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The Wingham Advance-Times, 1984-09-05, Page 16s Pagessroac--Sept. 5, 1 4 Pre-Columbian contacts between the Americas and Old World By Join Martens In- the year 1492 Christo- pher Columbus discovered Alherica. Every schoolboy knows this from his days in the classroom. However, when that boy gets older and be- comes better instructed in the history of discovery and voyages he will learn, to his surprise, that Columbus was not the first white man to set foot in the New World. He learns then that Leif Eric- son, also known as Leif the Happy, or Lucky, was actu- ally the first European to land on the shores of this continent. There is little doubt that the Greenland Vikings were among the first whites to dis- cover and explore the coasts of Canada and the Northern U.S. Can we say, however, that before these Norse voyages there existed in Europe ab- solutely no knowledge or even the faintest inkling about the existence of .a great continent across the ocean in the west, where the sun sets every night to re- appear in the east the next morning? Many early sources, dating from antiquity, refer to inhabited land across the Western Sea. The problem is that these sources are often hard to interpret. However, it seems that European man has always kept an eye on the western horizon and in- stinctively felt that beyond the ocean washing Europe's western shores there were unknown lands inhabited by strange people. EARLY VOYAGERS Centuries before Christ, Phoenician seafarers' and Carthaginian fleets sailed far out in the Western Ocean. Of course, the Phoenicians and the inhabitants of Carth- age were not European in origin. The news of their discover- ies along the west coast of __ ,tlfrina _ihr3_ etnries _nf _their encounters with strange sea monsters in the Western Sea and the reports of other miraculous finds and sight- ings would have spread gradually to Europe, especi- ally to. England and. the Eng- lish channel ports which were regularly visited by Punic, or Phoenician sailors. The Phoenicians on their trips beyond the Pillars of Hercules (the Strait of Gibraltar) and along the west coast 'of Africa cer- inly must have wondered where all the flotsam' they encountered off the African coast came from. Much of it was unfamiliar to them. Even on the coasts of western Europe mysterious wreckage had been cast up as long as- the people along the seaboard could re- member. Logs of foreign woods net found in Europe, floating seeds of plants never seen there before were washed ashore. Even boats manned or unmanned at times drifted onto the beach. All this debris and wreckage had to come from some- where, and European -man wondered. Quite possibly some Phoenician sailor may have shown exotic and strange objects fished out of the ocean to the inhabitants of the harbours of Britain, which he visited from time to time, and they all must have asked themselves. what lay beyond the gray, stormy ocean in the west. STRANGE VISITORS In the year 62 B.C. Quintus Metellus Celer was pro- consul or Roman governor in Gaul. One day Celer re- ceived a delegation of Ger- manic tribesmen in audi- ence. These people of the tribe of the Suevi presented him, on behalf of their king, with several Indians. Celer was greatly struck by their appearance and the color of their skin. Inquiring where these men had come from, he was told that the sea had cast them up and finally thrown them on the shores of Germania, pro- bably in the north of Holland or Friesland or present-day Germany. The Roman .historian Cornelius Nepo talked in person to the proconsul of Gaul and wrote down the story from the latter's own mouth. Nepo typically speaks of "Indians", in the same manner Columbus later called the aborigines of the Caribbean. It was clear that the men presented to Celer were not from what then and now is known as India. Ships from India are not recorded as. having ever ventured much beyond the limits of the Indian Ocean. It would have been virtually impossible for sailors manning Indian vessels to end up ship- wrecked on the coast of Ger- many. Nepo's words most certainly affirmed his belief in the existence of a land towards the sunset. They also lead us to conclude that he believed the world to be round and that the land of the shipwrecked Indians, that is India, could be reached by going either east or west. ANCIENT BELIEF The historian Pausanias, , writing in c. A.D. 150 reflects the same belief. He states thatr to the west, out in the ocean lie islands whose in- habitants have red skins and long, dark hair like horse manes. We can hardly suppose that these particulars were a product of Pausanias' ima- gination. He must have received this information from travellers who had been on those "islands" themselves or from infor- mants who had met some of thses strange people:' Of course Pausanias might just have reported only from heresay. His information nevertheless proved to a large extent accurate. ' There are other classical writers from whom we could quote in defense of an an- cient consciousness of another world beyond the Western Ocean. We mention only Strabb, Seneca and Allianus: Why would a seaworthy ship not have been able to cross the Atlantic from Europe? The north-east trade wind begins immedi- ately west of Cape Verde on Africa's west coast. It blows in our time as it blew in ancient times. It was strong enough to carry a ship far out to sea and to propel it within sight of the coast of South America or Central. America. When we realize that long before the beginning of the Christian era antique ships ventured across the Indian Ocean during voyages, last- ing up to 25 days without sight of land, it seems equally possible that suc- cessful crossings of the Atlantic were effected long before Leif Ericsson hit the American mainland. What is not written in black and white, however, must remain an object of conjecture. We must never- theless not forget that there are numerous Irish, Breton and Welsh folk tales which tell us of a wonderful country far to the west beyond the ocean. That people dick not merely consider these tales as nice but unbelieveable stories is proven by the fact that as late as the year 1480 an expedition set out from Bristol to discover this won- derful land. Well-known is thetale of St. Brandan, an Irish saint, who one day was called upon by a voice from on high to leave his homeland and preach the Christian gospel in a great and unknown land to the west. Brandan obeyed the divine voice and did reach a land crossroads Published every Wednesday by Wenger Bros. Limited as the lifestyle and entertainment section In The Listowel Banner, The Wingham Advance- - Times, The Mount Forest Confederate and The Milverton Sun. Members of the Canadian Community Newspaper Association, Ontario Community Newspaper Association, and the Ontario Press Council. Controlled distri- bution in Aries, Arthur, Drayton, Harrlston, Moorefield, Palmerston, Bloom- ingdale, Breslau, Conestogo, Elmira, Heidelberg, Linwood. Maryhill, St, Clements, St, Jacobe, Wollensteln, Wellesley and West Montrose. Display and Classlfled advertising deadline — 5:00 p.m. Thursday week prior to publication date. Advertising and Production • Accounting and Billing The Listowel Banner The 0/Ingham Advance -Times 188 Wallace Ave. N., Josephine St., P.O. Box 97, P.O. Box 390, Listowel, Ont. 0/Ingham, Ont. N4W 3H2 NOG 2W0 The Listowel Benner 291.1680. The Wingham Advance -Times 357.2320 The Mount Forest Confederate 323-1550. The Milverton Sun 595.8921 where delicious wild grapes were growing "so that.all the branches were borne down to the ground by their weight." The Bristol expedition of 1480 was, however, mainly inspired by the information contained in certain ancient manuscripts in some famous Welsh ecclesiastical librar- ies. The manuscripts men- tioned a great expedition launched in the year 1170 by King Madoc of North Wales. They tell us that Madoc dis covered vast new territories and returned to Wales to en- list reinforcements for settlement in the new lands. According to the manu- scripts, a total of 825 persons crossed the ocean with Madoc on these two occa- sions. That is the last we hear of Madoc. The expedition from Bristol found nothing of Madoc's settlement although later travellers often re- ported having noticed racial and linguistic 'characteris- tics, which certain Indian tribes all edgy .had In cpimman wltli�3tj�o�leal�s, $EEIC G011NEcrON'• It isindeed fascin$I$ng to read how atteilapta have been made to identify cer- tain Indian tribes with the descendants of European survivors of this or that ship- wreck or expedition or even with the descendants of early immigrants into the Americas, such as Madoc's followers. It \has even been claimed that certain vestiges of the Christian religion or of European building styles sur vived among the Ameri- can natives. If, then, in Western Europe there was, even in very early times, a conviction of the existence of land lying beyond the stormy ocean, did the American Indians, on the other side of the sea, have similar ideas? Had they heard sagas and legends pointing to a belief - that beyond the seas washing America's shores, there lived other human beings however mysterious? • Listen to what happened timing the month of Nov- ember in the year 1,518. The Spanish" nobleman Fernando Cortes, serving his royal master, the King of Spain, in a minor capacity on the island Cuba, received an order from his immediate superior, the governor of the island, to reconnoitre with some Spanish ships, the coasts of Yucatan and Central America. After landing near the estuary of the river Tabasco, following a minor fusilade from the Spanish brass canons and a few culverins, .Cortes was amazed to see that the Indians submitted immediately a sign of un- conditional surrender, some 20 Indian princesses ap- proached the Spanish camp bearing rich presents in gold., One of these princesses was an Aztec lady of high birth, for some reason ban- ished by Montezuma to this • remote corner of Inns realm. She was light -skinned, im- perious of bearing and 'exuded self-confidence. No trace of servility showed from her demeanor. PRINCESS SUBMITS Walking up to the Spanish conquistador, she looked him straight in the eye before sinking to her knees and hiding her face in her hands. She betrayed no emotions of base submissiveness, but bowed down before the Spaniard as if he were a god incarnate, who would only be - pleased with sincere mani- festations of reverence. The Spaniards found an interpreter who was able to translate the subsequent story told by the Aztec prin- cess. Long, long ago, she re- counted to Cortes's amaze- ment, many foreign ships appeared off Yucatan. From these ships stepped tall, fair- haired, blue-eyed men and along the gunwales of their ships glistened what looked like the scales of a serpent, The new arrivals settled in Yucatan and became the teeichersand guides of the Mayas of the country.. Then the princess related how in Mexico, where, before her exile, she was living at one time, an old man appeared whom nobody knew. His skin was white and he had a Jong beard. She related how this unknown from the East preached a new religion based on love among people. The unknown preacher ab- horred war and bloodshed and the people of Mexico lived in obedience to him for a long time. Then they re- volted against his peaceful yoke- (how human) and drove him away. Quetzalcoatl, the stranger from the East, departed, but not before uttering a pro- phecy to the effect that his white brothers would return one day and conquer the country. The Aztec lady told Cortes that the Mayas were con- vinced that the prophecy had come true with the arrival of Cortes and his men. It 'is a fascinating tale in- deed. Who was this man Quetzalcoatl? Was he per- haps a Christian missionary from among the white set- tlers of Yucatan, who had gone inland to preach the Christian gospel in the in- terior of Central America? If so, ,these white settlers who landed in Yucatan must have been Christians when they landed on the coast of Middle America. The Indians, in their terror and confusion however, did not notice that the Spaniards did not have white, but olive - colored skins. They believed them to be Quetzalcoatl's white brothers, who had re- turned as was predicted. WERE THEY NORSEMEN? The story or legend of Quetzalcoatl is known as the "Wotan Legend". Some. see Continued on Page 8 First To Conestoga Mall Then. 1 . BACK TO SCHOOL Fashions for School Cougar Casuals Cougar Peter Pan Boots Ladies' Jazz Oxfords All Leather Flats from Brazil 2998 2998 2998 3998 ' S4/tAl�i6F 1/7S Men's & Ladies' Fashion Denim Reg. $40.00 .- 9(199 Now amw . _ Levis Denims (Men's) Y�aa �..of FALL SKIRTS & SWEATERS • Wide array of Autumn colors . 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