Mandan Contacts (fwd)

[Koontz John E]

I've realized that Dr. Suleiman inadvertently sent this to me instead of
the list.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 00:26:50 +0100
From: Muhammed Suleiman <suleiman at lineone.net>
To: Koontz John E <John.Koontz at colorado.edu>
Subject: Re: Mandan Contacts


Many thanks to John Koontz for his appraisal of the Madoc conection with the
Mandans.

It seems to have been George Catlin who first suggested that Prince Madoc ap
Owain of Gwynedd and his companions had managed to reach the Missouri, and
that they became the ancestors of the Mandans. If I remember correctly, one
of his books does in fact contain a short comparative  vocabulary - though I
cannot vouch for the fact that all the words were Mandan.

You have put my mind at ease as far as any phonological similarities are
concerned. I had thought that the Welsh voiceless latteral 'll' of
_Llangower_, is so relatively uncommon in the languages of the world, that a
non-Welsh speaker who had heard the language might,, on hearing the unvoiced
lateral sound elsewhere, have presumed he was hearing a form of Welsh
spoken. It would appear from what you say that this could not have been the
case with the Mandans.

I did not realize that the subject of Prince Madoc/ Madoc had been dealt
with in other, less academic, recesses of the Net. I'll be sure to take a
look.

Still, travellers stories of colonies of 'white Indians' (such as in
Louisville, Kentucky), persistent Old World legends like that of Madoc ap
Owain, and the discovery of Caucasoid skeletal remains in all parts of the
Americas remain tantalizing, to say the least.

Regards,

Dr M. Suleiman