This came from an email of bernards, but worth reading as i did not see him post it here.

----- Original Message -----
From: Bernard Ortiz de Montellano

CLAIM


Other sources have noted striking similarities between West Africans and Native-Americans. Leo Weiner devotes an entire section in the second volume of his work Africa and the Discovery of America. This chapter entitled “The Mandingo Elements in Mexico” spans nearly one-hundred pages. He demonstrates similarities in language, clothing, symbols, adornments, and coutneless other cultural aspects. His work extensively studies the Mande, Malinke, Mandigo, Bambara, Asante, and many others. He concludes his chapter by noting “…in the past a relation had existed between the Mexicans and the Negroes…this relation [is] positive and irrefutable evidence.”
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BOM-- Weiner a self taught Russian linguist who wrote in the 1920's is totally hopeless in his Nahuatl linguistics and his grasp of Aztec culture is equally weak. Weiner was the principal source for Van Sertima's 1976 book, and was quoted extensively. Subsequently, Van Sertima admitted that Weiner's Nahuatl linguistics were not correct. "I think, in quite a number of cases, Wiener's linguistics were very poor and I have made that very clear. From the very beginning of my first essay into this subject, I spoke of the fragile pillars of philology upon which much of this thesis was built. (Van Sertima 1992:53)" Since the claimant here is not retracting Weiner's claims, I'll cite Van Sertima's restatement of Wiener's arguments. I'll insert my comments in the text inside square brackets,in a web site they could be bolded or made a different color?

Van Sertima (1976: 99) claims that evidence for the pochteca, the "first foreign traders" [BOM the pochteca were not "foreign traders" but rather Aztec long distance traders] is given because they brought items into Mexico that were copied from Mandingo prototypes and linguistic evidence proves it. Van Sertima cites Sahagún [BOM actually Wiener] that they sold mantles (chimalli) and waitcloths (maxtli). Wiener says that in Maya, chimalli is translated as "shield, buckler," and that valpalchimalli, a derivative of the word, is translated as "battle cloak." [BOM Barreda Vásquez (1980: 100) cites chimal as "shield" but the Nahuatl word- valpalchimal cannot be found in dictionaries]. Van Sertima continues: A study of the word in the Mexican languages establishes a relationship between buckler and cloak. In Maya, in addition there is chim and chimil meaning "pouch." These oddly linked ideas are also contained in terms found in the Mande languages. They have an Arabic origin and came into the mande languages through the Arab caravan trade. An Arabic term is simla (plural simal, pronounced "chimal").

[BOM- Actually chimalli means shield in Nahuatl not in Maya (Karttunen 1983:52; Simeon 1977: 103). The Nahuatl name for mantle is quachtli (Simeon 1977: 396). Before we get lost in Mande languages, I have to point out that the pochteca sold quachtli (cloth mantles) not chimalli. Second, there is no need to claim a Maya origin since chimalli is a perfectly good Nahuatl word for "shield". The Maya word for "shield" is pacal in an important dialect and maax in another, chimalli is not a native Maya word (Barrera Vasquez 1980: 511, 620). Wiener's linguistics in Mande are also faulty. The best Mande dictionary is Delafosse (1929, 1955). There is no word like simla in Mande (Delafosse 1955: 659). The words for "shield" in Mande are: bena, terefa (Delafosse 1929: 368), a metal shield is called "nege bena" (Delafosse 1929: 368).

Van Sertima (1976:100) says that maxtli [BOM- actually maxtlatl (Simeon 1977: 267)] means "a waistcloth to hide the nudity" and that it is tied around the private parts of a woman as an intimate adornment [BOM- in fact, it a loincloth worn by males]. Quoting Van Sertima, "It is shown to correspond with the Malinke word, masiti, "adornment," Bambara masiri, "ornamentation, toilet." There is also the female loincloth, which in Mexico is nagua. This barely covered the woman's privates, falling from the waist to the middle of the thigh. It may be traced back to nagba in Mande, from lagba in Malinke and Dyula (intimate female cover-cloth) to lagam in Arabic which is menstrual cloth."

[BOM- Since the crucial fact is that maxtlatl is a male garment and that Aztec women wore skirts called cueitl, the linguistic excursion in Africa is useless. The other linguistic excursion is also useless since nagua is NOT a Nahuatl or Maya word. It is a word in Spanish meaning skirt (not female loincloth or menstrual cover) and is derived from the Taino language spoken in the Caribbean. The letter g is not used in either Nahuatl or Maya.]
The words "masiti," "masiri" or "nagba" are not found in Delafosse (1955). Lagba means ""intimate female vestment equivalent to menstrual cloth." (Delafosse 1955: 453). This is not linguistically similar to "nagua", and it is not a skirt.


Van Sertima (1976 100) without a specific citation says that Motolinía called the marketplace "tian-quiz-co" and says it may have been derived from tan-goz-mao, a word for trader in West Africa . [BOM- Van Sertima does not specify the language involved. Motolinía ( Benavente 1971: 74, 205, 368, 372, 373) spells it tianguez twice, tiyantiztli, twice, tianquiztli once and only one time as tiyanquizco. The correct word (Karttunen 1983: 240) is tianquiztli-co market + place. Simeon (1977: 546) has tianquiztli market, root tiamiqui = to sell]. Wiener has a habit of conveniently jumping around from one West African language to another. However, the claim is that the Mande language was the one that was borrowed from. In Mande the word for trader is "dyago kela" or "fireli kela" (Delafosse 1955: 529), and marketplace is "loro, sara" (Delafosse 1955: 529. None of these are remotely like tianquiztli.
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A couple more examples of Wiener via Van Sertima 1976:

(1976:94) "nama" = werewolf cult and priests and heads of cult as "nama-tigi"

Delafosse (1955: 534) nama = slippery (adj)., depression caused on surface of water by an eddy (noun).
(1955: 749) tigi, tiki, (Malinke generally) tiki. "Master, owner, author"
Delafosse (1929: 389) chief in general "ku-ntigi"


(1976:97) "... na-ba in the Habbes-Gara language for "masked men," who are known as the nama in Malinke. In Malinke we also get nama-koro, which literally means "hyena wise men" which is the exact translation of the Nahuatl Coyotli-naual, meaning "coyote wise men," where the American coyote (werewolf of the prairies) is substituted for the African hyena (werewolf of the savannahs).

[BOM 1) Coyotlinahual means "Coyote his disguise" and is the god of the feather workers not pochteca. This deity was considered to be actually an animal double of Tezcatlipoca a major Aztec deity. As pointed out above, Coyotl-i-nahual does not mean coyote wise men. The verb mati means "to know. "Wise person, sage, scholar is tlamatini (Karttunen 1983: 138, 231)].

Delafosse (1955: 532) na-ba not listed.
Delafosse (1955: 404-408) koro = "older brother/sister", "support", "terrestrial iguana" etc.
Delafosse (1929: 501) hyena (in general) "na(as in pâte)-ma; suru; gyu-gyu; toro-ma
[BOM perhaps na-ma koro "hyena older brother"]?

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References

Barreda Vásquez, A., ed. 1980. Diccionario Maya Cordemex. Merida, Yucatán: Ediciones Cordemex.
Benavente, Fr. T de (Motolinía). 1971 [1540]. Memoriales. E. O'Gorman, ed. Mexico: UNAM.
Delafosse, Maurice. 1929. *La Langue Mandingue et ses Dialectes (Malinke, Bambara, Dioula)*. Vol 1. Intro. Grammaire, Lexique Francais-Mandingue). Paris: Librarie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner.
Delafosse, Maurice. 1955. *La Langue Mandingue et ses Dialectes (Malinke, Bambara, Dioula)*. Vol 2. Dictionnaire Mandingue-Francaise. Paris: Librarie Paul Geuthner.
Karttunen, F. 1983. An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl. Austin: Univ. Texas Press.
Simeon, R. 1977. Diccionario de la lengua Nahuatl o mexicana. Mexico: Siglo Veintiuno.
Van Sertima, I. 1976. They Came Before Columbus. NY: Random House.
Van Sertima, I. 1992 "Van Sertima's Address to the Smithsonian," In I. Van Sertima, ed. African Presence in Early America, 29-55. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books,