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Sep 1, 2013

Rain's Coming! 490-year-old Spanish Documents The Irish in S. Carolina in 1500's

Take shelter under Mom, from Facebook's Secret Garden

Rain's Coming!
I missed the local news the last day or two. When I opened up the Nation Weather Service a few minutes ago forecast I was shocked to see flash flood warnings all over our area today. Radar.weather.gov  
Starting tomorrow we're heading into a rainy spell. Yeah! It's been in the mid/high 90's and I am just sick of the heat!!! I had already planned to get new wiper blades all around today, since mine were shot. New ones are on and I'm ready to go, happy dance! It's been really smoky here the last 2 days, so hopefully the rain will fix that.


490-year-old Spanish Documents The Irish in S. Carolina in 1500's-
I find this a fascinating article and it ties with with other things I've read over a few decades. 490-year-old Spanish Documents Irish in S. Carolina  

This summer I also watched a few of these episodes from America Unearthed History.com It's also got some really fascinating and some episodes can be watched online fro free. I'm happy they're doing Season 2!

Beginning in 2006 the People of One Fire, a nationwide team of Native American scholars, primarily of Creek Indian heritage, began a comprehensive research program to obtain more accurate and detailed knowledge of North America’s pre-European history. Much of the work involved painstaking, paragraph by paragraph analysis of the archives of the colonial powers, particularly those of Spain. The team attempted to translate every Native American word recorded by the Spanish, while they were in the Southeast. Almost all the words were easily translated by modern Creek, Alabama, Koasati or Choctaw dictionaries. There were no Cherokee words, whatsoever. However, the words associated with the province of Duhare defied translation until this week.

While investigating the similarity of Irish petroglyphs to those in the State of Georgia, A People of One Fire member ran across this ancient Irish lullaby, called “Bainne nam fiadh:” On milk of deer I was reared. On milk of deer I was nurtured. On milk of deer beneath the ridge of storms on crest of hill and mountain.”

A check with Gaelic dictionaries quickly found translations for the Duhare words, recorded by the Spanish. Duhare can either be translated as “place of the Clan Hare” . . . or if the Duhare came from west of the Shannon River, it meant, “du’hEir – place of the Irish.”

Datha was a standard Medieval Irish Gaelic word that means “painted.” Since the Spanish recorded that he covered his skin with pigments or tattoos, as was traditional among the Celts, this name makes perfect sense.

Researchers feel certain that there was a colony of Irish folk living in what is now South Carolina, when Christopher Columbus “thought” he had discovered the New World. When and how the Irish got to the New World is another question. Most likely it was during the Medieval Period. Even if the Irish had originally known how to smelt iron and bronze, the nearest deposits of iron and copper ores were a 280 miles (448 km) away from the coast. There are no tin deposits in the Southeast for making bronze. A couple of generations of NOT making iron tools, and the people would have forgotten the knowledge.

There is a particular irony to this stark change in North America’s official history. During the Irish Potato Famine, all the ports in the United States, except Charleston, SC and Savannah, GA were closed to Irish immigration. Possibly, as many as a quarter million Irish immigrants entered the United States through Charleston and Savannah. Although most dispersed throughout the Southeast to establish farms or work on the railroads, enough stayed in Charleston and Savannah to make them, “very Irish” cities. The Province of Duhare seems to have been located near modern-day Charleston.

From- 490-year-old Spanish Documents Irish in S. Carolina

6 comments:

Pioneer Woman at Heart said...

Interesting, thanks for sharing.

Unknown said...

Thanks, there's so much we still don't understand about who was here a long time ago...

Susan said...

Unearthing all that information must be fascinating work. I love to follow this stuff. Sometimes it seems that we haven't gotten THAT far from where we started. Love the picture of the chicken!

Leigh said...

Extremely fascinating. How could anyone not love history?

Carolyn said...

Love the chicken chick picture! And WHY didn't they make history so interesting back in grade school (or was it I just wasn't listening?), I LOVE reading history novels/books/things now, especially those from our areas.

Oh, and BTW, did you want some of my peach seeds? (I posted about them about a month ago). Email me at carolynrenee at centurytel dot net if you do! :)

Nancy In Boise said...

Thanks

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