"guero of coras, several different secles, and some mecates"
This quote comes from the translated diary of Ordaz, a priest who went along on a Spanish military expedition into northern California in 1821. They are the gifts presented to the Spanish by Patwin Indian village leaders as a peace offering. Obviously it is half-translated, but I can't figure out what these words mean. I don't know if the terms are archaic, or just specific to the region/time period. Any help would be appreciated!
4 Answers
"guero de coras" = Blonde of coras (i dont know if use blonde for male too )
Coras = was a civilization of baja califonia and north mexico
mecate = rope
ojala tengas la frase original, tal vez si podamos todos interpretarla mejor.
=)
That was actually perfectly correct (smile!!)
I miss the smileys. jeje
I am sorry not having been able to help more.
No, I don't actually. I am editing the text of another researcher, and thought that an explanation of these terms would be beneficial, but I don't have the original source material.
These may be local/historical/slang terms that they used to refer to typical Native American trade items, such as lengths of shell bead. So the fact that "mecate" is a measure of length may actually make some sense. Then "secle" may be a kind of measurement as well, e.g. in English a 100-mile race is known as a "century."
If no one knows what these mean, it's not a big deal. I was mostly just curious.
Muchas gracias para su ayuda! (Yes, I am sure that was terrible -- now you know why I stuck to English for my question! 'smile')
mecate comes from mecatle, very old word, from the náhuatl . it is a measure of length
I have found cora as being a language.
secle normally is known as century
doesnt make much sense. do you have the original version'
