*Ø* Blogmanac August 4, 1541 | El Dorado
1541 Hernando de Soto’s army arrived at Quigate, a town of sun-worshippers, west of the Mississippi in present-day Louisiana, USA.
One of the advanced party horsemen reported,
On the fourth of August, he [de Soto] reached the town [El Dorado, well ahead of the army] where the chief was living. On the way [while camped at Carmi, the provincial boundary, with the advanced horsemen], the latter sent him blankets and skins, but not daring to remain in the town, went away. The town was the largest that had been seen in Florida. The governor and his men [in the advanced party] were lodged [by the Indians] in half of it; and a few days afterward[(when the army arrived, having camped at Omaha the night before] seeing that the Indians were going about deceitfully [on the Full Moon], he ordered the other half (today's Harrisburg, the largest half of the town) burned ...
... soon after on that night a spy of the Indians was captured by those who were on watch. The governor asked him whether he would take them to the place where the [real] chief was [or be fed to the dogs] ... After a march of a day and a half he found the chief in a dense wood and a soldier, not knowing the chief, gave him a cutlass stroke on the head. The chief cried out not to kill him saying that he was the chief. He was taken captive and with him 140 of his people. Source
De Soto had obtained from Emperor Charles V, king of Spain, an appointment as governor of the vast unexplored interior of southeastern North America, called ‘Florida’, following its ‘discovery’ by Ponce de Leon some 20 years before, with orders to subdue and to rule it. Searching for gold and jewels and the fabled ‘man of gold’, de Soto paid for his conquest of Florida out of his own pocket. Accompanied by 600 Spanish and Portuguese cavaliers, on May 30, 1539, they began a four-year journey of wandering in southeast America searching for treasures, and in particular, El Dorado, ‘the gilded one’, a king whose lands were so rich in gold that he himself was covered with the precious metal. The Native Americans misled de Soto and his men deeper into the wilderness for promises of treasures.
The native Americans exposed the gold ceremonial pieces to the sun, then gave them to a priest who would place them in lagoons (representing the womb of the earth) and other sacred places, usually close to large rocks representing the spirit of their ancestors who turned into stone since the coming of the sun and the creation of light. there, the gifts were fertilized and spread through the rivers that were born from them.
This is how the famous legend of El Dorado started, as described by Juan Rodríguez Freyle:
In that pond of Guatavita they made a rattan palm raft and decorated it as much as possible. They undressed the cacique (chief) and covered him and sprinkle him with gold powder, in such a way that all his body was completely covered with the metal; they put him in the raft, standing and carrying on his feet a bunch of gold and emeralds to offer to his God. The raft left with the sound of trumpets and horns, and half way of the lagoon, one could hear the signal for silence… The golden Indian with his gifts of gold and emeralds carrying them to the middle of the lagoon… and once the ceremony was over, the party started with dances and songs. The name El Dorado was taken from this ceremony.
El Dorado kitsch
1541 Hernando de Soto’s army arrived at Quigate, a town of sun-worshippers, west of the Mississippi in present-day Louisiana, USA.
One of the advanced party horsemen reported,
On the fourth of August, he [de Soto] reached the town [El Dorado, well ahead of the army] where the chief was living. On the way [while camped at Carmi, the provincial boundary, with the advanced horsemen], the latter sent him blankets and skins, but not daring to remain in the town, went away. The town was the largest that had been seen in Florida. The governor and his men [in the advanced party] were lodged [by the Indians] in half of it; and a few days afterward[(when the army arrived, having camped at Omaha the night before] seeing that the Indians were going about deceitfully [on the Full Moon], he ordered the other half (today's Harrisburg, the largest half of the town) burned ...
... soon after on that night a spy of the Indians was captured by those who were on watch. The governor asked him whether he would take them to the place where the [real] chief was [or be fed to the dogs] ... After a march of a day and a half he found the chief in a dense wood and a soldier, not knowing the chief, gave him a cutlass stroke on the head. The chief cried out not to kill him saying that he was the chief. He was taken captive and with him 140 of his people. Source
De Soto had obtained from Emperor Charles V, king of Spain, an appointment as governor of the vast unexplored interior of southeastern North America, called ‘Florida’, following its ‘discovery’ by Ponce de Leon some 20 years before, with orders to subdue and to rule it. Searching for gold and jewels and the fabled ‘man of gold’, de Soto paid for his conquest of Florida out of his own pocket. Accompanied by 600 Spanish and Portuguese cavaliers, on May 30, 1539, they began a four-year journey of wandering in southeast America searching for treasures, and in particular, El Dorado, ‘the gilded one’, a king whose lands were so rich in gold that he himself was covered with the precious metal. The Native Americans misled de Soto and his men deeper into the wilderness for promises of treasures.
The native Americans exposed the gold ceremonial pieces to the sun, then gave them to a priest who would place them in lagoons (representing the womb of the earth) and other sacred places, usually close to large rocks representing the spirit of their ancestors who turned into stone since the coming of the sun and the creation of light. there, the gifts were fertilized and spread through the rivers that were born from them.
This is how the famous legend of El Dorado started, as described by Juan Rodríguez Freyle:
In that pond of Guatavita they made a rattan palm raft and decorated it as much as possible. They undressed the cacique (chief) and covered him and sprinkle him with gold powder, in such a way that all his body was completely covered with the metal; they put him in the raft, standing and carrying on his feet a bunch of gold and emeralds to offer to his God. The raft left with the sound of trumpets and horns, and half way of the lagoon, one could hear the signal for silence… The golden Indian with his gifts of gold and emeralds carrying them to the middle of the lagoon… and once the ceremony was over, the party started with dances and songs. The name El Dorado was taken from this ceremony.
El Dorado kitsch
Pip Wilson posted item above at 4:53 PM | Permalink
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home