Talk:Camarão Indians' letters

Article title
Article title Erick Soares3, LordPeterII, RodRabelo7, Onegreatjoke, can I query the article title? Who were the Camarão Indians (índios Camarões)? In en and pt Wikipedia Camarão Indians (índios Camarões) is only used as part of Camarão Indians' letters (cartas dos índios Camarões). It may be an old name for the Potiguara, so possibly "Potiguara letters" would be a better translation. The only English source, the Guardian, refers to "letters in the Tupi language" so "Tupi letters" or "letters in Tupi" could be possible. The only Dutch source, Trouw, refers to "Unique letters from the seventeenth century written by native Potiguara" ("Unieke brieven uit de zeventiende eeuw geschreven door inheemse Potiguara"). I haven’t read all the Portuguese sources, but Jornal da USP refers to "letters in Tupi between 17th century indigenous people" ("cartas em tupi entre indígenas do século 17").

I also think that "Camarão Indian letters" reads netter in English than "Camarão Indians' letters".

According to the article Potiguara, "Potiguara, means "shrimp-eaters", from poty, "shrimp", and uara, "eater" ", or "comedores de camarão" in Portuguese.

TSventon (talk) 02:30, 1 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks for inviting me to the talk. The “Camarão Indians” (or in Portuguese índios Camarões) were the senders of the letters. They mainly were Filipe Camarão (who wrote half of them) and Diogo Pinheiro Camarão (who wrote two of the six letters). There’s also Simão Soares, who merely wrote four sentences at the end of the first letter, and Diogo da Costa, who wrote one of those correspondences.
 * By the way, as far as I’m concerned “Camarão” was never a name for the Potiguara people, even in old times. “Potiguara”, indeed, has the element potĩ, which means “prawn” (camarão in Portuguese), but I have never seen it used anywhere. For instance, Joseph of Anchieta, in a book published in 1595, refers to them as Pitiguáres do Paraîba (first paragraph of the page 11 of the PDF).
 * I personally consider Camarões to be a canonical element when referring to the letters, as Teodoro Sampaio did so when he first approached them (his article is called Cartas tupis dos Camarões). Eduardo Navarro, who finally translated them, does the same in his article, using the term “Camarão Indians’ letters” in its title. RodRabelo7 (talk) 03:22, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * And I don’t have English as my mother tongue, as you may have already noticed. So, if you all feel that something seems more natural for English speakers, feel free to use it. RodRabelo7 (talk) 03:27, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you RodRabelo7, I have very little Portuguese, so the extra information is helpful. I see that Navarro uses "Camarão Indians' letters" to translate "cartas dos índios Camarões", so it is his official translation. The note on the first page of Sampaio's article refers to Filipe Camarão and Diogo Pinheiro Camarão as "os dois Camarões" so perhaps his title refers to the two letter writers. Presumably Navarro's "índios Camarões" is intended to mean the same as Sampaio's "Camarões". It seems odd to use the word Indians for Indigenous Brazilians in English, though I understand índios is more usual in Portuguese. As the article will be on DYK shortly possibly other editors will have ideas. TSventon (talk) 20:05, 1 November 2022 (UTC)