I was watching Senator Barbara Boxer, on TV as she presented a cogent, well-thought out argument on why she agreed with President Obama. What the argumet was I do not know. (That is the problem, I clocked out due to boredom.) As she spoke, my mind slipped out of gear, like a truck going up a very steep hill. Synapses in my frontal lobes stuttered and misfired as my brain tissues shut down and my thoughts slunk from focusing on the speakers face to stupidly examining the stolid wooden podium beneath the chattering Senator. Slowly and dumbly I read the name "Boxer" and I dimly thought of its origin. Her forebears (or her husband's), were they "boxers"? I thought. Did they construct boxes? Or were they pugilists? My mental gears clanked and ground to a halt. Thinking slowed to a stop. Then the gears locked as I hit a dead end, with that last "thoughtoid". My mind, functioning like a snail's slow progress across a warm surface meandered around to finally focus on the gilded words engraved on a glittering plaque glued to the podium. I dumbly mouthed the words, as I read slowly and methodically: "Senator Boxer, (D.) California", as the Senator chatted on in a sprightly manner about the unfair reporting of Fox News and bias in some journalist’s writing..But by now my brain was far, far away accros the continent on our nation’s west coast.
This is what happens to a political junkie during a long, long political campaign.
And interestingly our modern State of California remains an attraction for seekers of gold and sex to this day.
And thus ended my mental diversion from boring politics! At least my brain was engaged and I have added a bit to my store of knowledge. Not so with politics today, which it seems has entered a period of same old, same old Groundhog Days.
Get the picture?
rjk
Ummm.., I thought, "California", the name of that state was always a puzzle to me. Perhaps it was simply that I needed some change from politics and a mental puzzle to work on. A small portion of my brain seemed to come alive. That little part, wondered if the name "California"could possibly have been derived from the Greek. I know that the prefix "καλλι" means "beautiful" or "good". Here, my numbed brain seemed to have started to function again. Gears began to whirr. This was something interesting and different, than politics. There were actual true statements as well as unknowns to ponder and different refreshing concepts to toy with. I had hit on a subject that was at least not brain-numbing campaign drivel. My mental engine began to sputter to life again, as if the climbing truck had reached the crest of the hill and now began to coast over the top. Then in response to gravity, it sped up.
The last part of the word, "California" could be from the latin "fornix", I thought. It is from the Latin for ”fold” or ”chasm”. I tried to put that together with the "Cali" prefix and toyed with an possible meaning such as "beautiful folded" ---er... "folded mountains". That was rejected and I tried several other possibilities. But by, now my better-functioning critical thinking zones concluded that these had very little possibility of being valid. I turned the TV with the still chattering Senator off and reached for my classical Greek dictionary. I found no good possibilities there. Then I searched the Latin dictionary--not much there either.
But the web pages on the history sites helped. A search of Wikipedia revealed that the name "California" predated the discovery of the place itself by more than a quarter century. The term first appeared in a 1510 Spanish novel by the author, Garcia Rodriquez de Montalvo,(1450-1504) entitled:”Las sergas de Esplandian”, or the Exploits of Esplandian. This novel was the fourth in a series of chivalric romances concerning the character, Amadis of Gaul. Montalvo had reprinted and edited three earlier works, by another author, writing the fourth book in the series himself. Montalvo's novel tells of the life and wanderings of Amadis' eldest son, who sails to a mythical island, of "California". This island was described by Montalvo as located "on the right hand" (west?) of the Indies. Montalvo's island was described as inhabited by a tribe of black women, "without any men living among them" who live "in the manner of Amazons". Furthermore, something that was sure to pique the interest of 16th Century Spanish explorers, the island was supposed to be rich in gold. Montalvo writes: "There being no other metal there" the women, who are led by a female chieftain known as a ”califa” use gold for their jewelry, dress, and even weapons.
The term "califa" used by Montalvo is almost unquestionably derived from the Arabic word "caliph" the head of state of a Muslim caliphate, or a chieftain. The term would be well known to the Spanish of this period. Consider that this novel was written in a nation which had been invaded by Moslem Arabs in 711AD. The Arabs settled in and co-existed profitably and peacefully with the Spanish Christians and Jews for more than seven hundred years. They brought with them many texts translated directly from the ancient Romans and Greeks..which became a treasure trove of informataion. Only a few years before the period when Montalvo wrote, in 1499, the Arabs had been expelled as Muslim infidels from Spain. The word "California” would have been easily understood to Spanish readers of this time as the "land of the Amazon califa".
Thus for the most basic reasons which drive mankind, sex and riches, the Spanish explorers, not withstanding that it was fiction, sought out the "island of California" somewhere off the west coast of Mexico. The presumed presence of gold, (always a great attraction), and the presence of black women forced into a state of sexual abstemiousness --who, as the Spanish sailors and explorers must have turned over in their minds many times, were for long periods of time devoid of male company, and in their minds, the women would thus be particularly eager for their "membrum virile" (ο φαλλος). For most, the novelist's Island of California must have been accepted as myth, as an invention of an imaginative author. But to the explorers of the 16th Century, the "Island of California" seems to have been still eagerly sought after by the Spanish conquistadors as they cruised along the west coast of North America. Human nature drives us to posit ideas which have strong elemental attraction such as gold and sex when they fit so well into what we would like to think.
The man who was to eventually find and name this island of California, of glittering gold and sex with eager black women was one Hernan Cortes. Cortes (1485-1547), was born in what is now western Spain in Extremadura, a harsh but beautiful land land which reminds one of our own southwest. At the age of sixteen, young Cortes, who was to become the famous conquistador, spent two years as a student at the premiere Spanish center of learning in Salamanca. But by 1503, the stories of Columbus’ discoveries in the New World must have been an irresistible lure for the young, ambitious man, while the lectures on Spanish law his father sent him to Univerisity to study were probably very boring. At his first opportunity, Cortes, still a youth, emigrated to the New World to find his fortune. He tarried a while in Spanish Hispaniola and then moved on to Cuba where the Spanish King's governor had his main offices and where through family connections young Cortes was appointed to the post of alcalde or magistrate. Not long afterward, Governor Velasquez assigned him the task of exploring the interior of the adjacent North American mainland, present day Mexico. But Cortes turned the exploration force into an invasion. By 1519 Cortes has assembled a large fleet and military force for this purpose. In that same year he invaded the mainland and defeated the powerful and wealthy Aztecs in a brutal campaign. Using deceit, and subterfuge he overcame Montezuma’s forces and conquered all of central Mexico for Spain. Though offered many emoluments and titles by the King, these did not satisfy Cortes' ambitions. After many other campaigns, Cortes (with his subordinate Francisco de Ulloa) set out to explore the Pacific coast of Mexico and North America. Off the southern coast of Mexico they sailed into a placid sea they named the Sea of Cortes, and crossing this body of water they came to the southern tip of the modern-day peninsula of Baja California which they thought was an island. Both men were sure to have been familiar with Montalvo’s novel and the mythical island off the coast of Mexico called "California". They named the new lands after the mythical island of the Amazonian queen Califa, ”California” or ”Las Californias” a term which included the "island" of Baja California (a peninsula) and the mainland portion-now the US state of California.
Oh, what a wealth of history there lies in a name!
And interestingly our modern State of California remains an attraction for seekers of gold and sex to this day.
And thus ended my mental diversion from boring politics! At least my brain was engaged and I have added a bit to my store of knowledge. Not so with politics today, which it seems has entered a period of same old, same old Groundhog Days.
Get the picture?
rjk
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