Re: Amerindian navigators

[agdndmc@showme.missouri.edu (Domingo Martinez-Castilla)]

As promised earlier, some references and additional information
regarding this thread.

1. Balsa rafts: The oft-mentioned encounter between Bartolomé Ruiz's
ship and a large raft ca 1525, is reported in the very early Sámano-
Xerez relation, which says: "Este navío [...] tenía al parecer hasta
treinta toneles de cabida.  El plan y la quilla eran hechos de unas
cañas gruesas como postes..." (How big were the Spanisg vessels of that 
time? A thousand tons?  Larry Elmore could provide some info on that,
I suppose.)

What is not clear here is the word "cañas", which in Spanish is used to 
name bamboo-like stems, not totora-like reeds nor tree-like
trunks.  Balsa wood is a true tree (_Ochroma lagapus_, _O. piscatoria_
are common species in the Eastern slopes of the Andes, twice as buoyant
as cork), and at least in today's Spanish it could not be called a
"caña".  There are several large, bamboo-like plants in the Coast, but I
cannot find more precise information now.  It would be interesting to
know if somebody can examine old definitions, perhaps in Joan Corominas'
dictionary.  It would be interesting to gather other references to trade
rafts in the chronicles (there are references to rafts used by the
Spaniards.

Murra (La Organización económica del estado inca, Siglo Veintiuno-IEP,
1983) mentions his surprise about the Sámano-Xerez account being the
only description of large trade rafts (he says that it had 15 tons, i.e.
a tonel equals .5 ton), but he believes it was balsa wood, and that the crew 
was from Tumbes or, perhaps, from Puná itself.  Murra mentions the very
scant references to rafts, and underlines that none other specifies
trade vessels.

2. Totora.  The totora of Lake Titicaca and the totora of the Coast look
similar, but they belong to different families.  In the high Andean
lakes, the common species are Cyperaceae (_Scirpus totora_ is the most
common species in most lakes), like the Egyptian papyrus.  In the
Coastal marshes, totora is _Typha domingensis_ (no relation to me, but 
some relation to the cattail reed), although there is a "junco" which is 
_Scirpus limensis_.  I do not know for sure which
species is used for the totora "caballitos", but my info tends to favor
_Typha_ sp, as I have not seen any Coastal totora under _Scirpus_.

3. Chincha traders.  The original reference to the 6000 traders is:

Rostworowski de Diez Canseco, María: 1970: "Mercaderes del valle de Chincha en
la época prehispánica: Un documento y unos comentarios" Revista
Española de Antropología Americana, vol. 5, pp. 135-178

She discusses briefly the issue, again, in her _Historia del
Tahuantinsuyu_, IEP, Lima 1988.  The main trade object was the
"mullu" shell (mainly Spondylus), trade that goes way before Inca times. In 
any case, she states that the trade was made with the Huancavilcas of today'
Ecuador.  The Chincha traders took mainly copper. They would go as far
as Mantas and Puerto Viejo, in Ecuador, where they would get the shells.
It seems that the trade to areas North of Ecuador was in the hands of
the "mindalá" traders of that area.  I do not have information on trade 
with the Pacific coast of today's Colombia and further north.

Regards,

Domingo.



Domingo Martinez Castilla
agdndmc@showme.missouri.edu