Re: Amerindian navigators

["Larry J. Elmore" <ljelmore@montana.campus.mci.net>]

Domingo Martinez-Castilla <agdndmc@showme.missouri.edu> wrote in article
<5rjtao$1ehe$1@news.missouri.edu>...
> 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.)

The very largest Spanish vessels would have been around a thousand tons,
but those would be few and far between. The vessels in use by Pizarro et al
were much smaller. Didn't the account specify that the balsa was carrying
almost as much cargo as their caravel?
 
> 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.

A heavily-loaded balsa would have the logs nearly submerged and awash,
leaving the "bamboo" and "rattan" or "wicker" (I _know_ those aren't the
precisely accurate terms, but they are the most descriptive terms that will
be most widely understood) superstructure by far the most visible portion.
The Spanish chroniclers of this period are hardly the most attentive to
detail except when it comes to gold and royalty.

> 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.

Nor did the Spanish care very much about them one way or the other, so
they're hardly going to waste much effort describing things of no
consequence to them. I don't think the early chroniclers mentioned them at
all except at the very earliest contacts and early Spanish uses of them
when their own watercraft were noticeably inferior for the purpose at hand.
Once they were hot on the trail of gold and empire, they pretty much forgot
about everything else.

> 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_.

Interesting.

> 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.

This is pretty much what is stated in "Pyramids of Tucume".

Larry