The Legend of El Dorado, The golden city!
The Legend of El Dorado, The golden city
When the Spanish came several different legends existed over the golden city.
There where rumours amongst the Indians of Peru referred to a great city or cities, somewhere to the east of the Andes.
The Spaniards believed that a large group of Inca people fled into the interior at the time of the Spanish invasion of Peru. And that they had carried with them much treasure and had founded a great empire.
Another Legend, known to the Indians for many years, which seems to have come to notice of the Spaniards about 1535. The legend was El Dorado, or the "gilded man". It was said by the Indians that once or twice a year this legendary king, his body covered with powdered gold appeared before his people. By a lake high up amid the mountains.
It seems likely that the legend was based on a religious rite actually performed at Lake Guatavita in the highlands of Bogota, but which had probable ceased some fifty years before the Spaniards came to hear of the story.
The legend as it was handed down, became increasingly confused with other legends. It led the Spaniards to seek in the central plains to the east of the Bogota highlands. A golden city by the nameof Manoa and a golden king El Dorado.
The man responsible for finally fixing the site of El Dorado's mythical city within the boundaries of present-day Guyana, was Antonio de Berrio. Aftter three expeditions in 1584, 1585, and 1590 and after a further expedition in 1593 by his lieutenant, Domingo de Vera, Berrio concluded that the city of Manoa was close to the sources of the Caroni river.
The Caroni river. Along this river could be the location of El Dorado.
The legend of El Dorado, or “Golden Man”, seems to be an amalgamation of fact and fantasy. The legend, which describes a great king who is daily covered in gold dust so that he shines like a god before cleansing himself in a sacred lake, is in fact based on Chibcha rituals.
This practice seems to have been largely abondoned. But it is easy to imagine why Europeans, that just conquered Peru and Mexico. Would be drawn to this idea.
Raleigh was the first to connect "El Dorado" to the land or city of "Manoa". Raleigh does not visit the city of Manoa due to the onset of the rainy season. Nor does Raleigh precisely lacate Manoa, but his second captain Keymis, does provide directions in his own narrative:
It lieth southerly in the land, and from the mouth of it unto the head they pass in twenty days; then taking their pro-visions, they carry it on their shoulders one day’s journey; afterwards they return to their canoes, and bear them likewise to the side of a lake, which the Jaos call Roponowini, the Charibes Parime, which is of such bigness that they know no difference between it and the main sea. There be infinite numbers of canoes in this lake, and I suppose it is no other than that whereon Manoa standeth.
Map of the Amazon River System.
Lake Parime may indeed have some basis in fact. Sir Robert Schomburgk, studied this region from 1835 to 1844 and made this interesting note:
From the southern foot of the Pacaraima Range extended the great savannahs of the Rupununi, Takutu, and Rio Branco or Parima, which occupy about 14,400 square miles, their average height above the sea being from 350 to 400 feet. These savannahs are inundated during the rainy season, and afford at that period, with the exception of a short portage, a communication between the Rupununi and the Pirara, a tributary of the Mahu or Ireng, which falls into the Takutu, and the latter into the Rio Branco or Parima.
The annual inundation of this region thus opened what must have been an ancient and popular trade rout from the Orincoc to the Rio Branco. Thus when European explorers in the lower Orincoco during the rainy season saw Indians traders appear wtih gold jewelry and trade pieces. The connectiion to El dorado semmed obbious.
When they asked where the gold came from, the local tribes could only answer "Manoa."
As late as the 17th century the Manoas were a large and populous trading nation, lead by the dynamic King Ajuricaba, occupying the banks of the Rio Negro. There are records of trade arrangements between the Dutch in Guyana and “Manoa” dating to the late 16th century.
The range of the Manoa trade network extended over a vast region from the "mouth of the Jupura up and down the Amazon to Quito and para, from the Cayari to Santa Fe and the upper Orinoco, from the Parima to the Essequibo and its sister rivers of the northern watershed of Guiana". Thanks to their long trade network, the legend of Manoa can be heard.
1730 Covens and Mortier Map of South America. Click here to see full map.
But where did all the gold come from ?
This may be impossible to answer, but we can assume. The first European to really see Manoa was Juan Martinez in 1542. Martinez was a munitions master under the conquistador Diego Ordas. Ordas was searching for El Dorado in lower Orinoco where he perished. Ordas condemned Martinez to death as the culprit in an unfortunate munitions explosion. Martinez was to be tied up and set adrift in a boat upon the Amazon. Martinez claims to have been picked up by Manoan traders in the region. Who find him unusual due his skin tone, they conveyed, blindfolded him to their city. Here Martinez describes a great city. Curiously, he also describes meeting the heir to the recently conquered Inca Empire.
The Amazon was indeed a populous and well organized region, this story is completely reasonable. That the Manoans may have had traffic with the Incas, given their range in the western Amazon is almost a given. It would also allow them access to gold mining regions on the eastern slopes of the Andes. Martinez’s association of Manoa with the lost heir to Inca Empire also brings up the possibility that this was none other than the long lost refuge city of Pattiti. Though this opens an entirely new can of possibilities.
1780 Bonne Map of Guyana. Click here for a detail version of the map.
Where is El Dorado ?
Antionio de Berrio who decleared Manoa to be near the source of the Caroni river.
According to Raleigh, Manoa was situated on an island in Lake Parima, which was then in Guiana.
Unfortunately later expeditions found no trace of El Dorado where Raleigh had indicated it.
So the original story apears to be nothing more than legend ? But the name lives on and there are many places today named El Dorado or Eldorado, including over a dozen in the US alone! The association with riches has also led to a number of casinos of the same name.
Summary
El Dorado would have been for sure in South-America. But the name El Dorado is maybe the wrong name for the city, the real name is Manoa. The where a very large trading people, and spread the legend of El Dorado, also local Indian tribes had there own legend about the golden city. There was only one man to have seen the city, Martinez. But if he made up what he saw, or really saw it, no one can tell.
The city remains still hidden, many died to find the legendary city, many became insane. What a legend can't do with you.
Maybe now, still remains of the city are lying in the jungle somewhere in South-Amercia.
Sources:
http://www.geocities.com/thetropics/shores/9253/eldorado.html
Posts Tagged ‘lost city of z’
http://www.wyrdology.com/other/el-dorado.html
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