Maya - Aztec Vocabularies

     The Popol Vuh has some very interesting names for the gods who are roaming the earth as people.

     A while back I made two notes on my computer and did not look at them again until tonight. One was for Maya and the other was a manuscript from an Aztec Codex. The spelling of the two names were not the same. One could not do a comparison of them using a dictionary in any of the Maya dictionaries, and look them up in a Nahuatl dictionary.

     Yet, when the two are put together, as Zipacna and Çipaqli, or Cipacuatli, it does not take a genius to see that the two languages are speaking about the same entity. 

     CHAPTER  2. Of how the World was created and by whom. begins on page 617 and Chapter 3 does not begin until page 619  So the entity  Çipaqli, or Cipacuatli =  alligator, fish or earth" is mentioned after the quote below but more information about the creation is also mentioned in the first part, especially the presence of the comet that shone brighter than the noonday sun and overshadowied its journey to the west: 

"When this was done all the four deities took notice that the half sun which they had created gave but very little light, so they resolved to make another half sun, so that it should illumine the whole earth. When Tezcatlipuca saw this he became himself a sun in order to give light, as we represent him in painting, and they say that what we see is only the brightness of the sun and not the sun himself, because the sun rises in the morning, traverses till midday, and then returns to the east in order to start again next day, and that which is visible from noon till sunset is its brightness, and not the sun itself, and that at night it neither shows itself nor has motion. So from being a god Tezcatlipuca made himself a sun, and then all the other deities created giants, who were very large men, and of such extreme strength that they could tear up trees with their hands, and they lived on the acorns of evergreen oak trees, and nothing else…"

      The above quotes are straight out of the Dennis Tedlock's story line in the Popol Vuh, [except for the minor detail that anyone who knows about oak trees, know that they are never EVERGREEN]. The bolded version is the part that can be found on page 73, but the rest of the two italicized sections are then moved over to page 161 with Tedlock's explanation on the top of page 304.

It is only his reflection that remains. What might be behind this statement is revealed by the contemporary Mopán Maya tale in which Lord K'in, the sun, goes from his home in the east to the center of the sky nd then back to the east again. It only seems that he goes clear across the sky because he has placed a mirror at its center. (Thompson, 1930, 132) To interpret the movements of the sun in this manner is to model it on Venus as morning star, which  both rises and sets in the east.

     Tedlock's inference to the Planet Venus is a mistaken view of the words spoken by the translator, Andrés Xiloj. Taken literally, it would be the presence of a comet that had passed overhead and put the Lord K'in, the true sun to shame.

     The comet had the name of Quetzalcoatl with Xolotl in Aztec, but in Maya it was Hunahpú and Xbalenqué. Zipacna's story actually begins on page 81 about Seven Macaw and later his encounter with the four hundred boys; until he met the Twins and died at their hands on pages 84-88. The Twins had been upset by the deaths of the 400 boys and vowed to end Zipacna's life.

     A bit below the aboves is here continued on page 618 as:

"…Presently they created a man and a woman; the man they called Vxumuco, and the woman Çipastonal,  and to them they gave command that they should till the ground, and that the woman [618] should spin and weave, and that of them should be born the Maçeguales, and that they should find no pleasure, but should always be obliged to work; to the woman the gods gave certain grains of maiz, so that with them she should work cures, and should use divination and witchcraft, and so it is the custom of women to do to this very day. Then they created the days which they divided into months, giving to each month twenty days, of which they had eighteen, and three hundred and sixty days in the year, of which will be spoken subsequently. Then they created Mitlitlatteclet and Michitecaçiglat, husband and wife, and these were the gods of the lower regions (infierno), in which they were placed; then the gods created the heavens below the thirteenth, and then they made the water and created in it a great fish similar to an alligator which they named Çipaqli, and from this fish they made the earth as shall be told; and to create the god and goddess of water…"

     In this part of the creation the year, months, and days has been identified as 360 days in the year in spite of the current version of 365.22 days that we now accept as factual.

    At the end of this very long paragraph the identification of Çipaqli, or Cipacuatli is made, but the 400 boys are left out of the story in Aztec as well as the Maya Twins.

     The epigraphers would understand then, that the "ç" became "Z" and the "L" became "N" according to the Chinese inability to pronounce the "L" even though they have many words that begin with "L,"  but never any at the end. And the "Q" would never be a problem. It can be equated with a hard "Ch" as the the Aztec variation of Çipaqli's name. However, it is usually the fault of the translator who use the variant spellings, not native spellings.

     Yet, it is strange. When would the Aztec/Maya languages ever pick up an Oriental language problem in pronunciation? Could the stelae with Oriental eyes that are found in Copan have anything to do with it?

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Tedlock, Dennis [1996, 77] Popol Vuh   Zipacna and his brother Earthquake

Phillips, Jr, Henry [1883, 618]  History of the Mexicans as Told by Their Paintings, (Edited by Alec Christensen   and also known as the Codex Ramirez,) Çipaqli, or Cipacuatli =  alligator, fish or earth"

The Three-Times-Around "Sun"

 "The visible Sun is not the real one."
Dennis Tedlock (1996, 161)

       "The visible Sun is not the real one." The argument is  "But we only see one sun!"  On April 24, 2013,  INAH put in a Bulletin, several new pictures from  La Huasteca Veracruzana. their explanation was perfect. It is an astronomical figure with a blazing sun in the headdress. The problem seldom addressed with such new items, is the story that is so prevalents around the world,  It is the Aztec double comet Quetzalcoatl and Xolotl or the double comet from the Popol Vuh, Hunahpú and Xbalenqué. without the story, the glyphs make no sense at all.

       

         However, the crude Quetzalcoatl image, is not the Sun. In the hand, there is a group of three sticks, that indicates three round trips in the sky, aided by the back pointing scroll and the huge wings on the entity's back. The skull-like face indicates that this entity was either from the West, the land of the dead;; or it was a destroying element in the sky.  Actually, once the story is understood as an astro-physical event, it refers to both the Northwest origin and the destructive quality of the blazing birth of the Fifth Sun.

        The next offering is that of a very thin stick with a dark tip on top of the whirling element. Next to it are the long legs of a bird, the arms above have what might be considered tiny wings. And both are next to another ball of fire (a sun-like element).

       

        The whirling element is found both in Nasca, Peru as a monkey [again the Maya Northwest]. It is also found in the Nuttall Codex on page 34 at the bottom right  No connection?? Definitely a sky connection. According to the Popol Vuh, the spinning star—called a Toddler Star by NASA [1]—is not a Toddler  [a young star of about two years +/-],  instead it is part of the destruction of a blazing star. [Next to the bird image above].  The Nuttall shows this set of images very well, but in its own distinct style:

But there is only a hand with fingernails 
under the blue and red ball!  

7 Macaw with Hand of God nebula
with the red blazing area above it

     One must turn the hand glyph sideways and see the bird with its crest as a hand. [The Hand indicates another star form to be discussed later.] Once the icons are identified separately, one can see the story better. And it seems to be what the crude glyphs on the stones are telling us.

       [1] The “Toddler Star” can be found as the Orionis V-1647 star in the mddle of the McNeil Nebula. An excellent simulation was made by NASAgoddardspace.com as 100_0567 10-1.mov.

    The idea that it was a star beginning its life, just indicates that they did not understand the Asstronomy descriptions in the Popol Vuh. However, since the story is never read as astro-physics. It is only considered to be about a mythic creation, who can blame them.

         The Popol Vuh tells the whole story of a nova that began as a Toddler star, [illustrated on one of Justin Kerr's vases {1}], being approved of by the Maya Twins, to its utter desctruction in the second ballgame.  It also tells of the events on earth after the sky explosion. A closer examination of the "hidden" aspects of the text as stated in the very first chapter, should be re-evaluated. 
_____________________________________________

{1}  www.famsi.org/http://research.mayavase.com/kerrmaya.html,  K-7912. A small female child, in the lap of the Star Setter entity, is being viewed by the  twins, Hunahpú and Xbalenqué.  The Sun God is on his throne watching and listening.  There are icons above, that shows G-I as an old entity, a bird [a macaw], a head that indicates a female; a head with moving winds behind as if the head is being propelled forward.  There is no reference here to a Toddler Star, but the child is about two years old. hence, she is a "Toddler."

"Bullas" of the Merchants of Sumer

Author's URL: http://sumerianshakespeare.com/172401.html

e-mail: shukur@sumerianshakespeare.com

Clay bulla and the commoditiy tokens that were inside it. 

The owner’s seal is faintly visible on the exterior of the bulla.
The Sumerian Shakespeare

   A long time ago, while researching  the Great Migration across Asia to Spain, I ran across what was thought to be "The Origin of Writing," [actually this was an accomplishment brought by the gods in many different countries of the world]. It was an interesting book that claimed that there were hundreds of these items called "Bullas" or "balls" filled with iconographic clay tokens, strewn across the desert area to, within and from Turkey.

Sumerian "writing tokens".  Each token represents a different commodities

       These hollow balls were filled with small tokens that appeared to be tiny wine jars, sheep, cloth, anything that was moveable, and sellable.  Eventually, the "bullas" were improved when the token images were pressed into the clay casing on the outside of the orb. It was like an accurate check on what was inside of the balls.

       The theory, back then, was that these items were the origin of writing that eventually turned into cuneiforms scripts across the Middle East and Asia. The strange part of the story, was the multiple "bullas" were found strewn across the desert sands. It made no sense at all. Where they children's toys? [Small children should have been left at home base until they were old enough to be useful on caravan routes.] Or was there another purpose they were scattered in the desert.

       The only other explanation of such a trail across a desert would be a caravan of camels or donkeys that would be carrying such merchandise (ollas, jars of oil, cloth, jewels, and medicines. Sheep that could carry their own weight would have been herded along with the caravans to other markets where money could be earned.

        If this were the case, then the "Bullas" were not the origin of writing, but crude bills of lading that could be counted at the beginning and at the end of the journey to insure that what was loaded onto the camels's backs would indeed arrive safely at their destination, and the merchants there (with a different language) would be assured that the valuable items were intact. 

       A seal of approval from a ruler would have also been included so that the merchants at the caravans destination could be assured that the merchandise was of the best quality. Those without the seal of approval might not be of excellent quality.

        However, a thief is a thief, and usually one who is also in need of such commodities, [i.e. wine, cloth, silks, medicines, jewels, etc] A caravan without guards to protect the merchandise was a foolhardy expedition. Strong men, as guards [or loaders], would not necessarily be educated in. schools to learn to read and write.  By necessity, they should have been proven to be honest, and well-known to the camel drivers. Reading and writing skills were never a pre-requisite for intelligent, strong, able men who understood that money could be made without such schooling.

       Therefore, the "Bullas" would not have been for people to learn to read or write, instead it would have been an easy way to count the merchandise placed on the backs of various camels. A raid on an unguarded caravan would then entail, stripping the camels of their loads, dumping the bulla, with no regard to such "toys,'  unusable to the thieving populations of the deserts areas.

       All along caravan trails, all would have profited from such incursions.  But only if the thieves would leave most of a caravan intact so that the sender would still make a profit, the receiving merchants would be happy that most of the merchandise got through and the thieves would also profit, either by being bribed by an extra camel loaded especially for the random thief who would be smart enough to take only the token camel with its load, as a donation, and leave the rest. 

       The "Bullas" then were only a bill of lading; nothing more.  The bookkeepers at both ends of the caravan journey would be the experts who not only knew how to write in cuneiform, or other language scripts, but who also knew how to calculate prices, weigh loads, and other details that did not entail strength of body, only that of active minds.

      Across the seas, the Meso-Americans also had their own methods of avoiding and/or accommodating thieves, But that is another phase to be handled separately at a later date.

[Note: Don't forget to check out the University of the Aztecs, written earlier. How many of the disciplines were you able to find?]

The Aztec University

This mural is part of the Aztec University system at Teotihuacán

How many disciplines can you identify?
Can you identify more, if the "disciplines" were called "Employment?"

Part of the University advertisement on the wall of
Atetelco at Teotihuacán

        The first discipline that can be identified is the astronomy teacher and his student taking notes, They are in the upper left corner of the mural.

Another discipline that can be identified is the

The teacher is explaining the constellations 

to his student: he who is taking notes.

   

       Another discipline that can be identified is the one above to the right of the mountain. His speech scroll maybe colored blue, so he could be explaining the work done on the snowcap below him. Are they measuring the water flow from the snows on top?

         Is that water to be syphoned into the gardens and farmlands around the flanks of the mountain? The man in the lower right and the man behind him are looking after fruitful plants that include a flowering tree, corn stalks and another kind of plant closer to the mountain.

                                       

        The next is the man to the right and just above the teacher above the mountain. A more complete picture shows him carrying a person, with what appears to be a huge butterfly on its head. The job title here is Porter; a man who is trained to properly carry people on his back over rough terrain.

A Porter

        At his feet is a man discussing crabs [lobsters?] and eels. A man who takes care of fisheries.

       To the right of the gentleman who will take charge of the fisheries, there is an acrobatic troup practicing their singing and dancing abilities.

Acrobats practicing their act.

        Just below, the troupe is a surgeon who takes care of arms and legs.

The Surgeon for Arms and Legs.

      There are more. . . Historians, Mathematicians, both elementary and advanced; Dramatists; Sculptors of stone and wood; and Merchant street sales people. Those that measure the skies and compute the time;  It is also importantt not to forget the ball players. 

      This was apparently an all male school.  The mural has been partially destroyed, but the teachers, with their Tlaloc-type googles, are also included in a panel above all.  They taught the subjects that are illustrated in their speech scrolls. 

  

      Women, could learn, but usually they held down the fort as cooks, tortilla makers, sellers of commodities, i.e.:  fruits and vegetables in the zocalo. They also had small food concessions. They were weavers, and spinners of wool and cotton. Children carried water for cooking and in general ,helped around the house and gardens. Fathers would take their young sons to the milpas to learn the farming methods used for centuries. 

         The Conquest destroyed books and manuscripts. There could be no record that these people were  just as learned as those on the Continent.

THE BIRTH OF THE FIFTH SUN

Mixtec map of Apoala and Tilatongo with Dynastic Rulers.
Slide available at the Benson Library at the Univerity of Texas at Austin.

      When I was in John Pohl's class, we all bought the above slide at the Benson Library. It was the map of  the Mixtec area of Apoala and Tilatongo.  At that time, I was only mildly interested in "La Cuna" [cradle] at the northwest corner of the map under a giant sun. Since cartographers many times put a sun onto their maps, I did not even notice it as anything notable.

The Fifth Sun With its Last Trajectory Across the Mixtec Sky

          The Ring Nebula is no more than a beautiful rose near on at the edge of the Sky Tree called the Milky Way.  Orion became the Tree of the Warrior in the History of the Mexicans. [3] At that time, I had not yet re-compiled the translated texts of the Popol Vuh. I had no clue at all about why the sun was northwest on the map. The location was verified by the glyphs of the Dynastic rulers to the left of the map. But that was "corrected" when in my very first class on Aztec history., I was informed that "North" for the Aztec/Mixtec world was actually called "East."

   

     The most popular map of Texcoco proved it, until I realized that that map was in Italian and printed reversed AND upside down. the word at the top is "Austro," meaning "South" or South Wind. Since a Mixtec map has little to do with an Aztec map. it never occurred to me to question that sun.

       Even after i re-organized the Popol Vuh, and thought I understood it as an astronomy book,  I was too amazed by a definition of Mary Ellen Miller and Karl Taube in their book about the Maya Gods and their definition of Tlaltecuhtli, a goddess whose arms and legs were torn apart and carried to Earth. [1] I had acquired that particular book when my friend died close to the year 2000. I never took the time to look into it except for the gods and goddesses i was familiar with.

      Later, INAH discovered in the Great Temple at the main plaza or Zocalo of the city of México, a battered statue of Tlaltecuhtli. I had never heard of her, so I looked into Miller and Taube's book to see if she was there.  She was, with even a better preserved statue from years previous. Also, in my bookcases, I also found a xerox copy of a full booklet about Tlaltecuhtli. It had been in with the books that I had gotten when my friend died. So, my friend, Jan A, had found something important about Tlalteuhtli, but during all our telephone and Fax discussions, she had never once mentioned that particular goddess to me.

      What surprised me about Tlaltecuhtli was that Miller and Taube's description proved to be the same as I had discovered regarding the destruction of a nova when the double comet called Hunahpú and Xbalenqué passed (here near the Great Star of Sahagún) and interacted with its failing gravity. The comet passed by twice so the natives below believed it was two separate ball games in the courts of Xibalba.

       The first game included a knife that came out of a spinning ball. It was meant to kill Hunahpú. He afforded it easily. In Astronomy, the knife was actually a bi-polar jet with gasses coming out of the north and south poles, and had the appearance of a knife. This is similar to the one in McNeil's Nebula that NASA mistaken called a "Toddler Star." It actually was a "dying star."

        The second run of the double comet, Xbalenqué tied a turtle carapace over the ball court and then threw a stone at it. The carapace broke into hundreds of pieces; it appeared to be seeds of a calabasa.

      On its third run, after the double comet neared the burning star, its gravity pulled them in and pushed it away. It was like a ball game in the sky. During that time, the dying star also expelled debris that was picked up the ball-playing double comet. The debris created a rainbow of colors in its tail.

       The colorful blue-green serpent in the sky, then passed by the earth and unloaded first burning ash from its tail, and the meteorites and even larger rocks fell after that. According to the information gathered about the Sun Stone by M. Leon-Portilla, and other scholars, the water from the gulf poured over the land and went over the mountains that stood in its way. Both the men of mud died at that time, and so did the wooden manikins.

       The last run of the double comet passed even closer to earth when it came over the western horizon. It was so bright and stayed so long that people had to remain in the caves until it passed by. It was called "the Birth of the Fifth Sun," that "was not the sun we see in the sky" at the present time. [2]

      Two or more years passed until I had finally found the time to put Jan's loose papers into proper booklets (the year 2013), at least twelve years had gone by much too fast.  I typed out a list of titles for the various bits and pieces and came upon the picture of the map of Apoala and Tilantongo. Again I was shocked.

        There in full view of the Mixtec world was the Birth of the Fifth Sun and its trajectory across the sky from its birthplace at "La Cuna." Does one need proof,  well, it is there. It crosses the Milky Way and passes Lyra [and the Ring Nebula as a bright star near Vega] and goes over the now dead serpent Draco, in his role as the North Star.

     The Ring Nebula was discovered with the help of the Hubble Satellite Telescope by Greenwich/Chandra Observatories. [3] Its appearance as a 'rose" is amazing. I would guess that this star was the nova, that exploded and became the great gaseous cloud that we now call a nebula.

        Another constellation appeared in the new spiral of the Milky Way. It was, in fact the same spiral, but the lower register of that part of our galaxy.

       On the Apoala/Tilantongo map, a prominent constellation is drawn out. It also has a very bright star at its feet. One could identify Orion with Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, since these glyphs are all above a trajectory line from one side of the world to the other. [4]

       It seems the other two Sky Trees that hold up the world had not yet been seen.  Or they were not invented by the Aztec or Mixtec astronomers,  aand only later identified and included in the Borgia Codex.

      There can be no conclusion here. The comet's third trajectory was "the Birth of the Fifth Sun. " It is up to the reader to decide if it was even possible.

       HOowever, one only has to read some of the comments made, on July 17, 2008, by radio and television stations in the area about a comet that came from the northwest and sped over Oregon, Washington, and Southern Canada, and possibly into Idaho a few years ago.  The comment made by a person who saw it all, claimed that it looked and sounded as if a 1,000 transformers had exploded all at once. [5]  The report of the Aztec world was that the sky was red [during the day] for a long time, until a human took a rabbit and threw it at the blazing sun (here the double comet). [6]

      Thus, the "sun" in the northwest was a comet. And the Native Americans, the Aztec,  the Maya,  the Mixtec,  and the Zapotec, etc, all knew without a doubt, that the "real" sun always rose in the east. , even though it was "born' in the west. During that time when the comet was brighter than the sun, it actually met the real sun in the middle of the sky, at noon time. Since the comet was brighter, it overrode the light of the "real sun" with its powerful fiery brilliant tail as it sped eastward to the true home of the Sun we know today.

__________________________________________

[1]  Miller, Mary Ellen and Taube, Karl (1993). The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya. 

      London: Thames and Hudson, Ltd.

[2]  Tedlock, Dennis, (1996, 161) Popol Vuh: The Definitive Edition of the Mayan Book of the 
      Dawn of Life and the Glories of Gods and Kings. New York: Simon and Schuster.

[3]   Greenwich Royal Observatory, London, England. The Night Sky for November 2007.

[4]  Phillips Jr., Henry, (trans & ed.) (Appendix 21) The History of Mexicans as Told by Their  

      Paintings, also known as the Codex Ramirez, (Translated and edited by Henry Phillips Jr.) Read  

      before the American, Philosophical Society, October 19, 1883, In the Proceedings of the American

      Philosophical Society XXI, 616-651 19 X 1883. Edited by Alec Christenson [on  MesoWeb.com] 

[5]  Spokane, Washington Radio and Television Stations, Meteor Seen Across Pacific Northwest: The Associated   

      Press, Posted: 6:56 am PST February 19, 2008  UPDATED: 5:18 pm PST February 19, 2008.
[6]  Read, Kaye Almere, (1998). Time and Sacrifice in the Aztec Cosmos. Bloomington & Indianapolis, Indiana:  
      Indiana University Press.  p. 56: VI. Lines 14-20.

      

The Rulers Send Son South to School

Bodley Codex 26-I:  Papa Seven Serpent and his wife, Three Tiger, send their son to study
Astronomy and Triangulation of the stars on Observation Hill at Sandy River. He is to
be the next ruler after his parents.

       Three Dog is the son of Mixtec rulers of the Hill of the Mssk. Thei rulrr's name was Seven Serpent, and his wife, was called Three Tiger. One can see the umbilical cord from the mother to the son on a  separate path that goes under their journey to the Hill of the Mssk. The crossed sticks with an eye under his body in this codex, indicates he is going where the stars are viewed up-side down [My Note: According to the wife of my dentist, all constellations are up-side down south of the Equator.]

One of two Radishes below the Great BIrd at Nasca, Peru.

        As the time for him to replace his parents at the Hill of the Mask nears, he must learn more about astronomy and the prophetic star fortunes of mankind in order to fill the role of ruler. So by Chapter IV, 22-I, Three Dog begins his journey to Observation Hill on Sandy (or Chalk) River (Caso, 1960, 69) where he is to learn astronomy and probably triangulation of the stars. His companion on that journey is Six Tiger, who carried an incense-burner, and an idol repreesenting the goddess, Nine Reed or "Headdress of the Intertwined Serpents." (1960, 71) She, of the Intertwined Serpents, seems to be the goddess of the constellation Lyra. [My Note: Because of the headdress of the goddess sped away to the south, she later became associated with the Radish Festival in the Mixtec city of Oaxaca.] Interesting.

The Galapagos: Guardian of the Americas

                                                       Galápagos

Goode's Atlas of the World (1957, 100)

       Old Names     New Names  [1957]   Newer Names [2003]

San Cristóbal                                      Chatham *

Genovesa                                           Tower      *                                           

Española                                             Hood     *

Rábida                                                Jervis     *

Marchena                                            Bindloe  *
Chavez                                                Isla Santa Cruz / Indefatigable / 
                                                       / Chavez = Isla Sta. Cruz = Indefatigable
San Salvador                                       James       *      San Salvador = Gone

Santa Maria                                         Charles     *      Sta. Maria   = Gone

Santa Fe                                              Barrington*

Fernandina                                          Narborough *

Isabela                                                 Albemarle*

Pinta                                                     Abingdon *

Isla Santiago                                        James        *

Pinzon                                                  Duncan     *
Baltra                                                    South Seymour   Isla Baltra = No name

Floreana                                               Santa Maria, Charles-Floreana = Charles

Point Espinoza                                      ———    *

Puerto Velasco Ibarra                           ———            Pto  V. Ibarra = Gone

Puerto Baquerizo Moreno                     ———            Pto. B. Moreno = Gone

Wenman / Culpepper                            ———     Wenman/Culpepper = Gone

Cerro Azul                                        ———      *

Puerto Villamil                                       ——— *

Puerto Ayora                                         ———  *  [All marked * remains same]

On the tourist map of 2003, the Volcanoes  are: Volcán Cerro Azul;  V. Wolf;  V. Darwin, V. Dragon, V. Santo Tomás and V. La Cumbre.  The main island is called Isla Mariela, while  Isla Bartolomé is new.

      For years the story of Columbus and his "discovery of America has been hidden from the world. No one ever knew the real story of the meeting with King Ferdinand and his Queen Isabel. Only the actors were identified. Yet, the actors in the story were locked away on a group of islands no one ever wanted to visit. The name of those islands is the Galápagos Islands of Ecuador. The story itself is either non-existent, or hidden away. 

      Years ago, in 1954-1955, I was in Ecuador with my husband and my daughter Maria del Carmen. It was a bit difficult until the America soldiers came by on Thanksgiving to visit.  They offered us a new world, in the Galápagos Islands, but not being an Islander on any island North America, or anywhere else for that matter, my husband and I decided against such a proposition. If we had gone, probably I would still be there and by now, we would have been hosting the many tourists that visited the island group today. 

      Not only would the Islands be famous, I would never have learned why the islands were so important to the cartographers who named them. In a very round-about lifetime, I attended the University of Texas at Austin and I attended a basic geography class. The professor was giving away the outdated Goode's Atlas's. I still have the copy that was given to me. I carried it, as part of my library, for years. When I was in Germany It was joined by another old atlas of the world, but in German. It also became part of my traveling library. Other atlases joined the party. And one book, in particular that I had absolutely no interest in.

     That book was a book about Africa, and about various European explorers of that continent. I read it and commented to whoever would listen that I did not like the book. René, one of my apartment managers, said he would buy it from me. Although  I said I would think about it, the exchange never happened. I finally moved into a small house and set up an office in the living room.  By that time I had acquired a computer and that went into the other room with my "library, out of sight. That room was used for "desk-top-publishing" that during those early computer days was a lucrative business venture.

     I was still attending classes at UT even though I had graduated in 1979, with a BA in Humanities.  One day I decided to try geography one more time. In my first class in that subject, I had gotten interested in the Idrisi map and was convinced that the map was being presented upside-down. By that time, I had begun to collect many xerox copies of ancient maps, and a smattering vocabulary of various languages. 

      Speaking with a professor, one day, I tried to give him an idea of what I was planning on writing. There was something wrong with the first voyage of Columbus. His first question was "Did Columbus know anything about Ptolemy? That question started me on a search for Ptolemy, but I was too lazy to go to the school library. I decided to start first with my own collection. The collection of maps turned up very little information about the astronomer-cartographer, so I went to other books where I had seen maps. 

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** 

        One of the last books I had looked at was the African book. It had a Ptolemy map. An excellent map that was part of a complete renaissance "coffee-table" atlas done maybe in 1460 or so. The map of Arabia Felix was 100% wrong. There is no such land configuration in the Middle East. It seemed to be of the same genre that the Columbus abattoirs list of the Galápagos Islands.

        Nevertheless, the old names remained in the Goode Atlas until the 1978 or so.  In 2003 there were some slight changes, but not many. Even so, most of the Columbus entourage disappeared from the world atlas. It acquired new, more modern names.

       However, when I checked the expert's book on cartography I discovered that the Ptolemy had primitive equipment and for that reason the piece of land could never be found. Again, it was just as the Islands were never considered important enough to be taught in schools because. . . . who would ever want to visit such an isolated place or, for that matter, look for a badly drawn map of nowhere?

         So there are two mysteries, that have no answers:  Columbus circle of financial friends, and a map done by Ptolemy?  Such mysteries can be solved, but it would take many more years than I have left.  The name changes of the Galápagos Islands, are now extinct.  Most of the new names have the word Isla or Is. attached to them.

        Both maps have [or had] valid information for future readers. However, the no readers were interested in that kind of history, after all. EVERYONE knows what Christopher Columbus did in 1455, Oops, wasn't the discovery in 1492?  Then why did Portugal use the year 1455 the same year that Columbus used the year 1493 on his return journey to Spain?  H.m.m.m.m!