*California (kal-e-for-ni'-ya)
(El Dorado, the Fountain of Youth and the Taíno Myths)
*Note: This is an excerpt from Michael Auld's manuscript "Good Gifts from Noble People:
Impact of the Taíno and Carib Cultures on the Millennia"
The impact of pivotal Caribbean stories, first heard from the Taino by outsiders in the 15th century had more impact on the shared history of our hemisphere than has been written about. One story is the Guahayona Epic, an ancient Caribbean tale that introduced the concept of an Island of Women and an Island of Gold. The spin-off was the naming of California, the Amazon and the fateful search in the Americas for Las Siete Ciudedas de Oro (the Seven Cities of Gold).
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Guahayona and the Island of La California (left) as it was seen by Cortez and 16th Century mapmakers.The gold image of Atabey, the Taino goddess of childbirth, here represents Matinino, in Guahayona's travel to the Island of Women. (Silkscreen print by Michael Auld).
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1. The name of a fabled
island in the story, “Las Sergasde Esplandian” (The Deeds of Esplandian) (Seville: 1510). 2. From the Greek words kalli
(beautiful) and ornis (bird). 3. The
name given to the California
Mountains by Hernán Cortés.
4. The Spanish American name for the
Pacific territory in New Spain. 5. Pacific coast state admitted in 1850
to the United States of
America.
Hernán Cortés,
the ill reputed "conqueror of the Aztecs", is credited with the
naming of the territory now called California.
It is said that after the conquest of the Mexica
(Me-she-ka, or Aztecs of Mexico), he saw the California
Mountains while in Baja California. It is stated that upon
seeing the mountains he called it the "Island of the Califa"
(or the "Island of Queen Califia"). To him the distant mountain
appeared to be like the mythical island from the most successful printed
romantic novel of 16th century Spain.
The story about the mythical island was in Las
Sergas de Esplandian which was a sequel to Amadis de Gaula. Sixteenth century Spanish explorers were enamored
with romantic stories of that era and were prone to rename places with terms
from these European fables. Why did Cortez think that this mountain was the
famed island of California?
Hernán Cortés was just a lad of around
8 years when Columbus first landed in the Caribbean. By 1498 Fray Ramon Pane had
completed a report on Taíno myths and customs in Hispaniola
as mandated by Christopher Columbus. It is very likely that Taíno myths of an
island of gold was known by many Spaniards in the Caribbean.
In 1506 at age 22 Cortés arrived in Haiti
(Hispaniola) which was the center of
operations for the expanding Spanish American empire. It has been stated that
Cortez was of the "Generation 1500" who strongly believed the Americas
was the land of their fantasies.
In 1448 the goldsmith Johann Gutenberg and his financial
partner Johann Fust set up their first printing shop in Mainz. Soon after this historic event the
duplicating of books and their ownership was no longer in the sole ownership of
the Church or a local Prince. By 1500 there were about 10
million books in Europe with editions on many
subjects. This printing revolution gave rise to the popularization of the
romance novel. Many Europeans, some who became conquistadors, read the works of
Spanish writer Garcia Ordonez de Montalvo who wrote the novel Amadis de Gaul
and its sequel Las Sergas de Espaladian. It was in this sequel of the exploits
of Esplandian that the name "California" was
coined. Many Europeans were bombarded with the [1]"works
by Sir John Mandeville (and Ordonez) about men with two heads, Amazons, and the
Fountain of Eternal Youth which would revive the fading sexual powers of
elderly men, and which even rational people would expect to find in the
Americas beyond the next cape." Years earlier (1492) the seductive beauty
of the pristine Caribbean appeared to be like Eden to the arriving Spanish seamen. Did the
1492 to 1510 exploits of Christopher Columbus and his "discovery" of
exotic flora and fauna, attractive nude and semi-nude brown skinned people appeal
to the fantasies already in the male European mind? It is also highly probable
that within days of his arrival in the Caribbean segments of the Taíno
Origin Myths were told to Columbus.
In 1492 Columbus recorded key elements of this Taíno
myth about a Caribbean island of women and
another of solid gold. Among Columbus'
first insistent queries to the Taínos concerned the source of their guanin
(14k gold) jewelry. The Caribbean exploits of Columbus was the biggest story of the era
that seemed have captured the imaginations of European novelists of the time.
English writer William Shakespeare’s “Tempest”
is another example of how Caribbean people and
weather phenomenon found their way into his plays. A tempest was the English
word for huracan or hurricane. While the monster Caliban was “Cariban”, a Columbus interpretations
of a Taíno word for “Strong Men”. Caribales
led to canibales which is the source
of “cannibal” a practice mistakenly
applied to the Kalinago or Island
Carib. One cannot underestimate this impact on European minds about the
"finding" of a "New" world.
The Spanish novelist’s legend of the fabled
La California
told of a magical island populated by beautiful black women living like
Amazons. They made weapons and tools from gold which was the only metal found
on the island. They were protected by flying griffins (a European described half
eagle and half lion) that were fed the flesh of any man taken prisoner. The
published story in Las Sergas de Espalandian, about a mythical island of
women/gold, had strikingly similar elements to a more but recently garnered
ancient Taíno story. The conquistadors
in the Caribbean (islands which they also
thought was the fabled Atlantis) had, in 1492, learned of a strikingly similar Taíno
Origin
Myth. The story was that of the hero Guahayona (Gua-ha-yo-na =
"Our Pride") and the islands of Matinino ("No Fathers"),
and Guanin
("Gold"). In his letter of March, 1493 to the monarchs of Spain,
Christopher Columbus wrote of a Taíno island of women which he called "Mateunin" (a version of the Taíno
word "Matinino"). On Mateunin the women acted like men and were
armed with "bows and darts" and "they protect themselves with
sheets of copper, of which there is great abundance among them". Columbus was also told of an island, which he described as
larger than Hispaniola "which abounds in
gold above all the others." As early as 1492 the lust for Amerindian gold
and women had fuelled the Spanish imagination. These myths caused them to risk
life and limb trekking through foreboding tropical and subtropical American
terrain with the hope for a rich retirement.
The Spanish interest in
Caribbean
gold was so intense that the Taínos believed that the god of the Spanish was
the copper-yellow metal they knew as
guanin. In 1495
Columbus,
disappointed in the meager gold resources of the
Caribbean,
had shifted to more aggressive slave trading and the Taínos were his targets.
This turn to force against the Taínos backfired when the fist seemingly docile
people began sporadic rebellions and attacks on the Spanish forts of
Haiti (
Hispaniola).
The Taínos had been angered by the cruelty of the Spanish in exchange for a
civilized welcome. In 1495
Columbus
had decided that he should know more about the "
Indios" and in early
April he had turned to a priest, Fray
Ramón Pane (Pan-aye). He directed Pane to live
with the Taínos to learn more about them and their strategies since the friar
had learned one of the
Caribbean languages.
Pane was among the clerics, barely tolerated by the Taínos, who came to the
Caribbean on
Columbus'
second voyage. It was from the skeptical Pane, who stayed at cacique (chief)
Guarionex's yucaieke (village) in Magua (in
Hispaniola),
that the following, more in depth portion of the Taíno Origin Myth was
recorded.
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Guahayona invites the women of Matinino to leave with him in his canoa/canoe.
Detail of "La California" print |
The
Flight of the Gueyo Women
He
[Guahayona] said to the women, "Leave behind your husbands
and let us
go to other lands and carry off much gueyo" [a green
chewing
tobacco mixed with salty ashes] .
"Leave your
children and let us take only the herb with us
and later on
we shall return for them"
Guahayona ,
OUR PRIDE, left with all the women and went
searching
for other lands.
He came to
Matinino, NO FATHERS, where he soon left
the women
behind, and he went off to another region
called
Guanin. [guanin is Taino 14k gold or copper colored metal]
The Taíno story went on to tell of Guahayona's departure
from Guanin in search of other lands and adventures. The women of Matinino were
never returned to their husbands, so their children were changed into frogs
when they became hungry and began to cry for their mother's breasts. Frogs were
therefore revered by the Taíno and their cries were believed to sound like
"Toa, Toa" or "Mother, Mother". Traditionally, the crying
of frogs announced spring.
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Image with symbolism: The goddess, Atabey, virgin mother of Yucahu, god of the life-sustaining yuca tuber and the sea. This image of a golden Atabey is from Puerto Rico. The symbols within the figure's design reveal the story of the aftermath of the above Abduction of the Gueyo Women. Since there were no women left on the main island, some famine creatures were seen down by the river. Some men decided to capture them for their own desires. But their bodies were too slippery. One man who had rough hands was able to hold on tho the females. However, they did not have genitalia. The design within Atabey's torso, shows a woodpecker that pecked out a vagina. (See the bird's vulva-like beak). In this way the "creatures" were able to have children, a connection to Atabey's role as the goddess of childbirth and fresh water, that cascades down the mountainsides of the Earth Mother. Moons of the Four Directions are embed ed in the image as she sits in the shape of a frog. The frog is another symbol of the human transition from a water to an air breather, similar to the metamorphosis of a tadpole to a frog. The rectangular panel superimposed over Atabey'.s legs is from an early woodcut illustration of Taino panning for gold with a batea, as seen with the figure to the left, a practice exported to other gold rush areas in the Americas. Although one source said that "batea" is from Arabic, it may instead be from a flat clay field on which the Taino ballgame batu, was played.
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This segment of the Guahayona myth seemed
to have been told to Columbus on his first voyage since he used key words from
it to describe Taíno islands of mythical women/"Amazons" and gold.
The myth fueled the cravings (for fame and fortune) by the conquistadors who
braved starvation and death to encroach into continental America. Always
believing that there were signs that Guanin/El Dorado/the Seven Cities of Cibola was just "around the next cove" or
mountain. In the Americas
the first sign that Guanin would be "around the next corner" was the
sight of the abode of the Amazons or the island of women (Matinino). For Cortés,
who had, beginning in 1519, plundered Aztec riches, the sign of even more booty
ahead was the sighting of the "Island
of La California".
From the Sea of Cortés,
Baja's eastern coast, rose steeply, just like the impenetrable coast of the
mythical island of La California.
The Californian myth seemed to have inspired the Spanish in Mexico to send out expeditions in search of gold
further north (in an attempt to find the "Seven Cities of Cibola")
into the land of the "Pueblo"
Indians – or Zuni (see below.)
Other Searches Influenced by the Taíno Origin Myth
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The Image of El Dorado, (the gilded man is from the Spanish word "gold" or "gilt") is based partially on truth as well as a myth in Columbia, South America.
https://redice.tv/news/mysterious-el-dorado-a-place-or-a-person |
El Dorado
Both the search for El Dorado
and the European naming of the Amazon River
were influenced by the Taino myth of an island of women (Matinino) and an
island of solid gold (Guanin). "El
Dorado" means "guided man" and is a
South American inspired myth about an alleged ruler who was so rich that he
covered his body with gold dust each day and washed it off each evening in a
lake. During the 16th century El Dorado was
believed to have originated among the Chibcha of Bogota, Columbia,
in South America. Their chief was reputed to
have carried out the above mentioned practice in sacred Lake Guatavita.
Expeditions began in 1530 to find El
Dorado. In 1536 Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada who founded
the city of Bogotá went on an inland expedition
to find El Dorado.
Nine months later, starting with 900 men, he found,
conquered, and plundered gold and emeralds from the kingdom
of Chibcha in Columbia. Beginning in 1569 he spent three
more years again searching for El
Dorado. He returned to Bogota,
ill with leprosy, where he later died bankrupt. Cervantes is believed to
have modeled Don Quixote after Jimenez.
A 1530 Myth Embellished with the Taíno Origin Story
The origin of the story of the Seven Cities (of Cibola) was created from a tale by an enslaved
Native American, called Tejo by the Spaniards. In 1530 Nuno
de Guzman, President of New Spain (Mexico), owned Tejo, from whom he was told
the story of the northern location of a place where his father, a trader, had
brought back "a large amount of gold and silver". Tejo, when he was
young, had accompanied his father once or twice on trips to the location where "he
had seen seven very large towns (which he compared to Mexico and its environs)
which had streets of silver workers" Nuno de Guzman mounted an
unsuccessful expedition with "nearly 400 Spaniards and 20,000 friendly
Indians of New Spain" to find the "Seven Cities". Instead of finding
the Seven Cities, Guzman founded the town of Culiacan. After Guzman's return from the
expedition Tejo died with the information of the precise location of the Seven
Cities.
In 1536, Cabeza de Vaca, three other Spaniards and Esteban
(Stephen), an enslaved African, arrived in Culiacan,
Mexico after an ill fated
1527-28 Narvaez expedition to Florida.
They were the sole survivors of the Navarez expedition and gave "extended
account of some powerful villages, four and five stories high, of which they
had heard a great deal in countries they had crossed." This account of
their overland survival trek from Florida to Mexico
seemed to corroborate the earlier story of the Seven Cities . Estaban (who
paved the way with the Indians) was then sent with Friar Marcos de Niza and two
other friars, on the search for the Seven Cities. Estaban, with an escort of 60 Indians
(including many pretty women and turquoise which the locals had given him) arduously
forged north into the territory of the Zuni people of New Mexico. There Estaban met his death at
the Zuni pueblo of Hawikuh after demanding more women and turquoise from his
new guests.
Earlier in 1493, a similar fate befell Columbus'
men on their first trip to Ayti Bohio (Haiti on the island of Hispaniola),
around 35 years earlier. Not having even entered the pueblo, and fearing for
their lives, Marcos de Niza and the other two friars hastily retreated to Culiacan and gave vivid
accounts of "treasures". It is from these friars' account that a more
embellished version of the Seven Golden Cities of Cibola was
given. The new version of the Seven Cities included earlier myths "about
the South Sea and islands (Taíno?) and other
riches". News of the Seven Cities quickly spread in New Spain (Mexico), even
from the pulpit, and an armed force of conquest was brought together. Coronado mounted the more
organized expedition and attacked Hawikuh in 1540 but found no treasures.
The Amazon
In 1541 the Spanish explorer Francisco de Orellana set out
up the second longest river in the world. He reputedly saw, or was shot at, by
some women warriors from the bank of the river. This confirmed his belief that
he had also found the mythical Amazons (probably from the fabled island of California, or
Matinino). He named the river the Amazon.
What influence did the Taino myths have on the Spanish in
the Americas?
In evaluating the Taíno myths, if the sequence of Guahayona's travels to
Matinino and Guanin was correct, once "Amazons" were sighted gold was
not far behind. The story of the Taíno’s mythical islands unwittingly seduced
the Spanish in the Caribbean. The myth
influenced them and other Eastern Hemisphere peoples to push further west,
north and south onto the mainland Americas. They came feverishly in
search of greater quantities of gold which they eventually plundered.
"Finding" wealthy Chibcha and the rich Inca Empire did prove that
behind every myth there is some truth.
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| Taino returning from the transforming Bimini's "Fountain of Youth", |
Bimini, 'Life of the Spring Waters' and the Fountain
of Youth
Juan Ponce de Leon believed a story about a
Taino "island" called Bimini. There, he thought, old men would be turned sexually young
again by the waters of a spring. Ponce de Leon believed that the Bahamas
was the location of Sir John Manderville's published tale of the fabled
"Eternal Fountain of Youth". Bimini was the Taino word for North
America's Florida
peninsula.
"Bimini" meant [1]
"Life of the Spring Waters" and it was part of a Taino myth which
Ponce de Leon learned, probably while in Borik'n (Puerto
Rico). He set off from Borik'n on a private expedition to search
for the mythical Taíno site which seemed to confirm the existence of the
European's "Eternal Fountain of Youth."
The Taíno guides who went with him on this failed 1513
expedition spoke of mainland
North America
where they said that their people also lived. The Poce de Leon expedition traveled
on to the nearby peninsula, which he thought was also a Bahaman island, and
named it
La Florida. This was because his expedition arrived on the
mainland during the week of Easter or
Pascua Florida (season of flowers).
The expected Bimini/La Florida location of the Fountain of Youth was another Castilian
(Spanish) misinterpretation of a complicated Taino reference. The Taíno
connotation in their myth about "Life of the Spring Waters" (according
to Jose Barreiro, author of
The Indian
Chroniclers)) may have alluded to the rejuvenation of their expanding
civilization which was moving further north island by island into
Bimini/Florida.
In 1521 Ponce de Leon again sailed for La Florida
where he tried to set up a Spanish colony between today's Fort
Myers and Tampa.
During a skirmish with the the indigenous Calusa, whom the Spanish disrespected,
he was mortally wounded by an arrow. Taken back to Cuba he died there of his wounds.
Today, although not taken as seriously as it was in the 16th century, the
mystique of the Fountain of Youth has continued in contemporary stories,
medical jargon and in tourist promotions of the "Sunshine State".
