meaning 'town' include , , and in the Mohawk, Onondaga, and Seneca languages respectively. Prior to archeological confirmation that the St. Lawrence Iroquois were a separate people from the Mohawk, most sources specifically linked the name's origin to the Mohawk word instead of the Laurentian one. A widespread perception in Canadian folklore is that Cartier misunderstood the term "Canada" as the existing proper name of the Iroquois people's entire territory rather than the generic class noun for a town or village. For instance, the Historica Canada's Heritage Minute episode devoted to Cartier's landing at Hochelaga is scripted as having Cartier believe that "Kanata" or "Canada" was the established name of the entire country. This is not supported by Cartier's own writings, however—in Bref récit, Cartier fully understands the actual meaning of the word ("They call a town Canada"), and his earliest name for the wider territory is "" ('country of Canadas', 'land of Canadas', or 'land of villages'). While the Saint-Lawrence Iroquoian origin for the name Canada is now widely accepted, other theories have been put forth in the past. Iberian origin theory The most common alternative theory suggested that the name originated when Portuguese or Spanish explorers, having explored the northern part of the continent and unable to find gold and silver, wrote ('nothing here' in Portuguese), or ('Cape Nothing' in Spanish) on that part of their maps. An alternative explanation favoured by philologist Marshall Elliott linked the name to the Spanish word cañada, meaning 'glen' or 'valley'. The earliest iterations of the Spanish "nothing here" theory stated that the explorers made the declaration upon visiting the Bay of Chaleur, while later versions left out any identifying geographic detail. The known Portuguese presence in modern Canadian territory, meanwhile, was located in Newfoundland and Labrador. Neither region is located anywhere near Iroquoian territory, and the name Canada does not appear on any Spanish or Portuguese maps of the North American coast that predate Cartier's visit. No name for the Bay of Chaleur is attested at all in Spanish sources from that period, while the only name for Newfoundland attested in Portuguese sources is , after the region's plentiful cod. In most versions of the Iberian origin theory, the Spanish or Portuguese passed their name on to the Iroquois, who rapidly adopted it in place of their own prior word for a village; however, no historical evidence for any such Iberian-Iroquoian