Diaz is referring
by name to two groups he is yet to know.
On the other hand, when it comes to the word nagua (altered in its current form
by the Spanish transcriptions, interpretations, and transliterations) we are presented
with a very diverge series of possible interpretations for its etymology. Phonetically
speaking, this word is composed by the prefix gnaá > ‘small 101 ’ and the suffix wa.
However, this suffix wa could have many different connotations based on its place in
the original word. It could mean ‘this’, ‘place’, ‘our’, ‘we’, ‘wa + ra’ > ‘surprise’. It could
also be used to express adverbs and abstract adjectives like the English ‘—ly’ and ‘—ive’
and as a stative and intransitive verb. This construal is drawn from its Lokono cousin
naáwa > ‘loincloth’ and from the its suffix gua phonetically found in Garifuna with
100
(Diaz del Castillo, Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva Espana| Aparato de Variantes, 1632, p. 11)
101
(Granberry, 2003)